Tag: Rock

The Velvet Underground – Bootleg Series, Volume 1

Bootleg Series, Volume 1: The Quine Tapes

The Velvet Underground – Bootleg Series, Volume 1: The Quine Tapes Polydor 314 589 067-2 (2001)

The Quine Tapes is essential for any true Velvet Underground fan. Recorded from dates on the same tour as 1969: Velvet Underground Live With Lou Reed and The Complete Matrix Tapes, this “Bootleg Series” release is decidedly of amateur recording quality (the series’ title is honest at least). Robert Quine was one of the handful of Velvet Underground superfans in their day (Quine later co-founded The Voidoids and then played with Lou Reed).  These recordings were made with a cassette recorder in the audience (the sound quality of the recording being comparable to The Stooges‘ Metallic KO and Television‘s The Blow-Up). Disc One is material from the Family Dog in San Francisco, while Discs Two & Three are primarily from the Matrix in San Francisco, with just one medley from Washington University in St. Louis.

Disc One’s “Foggy Notion” takes the song on an extended and explosive guitar solo (one of the set’s gems). Disc Two’s “White Light/White Heat” is both aggressive and precise. Disc Three’s early version of “New Age” is profoundly inspired and features different lyrics than later appeared on Loaded. “Black Angel’s Death Song” is different without viola, but retains all the essential elements. Of course, the importance of The Quine Tapes lies in the three versions of “Sister Ray” included, clocking in at 24:03, 38:00 & 28:43 on each respective disc. Surprisingly, these versions often move in and out of slow grooves amongst powerful bursts of beautiful noise. “Sister Ray” is probably the greatest rock song but only when performed by the Velvets — other artists attempting the song are asking to be made fools. My money is on the “Sister Ray” recorded at the Family Dog on 11.7.1969 (from Disc One) as the finest recording in this set.

The Quine Tapes features many extended song performances. This album proves that the Velvets with Doug Yule were a different band than the Velvet with John Cale but still a great band. Without compromising any creativity, the Velvets do their best to entice people into their music. Blending songs that never made it onto any studio albums with many of the group’s most experimental numbers from years past, The Quine Tapes allows you to put the 1969 Velvets in context. Fans will perennially wait for the “holy grail” of live recordings with John Cale still in the band, but they just don’t exist (else they would have been released by now)!

The Quine Tapes goes far beyond 1969: Velvet Underground Live in sheer breadth. Only one recorded song overlaps between the two albums.  There is considerable overlap with The Complete Matrix Tapes, with that later release having supposedly higher fidelity.

While it can be somewhat frustrating when these bootleg recordings distort or fail to capture the entirety of the performances, the sheer brilliance of the Velvet’s musical ingenuity makes up for a lot of that. This isn’t a definitive Velvet Underground live recording. Nonetheless, The Quine Tapes is a portrait of the Velvet Underground as stylists rivaling anyone. The improvisational variety of songs within this release, much less compared to others, is astounding. There are no signs of the band’s (effective) demise looming a few month ahead. Maybe the album takes some effort but rarely in music are the rewards so great.  This set is good for a VU fix no matter how severe.

Link Wray – Live at The Paradiso

Live at the Paradiso

Link Wray – Live at The Paradiso VISA 7010 (1980)

Link Wray had an amazingly varied rock ‘n roll career.  His early hit “Rumble” practically redefined rock guitar, introducing fuzz and distortion as desirable qualities.  But he found little momentum in the years immediately after that, pursuing more surf-styled garage rock (Jack the Ripper, the “Missing Links” series) while also flirting with more clean-cut teen idol pop/rock (White Lightning: Lost Cadence Sessions ’58).  Then by the late 1960s he briefly considered hippie rock (Yesterday — Today), before delivering a cult classic of swamp rock, Link Wray, and continuing in a country-rock vein (Be What You Want To) in the early 1970s.  Then, along with a stint backing rockabilly crooner Robert Gordon, he transitioned to a slick hard rock sound in the mid/late 70s (Stuck in Gear).  His rather good Bullshot featured a mostly modern rock sound, with a versatile band.  That was followed by the concert recording, Live at the Paradiso.  If the rest of his career drifted into retro revivalism, it still seemed worthwhile in that he kept the flame alive and stuck to a path that was good-natured and earnest — and at times quite decent (Barbed Wire).  But maybe there was something more to the way he doggedly stuck with elements of rural elements in his music.

Point nine in the list of demands in The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels asked for:

“gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.”

In a related way, one can look at purely urban “rock” (not “rock ‘n’ roll”) styles as being isolated from rural music.  Of course, there have been a few artists who have tried to bridge this gap.  Names like Ricky Nelson belong in that conversation.  But so does Link Wray.  (Much of the “country rock” and “insurgent country” genres — though certainly not all — actually doesn’t belong, given that these are mostly examples of ways that bourgeois urban artists appropriated and co-opted rural musical techniques while undermining any actual rural perspective).

Live at the Paradiso follows through with the hard rock sheen of Bullshot, drawing on heavy metal and even maybe slicker punk rock.  There are plenty of Wray’s old hits or quasi-hits here (“Rumble,” “Rawhide”), plus some other early rock ‘n’ roll classics (“Shake, Rattle and Roll,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Be-Bop-a-Lula“).  Even if nothing here reaches the heights of the single “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” from Bullshot, it’s all pretty good from start to finish.  There is plenty of energy (not a given, considering that Wray had one lung removed long ago and was 50 years old when he cut this record). But what shines through is an attempt to bridge the realms of urban and rural music, without subordinating one to the other.  There is just something very likeable about this music, which doesn’t impose itself but stands firmly in its own place.

Sebadoh – Bakesale

Bakesale

Sebadoh – Bakesale Sub Pop sp260b (1994)

Here’s a real classic of the grunge/alternative rock period.  There is a clear affinity for rough, almost garage rock-ish fuzz, but overall there is much purpose and effort put into establishing a clear and consistent perspective in the recordings.  The songwriting retains the emotionally bare confessional tone of much of Sebadoh’s work, while also having rhythmic drive, strong riffs, and a stylistic connection to current genre trends.  Balancing — and indeed synthesizing — those sorts of seemingly contradictory impulses is what carries the album.  Refreshingly, though, Bakesale avoids the self-pitying mopeyness (and vague graininess) that was the bane of much lo-fi music.  Joey Ramone once gave an interview in which he said quite directly that rock ‘n roll was music for outsiders.  Bakesale honors that tradition while at the same time serves to rally the freaks (gabba gabba!).  Looking back, this album really highlights the best of what the entire grunge/alternative/indie rock scene had to offer.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik Warner Bros. 07599-26681-2-5 (1991)

At the time, I certainly knew about the Chili Peppers.  I probably liked them a little, but didn’t really pay any particular attention.  My brother had What Hits!? and The Uplift Mofo Party Plan.  Most of my friends had Blood Sugar Sex Magik I recall.  And you heard the singles everywhere — the radio, MTV, other people’s stereos.  For the most part, I forgot about them, and had no interest in the later stuff.  So twenty years out, amidst a random visit back to some early 1990s music, I came back to this album.  Well, it sounds better than I remember.  The formula is pretty simple but still effective.  It’s built on the kind of funk rock that Hendrix was doing with “Dolly Dagger,” informed by 70s funk too (thankfully omitting any 80s funk influence), with an awareness of punk and hip-hop hinted at in the music.  Anthony Kiedis tends to stay within his vocal abilities, and by half rapping most of the time his street-wise delivery overcomes the limitations of the idiocy of the lyrics.  But the band’s secret weapon is without a doubt guitarist John Frusciante.  Prior to becoming a drug casualty (or his subsequent recovery), he just fills out the band’s sound with perfectly funky yet razor sharp solos.  His tone is bolstered by a kind of flange or other effect that rolls his guitar tone around in every riff while still sporting a full sound with crisp edges.  The band can do seemingly anything it wants behind his guitar.

So this album is mostly head-thumping, fun, pounding rock, with just a few changes of pace like the mellow hit “Under the Bridge” to prevent monotony.  I wouldn’t have guessed this would have aged as well as it has.  Thank Frusciante for that.

Lou Reed – Transformer

Transformer

Lou Reed – Transformer RCA Victor AFL1-4807 (1972)

One of Reed’s best-known albums.  And really it is one of his finest.  But you know, I think some of the “standout” tracks on this album I find the least interesting.  It’s the “filler” like “Hangin’ ‘Round” and “Goodnight Ladies” that makes this one interesting to me.  One of my favorite Lou Reed lines is from “Hangin’ ‘Round”: you’re still doing things that I gave up years ago.

Patti Smith – Dream of Life

Dream of Life

Patti Smith – Dream of Life Arista AL-8453 (1988)

Like almost any that could be named, this album could have been better.  The muted and slightly tinny 80s production values aren’t a help, and replacing the keyboards with more guitar would have been an improvement by giving things more of an edge.  But what is here is a pretty fine batch of songs (especially “People have the Power,” “Paths That Cross,” and “Looking for You (I Was)”).  Patti’s vocals are strong and Fred “Sonic” Smith lays down some good lead guitar.  Not a bad album by any means, and unfairly derided by some fans.  The key to enjoying this is to allow Patti the range to make pop music, not just punk rock.

The Red Krayola – Introduction

Introduction

The Red Krayola – Introduction Drag City DC309 (2006)

There might be no other rock and roll band that has continued for so long, gone through so many reinventions and still managed to turn out good or great albums.  Entering the band’s fourth decade (!), The Red Krayola offer up the humorously titled Introduction.  It’s filled with a lot more straightforward pop/rock than you might expect.  But it’s all well-crafted, well-written, and well-executed.

CAN – CAN

CAN

CAN – CAN Harvest 1C 066-45 099 (1978)

This is the last album that CAN recorded before disbanding (though they later reunited).  The conventional narrative is that the band went downhill from 1974 onward.  Is that fair?  Yes and no.  While the post-’74 material is by no means as pathbreaking, there is still much to like about it.  The self-titled CAN (renamed Inner Space for some reissues) grapples with popular music of the day, which is to say disco, funk rock, even reggae, jazz fusion, and more.  This ranges all over the place.  Some of it (“A Spectacle”) even locks into a proto-hip-hop breakbeat-style groove.  “E.F.S. Nr. 99 (‘Can Can’),” a rendition of Jacques Offenbach‘s iconic “Infernal Galop” composition, is sometimes greeted with a sneer, but it’s actually great!  CAN had a sense of humor, which was one of their admirable qualities when it shone through, and this particularly sunny song is much less pretentious than a lot of other CAN genre tributes of the prior few years.  Of course, the opener “All Gates Open” is really a song that ranks among the band’s best, with a moderate tempo, a mechanical rhythm with hints of ambient music, and a jammy, laid-back mystical quality evoked by the lyrics.  “Safe” and “Sodom” are other particularly good ones.  “Sunday Jam” is a dud, with cheesy smooth jazz trappings, but it proves to be the only dud on an otherwise fine album. 

Don’t let the haters sour you on this, which is a good one for anyone with open ears (that is to say anyone who doesn’t limit CAN to their sound of the 1968-74 period).  This has much more of a sense of purpose than the last couple CAN albums, which had good songs here and there but tended to kind of drift about aimlessly.  It is sleeker, more immediate and more accessible than earlier CAN recordings, but it is no worse off for any of those qualities.

CAN – Out of Reach

Out of Reach

CAN – Out of Reach Harvest 1C 066-32 715 (1978)

Widely regarded as the worst CAN album — it was for a long time omitted from a reissue program.  No doubt, this is not music quite like what the band was making from 1968-74, for a number of reasons.  This comes across as a bit slight most of the time.  And another reviewer was probably right to say, “About half of this is merely OK; the other half is terrible.  I’ll leave you to decide which half is which.”  And yet, on the whole, this is passable enough.  If there is a parallel, it would be The Beach Boys when they brought in Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin, and in the years that followed when the band flirted with disco and such.  In CAN’s case, it was new members Rosko Gee and Reebop Kwaku Baah from Traffic.  There is a pronounced shift here with a focus on club/disco music and easygoing, grooving prog rock.  If there is one thing that annoys urban elites, of the sort who are the main body of supporters of avant garde acts like CAN, it is to dally with the music of the uneducated rabble, which is a big part of the demographic of disco, and groove rock.  There is a tendency to consider any engagement with disco (or groove rock), and its fans, to be inherently slight.  Maybe, or maybe it is just elitist bigotry?  Frankly, Rosko Gee’s songs (“Pauper’s Daughter and I,” “Give Me No ‘Roses'”) are not bad, just quite different from the sort of music CAN fans were accustomed to from the band.  But this is just like Fataar and Chaplin’s contributions to The Beach Boys (“Leaving This Town,” “Hold on Dear Brother”).  Still, this is a pretty middling album at best, and much of it feels worn out.  But taken entirely on its own terms it works adequately enough as background music.  That is not much of an endorsement, which the album wouldn’t deserve, yet in the right setting it sounds perfectly okay.  The better songs are in the middle of the album (the end of side one and the beginning of side two in the original LP format).  Should I feel bad about kind of liking this, mediocre or not?  Nah.