Robert Quine

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?

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'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.

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

think i need to put together a quine mixtape, with the best of his sideman stuff, or something.

also been listening to an audio rip of that night with lou reed video mentioned above -- quine pretty much walks away with the show. every solo he plays is rad.

please do put that together

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

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