Luke Haines, 'Das Capital'

http://www.kickingagainstthepricks.org/node/59

June 1993, my group, The Auteurs have just played a tepid set to a disinterested field of punters at Glastonbury. Festivals are not my thing, you can take yer 'Glasto' and shove it up yer arse. I'm quite keen to finish our set as I know that the most important band in the world are about to begin theirs. Unfortunately I have to hot foot it 97 miles across fucking countryside to a far away place they call 'The Main Stage.' It will be worth it I know because the best band in the world, who nobody ever saw, and who split up in 1970, have got back together. I have by now got over my precious gripes about holy grail acts such as Buzzcocks (arghh fuckit) getting back together. Besides Sterl and Mo probably need the money, and who would begrudge them that? I am in fact hyperventilating in excitement at the thought of The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Fucking Underground, performing live in front of my eyes. It's a shame I have to negotiate another 60 miles of agricultural terrain before I will see them. I arrive just as The Velvets are finishing their first song. It's already clear that the Velvet Underground are breaking new ground. They are breaking new ground by being shit. Being shit is not something I had previously associated with The Velvet Fucking Underground. They already look all wrong - standing on that stupid Pyramid Stage at Fucking 'Glasto.' This was the most urban New York Fuckin' City group in the world. They are meant to be surrounded by frightening street drag queens and 'A heads', not cunts who refer to this godforsaken place that we are in as 'Glasto.' The Velvet Underground do not belong in a cowshit field in fucking Somerset, they are not the fucking Wurzels. And what is wrong with that guitar that Lou is playing? Oh, I see it's got no body and no neck. Ah, I see it's a shit guitar. But it does stay in tune very well, which is not really the point of the Velvet Underground is it? And then Lou starts singing. 'Shiny shiny, whoo hoo, shiny shiny boots of leather, Whoo yeah.' 'Venus In Furs' is not considerably improved by incorporating 'Whoo hoo, whoo yeah' into the lyric. The VU play on, people drift away, grown men weep with disappointment, children laugh, and a dog howling in pain teaches itself to read. The next day the dog will go out and buy a gun and blow its' brains out. That is how badly the Velvet Underground suck on a crappy day, in a stupid field in the countryside. When I get back home I put my Velvets records away in shame and don't play them for another twenty years.

http://thequietus.com/articles/07311-luke-haines-favourite-albums?page=2

Great list, very fun to read.

The new one with Peter Buck is great. One of the best Luke non-Auteurs LPs to date. Think having actual live drums on a Luke Haines album is a good move.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akBwe1Zl11w

This one's really been doing it for me.