Velvet Underground

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Have to group myself with Bekah and Robin.  Think they're OK but not great.  Influential, I guess.  Mu husband is a huge fan.  He used to rock our infant son to sleep while playing VU music.  Our son is now a classical pianist and opera enthusiast with contempt for rock music.  Ought I to patent the system?

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Sent: Apr 25, 2009 6:13 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Velvet Underground
>
>	Hippies
>	1.  Young middle-class whites who had rejected
>	the lifestyle of their parents. Live on as crusties.
>
>http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/sprm1/files/late%2060s%20-%20the%20dark%20side.PDF
>
>FWIW, really don't care all that much about Velvet Underground. But I  
>just loves that Lester Bangs' ranting on & on about Lou Reed's "Metal  
>Machine Music" Oooh, yeah, baby baby:
>
>	In case you just got here or think Metal Machine Music refers to
>	something in the neighborhood of Bad Company, let me briefly
>	explain that what we have here is a one-hour two-record set of
>	nothing, absolutely nothing but screaming feedback noise
>	recorded at various frequencies, played back against various
>	other noise layers, split down the middle into two totally
>	separate channels of utterly inhuman shrieks and hisses, and
>	sold to an audience that was, to put it as mildly as possible,
>	unprepared for it. Because sentient humans simply find it
>	impossible not to vacate any room where it is playing. With
>	certain isolated exceptions: mutants, mental patients, shriek
>	freaks, masochists, sadists, amphetamine addicts, hate buffs,
>	drug-numbed weirdos too walled off by chemicals to feel
>	anything, other people whose nervous systems are already so
>	bent out of shape that it sounds perfectly acceptable, the last
>	category possibly including the author of this article, who likes
>	Metal Machine Music so much that he acquired (did not buy) an
>	8-track RCA cartridge (on which are imprinted the words
>	"SPECIAL VALUE!") so that he can listen to it in his car.
>
>	The release of Metal Machine Music is nothing if not an event in
>	the history of the recording industry, and we at Creem are proud
>	to celebrate it. Not since the halcyon days of Bruce Springsteen
>	has there been a public so divided. (That 98 % of them are on
>	one side glowering and spitting at the other 2 percent means
>	nothing; we at Creem will always stand up for the rights of
>	minority groups, and you won't find many groups smaller, nor
>	more fervent, than MMM fans.) As of this writing, it looks like
>	MMM is gonna be a heavyweight contender in our Creem
>	Readers' Poll categories both of "Disappointment of the Year"
>	and "Ripoff of the Year." Then again, every once in a while a
>	ballot rolls in like that from one Carole Pressler of Rocky River,
>	Ohio, who not only voted MMM as all three of the Top Albums of
>	1975, but voted for sides A and D as Top Two Singles of the
>	year, and side B as Best Rhythm & Blues Single.
>
>	Yes, these people actually exist, and it would be unfair both to
>	them and to Lou to star Metal Machine Music in a snuff film.
>	Which is exactly what RCA is doing right now. But let's not jump
>	the groove, we gots to hear it all. This postmortem begins when 	I  
>get a call from a lovely agent named after a British hypnotic
>	sedative who says she is doing free-lance publicity for Lou. . .
>
> From How to Succeed in Torture Without Really Trying,
>Lester Bangs: "Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung", pages 184/185
>
>On Apr 25, 2009, at 8:54 AM, Bekah wrote:
>
>> I hadn't chimed in on this one but here goes -
>>
>> I agree there may be a high correlation between Pynchon readers and  
>> Velvet Underground fans but it's not universal.   And I'm sure that  
>> some kind of nostalgia for the "dark side of the 60s" is part of  
>> it.     However-  I'm one of those others who loves Pynchon's style  
>> and themes, etc.  but can barely remember Velvet Underground  
>> specifics.    I don't think I was ever attracted to the dark side of  
>> anything.   I was close enough to know that it was scary out there.   
>> And I'm no Pollyanna but the old "flower-power"  attitude was closer  
>> to my perspective in the 60s than Velvet Underground.    I remember  
>> the name -  I remember the song Sunday Morning - it just wasn't one  
>> of my favorites.   Crosby, Stills and Nash did some stuff, too -  
>> Paranoia and so on.
>>
>> This is UK oriented but it seems pretty much about right to me:
>> http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/sprm1/files/late%2060s%20-%20the%20dark%20side.PDF
>>
>> Bekah
>> a senior-hippie now  (omg