If you mashed up "White Light/White Heat" or "Sister Ray" with Beethoven's fifth symphony and played it at a German cafe, it might piss off a lot of Germans and make them leave. They should get over Beethoven some time. He probably didn't write all of those symphonies by himself. Nothing in Art is original. Beethoven maybe was a con artist like Don Trump. He's got the golden touch but he's King Midas in Reverse and all he touches turns to dust in his hands. He is the Master of Disaster and a American Napoleon in Rags driving his boot through the face of the Statue of Liberty. (He probably wants to buy this gift from France, too and give it to his wife so he can get into her pants one more time.)
I know the drumming is really simple, but I've got to give props to Moe Tucker for staying as solid as a rock for all eight and half minutes. There's something almost zen the way she just keeps the driving backbeat on time without indulging in a single fill. It keeps the song grounded, despite all the methed-out chaos around her.
What's an indie band? Is that like a concept that you buy from SubPop? Independent labels always sell out because it's part of the process of becoming part of the music industry.
I used to sit in my friends garage when I was 17 and smoke bucket bongs out of all old paint bucket and 2 litre bottle of orange. We'd be fucking baked and getting wrecked listening to this and Canned Heat. Fucking good times.
Hank Funk Punk it was a GREAT era 100% but to say it’s ahead of the now times..... not so sure, there is music so intensely innovative now days but you have to search for it, the radio\ media will not play any of it
abo-abo You’re listening to the wrong music. If you’re not into the modern pop, why not try exploring the indie scene? There’s a ton of psychedelic bands out there too if you want complexity.
Listen to Kevin Ayers "Singing A Song In The Morning" and it's outtake "Religious Experience". Syd guests on some decidedly Velvetsy guitar runs for real!
You can bet by late 67 Barrett heard Velvets. He certainly heard Love. Bowie heard Velvets by then as the Riot Squad covered Venus in their lyrics. And played Waiting For The Man.
@@lawrencefeldman7744 I doubt cause Syd's been playing like that before 67 which can be heard in Interstellar Overdrive's take from 'London 66-67' which I think was recorded in Jan 67.
Sterling and Lou. The real dynamic duo of Rock and Roll Guitar. Props to Maureen and Doug for holding the beat and backing them up. Overall best version ever!
Well, she was the Velvet’s Ringo. (though Ringo was a much better drummer) I mean, like Ringo, she played just what the Velvet songs required. She was a time keeper and made enough noise and added atmospherics when needed(check out her playing on Heroin or Ocean). A drummer addicted to playing fills galore would have wrecked VU ‘s songs.
thenoosehangsfromheaven S U P P O S E D L Y Well Said.. I’m a fan of those drummers like Elvin Jones, but then there’a people like Olatunji (major influence on Moe) that matters too.
Absolutely love this live version, it's the pinnacle of this turning point of possibilities of rock music at least for 1968, and the fact that this bands popularity is like what an indie band is today, it's like obviously based in blues but then the improvisational experimental jam is so ahead of its time
hippiecheezburger blues based improv? Maybe Cream.. but not really VU.. I dig both bands, but VU is more part Bo Diddley, and part Drone Avantegarde La Monte Young, and part Albert Ayler free jazz..
It's because these idiots didn't know how to play anything else and they didn't care because they wanted to spit on the flower power generation and give the finger to their generation and previous ones as well. But this music could only be made in New York where the beats surfaced and brought music to poetry while the rest of the country slept and then screamed in terror when the President got shot on live television instantaneously creating a paranoid American culture and thereby sowing its seeds of destruction. Innocent Americans were shipped abroad as young heroes and soldiers just to keep the industrial complex military machine going to fight a useless war which only proved that absolute power corrupts absolutely and that even the American president sometimes has to stand naked before his friends and family and the Americans who love him. Kennedy was too good to be true and he stepped on the Rockefeller's and Henry Ford's toes which just shows that you can't trust power when it comes from the barrel of a gun and the inmates are controlling the mental hospital and telling doctors in Washington D.C. what to do. They never understood that there isn't no glory in fighting a war that will never end until the treasury runs out of money and the president's son is killed fighting for glory in a foreign land. It's hard to realize that your leaders and country lead you astray just to kill their sons while the fat cats and Boston aristocrats get rich off of young people's blood that flowed in the street in '68 while you sat in your easy chair that you worked all your life for and wept tears of hatred. All the rich folks and mid-Westerners voted in, clapped and then tipped their hats to a criminal loser who loved kissing babies but valued his freedom over their own and couldn't share his wealth or power with anyone who wasn't white. But he bought his way to freedom by paying off the right Washington men and by '76 all was forgiven and America was ready to start again because you can't put a President in prison because he is above the law and has too much power and too many friends. Can you?
@Hash Lee Nice comeback. I was really stoned when I wrote that a month ago. Lou Reed was against the West Coast's hippie ethos and he felt betrayed by them, so he wanted to capture the urban chaos of a living in a huge metropolis like New York City. He achieved this through using minimalism in the music of VU, whereby the their music emphasized repetition, fewer chord changes, and less extravagance compared to their musical counterparts on the West Coast whose music critics constantly ridiculed and showed less empathy towards the Velvets than they did for their homegrown music scene. Musicians like Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead had almost God like status in the Bay Area and the Jefferson Airplane was another 1960s phenomenon who were given mostly positive reviews by the San Franscisco and L.A. music critics unlike the Velvet Underground probably because no body understood or liked their first two albums on the West Coast and elsewhere in the U.S.A. except for New York and college towns like Boston.
you can hear the ACID in this song. this is the true definition of ACID ROCK. I was just playing this song today and I will continue to listen to this song in the year 2066.... I'll be 100 years old!!!!!
I recall, very well when I first heard this album or record. It was a seemingly beginning wretched period in 60's music accompanied by some disintegration, the Beatles ended; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison died. Whether they aimed for that or not the Velvet Underground eschewed it, my favorite track is Sister Ray.
It's actually really easy what he did, he's just matching the high e to the b string ( they didn't use standard, but for ease sake we'll pretend they did), you can hear this also in the solo to run run run.
Thanks. Amazing. Been a fan since I was 12 years old in 1970. What an Awesome souvenir from days gone by. What can I say? There's Mo Tucker killing it in drums, Lou Reed doing some amazing guitar. Andy Warhol and Nico mixed in for good measure. Thanks, again. This totally blows Me away.
Doesn’t every Alternative Rock band sound just like this? I mean i never heard many other 60’s bands really play this kind of music too much. Maybe you should actually listen to music man.
You know, there's a lot of great musical artists going into the white light lately. Thanks for all the White Light David, Lemmy, Buffin, Glenn, Paul, Dan, Martin, Keith, and Prince. And to Lou and all, gratitude. This is a cool song!
True..but the white light and white heat he is referring to is the heat you blow out after injecting crystal methedrine aka crystal meth..but yeah it means whatever you want it to mean though you know it is music to do your own thing to..
Nothing will beat that feeling of tingling in the brain and the feeling you get just before you get light headed. Whether your nose is numb or your arm, you're fucked. Then you come off, and after a while, life is good again. Until you're fucked, and realize you're fucked either way. GOD DAMN! What a world we live in. No one can quite see see the uselessness of even general movement like a still junkie. Why do they hate people like us? Same reason they take a limo over a taxi. It's all about how your arrived at the same destination. We'll die alone, and you'll die alone with "satisfaction."
I absolutely love it! Very crisp sound for a live Velvet recording from back then, Lou sings most of the lyrics, unlike in most other live versions! I really enjoyed it, thanks a lot!
You know there has been crisp recordings since the German invented HI-FI in the forties! It took only someone with ears and feeling to record great music: the machines were here.
one of the most trascendental rocknroll songs i ever heard in my life and the comment section doesnt seems to make honor to this.. i was hoping to read mindblowing comments like my thoughts
the audio is the studio version. the video is actually an hour jam session they had with nico titled "The Velvet Underground and Nico 1966 " its on youtube
i love the part around the 6 min mark where it feels like its finally coming together and so ru and u open ur eyes smiling but then it goes psychadelic again and the smile grows bigger. thats vu in a nutshell
"The Velvet Underground" is a long name for a typical rock band, but in music it has a least common denominator that makes it simple just like holding a book, looking at opposite leaves and begin to read.
I've heard my fair share of LIVE white light/white heat ..... THIS is my favourite FOR SURE. Doug has that killer bass line grooving and the rhythm/rhythm, rhythm/lead interplay with Sterling and Lou is FANtastic ...... w Moe holding it together. What I'd give to go back in time and simply witness this. Those folks at the Matrix were LUCKY! Lemme know if there's another version that tops it for you....
No, that goes to John Cale, the real genius behind their sound. Lou Reed once said about JC: "I only hope that one day John will be recognized as the Beethoven of his day. He knows so much about music, he's such a great musician. He's completely mad - but that's because he's Welsh."
The Stones were the first to talk about drug use. They were the first band to display the "punk rock" attitude. However, The Velvets took it all to the next level
Lol, is this a joke? What the hell does punk have to do with it? Do you even know the meaning of that word, ignoramus? According to this logic, if the stones are related to this, then VU - the creators of the rap, lol. And stones had nothing to do with the discovery of drugs in music, that's what what, and this honor rightfully belongs to VU. And count who and how many times cowardly and shamefacedly hinted at pharmacy vitamins in their parodies of rebellious songs, you can as much as you like, but in any case, the stones and in this are outsiders, because the same Byrds did it at the same time but much more convincingly
She absolutely is. It was over a year after this that she took a pregnancy hiatus and was replaced by Billy Yule. That was the summer of 1969, and the extended Max's KC gig. And she replaced Angus Maclise a long time before this.
Amazing version, but none top the studio version, that rugged, speed crazed Jerry Lee Lewis piano pounding gives it so much energy. The guitar solo in this is absolute amphetamine euphoria though
Really, there must be. I can't watch this, the people off stage were kind of fun to watch. Besides "The Velvet Underground" "White Light White Heat" my favorite, I had "The Plastic Exploding Inevitable" I don't think I liked that one. I lost them in a flood.
Got 1969 double Lp in early 80s. Every note,vocal and instrumental beyond brilliant,just essential but I need to turn away as to not see the album cover. Called the Butt album in my home. Unfortunately cannot be unseen. Otherwise one of the truly great double live Lps. To die for.
i think it is fixed like buying sugar from my speed dealer i make a comment and i get a reply from 10 years ago who cares what someone said the day before yesterday what a fix
![The Velvet Underground - White Light White Heat - [LIVE 1969]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
