The Mysterious Forgotten Founder of The Velvet Underground 

I searched long and hard for a video where someone says his name and couldn't find anything, so I just went with my gut. But yes my pronounciation of his name may be incorrect.

In Scotland we tend to say it as “Macleesh” (indistinguishable from MacLeish).

literally who cares?

​@@avidodd26The guy who made the video? Which he showed by gracefully thanking the viewer for pointing it out..constructive criticism is helpful in most cases. Just because you're a nihilist doesn't mean everyone else is. 😜(not an insult btw)

@@avidodd26I do, wiseass!

I didn't know that, that's a very interesting detail indeed!

That is a very interesting box set.

I didn't know that either. Excellent info.

yep, there are bootlegs in existence with maclise playing drums and cale on vocals while lou was laid up with hepatitis

Don't forget that Moe Tucker switched to rhythm guitar while Sterling played lead at that time.

I'm a bit older, but was 'punk' as possible from around '70 to '79. First, the 'Detroit Sound', and then the Velvets and Lou Reed, were my intro and mainstays, and hold a permanent place in my heart. :)

"Outside the Dream Syndicate" is a fucking masterpiece!

I was fortunate enough to witness the 1995 revisiting of Outside The Dream Syndicate. It was awesome! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Aav9yXcSyuo.html

In the early 1970s I studied with Tony Conrad at the University of Buffalo Media Studies "wing". He was on-loan from Antioch, University of Ohio at Yellow Springs. At the time, he was "exploring" what he called "The Flicker Effect": the rapid alternation of black-and-white "Pattern Geometries" on film -- an "interesting field", figure-ground experiment which; ancillary to its espoused intention; could provoke epileptic-like seizures in a small percentage of the test subjects. Ultimately VERY interesting ...and dangerous. I had more than one conversation with Tony -- always a challenge -- wherein we discussed Film as an Art form and, variously, the Fate of the Revolution -- Mercurial, to say the least, and patently unique to his Person/Persona. His influence resonated, and continues to resonate sympathetically in my Art -- the Hallmark of a true Artist and instructor. ✋

@@GAMakin That relates to a discussion on Art that I came across a while ago. It was in relation to Voice of Fire, a very large and very expensive painting that had been purchased by the Canadian federal government. It’s 5.4 metres (18 feet) tall and 2.4 metres (about 8 feet) wide. It was originally commissioned for the 1967 Centennial celebrations. Since it’s an abstract painting consisting of 3 vertical stripes, it was bound to cause some controversy. The stripes are of equal width. The centre vertical stripe is red, while the two outer stripes are black. Two people were discussing the painting, with the usual “Is this Art?” topic. One person was an artist. He explained that No, what’s hanging on the wall is not the Art. The Art is in the viewer’s head. The piece hanging on the wall is the ignitor. When the viewer looks at it, if the Art is effective, it opens the mind to many possibilities. It’s unlikely to produce this effect after a single glance, unless it’s a “fast discharge” type. Many works of art are “slow discharge”, which require a little (or a lot of, or repeated) time to produce their effects/work their magic. One is not better than the other. Both types are equally valid, but the slow discharge type requires you to spend some time with the piece, maybe looking contemplative all the while. Yes, everything that requires looking at can produce Posers, who may be more interested in looking cool than in understanding what the Artist is or was trying to say. Take your time, see if the piece seems to be saying something to you. Maybe you’ll learn something, maybe you won’t. Sometimes the effort is the important part.

Conrad's "Four Violins" opened the door to that species of drone-y music for me. At first, i thought it was obnoxious, then, somehow, i was able to discern the harmonic overtone series and the millions of potential melodies cracked open. Each tone is actually an expanse of tones (fundamental, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.) multiplied by 4, gives you a lot of harmonic and melodic material to "choose your own [melodic] adventure."

I was thinking the same thing!

Thank you so much for the kind words! 🙂 I'm glad my video made you go digging for more info on that scene!

Which coil album is it

@@finnishere3021 Astral Disaster

Thank you! 🙂

Thanks man and thank you for watching it!

Though if we want to be serious about these things rather than immature, self-indulgent dilettantes, spiritual integrity intrinsically involves not being a drug addict. Spiritual integrity involves having the discipline to deny oneself things harmful to oneself and one’s spiritual integrity! And that of course goes for all of us in our lives!

@stalkek I get what you mean and liked your comment. But I disagree entirely. I didn't know this person, or have much additional context beyond what I learned in the video. But from what I did gather, it would seem that he evolved and maintained certain personal spiritual and moral convictions and ethics over an extended period of time, and (apparently) in defiance of difficult opposition and in stead of the comfort and convenience of popular cultural convention and potential financial and material reward... To me, those are some of the defining characteristics of integrity. I think I understand your point that drug addiction and spiritual enlightenment are incompatible. I presume this follows from the belief that anyone so ignorant, selfish and/or confused, so chemically-altered and addled, and so basically self-unaware, etc., can't build or maintain spiritual integrity. Hey, you're probably right... Buuuuut I wouldn't be quick to ascribe a general rule like that (or, hell, ANY kind of rule, for that matter) to something as complex and so individual and so deeply personal as this. Personally, for me, I find the damn thing difficult enough to investigate, analyze, describe, and potentially attain -- even just for me, let alone talking about anybody else -- that I find it kind of arbitrary and maybe useless to try to pin down what is a mostly shifting target. But thanks for your considered reply. I respect your point of view.

I would think a person who is well balanced in all things regarding life and our world, can take drugs that are part of this world. If I walk in a garden and take a poppy pod to chew on, then I do not automatically become excluded from being good to myself and others. My perception of me stays the same, only the ignorant persons around me change their views. If a person is happy taking drugs and dying at 40, let them. As long as they dont hurt others in the process. If for me, or you, living til 40 seems too short, we might need to make some decisions other ways.

I would IMAGINE that heroin sounds much more like The Stranglers' "Golden brown".

I also love them, especially when they are as weird as this one xD

Yes he was influential but he was never in the band. It's like saying John Cage was a forgotten founder. But I get where you are coming from.

Ahhh, wow, it's all coming together

​@@johnziggykelleher4871what a preposterous thing to say

​@@Rich_P_Anya You are misunderstanding. John Cage , Phillip Glass , Robert Fripp , Beethoven to name a few.

But then John Cale also studied and worked under the guidance of John Cage and Yannis Xenskis and tranfered the techniques and ideas he learned there and combined them all into the Velvets sound. So it's not all about LaMonte.

Yeaaa Fluxus is TOP

😆"I have Billy Shepherd you old faker- 🐍.. LOL... lots a luv *not* from da pool that's Liverpool where your *not* from.🙄

🤣@@amarshmuseconcepta6197

Thanks! 🙂

Same question I've always had about Syd Barrett.

It's certainly suggestive of drug (ab)use.

Agreed 150%.

Don't worry, you'll have plenty of company as fans of Yoko Ono when she passes away. You will never imagine that she had so many fans then. There'll be no more jokes about her backing Chuck Berry. 😂

@@Da_Publick cynical but true, therefore funny. Well said

It takes guts to say you're a fan of Yoko Ono I respect that. I saw Sean Lennon in concert in 97 opening up for Pearl jam in Seattle.

​@@Da_PublickI know squares try to make fun of her but she already has lots of fans, for an experimental artist. Work shown in major galleries all the time, sold a lot of records etc

@@jimburton1 She does have fans, even appreciation in some spheres. But you'll think the whole world always loved her, all along, when she passes. They'll be saying she 'pushed The Beatles to greater depths.'

Preach!

There was a fair bit of MacLise stuff issued in the 90s.

@@Spectrescup well, all I can say is we must have missed it or else I've forgotten about it. Better late than never I guess

@@Spectrescup looking there's at least 11 albums of stuff released after his death, pretty amazing amount of stuff.