Post a controversial music opinion

Apparently Joe Harvard, who wrote the early 33 1/3 book (the 11th) about VU and Nico, originally set out to write one about the S/T Modern Lovers, but I guess his editor/publisher thought maybe it was a little too esoteric so soon in the series. Obviously they're a lot less normcore these days.

No, sorry, another zine called Vibrations, apparently.

Jonathan Richman's graph of pop music in the late '60s

Volunteers came out in November ‘69, so I’m not sure why the “Airplane” line is crashing quite as precipitously as it does…

That's where I found out about it, the Astral Weeks book--then found it online.

Josh Clover's "Roadrunner" book is a different series.

(Why does the “Who” line split up and the strands diverge like that; was the idea that the guys were all gonna do solo albums, KISS style?)

I have to agree that VU got closest to God at the end of 1970.

Yeah, sorry, the Singles series.

Have there only been three of those so far?

Do you recommend the "Roadrunner" book?

yes indeed.

Seem to recall there was a rave review from Xgau.

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/faster-miles-an-hour-who-knows-where

Also just read Rockin' Robin Beth' Wikipedia page. Pretty interesting career.

The graph is from 1968.

I said hello to the graph from 1968.

Yeah, sorry, the Singles series.
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, February 25, 2024 10:03 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Have there only been three of those so far?
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, February 25, 2024 10:05 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do you recommend the "Roadrunner" book?
― Lily Dale, Sunday, February 25, 2024

Yes, yes, and yes. And--I don't do this often, but I have to here--there was supposed to be a fourth, my own "American Pie" book, but (for reasons explained in the book--it was amicable) I ended up self-publishing.

Thanks for the link. “Recently the Velvets have become even more basic.”

its nice that he saw god in VU. a lot of people probably saw death. i wonder how he felt about ccr the west coast death choogle band. the yin to the yang. or maybe they were the yang to VU's yin. i forget.

I saw Richman in a club once, but I can't remember where or when--mid-'80s, probably, around the time of the solo album that got an A from Christgau.

I always saw the Airplane as the Yang to the VU’s Yin. Or maybe the Dead… one of those two.

no its ccr. i've done research.

diddley-based death choogle wasn't really the airplane's thing. or the dead's thing. they were acid-based. and thematically vu and ccr are way more similar.

and i know what you are going to say, what about the doors? and yeah the failed poet thing is strong there but it falls apart if you look close enough. too many discrepancies. though i'm sure nico could have done a fine alabama song.

My brother and I went to see Jonathan Richman in Olympia last summer and it was a wonderful experience. It was a small crowd in a big theater and he invited us all down to the foot of the stage and turned it into a dance party that lasted the whole show. He was dancing, we were dancing, there were singalongs, there was clapping. It was all beautifully weird and friendly and felt like something we had stumbled into rather than buying tickets to. It was all the more charming because my neighborhood in Seattle was super crowded for Pride that weekend and it all felt huge and corporate, so to end up in a little theater in Olympia dancing with Jonathan Richman felt almost like stepping back in time. (Or to use a specifically Richman analogy, on that particular weekend Olympia:Seattle::Lesbian Bar:First Bar).

i'm just glad that jonathan richman used his powers for good because he totally could have started a truly scary death cult if he had wanted to. lots and lots of smiling....

(of course we don't know how many bodies people will find under those pizza ovens he built behind his house until after he's gone...)

xxp awesome

One day they encounter an ordinary object, a popular object, but they see its beauty, they encounter it with a sort of religious fervor, and they see that the world is filled with these things, that the world is thus itself beautiful. It is a sort of revelation. And they have a need to deliver this message about their love for the world, about the extraordinariness of the ordinary, and they see that a pop song is the way to do this because a pop song is, like a highway, both a perfect conveyance and a perfect example of this sort of ordinary, popular, beautiful thing.

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

And--I don't do this often, but I have to here--there was supposed to be a fourth, my own "American Pie" book, but (for reasons explained in the book--it was amicable) I ended up self-publishing.

4%--it's a long preface. Returning to thread to Jonathan Richman, who hijacked it fair and square.

"the thread"

This is one of those discussions that I'll be looking for two years from now and have no idea what thread it was in.

Maybe put a link on the Jonathan Richman is he a class act or what? thread

Listening to Sweeping Up the Spotlight now, wondering if it comes before or after the inflection point on the graph.

I normally don't care about controversial opinions so I don't typically check this thread but boredom drove me here and richman slander kept me here. Glad we ended up sorting this all out in the end. Richman classic/haters Dud; a very appropriate topic for this thread as aforementioned

(i like to kid a bit about CCR/VU but there are lots of connections. they weren't hippies. they didn't want to "change the system". they didn't want to hang with the angels. epic drones. loud loud loud. epic darkness. pure pop beauty. epic bowl cuts. deep love of old rock and r&b. mythical while still rooted on the pavement/earth. oh there are tons of things. and yeah the airplane and dead had some of those qualities as well. and i love the airplane more than life itself. they were god-like when they were great and i ride with them all the way through the 70s. and i will always love the olden tymes dead. the weird thing that didn't dawn on me until late in life though was that with some small stylistic changes i could see both CCR and VU swapping songs and nobody would have been the wiser. CCR could have totally done sweet jane or foggy notion and other tunes. VU could have run through that jungle with the best of them. basically my two fave boomer guitar bands on earth. maybe. if i don't think about it too hard....)

Good thoughts

I think we had the CCR/Velvets discussion when the Live at Woodstock album surfaced a few years ago. There’s even one song that sounds a lot like “The Gift.”

But for all the similarities mentioned, they're still more different than similar, at least from a facile listen

By which song I mean “Born on the Bayou.”

Airplane is real feast or famine for me, they have exceptionally high highs and very low lows

And it sounds like “Lady Godiva’s Operation,” not “The Gift.”

wait, jonathan richman - supposedly one of the sweetest people on earth - had a song about vincent van gogh AND don mclean - legendarily one of the meanest people on earth - both had a song about vincent van gogh!?

i did not know that. talk about your life/death yin/yang.

CCR Live at Woodstock verges on proto krautrock at times

i like to kid a bit about CCR/VU but there are lots of connections.

the biggest connection for anyone with ears is that these are the two greatest american rock bands

(great post tho)

would have loved to hear vu do ramble tamble. my favorite ccr song? yes. it really is. mo tucker would have rocked it so hard!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmjNIJ4YIFI

Think maybe they start out from some kind of diametrically opposite-seeming approaches but then eventually circle around to meet up at an antipode located on the great meridian they are both traversing.

Woodstock “Ninety-Nine and a Half” is insanely intense. They’re playing it mostly straight but it still has that motorik swell.

xp The Roadrunner/Maybellene connection is really interesting to me because I already had a similar line of thought going re the Vulgar Boatmen, who of course are very influenced by "Roadrunner." I was listening to "Can't Catch Me" and the lyrics

Sweetest little thing I ever seen
I'm gon' name you Maybellene
Flying on the beam, set on flight control
Radio tuned to rock and roll

made me think of the Vulgar Boatmen song "Wide Awake," where he hears his own song playing on XRT and yells "turn it up!" - at which point it occurred to me that the song he hears on the radio later on, which I've never been able to clearly make out the title of, might actually be Maybellene? And that he's deliberately calling back to Chuck Berry as the originator of rock music that celebrates listening to the radio and hearing itself.

Anyway, digression, but I clearly need to actually read the book.

All criticisms of Jonathan Richman need to be deferred due to the fact that he used the lyrics "I still love my parents // and I still love the old world" as a straight faced couplet in a rock song. One of the funniest thing anyone has ever done with rock music tbh

― H.P, Sunday, February 25, 2024 6:35 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Richman is a litmus test of whether rockists have a sense of humour (no offense haters)

otfm