LAWRENCE WELK MEETS SISTER RAY !!

"This is not what you think.... its a soundtrack tacked on over the Lawrence Welk Show"

This does look real however. Oddly enough the lyrics for Sister Ray were mumbled on the phone as Edie Sedgwick took her last breath.

This is pretty interesting television and for a second it fooled me. To the best of my knowledge I don't think Lawrence ever created any type of pop music on his show like this. The closest he came was doing a few Beatle tunes.

Cantu posted this on June 6, 2007 at 6:36 PM

"WHO THE HELL IS LOU REED !!!???"

"Can You Believe This Type of Response?"

This is the question poised to me from my aunt who grew up in the ... 60's of all things. I was born in the 60's but I never knew who Lou was until much later. As a kid all I knew was Playschool and Top Cat.

Warhol and the Velvets would enter my life much later.

LOU REED AND THE VELVET UNDERGROUND was where it was at as far as I was concerned. It defined a period of art. It also described a time when..... the entire art world was about to crack open and explode its vision all across the universe. Not that its a big deal but that is a far more significant achievement than anything dribbled out of the mouths of mealy singers like the Offspring and ... so many other forgettable crappy bands.

This deliberate stand off between what was accepted and what wasn't was apparent in their sound. Even a few years ago Lou was interviewed about his latest music session on KCRW. He was making music out of a mop handle and a rubber strap -- this was his minimalist instrument. And I thought it was significant enough to mention. Lou did too.

This stuff really did define a period even if it was right or wrong. I think there was a time when early Pink Floyd did this type of "happening" entertainment as well. I liked what the VU biographer said when the street trash, junkies, pop journalists, film makers, and art critics all got together for these events. I don't expect much wisdom to tumble out of the mouths of these junkies but you have to admit that it was interesting.

THE MUSIC MISSION GETS LOST
Today we got professional Wrestling. WHATS THE DIFFERENCE? Its one mans dirt for anothers really. There are a lot of miserable routes available today in which one can entertain ones self. However, they do not have a considerable amount of street quality to them. This stuff made sense because it used a very unique sort of street sensibility.

Confrontation is what made this band interesting. It made a lot of people interesting back in the day. It made Lenny Bruce interesting. It made the Sex Pistols interesting. It made Dice interesting. It made a lot of people interesting. There was a significant amount of destruction centering around these individuals and some people connected to these pop icons died due to their own chaotic direction. I don't suggest that dying for art is a worthy or noble aspiration. But this type of thinking has racked up a very different type of life.

And it continues to fascinate.....

Cantu posted this on June 6, 2007 at 6: 30 PM

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - THE LIVE EVENT

Seeing authentic footage from the, "Exploding Plastic Inevitable" tour is about as likely as seeing a flying saucer. Yet, for the purists here it is. This is some footage, minus sound, that encaptures the brain frenized event.

Lou Reed and Warhol went on this cross country trip. Judging from the posters that I found online they had some sort of budget to play with. This tour made a stop at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, MI. It was billed as, "An Evening With Andy Warhol" and if you ask any aging hipster who remained on college campus after all these years they will tell you they were there or knew someone who was there. But I lived on that campus and we had a ton of cool things come in to play for an audience of maybe 20 - 40 tops.... sometimes an audience of 6. So filling up the entire Hill, which seats about 10,000+ is highly unlikely.

This was a very obscure tour. I only found out about it in the history books. This "famous" tour never makes any VH1 countdown of MUST SEE SHOWS. You will most likely find out about it through reading about Warhol or Lou Reed. Occassionally it will pop up in a art magazine.

Why write about a video from YouTube that has only 6 views? WELL FIRST OF ALL IT IS RARE to find any footage at all. It is very interesting too to see this thing unfold. It was a night of Velvet Underground music, dancing, psychedlic lights and film super imposed over the entire stage. For 1965. THIS WAS IT. This was about as high tech as it gets. The effect is still pretty encouraging and exciting.

The video picks up at the end with more flashing lights. This was the in place to be. It is a recreation of the year 1965. That was the year that Warhol realy broke big to the public.

Its worth a glance.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - THE EXPLODING PLASTIC INEVITABLE

Edie Sedwick - The Velvet Underground