Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine TapesArtist: Velvet UndergroundGenre: Rock Publisher: Polydor Released: 2001 |
A Review by Jody Beth Rosen
12/11/2001
Actually I'm thinking, listening to The Quine Tapes, this 3-CD installment of the newfangleriffic Velvet Underground "Bootleg Series," that Disc 2 beats the rest. "Follow the Leader" proves Television's VU comparisons and makes me wish the rock press would find two other bands to associate The Strokes with (they're unworthy of such good company). "White Light/White Heat" shows Belle and Sadbastard that they can only take their VU fixation so far; the VU were really two bands: a disingenuously dreamy art-pop Invasion redux, and a more classicist, cosmopolitan Black Sabbath, with a better grip on the histories of evil.
Shit, though, I don't need—I don't NEED a 38-minute "Sister Ray"—goddamn it, does anyone actually like that song, are they moved by it, or is moved pretentious butt-talk for understanding its relevance/importance? But there are three "Sister Ray"s here; the set's 4 hours long, and roughly 80 minutes of it is "Sister Ray." Like it? Knock yourself stupid.
For a while (Lou opens "Sister Ray" #3 "This is gonna go on for a while"—28:43), feeling alright beats dying, which beats living. And if Lou Reed is really that dorky, dorky enough to say, "This is gonna go on for a while" so, so—what, so kids could go and call their moms?—does it ruin the spectacle of the "jam" that's supposed to be so (tofuspeek) ORGANIC, does it break the spell before it has a chance to be a spell that may, may not (but seriously, may) be breakable?
Didn't Lou go to school at Syracuse? Lou doesn't go to Syracuse. He's the coolest, least-bothered, etc.—but somehow what makes Lou alright is how like us he is. He's such a poseur it makes him better at what he does; growin' up he didn't have a CLUE (quick: who was lamer, pre-fame Bob Dylan or pre-fame Lou Reed?) so he forged it, became Lou Reed With A Capital LOU And A Capital REED, and for whatever reason people thought "She's busy suckin' on my ding-dong" was the most badass thing EVER. (He just sounds like a reticent shore-leaver from grampawland!)
Add loud guitar, boredom, trannies, black angels: You've got the Next Decade already tied up neatly with silver bows. Here's to you, Lisa Robinson. A nation turns its Starbucks cups to you.
Lou Reed's the coolest, least-bothered, etc. in town, and in NYC to be the least-bothered means you deserve a crown or a key to the kingdom, seeing how we've got people whose job it is to sell you Metrocards, give you directions—and still in the subway station they've got machines and maps.
If Lou were really as cool and antihippie as he would lead us to believe, he wouldn't subject us to all those minutes of "Sister Ray" or the song at all, which is an unmunchy jumble of ceaseless ruffriff. Done live, it's when all the kids go downstairs to smoke pot and fuck, well, that's nice, it gives 'em something to spark to or drop trou to. Mebbe in the '60s you were one of those mama's boys who'd stand there "mesmerized" by the music, letting it "jettison" you into a lysergic lightstream (before Dark Side and those planetarium laser shows): Whoa-man, you're so fucked it doesn't even look like your feet hurt (they do).
That's not the music, that's the sweet brainsuck of the mascara doll with the dopey eyes and uppers, coming on to you, pulling you away to the john as your arms get longer, 50 feet long. "New York City, Manhattan Island," and she mouths along: "Folla, folla tha lead-uh"—but wait, it's not! It's San Francisco, in a rat-trap rock hall. New York? You wish, chump. Go back to college.
In New York the junkies are happy (satisfied), getting laid; in SF their eyes barely peer out of their foxholes; they're all broken so they don't get around; their faces all smashed in and the pig-boot is another dent. HOOOO! Is the decade over so soon? It started in '67, died in '68, was dollars 'n' cents in '69 ('65-'66 wasn't the '60s; it was its own decade, like that half-floor in Being John Malkovich).
But SF '69: Li'l Robt. Quine later of The Voidoids (et al) could stand in a club with his shitty portable whatsis and get Velvet Underpants shows for his very own. And make friends (!) with the band! Yes, even snippy Lou has been amenable to making friends (Robert Wilson and Laurie Anderson don't count). Quine got lucky; these are shitty tapes but splendid perfs. If rock still had this sorta ill-mannered slutbag nobility I might have to go outta my way to buy new records.
Were The Velvets antiestab? Hmm; they sure as shit weren't The MC5. (Who would win in a fight between John Sinclair and Andy Warhol? Sinclair might kick out Andy's jams, but Andy would give Sinky 15 minutes he'd be hard-pressed to forget.)
The VU were a subterranean subterfugue of splatterslack narcotic expressionism.
Venus is not a hippie; she wears ermine furs adorned imperious and shiny shiny shiny boots of leather; she dons dead animals. Jesus, she devours men with what I'd imagine are ample fangs of feather white. That's the way they do it on the east coast, these avant-heroinistas shooting, sleeping in black jeans to hide their skinny pimply communist asses, spanking each other with dogeared de Sade, squatting face-first over the backed-up toilet so their faghag manifestresses can find the vein.
Heroin will be the death of me, Lou says, sounding happy at the prospect.
And what people don't realize, with all their yipyap about "heroin chic," is that—here's the governing philosophy: If you can't save your life, be proactive in nullifying it. If you love music, learn to play. If nihilism's your thing, learn to destroy. Do it until you're bored or dead.
On the other hand:
"This is a song called 'Rock and Roll'. It's about somebody whose life was saved by rock and roll."
So silly, but rock (and roll) is (are) the most necessary magic(s) in the world. The sentimental; the unsentimental (the sentimental reviews). The dirty; ephemeral; arteries; pubes. Saying no because there are so many better things to say yes to. Fuck you, Lou Reed, Sterling, Maureen, Doug (Yule), (Robert) Quine, Factory leeches, Euroscum sympathizers, Delmore Schwartz protégés, cockmouthed Bowery smackfiends; fuck you, and thank you.
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 12/11/2001
