Todd Haynes docu announcement

[gazatthebop]

not nice to see the Theatre of Eternal Music recordings have a LaMonte Young only writing credit. JC has no plans to carry on Tony Conrad's fight for co-ownership

[simonm]

The doc makes it seem as though Moe was missing because she was pregnant, then Sterling left (which is just flat out wrong - that happened during the early post-Lou era), and then Lou left. It would give people the impression that the band was falling apart, and that made Lou want to leave, when actually his leaving is what caused everything to fall apart.

I just thought they'd lost the plot (literally) at that point because there was nobody they'd interviewed who could tell the story of Lou leaving, which is bad planning, really! But they had Moe telling the Sterling leaving story, so they put that in, making it sound like it happened at the same time.

[peppergomez]

The doc makes it seem as though Moe was missing because she was pregnant, then Sterling left (which is just flat out wrong - that happened during the early post-Lou era), and then Lou left. It would give people the impression that the band was falling apart, and that made Lou want to leave, when actually his leaving is what caused everything to fall apart.

I just thought they'd lost the plot (literally) at that point because there was nobody they'd interviewed who could tell the story of Lou leaving, which is bad planning, really! But they had Moe telling the Sterling leaving story, so they put that in, making it sound like it happened at the same time.

Agreed that would have been easy to avoid w the proper pacing. Surprised they missed that. But kudos to Haynes and crew overall. I enjoyed it. They unearthed some cool footage.

[sars]

Just finished this. Kinda disappointed. It's very pretty and well produced, but there's nothing new or noteworthy. It's freshman level Velvets 101. Like others have said, the timeline presented is misleading and it skips over a lot. For being two hours, it could have told a much tighter story had it cut out a lot of the random ambient footage and B list commentary and replaced it with solid info. The focus is 60% Lou, 30% Cale, 10% everyone else.

At this point in the game, with so many of the stakeholders deceased, the best way to tell the Velvet Underground story would probably be a well-done narrative biopic.

Mary Woronov steals the show. She is fantastic.

[threechordwonder]

bu
The doc makes it seem as though Moe was missing because she was pregnant, then Sterling left (which is just flat out wrong - that happened during the early post-Lou era), and then Lou left.

And from another thread ...

Oh, and it’s weird how it makes it seem like Sterling quit the band before Lou did.

Years ago I posted an article from a magazine called "The Story of Pop" which suggested Sterling quit just after Cale (ok, after Cale got sacked).



I thought it was nonsense but subsequently read another article that also said Sterling quit the band but quickly rejoined (though I have no idea where the second article was published).

Could that be the cause of all this "Sterling Leaving" confusion?

[DavidH]

bu
The doc makes it seem as though Moe was missing because she was pregnant, then Sterling left (which is just flat out wrong - that happened during the early post-Lou era), and then Lou left.

And from another thread ...

Oh, and it’s weird how it makes it seem like Sterling quit the band before Lou did.

Years ago I posted an article from a magazine called "The Story of Pop" which suggested Sterling quit just after Cale (ok, after Cale got sacked).



I thought it was nonsense but subsequently read another article that also said Sterling quit the band but quickly rejoined (though I have no idea where the second article was published).

Could that be the cause of all this "Sterling Leaving" confusion?

That is an interesting bit of information, but Sterling definitely didn't quit the band to follow Cale - he played all the shows with the Yule lineup leading up to recording the third album, and, of course, is on the record. He might have quit for a day or something, but not for real. The story that Moe tells in the film is what happened when they were about to tour after Lou left, and Moe had rejoined the band, which led to the Doug-Walter-Willie-Moe lineup (or some variation on that). Presenting that story just before talking about Lou walking out on the band during/after the Max's run is what might be confusing for people who don't know the whole story.

[peppergomez]

Sterling is on record as saying he quit for a few days in protest due to Lou remixing Heard Her Call My Name to blast his solo over the other instruments without the bands knowledge. That is probably the reason for that confusion, and if that did happen it was probably a full year before Lou booted Cale out.

My only other gripe re the documentary is they chose a few pretty subpar performances IMO like the sloppy Gymnasium Sister Ray (Cale is inaudible and Reed is doing a lousy job with his vocals, and there is no wall of sound effect with the dueling Vox organ and lead guitar) and the Valleydale improv when they could have used the studio Sister Ray which even to this day peels paint, and live cuts like Sweet Sister Ray, the April '68 La Cave Heroin w/ Cale which for my money is even better than the studio version. As well as cuts like Hey Mister Rain II w/ the feedback blasts and Guess I'm Falling in Love. Ditto It Was a Pleasure Then from Nico's first album. All of these rock a lot more than those others they chose. But these are minor complaints. We're lucky to get a significant filmmaker like Haynes telling the band's story in a creatively ambitious way.

[dalsh327]

I thought it was well made and edited, I could see it being Oscar nominated. Kind of have to roll with it as far as some of the accuracy went.

[another]

Watched it this morning. I think Todd did a very good job considering what he had (and didn't have) to work with, and it was nice to see footage like the tarot card reading and the David Susskind show. As a total obsessive though, I was a little disappointed by the whole Cale = crazy WL/WH, Yule = 3rd album notion being reiterated again. Cale himself seems to reinforce this, though to me he seemed to be focusing more on the emotional relationship rather than the music specifically, but the fact that a lot of 3rd album songs were being played live with him proves otherwise. I don't think there's any type of 'holy grail' for unsurfaced live shows, of any band, that I'd want more than a mid 68 show with Cale; to me it's the last type of revelation left for the band.

[iaredatsun]

Someone on another forum noticed this in the credits

‘there were two musical selections in the film sourced from 7 1/2 ips tape belonging to the Warhol Estate and Museum.’

This would probably refer to recordings with Cale in the band. Could this be the source of the live black angel’s death song mentioned?