Robert Quine

His squeals and weals, his steers off-road and up-neck. His lurches and car crashes of sound; his conjured explosions and high twang drifters.

Terrible news...

it is.

Anyway, let the anecdotes begin: anyone else hear the story of the '74 or '75 Richard Hell tour with the Ramones in the UK, where - older and crankier than his tourmmates - Quine allegedly throttled whatever gobbers dared spit on his nice guitar?

(message ends)

'Don't Look Back', 'Sweetheart' (1990)

'Tell Your Sister (The "L" Word) (1991)

'Like Lovers Do' (1995)

'Man on the Verge' (2000)

or many others.

Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation (1977)
Lydia Lunch - Queen of Siam (1979)
Material - Temporary Music 1 (1981)
Robert Quine - Escape (with Jody Harris) (1981)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Destiny Street (1982)
Lou Reed - The Blue Mask (1982)
Material - Red Tracks (1982)
Get Crazy - film soundtrack (1983)
Lou Reed - Legendary Hearts (1983)
Lou Reed - Live in Italy (1984)
John Zorn - The Big Gundown (1984)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - R.I.P.: The ROIR Sessions (1984)
Robert Quine - Basic (with Fred Maher) (1984)
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (1985)
Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)
Wiseblood - Dirtdish (1986)
John Zorn - Spillane (1986)
Marianne Faithfull - Strange Weather (1987)
Matthew Sweet - Earth (1989)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Funhunt (Live at CBGB & Max's) (1990)
Lloyd Cole - Lloyd Cole (1990)
Lloyd Cole - Don't Get Weird On Me Babe (1991)
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend (1991)
Dim Stars - Dim Stars (1992)
Brian Eno - Nerve Net (1992)
Lou Reed - Between Thought and Expression (1992)
Suzanne Rhatigan - To Hell With Love (1992)
John Zorn - Film Works 1986-1990 (1992)
Hal Willner - Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus (1992)
The Odds - Bedbugs (1993)
Matthew Sweet - Altered Beast (1993)
Sion - I Don't Like Myself (1993)
Matthew Sweet - Son of Altered Beast (1994)
They Might Be Giants - John Henry (1994)
Lloyd Cole - Love Story (1995)
Mike Mainieri - Come Together: Guitar Tribute to the Beatles, Vol. 2 (1995)
Richard Hell - Go Now (1995)
Matthew Sweet - 100% Fun (1995)
Matthew Sweet - We're the Same (1995)
Mikel Erentxun - El Abrazo Del Erizo (1995)
John Zorn - Film Works V: Tears of Ecstacy (1996)
Material - Secret Life (1996)
Corin Curschellas - Valdun—Voices of Rumantsch (1997)
Ikue Mori (with Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works III (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works IV: S&M (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works VII: Cynical Hysterie Hour (1997)
John Zorn - Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach (1997)
Reiss - Vibe of Life (1998)
John Zorn - Bribe (1998)
Material - Best of Material (1999)
John Zorn - Godard/Spillane (1999)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - 'Oh' - MUSICBLITZ.com (2000)
Kazuyoshi Saito - Cold Tube (2000)
The Odds - Singles—Individually Wrapped (2000)
Sion - Songs (2000)
Wayne Kramer Presents Beyond Cyberpunk (2001)
Andre Williams - Bait and Switch (2001)
The Velvet Underground - Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (2001)
Lloyd Cole - Etc. (2001)
Richard Hell - Time (2002)
Michael DuClos - Lustro (2002)
Tom Clark and the High Action Boys - Cross-Eyed and Bow-Legged (2002)
Lys Guillorn - Lys Guillorn (2003)

I saw this today for the first time ("A Night With Lou Reed", from 1983). Lou Reed's playing is good (the vocals are nothing special), but the band pretty much pwns him. Quine looks badass in his dark glasses, sloppy-collared shirt and open jacket. Lou Reed is supposed to be the tough guy with the poses and a leather jacket, but Quine is the cold-blooded killer.

>I don't even know what a second cousin is tbh.

Put simply, your second cousin is the son/daughter of your mom/dad's first cousin.

so a stranger, then? ;)

A friend of mine just told me that Robert's uncle was William Van Orman Quine.

Whoa. That's the big time. Maybe one of these days I will read a fraction of what I want to read, including Quine.

Willard Van Orman Quine >>>> Robert Quine.

listening to a lot of Lou Reed in the last week has made me miss Quine as well. his strangled, gasping, desperate tone was a big gateway drug for me in terms of sonics - when I was in high school I found a copy of Richard Hells' Blank Generation LP based solely on Lester Bangs' 5-star RS record guide interview, and the solos were what resonated with me first. his album with Fred Maher is also good, and he is probably on a shitload of records I don't even know about like that Ribot/Mori one.

also just his contribution to that whole NY scene, his recordings of the VU getting released, and that great long interview quote from the Lou Reed RIP thread about playing guitar with Lou... can't find it now.

Did you check those Tim Quine blog links upthread? And this is Bob central, or close as we've gotten, I think: http://www.quine.org/robertquine.html

Also The Hound's blog (but his claims about his longtime running buddy RQ's demise are---well, you might not wanna go to that part) http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/

That interview at Perfect Sound Forever with Quine is the best thing ever, especially his comments about the late Lou Reed.

Looking again for his own columns in that guitar magazine, found instead another interview with RQ, re even more stuff I didn't know he did:
http://www.vintageguitar.com/2918/robert-quine/

Thanks. Listening to those Lloyd Cole songs he singled out now. Miss this guy and am always happy to read any interview with him.

awesome. i made a playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/elishasessions/playlist/7suPRxt8JDKgu4UleqYCig

Recently read an interview with Ivan Julian in which he said that he, Quine and Richard Lloyd were never around except singly with Matthew Sweet- he could only handle one of these characters at a time.

This finally appeared on xgau's site:

Robert Quine
To me the most striking thing that Robert Quine has done in two decades is to die. I liked him tremendously and, as an uxorious man, think the story of his last year unspeakably tragic. We got to know each other in the wake of Lester Bangs's death, always as mutually respectful casual acquaintances. I ran into him on the street every few years, although it occurs to me that the last time I saw him something in me held back and I didn't greet him; I don't know whether he saw me, but his body language must have told me not to approach. So the last time I spoke to him was in the Village two or three years ago, I think his wife was with him, and he told me nobody wanted to play with him anymore. I said I'd spread the word to the few musicians I know, and I did, but nothing came of it. When I first heard of his death I wondered whether he'd even get an obituary anywhere. Yet here two days later is a big one with a photo in the Times, and the next day someone on Fresh Air is playing "Waves of Fear" and telling listeners what DVD's they can buy to see him in action. I think Quine would have been astonished by this response, and sardonic about it. But it's clear that those who were touched by him were touched deeply. I would say that his tiny body of work makes him one of the great rock guitarists, kind of like Pete Cosey's work with Miles, and that many many people know that. Moreover, quite a few of them are intelligent and articulate people with media connections. So he won't pass unnoticed. Good.

The other thing I would mention is that Quine, while a very decent man, was also a very dour one--more dour than I think the state of music or the world ever fully justified. He was bitter with me about both Richard Hell and Lou Reed. And indeed, these were and are difficult and egotistical men, as artists with something to say tend to be. To make your mark as a sideman, which was clearly Quine's appointed role, you have to be able to shrug off the temperament and selfishness of those whose role is to be leaders. Quine couldn't do this. On one level you say, Good for him, he was better than them anyway. But on another level it's also temperament, and an important part of why he left this world the way he did. Now the way is open for him to become a legend. Oddly enough, he may just make it.

Postscript Notes:

For the rest of Perfect Sound Forever's Robert Quine tribute, see the index.http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine/index.html

Perfect Sound Forever, 2004http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine/robertchristgau.html

Surely he'd been around the neighborhood---starting as a tax preparer, for other musos, for inst---long enough to be well aware of Hell's and Reed's reps as employers (and colleagues), but I guess figured they were worth a shot, as who would not. I think the filmed concert mentioned on here several times was where I saw Reed actually throw back his head and laugh, as Quine played some succinctly outrageous interjection---"I saw my head laughing, rolling on the ground"--but also remember a quote from Fernando Saunders, re Reed taking away his solo in "New Age," after it was mentioned in concert reviews---and another quote from somebody about Reed's insecurity about Cale's musical proficiency, why they kept falling out, supposedly--maybe this had something to with his treatment of Quine as well.

Given Quine's fruitful tenure with the likes of Reed, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, Laswell, Zorn, etc., I find it hard to believe that no one wanted to work with him, unless he was truly hard to work with.

Maybe he just got that way, or more that way, toward the end; the drug problem got pretty bad, judging by his running buddy The Hound's account, still posted maybe.

Just came across this recently!
https://sorcererrecords.bandcamp.com/album/escape

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3080446209_10.jpg

I saw him around pretty consistently for 20 years, as I lived a few streets over from him, and his body language was always "do not approach," which is also true of fucking Xgau, Jarmusch, Glass and nearly every single notable person to live the East Village from 1975 to 2000.

Given Quine's fruitful tenure with the likes of Reed, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, Laswell, Zorn, etc., I find it hard to believe that no one wanted to work with him, unless he was truly hard to work with.

not hard to imagine him being too proud to chase after work in those later years as well, the kind of person who laments that no one calls but never picks up the phone

yeah, he didn't have a management/PR structure of any kind that would get his name out there…and not that I knew him, but certainly I knew enuff people who knew him to attest that his pride, combined with his dogged belief that Raw Power and Agharta were the last remotely good records ever made, would have prevented him from working steadily… he was surly as fuck, and Lou Reed (or Sylvia) signs the checks, so he would have been the one that gets to be surly… I don't imagine Mike Rathke would get awfully testy…

xpost - one eye open i bet that is exactly right

I fucking love that Harris/Quine LP, very cool and unique sound

definitely one of my favorites, I didn't know the ending of the story was this sad though.

I sold my copy of "Escape" back when it was way out of print and going for good money, it was interesting but kinda not my thing, but different strokes.

Basic and Escape sound a heck of a lot more contemporary to me now than they did when I heard them back in the late 90s for the first time. Back then I kept thinking - you know this would sound so much better with a full band - now it kinda just sounds like how more like how music is made. You got to pay to get sample packs that sound that grungy, that's an upgrade now.

Sorry, thought I'd already linked this, which incl. lots of Quine talk, esp. lately:
Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

Hadn't seen this interview before!
https://www.vintageguitar.com/2918/robert-quine/

also:
For this feature we spoke with Quine’s bandmates Richard Hell and Ivan Julian, his longtime collaborator Fred Maher, songwriters Matthew Sweet and Lloyd Cole, disc jockey and author James “the Hound” Marshall, and others. Times good quotes from The Man Himself:
https://www.premierguitar.com/artists/forgotten-heroes-robert-quine

that vintage guitar interview is fantastic. what an articulate, self-aware guy he is there. and what a scholar of early rock guitar. tremendous.

That’s a great interview. His mention of Mickey Baker brought to mind Andrew Hickey’s “A History Of Rock In 500 Songs” podcast episode on “Love Is Strange”: https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-49-love-is-strange-by-mickey-and-sylvia/

I was listening to that episode while driving. My surprise at hearing that Baker had studied with Xenakis — and hearing one startling result of those studies — almost made me drive off the road.

wonderful, thank you for posting

Speaking of Quine and guitars, I remember reading eons ago that during the Voidoids tour of the UK (opening for the Ramones, maybe?) he would get into fights in the audience with gobbers for spitting on his vintage Strat.

just another thank you for that Vintage Guitar interview, really cool

like, I love how he casually drops this

After the Velvet Underground, there hasn’t been much that influenced my playing. There are three, however – Iggy & the Stooges, Raw Power; Miles Davis from ’72 to ’75, and Brian Eno’s On Land from ’82.

(can you spot the one that's different?)

Thanks to sleeve for recent Television thread remynder of this one!

Ikue Mori | Robert Quine | Marc Ribot ‎– Painted Desert [Full Album]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vGHBqept3Q