THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”― Bertrand Russell
The Velvet Underground is probably my most regularly listened to band around the house, and has been for a long time. It is hard to think of having a FAVORITE band, but if that question was one that needed to be answered in order to win some sort of amazing prize, The Velvet Underground would be my answer. I loved the John Cale era. I loved the Post-Cale Doug Yule era. Nico: definitely; her deplorable character cannot even tarnish her work on their debut.
When I was at Warner Bros. Records I befriended a legendary Australian record man Bruce Milne. His label/store Au-Go-Go records was (is) something of legend, championing the greatest of the underground American bands, as well as those from down under. He visited me at the ski lodge (the WB offices) one day and espied a box of CDs and tapes that were going in the trash. He adjusted the glasses on his nose and told me that his audience in Australia loved American music….any American music…and if I was open to it, he would pay for me to send him the boxes of “trash” that I had in exchange for credit at his record store. Why not? I thought. Sounds like a good way to lessen the amount of plastic converted to landfill.
Eight years later, and several high adventures with Bruce when he visited America and even more boxes sent across the world, I got the call that Au-Go-Go records—the store—was shutting down. It was time for me to use my credit. When I asked how much I had accumulated over the years, my jaw dropped when I was told that what I thought was trash had begot me a $5000 record spending opportunity. So I asked Bruce…was there anything in the store that I should think of getting. And that is when he said a sentence that has enriched my life ever since: The biggest Australian collector of Velvet Underground bootlegs had just sold his collection. It was priced at $3000. So I said to Bruce, “well, it looks like I have 2K more to spend!”
To say that I have gotten use out of that deal is an understatement. The Velvet Underground is one of those bands that are perfect for the bootleg collector: every concert, every performance of every favorite song, is so very worth having. May it be the version of one of the greatest rock songs of all time What Goes On played live at the Boston Tea Party or the bombastic craziness of Run Run Run from the Hilltop Festival to almost every version of Sister Ray imaginable…the Velvet Underground Bootleg adds so much to their legacy and on vinyl there is an added warmth to the sometimes muffled recordings…and they look so damn cool (see far below). And the blown-out fuzziness of the recordings just adds to the fun, especially on a foggy day.
For those who do not have one, YOU CAN GET THEM: people keep releasing them with different tracks from different shows ALL OF THE TIME. The only bummer is many of the bootleggers leave off one track from one show or add another track from another which means you end up with many similar tracks over many different records. But there are worse things in the world, to be sure. Mostly, they are all beautiful.
Oh, and for any interested party, I spent the rest of my tab at Au-Go-Go buying rare and obscure Japanese noise records—Highrise original pressings, Hijokaidan records…not listened to as much but yes, still loved.
Steve Cropper's Got Stories—and a New Album
You better believe Steve Cropper has got stories: the slinger behind the Staxxxx sound. How many records do I own that I later found out that Cropper helped mold? How many hits that helped shape America did the guy play on/write/produce???? For those who have the Criterion Channel (why would you not?) they are showcasing a pristine cut of Otis Redding live at Monterey Pop where you can see Steve in a perfect moment…
Library Preservation: Making Models of Ancient Books
Yes, this is some definite book collector porn here. Beware.
File this under: if walls could talk, you would never get any sleep.
Why Did Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton Keep ‘Conking Out’?
Preludes
BY T. S. ELIOT
I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.
III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.
IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
