Cale disrupts ROTC with Bagpipes

[velvetfan]

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2011/01/0 ... e-vietnam/

In the Long Shadow of the Vietnam War: American Post-Vietnam War Era Individual, Collective and Cultural Memory Since Vietnam
By Kevin A. Stoda (2002)

Memories All Around Us?Every American seems to have his or her memory of Vietnam, whether they experienced the Vietnam War personally, saw something in a movie, or heard stories that others have told.

Sterling Morrison, founder of the influential band The Velvet Underground and a former professor of English at the University of Texas in Austin, recalls meeting the Velvet Underground? lead guitarist one day at his campus dormitory in Syracuse, New York. As the ROTC was marching down below, John Cale, had grabbed a set of bagpipes. ?Cale had tried to interrupt the ROTC. He blasted them with bagpipes. This particular episode led to Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison?s quick discovery of John Cale. This eventually led to the forming of one of the most famous avante gard band of all-time.

[Mark]

Interesting - in the version of this story in Victor Bockris' Reed biog, it's Lou who is blasting the ROTC with a record of bagpipe music played through the open windows of his campus dorm.

[Sheila Klein]

Interesting - in the version of this story in Victor Bockris' Reed biog, it's Lou who is blasting the ROTC with a record of bagpipe music played through the open windows of his campus dorm.

Of course. Cale has probably not been to Syracuse University still to this day. (Although I'd remembered the story as Reed blasting guitar, through an amp planted in his open dormroom window.)

Since this event was from c.1963 at the latest, a good two years before anti-Vietnam protest began in earnest, Reed's gesture almost certainly was not intended as a VN War protest. All in all I don't see that Stoda's story should be granted any credibility.

--Phil M.

[gazatthebop]

[/quote]

Of course. Cale has probably not been to Syracuse University still to this day.

--Phil M.[/quote]


yes he has.

[gibson343]

Of course. Cale has probably not been to Syracuse University still to this day.

--Phil M.[/quote]


yes he has.[/quote]

The Jabberwocky May 3 1985 for one...

[radiofreesimulacrum]

he article give this
"Sterling Morrison. Rec. Fall 1984. Interviewer Karl Pallmayo. Audio Tape of Cushing Library and Archives: Oral History?ietnam Generation Section , Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas. "

As the referance to the story.
Is it possible that Sterling was screwing around with the interviewer an gave him misinformation?

[DavidH]

he article give this
"Sterling Morrison. Rec. Fall 1984. Interviewer Karl Pallmayo. Audio Tape of Cushing Library and Archives: Oral History?ietnam Generation Section , Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas. "

As the referance to the story.
Is it possible that Sterling was screwing around with the interviewer an gave him misinformation?

I don't think an academic would screw around like that, although if we could hear the tape, that would certainly clear things up.