Billy Name interview 'Cale quit the VU'

[iaredatsun]

In this interview/article on Vice/Please Kill Me, Billy Name states that John Cale left the Velvet Underground of his own accord. (Plus a lot of other gossip). He claims that the 'Lou sacked John' idea was a story.

http://www.vice.com/read/in-the-beginni ... nderground

John was really stronger than Lou once he made a decision. John felt the Velvets were too restricting for him—that the band really wasn't letting him develop his full talents anymore. So he left the band. He had started in classical music and wanted to experience a broader range of experience, and the Velvet Underground was too limited and too tight for him. So it was really John's doing. The whole thing of "Lou firing John" or that "Lou fired Andy" was cute stuff for storytelling. In actuality, John felt too limited and restricted, and he was much too talented. He just needed more room to work out all the other stuff he wanted to do.

[schnittstelle]

Very nice! Thanks for the heads up!

[Sheila Klein]

I guess Sterling and Maureen must've been lying then, when they repeatedly -- and painfully -- told the story of how Sesnick and Reed decided to fire Cale, and Sterling was sent as an emissary to drop the hammer.

[iaredatsun]

I guess Sterling and Maureen must've been lying then, when they repeatedly -- and painfully -- told the story of how Sesnick and Reed decided to fire Cale, and Sterling was sent as an emissary to drop the hammer.

Odd, isn't it? Pity Billy Name isn't around now (rip) and we cannot ask him more about that statement.

Has John Cale ever spoken of it? Do I remember him saying that he had become a pain the arse? Something about spending money on equipment for under water sound experiments. Or was that a Sterling Morrison interview?

[peppergomez]

I'd believe Sterling and Mo over BIlly any day. Just look at Lou's history of how he deals with collaborators.

[DanielB]

Billy was close to John and Lou, having been in Bands with Cale and Angus Maclise before the VU. His explanation about Cale's reasons for leaving are very similar to Maclise's.
Please visit our exhibition of Billy Name's Photographs and Screen Prints if you're in London (Ends 22nd October)
10% Discount if you mention "The Velvet Forum"
A&D Gallery 51 Chiltern Street London W1 (www.aanddgallery.com)

[peppergomez]

Cale writes in his memoir of Sterling delivering the news of his firing right before a gig in Cleveland. While none of us can know for certain since we weren't there, it's highly unlikely Cale left of his own accord.

It's probably also Steve Sesnick's fault, since he apparently drove wedges into John and Lou's relationship, and then later marginalized Lou.

[MJG196]

I don't understand why this is even a topic. The same story has been told by multiple, credible sources - who were either there or in the immediate circle of those who were - for decades.

Billy Name, injecting some new plot-lines into the Warhol/VU mythos days before his death, is not worth paying attention to on this topic.

[Sheila Klein]

I don't understand why this is even a topic.

Because Billy was never known as anything but a straight shooter. This is one case where his version of events appears to have veered from the known facts. His track record makes the comment worth some consideration, before being dismissed as fallacy.

[iaredatsun]

I don't understand why this is even a topic. The same story has been told by multiple, credible sources - who were either there or in the immediate circle of those who were - for decades.

Billy Name, injecting some new plot-lines into the Warhol/VU mythos days before his death, is not worth paying attention to on this topic.

Just posting a VU-related story.