Doug Yule & The Velvet Underground

Ari · Post by **Ari** » 22 Jul 2007 10:50

law criticize hard against Doug Yule in Internet, mentioning it like treasonous or that never was a true member of the velvets

i want to knowledge which you think?

I believe that Doug Yule if contribution to the band went, and that I help much in the change of style with its guitar, voice and keyboards but I want to know how other opinions to see if there are foundations in which they say those criticizes

another question is so that if doug yule I collaborate after velvet with a solist disc of lou reed, it was not invited to the velvet underground reunion

resentments in the band really?

MJG196 · Post by **MJG196** » 22 Jul 2007 16:41

I think he was an integral part of the VU, and although he is not an "original" member, he still helped make two great LP's. There are a lot of "purists" who like to rag on him, but that makes absolutely no sense to me. He was a good bassist, had some great harmonies w/ Lou, and contributed a lot to the band.

As for the reunion, I can't remember where, but I read he was disappointed...but didn't expect to be invited.

Ari · Post by **Ari** » 22 Jul 2007 20:42

mg196 wrote: As for the reunion, I can't remember where, but I read he was disappointed...but didn't expect to be invited.

if he is strange so that law of several collaborations that did with moe & lou in its solists works

perhaps Cale to get to be uncomfortable, i dont know

es una lastima que no haya estado

sars · Post by **sars** » 23 Jul 2007 03:29

I think Doug is very talented. VU&N and WL/WH versus the gray album and Loaded is like comparing apples and oranges, because they're so different but all very strong. Cale's complimented the earlier speed and art-influenced materials, but I don't know how his approach would really work with the folk/pop of the last two albums. Can you really imagine "Some Kinda Love" with a screeching viola, or "O Sweet Nothing" with a ton of feedback? Yule fit in well with the band's natural sound progression and he did so masterfully. In my opinion, the post Cale live, tour heavy bootlegs are the best thing they did, and Doug is instrumental to that work.

Doug is the Velvet Underground's Yoko, the scape goat who was unfairly blamed for a band's preexisting, inevitable problems. It's easy for us to look in hindsight and say, "Doug shouldn't have continued using the Velvet Underground name after the original members, Lou especially, left." At the time, it was a fairly minor league band and they probably thought very differently, if at all, about their legacy. You can't blame any musician for sticking with an established product and trying to further their career. That's the very reason you see so many classic rock bands touring well past their middle age with maybe one or two original members on board. Go with what's worked so far. And anyone who says that "Squeeze" is a terrible album can blow me. It's a very solid, catchy Doug Yule album, but once again, he or anyone else didn't know what the Velvet Underground name was going to mean in 20 or 30 years. I saw some "worst albums of all time" list recently and "Squeeze" was on it (so was "Metal Machine Music" - I hate to break out the "you don't have to enjoy it as long as you understand what it's supposed to be all about" line, but seriously.) I mean, how many people outside of those of us who picked a burned copy off of ebay or downloaded it off of a torrent have actually heard "Squeeze"? Not many, and probably very few of those who trash it. I was watching the movie "Factory Girl" with the director's commentary on, and he made an interesting point about his portrayal of Andy Warhol that could be applied to a lot of criticism of that 60's/70's culture. He said that people are so obsessed with key figures in that period and almost want so badly to be a part of it that they will automatically lash out at anyone who makes an attempt that alters those legacies. This could very much be the reason people hate on Doug Yule, because he infiltrated the iconic VU, and that is threatening.

Come to think of it, "Squeeze's" namesake band sounds a lot like the album.

Also come to think of it, history has recorded the big changes in the Velvet Underground by the movement of the male members. Cale out, Yule in, Reed out, no more! Nico was instrumental to the first album, but no one ever dismisses the next three albums as being impure. And no one every says that Loaded isn't a real VU album without Tucker. Not to mention the tree years the Velvet Underground name lives beyond Reed. Maybe it's a gender thing?

MJG196 · Post by **MJG196** » 23 Jul 2007 07:11

sars wrote:Also come to think of it, history has recorded the big changes in the Velvet Underground by the movement of the male members. Cale out, Yule in, Reed out, no more! Nico was instrumental to the first album, but no one ever dismisses the next three albums as being impure.

Well, to be honest, the album was called The Velvet Underground AND Nico. I never saw her as a band member, however integral her part was. I always thought that the band members implied that she was there as more of a "favor" to Andy, and they created songs and music around her.

That's a much different animal than Yule, who WAS a member.

My view, anyways!

PhantomRaspberryBlower · Post by **PhantomRaspberryBlower** » 23 Jul 2007 14:53

Yule was great with the Velvets. At some point it became 'cool' to put him down, probably just because Reed did it. And the sheep followed their master...

I'll mention again, just for those who haven't grasped it yet, it was Reed who edited those tracks on Loaded before he left, not Yule or Sesnick. There's an article on the net somewhere about it but I can't be arsed to find the link now.

stooge · Post by **stooge** » 23 Jul 2007 19:58

Totally agree with mg196 and PRB
Listen to both live '69 and the Quine's tapes without mentioning the bootlegs and the discussion is over
The guy knows how to play on what and when and he does it right

arjan · Post by **arjan** » 24 Jul 2007 11:21

PhantomRaspberryBlower wrote:I'll mention again, just for those who haven't grasped it yet, it was Reed who edited those tracks on Loaded before he left, not Yule or Sesnick.

I always found that rather hypocritical. I mean, just the logistics of the editing process make it nigh impossible for others to have edited Loaded without Reed's knowledge and/or consent. Reed left in late August 1970, Loaded appeared sometime in September, yielding at most four weeks in which to edit, master, print and distribute the record. Impossible.

Maybe Reed felt he was pressurised into making those changes, I don't know, but he was aware of them and went along with them. In fact, in the early Seventies, he and his band played the *chopped* version (witness Rock 'n' Roll Animal) at the same time Yule and his band played the *complete* version (witness disk 4 of Final VU). So his statement in the PSAS booklet about the chopping etc., unquestioningly accepted by Fricke, sounds rather revisionist to me.

What Reed *should* have done, of course, if he felt things were going the wrong way, was fire Sesnick (and perhaps Yule) instead of walking out. Then again, it's easy in hindsight etc.

arjan · Post by **arjan** » 24 Jul 2007 11:26

stooge wrote:The guy knows how to play on what and when and he does it right

Yeah, I remember a silly discussion/rumour that did the rounds way back in the 80s, that it had to be Cale that played on 1969's "What Goes On" because it sounded too good to be Yule. Can you believe that?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 30 Jul 2007 12:11

arjan wrote:
PhantomRaspberryBlower wrote:I'll mention again, just for those who haven't grasped it yet, it was Reed who edited those tracks on Loaded before he left, not Yule or Sesnick.
I always found that rather hypocritical. I mean, just the logistics of the editing process make it nigh impossible for others to have edited Loaded without Reed's knowledge and/or consent. Reed left in late August 1970, Loaded appeared sometime in September, yielding at most four weeks in which to edit, master, print and distribute the record. Impossible.

Very true - I don't think there's any question that the edits were done with Lou's involvement, while he was in the band.

However, the fact that Lou was involved in editing those tracks doesn't neccessarily mean that he was happy with them. Although the recording of the album was finished by the time he left, the final sequencing was done afterwards - and he's gone on record as saying that he's unhappy with the track order (decided by Yule/Sesnick/the Atlantic staff producers) as much as the edits.

The Fully Loaded set reveals that they were fooling around with all kinds of different edits and mixes whilst working on the album. Perhaps the butchered versions of Sweet Jane, Rock'n'Roll and New Age that we all know were originally intended as edited versions for singles, or perhaps were just the result of someone in the studio saying "Hey, we're trying to make a lean commercial pop album, maybe if we edit these bits out it would sound a bit more punchy." I can imagine Reed going "Uh, OK, I guess you could do that just to see what it sounds like" without entertaining any idea of actually releasing that version of the track on the album proper.

Someone really needs to sit down with Lou and the others and try to find out what the real story is with all this stuff.