TS: Mo Tucker vs. Ringo Starr

So if people's opinions don't get more left-wing as they age they are, potentially, "getting more conservative"

tbh I have more sympathy (albeit marginal) with Moe's purported rightwards shift than Lou's crackpot shit on New York.

if -- as i assume -- lou reed is the person to whom tucker "ceded" her interest in VU for, what, $600.00, i have no sympathy for him.

IT WAS YULE

glad to see soto adding purported, lotta assumptions being made here and elsewhere

okay, fair enough; looks like i made a hasty assumption.

i have no idea if it was actually yule

it was Stan Polley

That soulless bastard.

IT WAS YULE

― balls, Saturday, October 2, 2010 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Naw, he had his hands full working at the printing company that did the cover for Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town
http://www.thelightindarkness.com/wingate/
(scroll about halfway down)

lou he is a wanker and mo she is a clllerk

this just seems sad

i remember reading before about how little money she got from vu and surrendering royalties was unfortunate if true

they should have done some more shows anyway

Flying. Blue Jay Way. The entire first Plastic Ono Band (the Yoko one) LP. Ringo could drone the fuck out and drop the chill beats when he wanted to.

daniel love you man but I am just continually shocked by how people think this vague quality called "royalties" is really enough to sustain anybody except the top .001 of performers at anything above the bare-subsistence level

yeah. the world has f--d up priorities. i'm not a marnie stern fan, but this passage -- quoted in a dusted review this morning -- left an impression on me:

Not that Stern wouldn’t if she could. In an interview from a few weeks ago, she was asked about selling her songs for sponsorship, to which she replied:

Oh, fuck yeah, I’ll sell, I am so poor. Plus I never understood that thing because anything I put out I’m really proud that I did it, so I’ll put it anywhere, anywhere. Like, here it is, I made it! I’m real proud. I don’t feel embarrassed. But, if I was making money off the record, if I had more choices. But considering that I’m so in debt all the time . . .

If we've made any progress as a civilization, it's foregoing this "purity" about songwriting intentions.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2486/3812795249_8ef3d60020.jpg

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=146&p=9192&title=does_it_matter_if_moe_tucker_s_right_win&more=1&c=1

It’s so strange – authors are given the privilege of detaching from their work. When you read American Psycho, you don’t believe that Bret Easton Ellis could be capable of such stomach-turning acts of rape and murder. So likewise, surely if musicians sympathise with certain aspects of right-wing politics, we should surely afford them that same separation of personality and art.

qed

dude [Visitor] //October 5 2010 at 16:44
so do you listen to skrewdriver?

Laura Snapes [Member] //October 5 2010 at 16:47
@dude
Nope, they're a neo-Nazi hate rock band whose lead singer is one of the most notorious white supremacists going.

lead singer not doing all that much "going" these days iirc

Sheesh, those comments. Is there an all-points bulletin for tea-party trolls to stick their fucking oar in on every website?

peace and love, peace and love

basically agree with the op: whogivesashit what the bass player from drimble wedge thinks

not rly sure about the b.e.e. comparison

don't think lyricists are always creating a fictional character

you don’t believe that Bret Easton Ellis could be capable of such stomach-turning acts of rape and murder.

Eh, it wouldn't 100% surprise me.

Ellis comparison makes no sense at all - it's backwards. And very few lyricists are interested in, or capable of, creating narrators radically different from themselves.

Irt main argument, I think there's a middleground between not giving a shit and throwing your CDs in the skip in outrage - degrees of discomfort and disappointment, varying according to your preconceptions about the artist. Just because it doesn't affect my love of VU doesn't mean I can't be a little bit pissed off. The problem with the piece is it starts with a personal POV - she doesn't give a shit, that's fine - and magnifies it into a general point about art, which doesn't really stand up.

don't think mo has played on a record i've listened to since 1970

bit like [extended analogy involving brigitte bardot]

OK, I have met Mo. She seemed really nice.

I don't have any great impetus to throw all my MoSolo albums away, much less the VU stuff. She used to work at Walmart and got 'exploited' as cheap labour, so it would make sense to assume she'd be in favour of something that would redress the balance, but maybe she's not in that situation anymore....

It all looks like she's way misguided about what it all means. But I have not studied the US political situation, so I can't say otherwise anyway.

wait are ppl giving a shit about this beyond o_O-ing at it? that would be weird. i thought everyone had quit being all up in arms over cred politics or whatever, but otoh i guess i've been retreating more and more into my own private vaccuum over the years, so idk!

And very few lyricists are interested in, or capable of, creating narrators radically different from themselves.

O RLY

this is a weird thing to say. I mean how do you even judge what the lyricist is REALLY LIKE, in comparison to the narrators they create?

maybe a separate thread topic (if there isn't one already)

I meant in the context of this argument that you can't just put a songwriter's politics in a box and pretend they don't filter into the songs because the songs are in "character". I don't see what's weird about saying that very few songwriters consistently create narrators that they have nothing at all in common with (and sometimes when they do, eg Holiday in Cambodia, it's abundantly clear that they hate the narrator). This isn't really relevant to Moe because she's a drummer, not a lyricist, but it is relevant to the NME article's example of Micah P Hinson.

narrators that they have nothing at all in common with (and sometimes when they do, eg Holiday in Cambodia, it's abundantly clear that they hate the narrator).

um, wha?

See, I always read "HolinCam" as a more aggressive version of "Streets of London"...

Sorry, distracted when I typed that. Obv not Holiday in Cambodia but Jello character songs like California Uber Alles, Kill the Poor, etc.

Ah, right. Thought I'd missed something.

Moe Tucker IS a songwriter; I Spent A Week There The Other Night is one of the best solo Velvets albums.

Oops again. I've been giving up smoking and withdrawal seems to have made part of my brain fall out. I hereby resign from this thread.

If Bret Easton Ellis were a teabagger, yes we would be talking about it.

peace and love, peace and love

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/10/moe_tucker_interview_2010_politics_tea_party_velvet_underground_video.php

What are your feelings about the online reactions? Many people seem upset or outraged.

I'm stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant. I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull! Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. You disagree and you're immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist. That's pretty f'd up!! I would never judge someone based on their political views. Their honesty, integrity, kindness to others, generosity? Yes. Politics? No!

Well, she's just doing it wrong then.

Wait till her friends find out about the fag with the whip who danced in front of her in '67.

Peace, love, bull!

She knows about this thread, doesn't she?

Interesting interview though.

heh while i obv disagree with the thrust of her diatribe, that's actually one of the more cogent, thoughtful tea party memos i've read/ heard (i would like to see some of the specifics wrt 1" fish, turtle tunnels, etc). maybe mo should run for office.

:-/

I'm not quite sure that you have to agree with a musician's politics in order to enjoy that musician's music. Is it really that big a deal that she holds political views different than yours? Does anybody posting hear know what Ringo Starr's political affiliation is?

peace and love, peace and love

It's a small step through a turtle tunnel to an octopus' garden.

Morbz Tucker

Ah, now that's low.

I mean, he might be 66-years-old, but he's not a tea partier.

I'm not quite sure that you have to agree with a musician's politics in order to enjoy that musician's music

Is anyone saying you have to? One thing that has annoyed me about some responses to this story is the idea that either you're some weird hardliner who throws away your VU records because you don't like the drummer's politics or you shouldn't care at all. Surely there's a huge middleground of disappointment/discomfort that is interesting to explore.