Robert Quine

looking at that discog posted above, there's a lot I don't have!

loving this record, just heard it for the first time last week:
Ikue Mori (with Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)

― tylerw, Friday, March 25, 2011 12:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

This is a fabulous record, that I'm guessing many haven't heard. Great use of cheap rhythm box.

this sounds interesting:
did another thing like that with Zorn and Bill Frissell. We jammed together a lot. It was a concert at Harvard in '87 at a chapel. We cleared the place. There was no discussion as we walked out to the stage. Bill and I had loop machines so we had four guitars and a sax playing. They made a recording of it and it'd be nice to come out.
from here: http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine.html

i also love this quote from the same interview
After that, what would you say about the time you played with Lou Reed?

Musically, the first week and a half was really great, out of the four years.

Would have been 70 today.

I remember when Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" was in heavy rotation on MTV, and it was such a wonderful mindfuck that you could hear Robert Quine multiple times a day on TV.

mindfuck that you could hear any good music on TV.

But yeah, RIP Bob Quine. I remember feeling pissed off on his behalf when I read in Victor Bokris's book (hatchet job?) "Transformer" that Lou Reed mixed Bob Quine so low on one of his albums (Blue Mask or Legendary Hearts, I don't remember) that Bob repeatedly drove over the tape in his driveway after putting it in his cassette deck.

the woman on the right is j@ne quine, either mother or aunt of robert quine (i can't remember exactly, but i know she was related)
she was super cool
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6p23avsDm1rzge1ho1_1280.jpg

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

But yeah, RIP Bob Quine. I remember feeling pissed off on his behalf when I read in Victor Bokris's book (hatchet job?) "Transformer" that Lou Reed mixed Bob Quine so low on one of his albums (Blue Mask or Legendary Hearts, I don't remember) that Bob repeatedly drove over the tape in his driveway after putting it in his cassette deck.

― Poliopolice, Sunday, December 30, 2012 6:40 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm gonna guess Legendary Hearts, only because he's all over The Blue Mask (as he should be). Ironically, he stuck around to tour with Lou (cf. Live In Italy).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7bXk4N5no

Try again, with http instead of https:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7bXk4N5no

i still don't know his subsequent work very well, but even just the first voidoids album is enough to make him one of my all-time favorites.

he was able to take the contradictory impulses of (what became) punk rock -- to revisit earlier forms of rock music and to wreck them all -- and make them materially real, as a player. he could play the whole corpus of traditional american guitar playing upside down and backwards. and so, he did.

Total throw down by Quine here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzl3AB5tw-w

Also, wow! Had no idea he was on Scritti Politti's Cupid and Psyche.

dennis miller is the most annoying man on the entire planet

His cousin Tim Quine has a good blog, Rubber City Review, where he posted a couple commentaries on Bob several years ago--this one is about the music, incl mp3s of several things I hadn't heard; think they all still work, but haven't checked the l0u lately (most likely to be removed?) http://rubbercityreview.com/2010/05/robert-quine-the-hits-2/

Here's Tim's first post: close encounters and some music links as well: http://rubbercityreview.com/2010/03/encounters-with-quine/

ha pretty sure the drummer in that clip is the guy from Mr Mister

Big session dude IIRC

Def the Mr. Mister guy, who has spent the past 15 years or so in king crimson. Bassist is sara lee, who played in gang of four and b-52s. Dunno the other guy.

Quine is on the Scritti Polliti because the band was basically Material. That album was produced by Fred Maher, who also produced girlfriend.

those blog posts are great, thanks for sharing...
quine was known for a certain type of guitar playing, but he really was super versatile -- as those blog posts note about his solo on that reed's "betrayed" (from live in italy), he was an amazing country rock guitarist, too.

Oh yea, forgot Quine was in Material--did he ever play on a track w Sharrock? Or Frith?

I don't think so. Not sure Quine was a Material regular, either, but he was in the same orbit as Laswell. I know Quine and Maher did an album together called Basic.

Those Manhattan bohos of the mid to late eighties all knew each other. Maher and Matthew Sweet played on Lloyd Cole's good 1990 eponymous record; he returned the favor by playing on Girlfriend.

He makes just one appearance on C&P '85 but he makes it count: a solo on "Don't Work That Hard"

Yeah I've got Basic, and I used to buy everything I could find w Quine in the credits. Haven't heard the first Cole, but got the second, Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe, with Quine-Sweet-Maher. He and Maher are always worth hearing, though he did do a lot of one-offs, like C&P 85. Consult your local yard sale.

He had a good column in Guitar World (or was it Guitar Player). Thought of that recently when Mickey Baker died.

Is that his solo on "She's a Girl and I'm a Man"?

sounds like it. Love that song.

Think so, yeah.

That whole album is good! I'm a Lloyd Cole apologist, but I would like to know who encouraged his sleazy makeover right before the first solo album.

long bangs and stubble!

He did look dissolute by mid decade though.

btw I asked my mom about the woman in the picture and her relationship to Robert Quine and we decided she was probably his aunt. I knew her before I ever knew who he was. Akron's a small place!

Do you know Tim Quine? He's also like the uncle or something of Dan Auerbach, who wrote about finally meeting Bob, during a family get-together. He was shy at first, but then they got into talking about guitar music. Some thought of asking him to play on a Black Keys album, but then he died. (Patrick Carney's Uncle Ralph, of Afterbirth of the Cool etc., did play on a Black Keys record, I think--small world indeed!)

Oh yeah, Ralph was in Tin Huey too!

Not personally, but I'm sure friends of mine do -- it's a pretty small town when you avoid all of the boring people. Jane is Dan A's grandmother, so I think she is related to Robert through her husband's side of the family, which would make her his aunt I think? I'm awful with family tree terminology -- I don't even know what a second cousin is tbh.

<3 Tin Huey!
Rubber City 4 eva

>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