The Who

I just watched The Who at Kilburn 1977 dvd and I can tell you that it is unsurpassed. Amazing. What starts off as a shaky "Can't Explain" (the band hadn't performed in over a year together) turns into a monster of a show. Shot with multiple 35mm cameras and remastered in digital surround it almost blew up my simple 27" TV. Pete seems rather pissed off at something and turns his anger into a performance unlike one I've ever seen from him. He looks like he just finished the Empty Glass cover shoot and wandered over to Kilburn eager to keep up with the punks. Which he does in spades. Roger paces in circles. Pete mocks him. Entwistle is surely The Ox. Moon holds the whole thing together. Pundits harp about how out of shape Keith is but I don't buy it. He's a mongrel, canine. He plays with such ferociousness, especially on "My Wife," and the closing moments of "Won't Get Fooled Again" are so cool that I watched it over and over again.

The second disc, with the band playing at the London Coliseum in 1969, is like finding the Holy Grail under the seat of a taxi. It's a monster set featuring the earliest recorded performance on film of a complete performance of Tommy. An amazing and brilliant piece of film.


Thanks to Paul Crowder et al., for bringing this and his Grammy nominated Who doc The Amazing Journey to an eager public in 2008.

For those living in Los Angeles, Paul is playing with Jim Wirt and Brian Coffman (Fools Face) at O'brien's pub in Santa Monica on January 23. They will be performing Tommy and it's a show not to be missed




ap-2009

Fall Out Boy already the worst band of 2009

I was at a party on NYE. A great one. Dick Clark's Ryan Seacrest Bigtoothed Bullshit Rockin' Eve Extravaganza beamed silently at us throughout the last hour of 2008. The people in the audience sucked. The other performers sucked. Alan Thicke's son Robin performed! Wow. Some chick had yellow crap on her eyes. The audience looked like robots and still sucked yet again. Fergie and Ryan turned my brain to jello. Then came Fall Out Boy.

What a joke. 2008 wasn't even over and yet they claimed the crown of Worst Act of the Year. Just in the nick. As 2008 rolled over into 2009 there they were again to hold on to that sacred trophy for 365 more days. How do you think they do it? What makes them so bad?

Fall Out Boy are a cartoon. A really bad cartoon. They are what is wrong with music today. Why nothing that the radio plays has any substance. Not that the radio wouldn't mind playing music with meaning and staying power. They are why the major labels breathe with heavy and phlegm filled lungs. A little boy Spice Girl collective of every bad genre that every Wal-Mart in the country can shit out.

Fall Out Boy is a Jason Mraz (now there's a tool) lead singer who can't quite find his voice. An Adrian Brody/Strokes/Neo-Manhattan lead guitarist who wishes he was Mars Volta. Animal on the drums. Not quite Dave Grohl and surely not Chuck Biscuits who despite having no reason to play shirtless, insists on it. He's there to reassure all you Disturbed fans that Fall Out Boy has some balls and some tattoos. Then, there's Pete Wentz. For the love of god someone kidnap him. A mexican drug cartel. Terrorists. The Westminster Dog Show. They don't have to release him, just keep him until my death then let the world get reacquainted with his 15 minutes. He's a wet nap ass with his bogus outfits, his pathetic strumming bass style, and au natural Anthony Keidis good looks. In fact he has all the staying power of a Kiedis rhyming couplet. I hate him.

I guess one of the things I'll have to look forward to besides the inauguration is watching the relative rate of decline of Fall Out Boy.

sp - 2009

Editor's note; It was reported on Jezebel that Pete Wentz has stopped reading blogs because he's tired of being called a "douchebag." We didn't call him that but wish we had!

The Benjamin Orr Trifecta

"Moving in Stereo" was just floating in from the coffee shop next door. I know it's eternally connected to Phoebe Cates' body and rightly so but it's only the middle section of three perfect songs to me.

I played the hell out of The Cars when it came out. From the first day my dad brought it home from the record shop he owned, it was mine. I played it inside and out. I got the cassette. Played it on my boom box at school. I did the same thing with Candy-O. I took both the tapes and played them nonstop on a school bus trip. Everyone needed to be a Cars fan, I thought.

The trifecta that is "Bye, Bye Love," "Moving in Stereo," and "All Mixed Up" is a beautiful thing. I love the entire album but side 2 is where it's always at. "You're All I've Got Tonight," leading off the side, is one of Ocasek's best songs and the never skip a beat moment that pops right into "Bye, Bye Love" always gets me where it hurts. It sets off over ten minutes of one of the best song sequences in rock. I don't want to blather on about how much I love of which particular song but Orr's vocals are sublime, perfect, wonderful. Eliot Easton's playing is over the top, and Greg Hawke's keys, synths, and especially his sax solo closing out the album on "All Mixed Up" is simply put, a reason to start the album over again.

Here it is, in parts, but worth the time to watch.

Shake, Rattle, and more shakes.

Jerry Garcia and I only have one thing in common. Even from the grave a dead person can still have something in common with another person. It's true. I've done the research. Julie Andrews may have the same flat feet as Harpo Marx. Paul Weller might have, say, the same love of hangnails as Ernest Hemingway. Paris Hilton could be walking around with the same unsightly tongue mole that plagued Audrey Hepburn. It happens. Does that make the living doppelgangers for the dead? Maybe. Does my chocolate shake addiction, the thing I have in common with Jerry Garcia, make me likelier to wear black T-shirts as a force of habit and grow a groovy beard? No. But the addiction may kill me. Not as slow-fast-slow as heroin but it may give me the betes and no one wants that.

The Queen City Roller staff was sent out across the region to recon various shake making establishments and to report back with their findings. Your humble editor graciously agreed to accompany staff on their trips to various chocolate shake making huts to provide an unbiased second opinion. Here are the results. Remember, only chocolate shakes were served because that's all Jerry Garcia liked. And the editor too.

Steak n' Shake - With an "n" in your name, how can you not suck? Yuck. Yuck Yuck. Steak n' Shake shakes are awful. They have the taste of really cheap chocolate syrup, like government cheese chocolate syrup and sometimes, malt gets mixed in with the shake. The worst part about Steak n' Shake shakes besides the taste is the terrible value of their to-go cups. For just under $4 you get a plastic cup that tapers just under the lip making it just a few ounces bigger than a small. One time, in desperation, I ordered a large shake. The soda jerk made me a small. "I ordered a large," I said. He then took the small and poured it into a large cup! Can you believe it? Jerk.

All fast food shakes - suck. The value is bad and they're all made too fast to care. Only Hardee's uses the hand dipped method but their size to value ratio is the pits. And, all the shakes taste the same. Shitty. Oh, and don't skimp on shaky goodness by letting them top the things off with whipped cream. It's a trick used by the big coffee chains to rip you off. I mean, you want more frappy coffee goodness, not whipped fucking cream. If you were to get a Slurpee you wouldn't stop before the top and then add a bunch of white stuff? No! You would fill it up so even the dome was packed. That's the way you do it.

Andy's - tastes like a Wendy's Frosty and it's $4 more. Bad deal. Buy the Frosty and don't call it a shake. I will add that I bet Andy's uses better ingredients.

Braum's = awesome! 4.9 stars out of 5. Braum's shakes are huge, no tapered cups, no whipped cream. These shakes are brimming with cool goodness and the staff, who see you drive up every day, have the courage to call you by your first name. You're a regular. You're their hero. Braum's uses hormone free milk and ice cream that they make themselves in Oklahoma. It's Okiefied and it's full of natural goodness. The only reason Braum's is a 4.9 and not a 5 is because it's not...

Casper's - That's right! Tommy makes the best shake in town. Tall. Good. Wonderful. Casper's might even use the cheap stuff but it's the way it's presented, over flowing like the burgers and chili, that makes the chocolate shake at Casper's top shelf. Their chocolate shakes are addictive, like heroin, and that's why Jerry Garcia, were he alive today and living in The Queen City, would be sipping a tall cool one while coming off a nod, at Casper's.

ap - 2008

Finally Facing My Waterloo.

It's no secret that I love Abba! Between 1974 and 1977 all I listened to were Elton John, Queen, Heart, Abba, and Disco. The wonder that I am not the homosexual is not lost on me. I've figured out that when The Cars and The Police came around they spoke to me and I then I found myself. And the girls quite fancied my new waviness. I guess that makes me Ducky. So what.

I stood in for my girlfriend last night for "girls movie night out" at Mamma Mia. As much as I love Abba I hate musicals, unless they're Tommy, Hedwig, or RHPS. The little woman had a migraine. Old friends were in town. She really wanted to go but her brain was doing the clampdown. So, I was her proxy. I had a great time.

Mamma Mia was a delight. Wonderfully cast, Meryl Streep is great, scenic locals, great Abba hits and some filler songs that stunk. I thought the interpretations of the songs, the skillful use of lyrical content with plot, and the whole movie felt like The Tempest. Maybe it was the whole Greek thing. Tempest fugit.

I was disappointed with the absence of "Knowing Me, Knowing You." One of the all time best videos, best songs, and best fucking everything. It's usually an open-mic stunner. Still, I got to sing it in the car on the way home.

One more thing, Pierce Brosnan is a singing penis. I don't mean a euphemism for penis, I mean an actual penis. Either that or a really sexy Gordon Lightfoot.

And you couldn't get a better recommendation than that.
Now, sing along to this.


ap - 2008

The Broken West

Jason whipped I Can't Go On, I'll Go On by The Broken West my way last spring. I love it. This is wonderful, pure, Power Pop sent from the clouds. The Broken West, out of sunny LA, open the album with one of the best tunes of the last five years, "On the Bubble." This track makes any brilliant pop cassette even better. It gives a striking opening punch to any comp you put together. The rest of the album is just amazing and as much as I repeat "On The Bubble," "You Can Build An Island" is my favorite track. There's great guitar work here, brilliant harmonies, and this is such a strong, kick ass debut, that I'm going to stand in the street and scream about it.

Their sophomore effort, Now Or Heaven, has just been released. I haven't heard it yet but that's going to be part of my life's work for the next few days.

Just get the damn thing.

ap -2008

The Raspberries - "I Wanna Be With You"

The Raspberries "I Wanna Be With You"

Released 1972

Ah, the opening track on "Fresh." You can't beat an album that opens with a simple drum roll that segues into chiming, open chords, and lyrics about teenage romance. "I Wanna Be With You" makes Vietnam seem like a distant memory, even if it's 1972. Just think about it, there you are in your Duster driving to the "Stop n Shop" thinking about Vietnam, if only for a minute, and the DJ spins out this nugget of pure powerpop shang-a-lang. You can't help but go faster, turn up that factory-in dash stereo, and drive straight to your girlfriend's house or trailer. Chances are she's got a cooler car.
Dad bought her that Nova.

And you knew that tonight would feel so right didn't you? I mean you've been seeing her for what four months and she hasn't given it up? Well Eric Carmen's made everything alright for you... He's given you an in. There's nothing that would make a 1972 Ohio evening perfect and all that silly war crap go away than you and your girl, in the back of her car, with "I Wanna Be With You" blaring the hi-fi. It's like Eric Carmen is Cyrano. He's taking the panties off for you. He's so convincing. Your love could really live forever, tonight.

But be careful. For while "I Wanna Be With You" is one of the greatest powerpop songs of all time, I mean all the ingredients are there, it's all harmonies, a walking bass line, chimey guitars, the verses are only two frickin' lines, the song does have one of rock's signature lyrics encouraging date rape...

"Hold me tight

Our love could live forever after tonight

If you believe that what we're doing is right

Close your eyes and be still."

Or it's the best line to get into a girl's pants EVER!

ap-2007

"Go All The Way" b/w "I Wanna Be With You"

The super sugar sweet world of 80s Pandora

I work at a library. Next door, at the coffee shop, great people do great things. Large doors separate us but they're always open and the ace kicking stink of coffee and the musical what-nots of any employee fill this space that's traditionally hush, hush. Mallory, could be blasting some Guided By Voices or Sonic Youth. Jami, likes things soft and twangy. Ian, he's a songwriter guy and frankly too sensitive for a Dutchman. Tom, he's all over the map.

There's a turntable at the coffee shop and Tom, has a crate full of records. Leon Russell, Big Bambu, The Commodores, Sly Stone, Cat Stevens. These records hide how much of a Rush fan he really is. Huge. He could be Geddy Lee if he wasn't Tom. He's that much Rush. Maple or Oak, he can't decide which tree he likes better. I bet when he's driving, Tom's marching with the Oaks but when he's with his daughters it's the Maples. This morning was a different story.

The beauty of Pandora is how easily we can lose ourselves in our own usness. That shit we picked out is US. Okay, I wouldn't have picked Six Pence but I did pick out The Sundays and Pandora got that one right. Harriet Wheeler can do no wrong. Tom loves the Pandora.

This morning it's 80s hits: Our House, Howard Jones, Heart and Soul, Outfield, Quaterflash, Romantics, Donald Fagen from that fucking awesome and don't you fucking forget it smash album that I can never forget and absolutely tell everybody I know to get it, The Nightfly. Dexy's, Duran Duran, Bangles, Sewing Machines of Love, Culture Club, King of goddamn Pain. Berlin, No More Words, a personal favorite of mine for private reasons that will remain private. Okay, sexy dancing. I really need to hear Lene Lovich's Lucky Number to complete an incomplete vision of dark haired, sexy dancing, Serbian, 1980s eroticism.



Watching the sunrise over such a beautiful park as the one we have here is made all the more special by Come On Eileen. If I only had a pair of coveralls that would really cover all. And a floppy hat. That would really make the people outside follow me around and "Toora Loo-Rye-Aye!" And who doesn't want to do that in the first days of Fall?


ap - 2008

The first time I heard the MC5

This is one of my formative experiences...

I was working at Hastings (an old entertainment store in Springfield, MO) and there was this really cool guy name Chris who worked there. He was a few years older than I was, (I was 21) and way more knowledgable about music than I was, but I was trying to play cool with him. We were talking about stuff and the topic wandered over to Henry Rollins and I was like, "Oh, I love 'Kick Out the Jams' that song rocks" and he looked at me kinda funny. He says, "You've heard the MC5 version right?" like he's afraid of my answer. I said, "Huh?" He jumped up and down, and was yelling, "Oh my God! Wait till close! You're about to get an education!" I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

The store closed...half the lights were out, and from the huge soundsystem in the store I hear, "KICK OUT THE JAMS, MUTHAFUCKA!" and it was bliss from there on out. Suddenly I was launched into this whole new world of ROCK that was different from what the mainstream rock was that I was listening to. I didn't know anything but while I was standing there in the book section, mouth agape, soaking it all in, I thought, "I must have more of this." (I'd been listening to Radiohead a lot) To hear the MC5 for the first time like that was like the Heavens parting and the voice of the Almighty saying, "Let there be Rock!" (like in the AC/DC song) just for me.
I had heard rock before, but it was cold and empty. This had swing and was loose but tight all at the same time. The bass was what sucked me and swirled me around and pulled at my gut. The howls were unparalleled and the mix allowed me to imagine they were just on the roof rockin' the house down. I wish everyone coulda had that experience. It's a great one.

So, thank you, Chris for tearing me away from the shoe-gazers and the imitators. Thank you for an experience I will never forget. Thanks to you, I'll be in the nursing home, with Alzheimer's, happily screaming "Kick out the Jams Muthafucka!"

jae - 2006

How I fell in love with Rock and Roll

My folks have never been music lovers. This has always struck me as odd because my dad's uncle, Don Day, has practically dedicated his life to bluegrass music. He converted his dairy farm in Conway, Missouri into a sort of amphitheatre / campground hybrid, and puts on a fairly large bluegrass festival (Starvey Creek Festival) twice a year. Uncle Don's vision and hard work seems to have paid off, too. He doesn't milk cows anymore. Anyway, one might think that this passion for music would have made its way down the gene pool to my father. But it didn't. When I was small, you could count the records in our house on one hand: a couple of Ventures albums that I suspect he bought for the bikini clad girls on the cover, a carpenters album, and a couple of (fat era) Elvis 45's. These were all filed away neatly in the console of the record player that was seldom touched.

Around the time that I was about ten or eleven years old, my folks decided that the old record player was of no use to the family. The record player, it's console, and the contents inside were hauled away (big loss, I mean the fucking Carpenters?!). It's likely that this may have been inspired by one of those "purge your lives of rock music" sermons that we heard at church regularly, but I can't be sure of that

A couple of years later, we moved to a new house with a basement. One day I was rummaging around in the basement looking for a tennis ball that I'd been aimlessly bouncing against the wall for what seemed like hours when I came across an LP that had fallen between the cracks and ended up in the same cardboard box that my tennis ball had landed in. The record's jacket was mustard yellow. In the middle was a circular "fish eye" photo of three really freaky looking guys with huge Afros. Printed across the bottom, in bold purple letters and a font that reminded me of wax dripping down the shaft of a candle were the words, Are You Experienced? "Clearly not," I thought to myself; and I desperately wanted to be.

The image that those three guys (especially the one in the middle) projected from that album cover was irresistible to me. The only problem was that I had no turntable to play this LP on. I tucked the record under my arm, bolted upstairs, and stashed it away alongside my sports illustrated swimsuit issues. It just felt like contraban somehow. I'd get it out every now and then and just stare at it and wonder what kind of sounds would jump out of those grooves if I ever had the chance to drop a needle in them.

By the time I got to the ninth grade, my folks had noticed how much in enjoyed listening to the radio in the car and bought me a "boom box" type cassette player/radio (though I still had no tapes). Also around this time, I had earned their trust enough to be dropped off at the mall on Friday nights with my friends. One of the first things I did when I got there was head straight for Camelot to get a copy of Are You Experienced? on cassette so I could finally hear it (I had actually skipped lunch all week and pocketed my lunch money so I could afford it). My friends laughed. They were all listening to Tone Loc and Vanilla Ice. I didn't care. Hell, if I'd had my own ride, I would have left right then. The suspense had been building for about a year and I couldn't wait to satisfy my curiosity.

Anyone familiar with this classic album can probably guess the rest of the story. My life was changed when I heard the grinding, opening riff of Purple Haze. And the backward guitar riff on the title track even frightened me (still does a little bit). Though it seems obvious now, at the time I could hardly believe how great this music was and the jacket (as much as I love it) paled in comparison. I was hooked

je- 2008

Portishead - Portishead - 1997

Got the second Portishead cd at the library. Pretty stunning. They're one of those countless bands that I've always read glowing things about, but have never gotten around to hearing. My only objection is that the gal singing (Beth Gibbons) emphasizes the nasally, cutting edge of her voice more often than she needs to. She clearly has some good vocal abilities, and uses them accordingly. I could stand to hear more of her subtle, breathy, back-of-the-throat singing more often. That fingernails on blackboard singing fits some of the tunes, but a little goes a long way with me. Having said that, what an amazing, dark, creepy, hazy musical world those folks have created. David Lynch nightmare druggy evil clown music. The perfect soundtrack to Cindy McCain following you through the woods in a blood-stained wedding dress while clutching a meat-cleaver and smiling the whole time as she softly intones, "turn around and look into my eyes, my eyes, my sweet white eyes..."

mh - 2008

Tom Petty - Even the Losers

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Even The Losers"
Released November, 1979

"It's just the normal noises in here."

Yeah, just what you would've expected from Petty in 1979, but "Damn the Torpedoes" is anything but normal. It's like the band operated from within some genius brain. I don't think it's all Jimmy Iovine's doing but someone, something, made one of the greatest albums ever and in the fall and spring 79-80 I suddenly realized what it was to be an individual. I mean look at the cover! Signature black suit coat, probably velvet, a simple red shirt, and a Rickenbaker so cool I bought one. Hell, I bought the whole goddamn look. "Damn the Torpedoes," song for song, taught me what it meant to be cool and at 15 I really needed to be cool. I'd had enough of Darren Kinney spitting on me in the halls of Parkview High.

I didn't really have a connection with "I'm One" by The Who in 1979 but "Even the Losers" proved to me that the best music isn't written by bullies. The best pop songs are about everyday guys and gals getting off or getting one over on the Nugents of the world.

Ever have a summer when it was just you and the girl or guy at the lake? Or your neighbor that you've always hung out with but when the hair started to grow all you could really think about was them? That's where the guy in "Even the Losers" lives. It's the moment. That time when nothing else matters but hanging out on the roof, smoking mom's stolen Pall Malls, and pointing out things that are further away then the nearest star. Three months of lovin', touchin', and squeezin' and then at the end of it all they're gone. They're all you can think about and school really sucks.

Who knew that guys like you could get that lucky? Skipping rocks, skinny dipping, heavy petting, and maybe making it to a Babys song. It may never happen again and part of you hopes that it never does. "God it's such a drag when you're livin in the past."

Big Rickenbaker chords and a simple D-A-G melody aren't all it really takes for "Even the Losers" to work. Stan Lynch's shaker and fuck-all fills combined with Benmont Tench's great, thick, Hammond chords texture and frame the song through the first two verses and chorus. They give a little extra in the bridge but after the last chorus, as Mike Campbell plays a second solo that shoots the song home, the whole band just makes you move. The Heartbreakers spin you with the promise that everything after this moment is going to be awesome and that "even the losers get lucky sometime."

"Oh-oh-oh-OH!"



ap - 2008

Squeeze

Me mate was visiting from college in 1996. It was the beginning of fall, as I sat copying all the Velvets' songs I had never heard before from his "Peel Slowly and See" box set to two used cassette tapes. I immediately fell in love with the early demos. "Sheltered Life" and "It's all right the way that you live", showed me a VU that I had never dreamt of before. I also got my first taste of Doug Yule's Velvets. It would be another 8 years before I would run across "Squeeze" in my brother's crates during a mini-vacation at his apartment in Springfield, MO.

I still listen to the Velvet Underground. Although now it is an occasional selection from the "Loaded" extras, like "Ocean" and "Ride into the Sun". And of course, "Squeeze". "Squeeze" means as much to me as the very discovery and re-discovery of music itself. That is because "Squeeze", though minted in 1972, seems to me, to embody that "lost" age: perhaps Doug as a ten year old boy, listening to old radio programs before his folks could ever afford a television. That "lost" age is in all of us. However, it is lost out of society as a whole, never pressed elsewhere for fear of some base corruption by the coarse minds and ears of unworthy n'er-do-well's. I was fourteen or fifteen when I bought "The Velvet Underground and Nico".

Walking into Starship Records and Tapes in 1991, the scrawny pre-adolescent kid who couldn't yet make a distinction between Metallica and Public Image Limited, approached the old longhaired dude at the counter."I want to buy an album by the Velvet Underground," I told him. Of course, his first question was: "Do you want album 'The Velvet Underground?'""No." I said. "I want the Velvet Underground and Nico." It would be another five years when Dan returned from school, before I would ever hear Doug Yule's immortal voice on 'Candy Says'. But I liked the tape I ended up buying that day, especially "Sunday Morning", which I feel to reflect that quality of "lost" time, found again and again as we move from album to album. Now I am not sure if "The Velvet Underground" and "Loaded" are better than the first two albums because of: A: The fact that they had lost all their sound effect equipment and were forced to actually come up with some groovy tracks without using effects to make them sound good. Or B: The fact that they were one of those bands that makes greater and greater albums successively. Or C: God forbid, the fact that they no longer had John Cale was a positive thing. Or D: The addition of Doug Yule's particular style was the prime factor.

When I found "Squeeze" hidden among my brother's records back in 2003, I knew I was on to something good. I had never heard of it. But when I saw 10 tracks I was not familiar with on the back cover, I quickly produced a cassette and taped it. For a period of time, not being familiar with the album, I assumed Lou Reed was singing. I didn't know he had nothing to do with the album. I also had thought that he sang Candy says and all the tracks on "Loaded". This was probably because the liner notes on "Squeeze" are sparse. Furthermore, although "Squeeze" was made sans Reed, Tucker, and Morrison, it is without a doubt worthy of the status of being labeled an album by the Velvet Underground.

Remember the lost time of post-December 2002. How the winter in Tulsa was coming on—when I brought the cassette with me back from Springfield, and couldn't keep it out of my little recorder-walkman. There was heavy ice on the ground that winter. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, gasping for air, and frying tempura chicken at the restaurant I worked in by day. My cassette was originally intended to be a compilation. It had Neil Young, Radiohead, King Crimson, and the Replacements. But when I was looking for the next song to put on, I had found gold. It was "Squeeze". I thought "that's real nice." I also filled side "B" with "The Stooges", although I cut "Anne" in half, regretting it later.

That time in my life was very sad, and that album made me feel warm. It was cold outside and my heater was a piece of shit. I suppose at that moment Cale was trying to be too avant-garde, so Reed kicked him out. After all, he had Yule who had then come on the scene with a more subtle sound. I imagine Reed felt then like he could finally have free reign and do what he wanted using Yule to support his agenda. "The Velvet Underground" was obviously Lou's baby. All the tracks show his influence, (the "closet" mixes). I think Yule was afraid to come out too much with his ideas, like he really had no pull in the band, having just joined a band that had already been around for 5 years.

Even though Candy Says has a slight affectation of Yule simply because it's him singing, I think on "Loaded" he finally felt comfortable and/or was allowed more opinions of where the album was going. We hear Yule's contributions not just in the "Loaded" tracks he sings, but on "Train round the bend" for instance. Lou is singing, and that driving bass may be Morrison, but the bass sound is essentially Yule.

Yule's sound at that time was essentially whimsical. It shows most of all, on his baby, "Squeeze". Cale and Nico era VU was very avant-garde, as opposed to when Yule had his sway, with his signal touch of the whimsical sigh. We all know that Yule pretty much had free reign with Squeeze, mostly because Polydor wanted to cash in on a final VU album. It may be true that essentially it was Yule's solo album with a VU moniker, but it's just not a bad trade when you think about it. He must have had second thoughts about releasing it as a VU album. I feel like he was then pressed by Polydor to call it a VU album, giving in, in the end because he knew he could have pretty much free reign to make it sound like he wanted it to sound. Polydor was happy as long as they had a product, but it backfired when it was not initially received.

It was decided not to release the album in America. It may be said that they knew that VU fans wanted to hear a VU album, and not Yule's solo stuff, and that it's not a VU album. To me, Squeeze was a totally free chance for Yule to record his special sound, musical freedom given by releasing the album as a VU album. For starters, Squeeze typifies the early seventies bass-driven roots rock, comparable only to some of McCartney's solo work for it's whimsy and heavy bass. And it has an unparalleled nostalgia permeating it, which despite it's roots rock formulas, seems it could have been found in a record store fifty years hence, because of the piano aspect. This made it essentially a mixture of ballad Americana and seventies roots rock and a touch of nostalgia thrown in.

* * *
Thirty-three and a half. The Age of Christ at the time of his passion: also, the length in minutes of Doug Yule's masterwork, "Squeeze". This is a lovely juxtaposition. I ascribe three major qualities to "Squeeze". The songs are either primarily one or the other, always a hint, though in every song. It is primarily Americana. It has a touch of whimsical nostalgia. At the heart, however, of the work, is pure seventies roots rock. When it isn't whimsical nostalgia, it is the bass that drives the music on Squeeze.

I don't like "Squeeze" because it's by the Velvet Underground. I like it because it's a great damn album. Of course, if "Squeeze" was by Rod Stewart, I'm not sure I would have picked it out of my brother's crate of vinyl. I think it's funny that after being a big VU fan for over 10 years, I had never heard of Squeeze. And most people I know have never heard of it either.

A great band can take time away from us. They can make us forget our sorrows when they are rife, and make us remember them when we are happy. Time has no beginning and no end, if you can replay it over and over and over again. This is shown in the Akashic records. If one is to breathe deep enough and long enough, he can remember those childhood days when we could not differentiate between kinds and qualities, only sounds.

I remember the eras well. There is the time surrounding my purchase of "The Velvet Underground and Nico". I would hang out at the Metro Diner and smoke pot behind the buildings across the street. I had a wooden pipe with a glassy stone above the bowl I bought at the Starship headshop, which, along with the record store, wasn't but a block or two away. Often I would go in there before I hitched a ride home or had mother come and pick me up. One particular night I remember buying these matches that smelled like incense, if you let them burn down all the way. Of all my Velvet Underground eras, however, I appreciate the most that winter I came back to Tulsa with "Squeeze". I went to Springfield with a copy of "Watership Down", which I never finished because it was boring, and I came back with "The Mucker" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I never finished because it got ruined by water.

Then, of course, there is the summer of 2001 right after returning to Tulsa and the Immortal Cherry Street. "The Velvet Underground" was on my walkman at the time, and I found myself constantly humming "Candy Says" and "Pale Blue Eyes" as I was contemplating oblivion at my astute job at Jason's Deli which I absolutely hated. I also had a job at the Saint Louis Bread down the street. I mention also that wonderful age of 25, when I roamed the streets of downtown Tulsa alone at three oclock in the morning, listening to "Transformer".

However, when it comes to the pedantic, the most salient of my VU epochs was the winter of early 2003, when songs like "Caroline", and "Mean Old Man" were resounding in my satiated ears. I cannot place much in the manner of the album, probably because I did not grow up in the late fifties. But if I had, I most certainly would understand the novelty of "Squeeze", for I am sure, having seen movies, that there is a quiet age of reflection for Yule in those days, as if not only he was ten, but time itself, spent quietly composing the piano parts in some little apartment in New York.Expecially the three tracks ("She'll Make You Cry", "Wordless", and "Friends" also the end of "Louise"), are unarguably the most significant aspect of the timeless feeling of Squeeze. The wistful, almost somber expectancy of these tracks contributes a plethora of memories of some remote age, doubtless the less-known musics of the late fifties, the time of his middle childhood.Of course, all the other tracks on "Squeeze" have some nostalgic hint at the music of the late fifties, but the one I posit the most erstwhile timlessness is "Friends".

"Friends" is my favorite song on "Squeeze". As I listen to it now, as I hear the needle touch the vinyl, I am utterly swept into what love felt like when I was ten. However, it also has a hint of what love feels like to me now, and there you have it. Sitting in an attic somewhere with a girl my age, listening to an old recording perhaps dug out of some musty box, I can look into her eyes and know: sighing: total resignation.But the soft novelty of "Friends" is not the only appreciable aspect of "Squeeze". It is quickly followed by "Send No Letter", which, being my least favorite track on "Squeeze" simply because the husht confidence of "Friends" is abruptly broken by it. Nevertheless, it is still a jiving, bootlegging romp replete with the signature Yule bass-piano combination. I do like the song, but, coming after "Friends", any song could easily become my least favorite song.

Two facts remain ambiguous. One is: how could Reed, who was rumored to have been upset about "Squeeze" being labeled a VU album when they resurrected in 1990, place Yule 'out' of the lineup? After all, did not Reed recruit him to play on "Sally Can't Dance" and even touring with him in the 1970's? And why does no one know the identity of the females whose backing vocals add that faint touch of eternal sighing that is so prominent on this album? Has no one asked Doug this question? And if so, why is he so loath to produce the truth? Could it be that these women are in actuality victims of a possible Yule blackout due to excessive drinking and drug use? This is a probable explanation and my personal opinion of the mystery of the matter. And it ends. The driving bass and piano again repeat a simple formula perhaps heard in a saloon in 1870's Kansas. A straight romp called "Louise" that employs a progression of repetitions starting with the bass and piano, with that existent chorus "But everybody knows you used to dance the hoochy-coo". Then a subtle use of organ, ending in the quiet repetition of a single hum, over and over and over again, marking that distinctive quality of forlorn childhood love that is so prominent somehow in each and every track on "Squeeze".

If you listen to it for even a moment, it is hard to understand why it was "thumbed-down" by Velvets fans, who termed it "The Velveteen Underground". I like it. I also like cheese.

wcl - 2008