Thanks.

Simply not true. Beatles went in that direction on Revolver, as acknowledged by Cale. Btw, I was more into Cale than Beatles, whom I didn't appreciate till age 44 when 12-year-old daughter heard Pepper in 1999

This whole album still sounds modern. The new documentary covers everything you spoke about in your post.

@@cuebj Despite what Cale may have uttered once in a interview that's nonsense. The first Velvet Underground album was recorded before Revolver was even released. You might need to avail yourself of Cale's background in LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music of which he was a core member up until 1964 when the Beatles were still doing "A Hard Day's Night".

​@@cuebj load of bollox, sick and tired of all these never ending Beatles wank fests. The songs on The Velvet Underground & Nico were recorded at the Scepter Studios/NYC in April 1966, and at the TTG Studios in Hollywood May 1966! Revolver wasn't released until August 1966, so no, that album by the suposedly fab4 had no influence on the Velvets debut whatsoever. How about checking your facts before posting such drivel.

@@rillibeeme you should have come round ;)

Not a swinging party, then?

@@cuebj it was in switzerland so even the clubs were tame :)

HEATHENS!

😂😂😂

Incredible music

That jazz chord before "different colors made of tears" is 👌

@@alexbutler9343 that is sweet and different.

because is one of the best songs of all time

Absolutely not spiritual, whatever that means. Atheism to music and good for that. Try reading Hans Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture; Francis Schaeffer; Os Guinness, eg Doubt; Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity.

​@@cuebjYou are probably both right: Because....AND I am not totally sure about this...... BUT it could be, of a theology that western Atheism embraced without being able to acknowledge or even be conscious of. I know ... Theology AND Atheism, in the same sentence? Weird. But....As strange as it may be to you: THAT is the only thing I am sure of. ....I'm just not sure if sado-masochistic relationships derive from THAT theology common to western Atheists. Western Atheism is Neoplatonic and worships the ONE as the OMEGA of history, in sadomasochism there is a worship of the LOGOS ( Something like the TAOIST Ying - Yiang) but in a way that the dynamics are pushed to the extreme and embraced. These dynamics are anathema for the typical western Atheist especially of the Marxist variety. But what makes me hesitant, is that in male masochism at least, the natural dynamics are reversed, thusly confusing the Ying - Yang elements, ...making them in a sense ....ONE. Which is very Neoplatonic, deep Catholic, Hegelian, Marxist and Western Atheist.

Wow. You were lucky to have seen them both. I wonder who influenced John Cale...what musicians and writers he read and listened to.

@@michele-33 well funny you should ask about John's influences, I saw him at a very small venue, The Glee club in Birmingham, UK, and I was lucky enough to have a drink with him at the bar after the gig, he was amazing and got talking to us because I was with my brother in law who is also Welsh and whenever 2 Welsh people get together they have to drink and chat it's some kind of ritual. Anyway we got onto his influences and it was the poetry of Dylan Thomas and the music of Aaron Copland and an Armenian musician called Aram Khachaturian. John was taught the organ in church and later played the Viola for an orchestra in Wales he could not wait to get out of Wales as he was abused as a boy by his priest, and he said he took all his savings and bought a flight to New York, he lived in hostels and made money by playing piano in bars, this was where Andy Warhol discovered him, unfortunately that was as far as we got as the bar closed and he said it's not worth staying any longer and left us.

Cale started playing piano aged six, joined the Welsh Youth Orchestra with 14, where he would pick up the viola and also several other instruments he would learn. After finishing school he moved to London where he studied musicology at Goldsmith's Collage. He was granted a Leonard Bernstein scholarship in early 1963, which enabled him to emigrate to the US, where he would not only work with LaMonte Young, but also with Avantgarde luminaries John Cage and Iannis Xenskis. Cale combined those different influences to give the Velvets their sinister and menacing sound. He underlined Reed's nihilistic and subvesive lyrics with the necessary musical structures in arrangements and production Reed's lyrics needed, to fully blossom into those groundbreaking masterpieces. Cale, and to a certain extent also Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker should have been co-credited for the music, but Reed's enormous ego would have none of that.

Except, as Cale said, Beatles got there first with Revolver. The toppermost of the poppermost did Help then Tomorrow Never Knows while still being top of the pops to destroy and reconstruct global values and art frameworks

The best song on the album imo I think it is the one he will enjoy the most

Yes, more Talking Heads would be highly appreciated. Would love something from the Stop making sense album (preferably video extracts from the concert film), for ex Life during wartime, Psycho killer or Once in a lifetime… Or the whole concert, it is totally awesome 😅

As you all mention Talking Heads, listen to John Cale's Leaving It Up To You from his 1975 album Helen Of Troy, there's the blueprint for the Talking Heads: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bsp8aaWYtKutkpc.htmlfeature=shared

Never used more drums than absolutely necessary - sometimes just a tom tom and a cymbal. Cam Forrester has foerensically ananlysed the music - and in this link broken down Mo's drumming. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aJyJYNSBzNKugWQ.html

This song was used to great effect on a tyre ad during the 90's in the UK. With S and M type visuals. I first started listening to this album around the age of 10:) on cassette tape and it remains in my all time top 10!

Now that is a fascinating comparison! Wow! An eye and ear opener. Something to look into. Thanks

Love them. Cale especially, know a lotbof his stuff by heart. Reed an empty doll when I saw him live. Yes, I do feel cool listening to them but have to acknowledge it's not mentally healthy (and not supposed to be - the idea is to get you down then look deep to end up looking up, otherwise it's just destructive for the 'in' group to feel special)

Revolver, Tomorrow Never Knows, 1966, as Cale has said

Nor was Zappa - LA freaks vs SF hippies. Also Beefheart. And George Harrison extremely unimpressed with what he saw of hippiedom in SF. And, a bit later, Townshend's teenage wasteland was about rubbish left by the crowds at Isle of Wight. Punk in UK was more about undefined rage at socio-economic situation of the time. In US, it was musical, skilful, and centred on CBGBs - good stuff but very pallid compared with Beatles in Hamburg Indra Club or Sister Rosetta Tharpe whom Ringo had seen in England

You should listen to some La Monte Young the avant-garde composer who influenced John Cale Though his pieces tend to be very long well outside the 3 minute pop song model

Well, it’s a bit complicated. It was certainly a pretty equal partnership between the two of them for this album and White Light/White Heat. And of course it really shows on a song like this where I assume Cale is solely responsible the violin part which is like… everything in this song. But if I recall correctly Cale left the band after that album and the self titled album and Loaded sound a lot like Lou’s solo stuff and even overlaps a bit into it (Sweet Jane for instance).

@@isaacgraham5727 but that's my point. What made VU stand out was the tension between Reed's more traditional (r&r, doo-wop) tendencies, and Cale's Avant Garde approach. When Cale left after WLWH, the band became more 'commercial', but less distinctive IMO. The solo careers of both Reed & Cale tend to throw into focus their individual approach to the art; tending to the traditional for Reed, and veering all over the shop for Cale.

The third album is as great as anything that was done with Cale. It’s just different. & Sweet Jane is as great a song as has ever been written. People think that experimental stuff is somehow better, sometimes yes, not always, often it’s just indulgent.

I love the little laugh Lou does after he says now plead for me…. It’s his phrasing that always gets me.

​@@idiotdrummer60This!

John Cale classically trained, horribly abused as a child, a big follower of atonal classical music and more extreme versions, eg John Cage. The drone was his idea. Except - Cale, Reed, and rest of VU admired the Beatles, especially Revolver, for getting there first

As it was Cale's thing, its roots were really classical music of that era. Tony Blackburn had a valid point that John Peel belonged on Radio 3 rather than Radio 1... except that Peel had the highest listener rating among under 20s (like me back then)

Mediaeval Literature.

Might have worked in The Wicker Man. Saw that when it came out with Don't Look Now

That’s true, the doors did occasionally skate into this area, probably a result of that wild organ element that frames their entire sound. It’s easy to think of the Doors as a pop music band because they clearly could do that too, but Morrison, When the Music’s Over, begins a long stroll into the murky waters we find ourselves in by the time we hear The End. Both songs, and many other lizard-king type songs, even Riders on the Storm, tend to be themed around death, surely a subject that captivated Jim

There’s also their version of Gloria

yes but John Cale is Welsh, Nico is German. The author of the book is Austrian. Estern sounding guitars. Not sure what is NYC about this

@@lovewalruss Have you ever been to New York? Hardly anybody living and working in NYC is from there. The diversity and multiculturalism of the city is what draws artists and musicians there, and why so much of the creativity happens there. THAT is what I meant by saying it's a New York band.

Victim of abuse. Echoes of misery

Not great. Especially live - very awkward doll like

From the opposite end, Cream also very unimpressed with SF and blew away the lightweights with noise and musicianship