songs for drella: c/d

woah @ A DREAM 17 years on.

eerie -- I heard this last week. "Nobody But You" and "Style It Takes" are just perfect.

I just bought this a week ago, and was surprised by how much I liked it, but then, in turn, surprised that I thought I wouldn't like it, and so forth. "Forever Changed" is pretty incredible.

Style it Takes (live) on.. snl?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzzgFOLa63A

pretty sure that clip is from Sanborn's "Night Music" - arguably the best live music show ever broadcast on network TV

good record! used to have the "deluxe edition" with a (i think) black velvet cover, but i'll be damned if i know where that went. looooove the version of "Style It Takes" on Cale's Fragments of A Rainy Season. "You want your freedom, make your freedom mine."

"Night Music" also hosted a fabulosu Pere Ubu performance of "Breath."

also Sun Ra, Sonic Youth, etc etc

this really was an unbelievable show

Show 208

The Pixies
Sun Ra
Syd Straw
Arthur Baker
Al Green
Sister Carol

still no dvd for the original film?? going for a fortune on amazon/ebay.

you tube to the rescue! (partly at least)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=songs+for+drella&search=Search

Ha! The person who came up with a much better thread title for this was rebuffed! Despicable! Fuck an ILM! At least it wasn't locked, but why post there?

ARRGH! Even Grimly Fiendish knows this one! Holy hell! Grimly? You know this one? I'm surprised.

Come on guys, talk to me about it. I've got the itch. Sometimes lately I just think I could be happy listening to Lou Reed and John Cale forever. That it would be pretty impossible to exhaust the pleasure I could get from those two men, musically. I'm playing "The Dream" for the first time, now, though. I don't think I actually got this far into this album on the bus last time I played it.

Grimly...you know this???

"Images" sets my soul on fire, and the hairs on my arms stand on end. There are people who know what it is to feel passion about music, and there are those who don't. There are people who can write sane, 1000 word essays about music, maybe they are even paid for it, and I respect that because I can't relate to it. I side with those who are speechless.

It reminds me of when the last Kate Bush album came out after 12 long years. Now didn't that separate the men from the boys? Some people said "oh shame on you fuckers for losing your critical faculties" and others said "for god's sake shut the fuck up and listen". You know which side I'm on.

bump

(came here to blather about hearing Drella for the first time this weekend...but Bimble's posts say it all so BUMP instead.)

Yeah, the last is a classic Bimble post.

one day someone will compile his posts into a Bimble Listener's guide and it will be awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6L0UD_zn4A

they still look so young here don't they? i love the looks Cale is giving Reed, also how they left the bum notes in.

i guess it's pointless doing a poll for it as A Dream would trounce all the others.

Nah – pretty sure I'd vote for "Style It Takes" or "Small Town."

yeah, it'd be either "style it takes" or "open house" for me.

I would have pulled the switch on her myself

cale's "look" in that smalltown video is classic.

this was one of the first cds i ever purchased. i first got into the velvets and then into this album so i did not find it as amazing as others on this thread (even compared to "loaded"). i liked it a lot though and haven't listened to it for 15 years or more. this was much more like a velvet reunion than the live reunion they did a couple of years later which was rubbish. favourite song, several ones, john cale's "style it takes" of course but i also liked lou reed's straightforward "work" for some reason. quite primitive and simple but i have a soft spot for that kind of strong, puritan working attitude as it is something i lack so much. overall this album is quite consistent and an absolute classic. i have to listen to it again.

I got this album as part of my Columbia Music Club 12 CDs for a $1 deal as a teenager

btw i found the next lou reed album "magic and loss" even more impressive. there was a thread on it somewhere. that music has got a soul healing quality. for the listener and even more so for the artist. it was about the death of two friends of lou reed. i always thought they had had aids but according to wikipedia they hadn't.

some of the best lou reed albums seem to be the ones he wrote about deceased friends.

been listening to some lou records i haven't heard on spotify

wow

this is really amazing

i didn't suspect he'd done anything this vital since the 70s

it really is a nice (and unique) record. sort of too bad these two dudes can't just get together every couple of years and do this kind of thing -- they've obviously got chemistry working in their favor. but they've got a lot of nasty history too i guess.

I always liked this one best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSxRN0pNciA

yeah backing track sounds like stars of the lid or something.
when i saw lou in the early 90s he did this one! it was pretty great.

i like this record because it feels like sort of a little record, somehow u don't demand evenness or shit like that, it makes u generous

I can't listen to Magic and Loss beyond the obvious cuts. Whenever he essays a Serious Project, a disinterest or at worst cynicism seeps through.

also am i rite that cale obviously slays reed on this, even tho he claims reed did all the work

the best songs are cale songs but they all would've been worse w/o lou

i dunno, i'm liking both of their songs

lou's maybe never seemed more human than on this

They're both in top form.

I'm with Zvookster - Cale all the way on this. But I'm biased, I've simply never gotten into Lou despite many visitations.

I just listened to this for the first time in my life. I'm a Cale devotee, Reed skeptic but this is a damn, damn good effort from both.

Oh, and I just visited the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, some of these tunes played in my head.

This album is better than any of their solo records.

whoa whoa

It's better than any Cale project released after 1990 though, true.

This album is better than any of their (post-70s) solo records.

This album is better than anything recorded by the Velvet Underground.

eh, for me it's probably on par w/ blue mask, music for a new society, new york, wrong way up, etc. which is really good, but let's not get carried away here.

this is a good album but it isn't even close to either of their peaks both solo and with VU

Is “Trouble with Classicists” based on some stuff Andy actually said?

I can’t believe you never listened to this, James!

Lou called me a rat and I fired him.

But Billy said
Both those nerds are dead

https://mubi.com/films/songs-for-drella

Ah brilliant!

The story behind the restoration:

https://filmmakermagazine.com/112486-a-haunting-symbiosis-on-ed-lachmans-newly-restored-lou-reed-john-cale-concert-film-songs-for-drella/

I was pretty cool towards the album, but I found the movie on YouTube (a LaserDisc rip) and surprisingly it made a huge difference for me. Something about it made the whole project much more affecting - everything from the projected backdrops to just seeing John and Lou's faces. Probably helps that Lachmann is one of the great cinematographers and that comes through too in the lighting and composition.

Scanning from the original long-lost negatives makes a huge difference. Glad it's streamable but definitely see it projected if you can. I hope this gets a Blu-ray release as well.

Enjoy, MUBI UK and Ireland subscribers!

John channelling the dreaming Andy is incredible.

xp Can we license the UCAN rights for ILX TV?

Could be. Have to get back to you.

God. Haven't watched the restored live show but like a fool I decided I'd listen to the album while I did some work this afternoon, now I have a great ball of grief welled up in my chest, what a fantastic record and so emotionally complex.

Criterion Channel's got the remastered concert film streaming now.

Cale hair in classic form.

I love this line from Dave Connolly’s AMG review of words for the dying:

Perhaps Cale's own unusual hairstyle (which resembles a book of carpet samples more than anything) led him to re-evaluate the impact of an actress who could dance with ten pounds of fruit on her head.

might be my favourite reed, favourite cale

i had no idea it was considered "lost", i had on (terribly recorded) videotape for years

"but I have some resentments that can never be unmade"

vmic

Loved this v much.

All the more moving for Lou’s unwillingness to emote. But “A Dream” just kills me every time.

This is an interview with Lachmsn btw.

https://theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/14/they-didnt-go-round-the-corner-for-beer-lou-reed-and-john-cales-songs-for-drella

*Lachman

lol @ at that url

https://i.imgur.com/NbbJuZB.jpg

It's like one guy has hair where the other needs it, and vice-versa

My Songs For Drella statement has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my Songs For Drella statement. pic.twitter.com/qZkO5LXhIW

— Andrew Male (@Andr6wMale) November 6, 2022

classic drella tbh, coaxing two highly stormy ppl into the same art space to see what trasnpires

the factory was a drama factory, it's all good fun until some loses a lung

Now reminded somehow of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) and thinking they should have worked that into Patriot somehow. #onethread