The Velvet Forum

Getting off topic a bit, I think there is a fine line that divides classic American "garage rock" from punk. The Sonics straddled it, but the VU was something much more than punk. The Monks are classic American Garage Rock. A beautiful example!

Like Lou is quoted on the cover-art to the August '77 "Punk Festival" bootleg, "My current designation as the Godfather of Punk is shit, ridiculous. I'm too literate to be into punk rock."

But doesn't punk have a lot to do with historical context? And as such, how can anything that predates all that '70s prog bullshit that the punk movement was partly a reaction against really be called punk? Of course bands like the Velvets, Sonics, Monks have got things in common with what came later - but that's really just because they're great rock and roll.

I have the Monks album, it's not punk, it's garage rock. I think the Sonics played a much harsher, attitude infested rock and roll just different than the Velvets. The Monks may have been simple and raw, but there wasn't the attitude. Eh. People can argue about this all day.

The historical context of punk is what I was wondering about back there a few posts ago. I'm here in California, but for those of you in Britain and Europe, wasn't punk, I mean PUNK as we know it to be now - as in The Sex Pistols punk - started as a very political and social movement? Was it not a statement about the working class being opressed and creating something of a revolution against their strongly felt oppression? Rather like Blacks have done here in the US, with Rap, etc.?

Whether Lou Reed likes it or not, I do think SOME of his music was a foundation for early, early punk - years & years before the social & political aspect came into being, however. I was in high school when real punk rock came into being (late 70's); but here in the States punk was a music thing; the social point was not quite understandable, or necessary, to Americans, frankly, who were a spoiled rotten bunch, anyway, and besides this country had just emerged from the hell of being split to peices over the VietNam War (we never have gotten back on our feet, but become disgustingly regimented and conservative as a backlash to the VietNam revolution) so was certainly not willing to embrace another revolution.

Anyway, my point is, it seems there's punk MUSIC and a punk MOVEMENT (statement, revolution), and somewhere along the line, the two met and formed a bond. IS this not correct?

I found an excellent site on punk history, including mentions of the VU: http://www.fastnbulbous.com/punk.htm

There's a very direct line from the VU to the Dolls to the Dictators to the Ramones...movement and music, the whole drugs and sex and sexual ambiguity stuff. New York punk and the New York scene wouldn't have existed without the Velvets, does anyone really think there would be a Richard Hell without Lou Reed? Or to a smaller degree, a Johnny Rotten?

I don't get all this talk about Sister Ray and Heroin winning the contest. Briliant as those songs are I make the case for I Heard Her Call My Name:

1. I Heard Her Call My Name is just the right length for a rock song. Thrilling and concise.
2. Its a great lyric, starting out like a blues and then 'my mind split open...'. which leads us to :
3. The guitar solo. Phew. If that guitar solo isn't unrivalled in the history of rock then it is certainly the greatest guitar work of all VU recordings.
4. IHHCMN vs. Sister Ray. Whereas SR has a kind of rockistic bludgeoning behemoth quality, IHHCMN is sharper, stronger, more focused - its battle is on the edge - the song's form always threating to disintegerate, to become subsumed in a chaos but that just holds together. Its in that balance that exists its terrifying beauty. Sister Ray's battle is between the band members, but to me IHHCMN is more the sound of a group working as a unit to try and hold this volatile beast of a song together.
5. Heroin is obviously beautiful, classical, if you like. WFTM is a great driving rock track. Both tracks have great Cale work: viola and piano and its tempting to vote that way for those reasons alone but finally I choose IHHCMN. IHHCMN is a commitmant to the avant garde. It is a beautiful messy and ugly statement. It was written 30 years ago and no one else has caught up - it still sounds cutting edge today. Its also hard to think of IHHCMN being subsumed by mass culture - its far too ugly. Can you imagine it being used in a tyre advert? I rest my case.


Vote I Heard Her Call My Name.

I couldn't agree more, idaredatsun.

I Heard Her Call My Name, is a like a concise version of Sister Ray, but dare I say more volatile. Kind of like nuclear explosion, condensing Sister Ray down almost to the point of critical mass, but not quite imploding on itself.