Yearly Archives: 2023

Music

Todd Burns Interview

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Maybe some people who’ve read my work are interested in some of the more everyday basic details of how I work. Maybe not, but at least one person was. That’s Todd L. Burns, who runs the Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. This interview recently appeared on the site, and with his permission, I’m reprinting it here.

How did you get to where you are today, professionally?

I started listening to rock music at the age of five in 1967, after I and the brother I shared a room with got a radio as a holiday gift. I’ve been a big fan of rock since then, starting like so many people did with the Beatles. From there I got into other groups like the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, and by the time I was in high school, into great but somewhat lesser exposed vintage acts like the Kinks and the Yardbirds. In college I got into more cult acts like the Velvet Underground, and like so many future rock journalists, got a lot of experience listening to and playing records at my college radio station, WXPN in Philadelphia, which had a huge vinyl library.

The more I heard from rock history (and affiliated genres like soul, blues, reggae, and folk), the more I wanted to hear, and wanted to know. I began writing reviews right after college for a magazine specializing in independent/underground music, Op, and from 1985-1991 was managing editor of a similar magazine, OPtion. After working on some All Music Guides in the mid-1990s, the publisher, Miller Freeman, asked if I had ideas for books of my own. That led to my first book, 1998’s Unknown Legends of Rock’n’Roll, which covered sixty cult acts from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Since then I’ve written about fifteen books, including titles on the Velvet Underground, the Who, and 1960s folk-rock. My biggest focus and enthusiasm is for uncovering little known music history, whether it’s little known material by big acts (as in my book The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film) or many interesting artists who never got the attention they should have, some of them much more obscure even than cult groups like the Velvet Underground. I’ve never been able to support myself solely through books, which are actually sources of some of the lowest-paying work I’ve done, so I’ve done magazine stories, online stories, liner notes, editing, and other free-lance work all the while. I’ve also presented music history events for about twenty years, and taught full non-credit/adult/community education music history courses in Bay Area colleges for about a dozen years.

But to address the question of how I got to where I am more than what I actually did, some people find the answer boring, but it was perseverance. There’s not a lot of demand for music historians. I pursued every opportunity I could, seldom turning any reasonably interesting work down, and have had to constantly propose book/story/other ideas, many of which have been turned down. I also developed an expertise that not many others have, which has accumulated over a long time, and remains an ongoing process.

Did you have any mentors along the way? What did they teach you?

This might sound pompous, but it’s the truth, although I’m a pretty modest person. I had no specific mentors. I had three older brothers, which gave me more exposure to music history than most people my age, but soon I knew much more about it than any of my siblings. Most of my musical knowledge has come through self-education. There have been people since college that gave me useful professional advice, but usually it’s amounted to “you’re on your own, you have to make your own breaks.”

If there were any figures who taught me things of more specific use, it was from reading the work of people I mostly hadn’t met—the rock writers I liked to read, like Lenny Kaye, Peter Doggett, Johnny Rogan, and numerous others (I did eventually meet all of those guys). I aimed to combine deep research and entertaining prose, as those and many other writers have.

Walk me through a typical day-to-day for you right now.

You might get this answer from a number of people you ask, but there is no typical day. If you’re a self-employed freelancer, as I have been for 26 years, you have to juggle many projects to keep on going. Some days I might have to teach all day. Some days I might have to do and transcribe interviews all day. Some days I might have to write a magazine piece with a deadline. Many days I have to combine all those things. I have to spend more time on rather dull business/financial/organizational stuff—chasing money I’m owed, making sure my taxes are done right, maintaining my computer so I have enough disk space—than most people seem to think.

Generally, a week involves some combination of research, writing, teaching, event presentation (sometimes on Zoom the last few years), and dealing with business stuff as necessary. But there’s not even a typical week, or month. Sometimes I’ve spent weeks at a time traveling to do research. In recent months I’ve had more classes to teach than ever, sometimes every weekday. I can say that generally I get up between 6am-7am (earlier than most writers, it seems) and usually work eight to ten hours from that point. That’s if I’m working at home. Sometimes I need to teach/present in late afternoon or evening, which makes for more like ten-fourteen-hour days. And I have to work on projects from home almost every Saturday and Sunday, often for full weekend days.

What does your media diet look like?

The only rock history magazines I read regularly are a couple to which I contribute: the UK monthly Record Collector, and the ‘60s-oriented rockzine Ugly Things. I usually read parts of the New York Times, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle most days. I don’t watch much TV, and it’s usually public television when I do, though I watch a lot of films of all kinds. Except for baseball and basketball games, I only listen to noncommercial public/college radio, actually more for public affairs than music.

How has your approach to your work changed over the past few years?

The big change was a long time ago, in 1996, when I for the first time became a full-time self-employed free-lancer, working from home except when I was doing research/interviews, or (although not until the 21st century) presenting events and teaching. It’s really always been a jumble of managing multiple projects all along.

How do you organize your work?

I don’t have any special methods, other than labeling my writing and contacts lists on my computer files clearly and backing up what I write every day. I know where to find everything I’ve written on my computers, and where to find the records/books/magazines I regularly consult, though that’s gotten more difficult with my limited space as my collections have grown very big over the years.

Where do you see music journalism headed?

I think any predictions I make would be wrong. There have been a lot of doomsday proclamations about the death of music (and indeed all print) journalism over the last few years, but although there are alarming trends, I don’t think it’s quite that bad. This is hardly an original observation, but there will continue to be a shift toward online platforms rather than print journalism, though I don’t think print journalism will entirely die. I think there will generally be more respect given to music history and non-star artists, though not hugely, and not generally by major publishers.

What would you like to see more of in music journalism right now?

This is pretty selfish, but as a reader and author, I want to see more books on lesser known and cult artists. I’m a big fan of many superstars like the Beatles and Rolling Stones, but I only want books on them if they tell me something new, which is getting harder and harder for such exhaustively covered artists. As many books as I’ve done, I’ve had a hard time getting deals for my books unless they’re on big stars. Hearteningly, there are more and more books on cult artists, but the money involved is so small (as it is, frankly, for many books on more renowned artists) that they’re not worthwhile to do unless authors have other streams of income. Or they can commit to doing one or two such books if they’re really obsessed with the subject, but it’s difficult to do on an ongoing basis.

What’s one tip that you’d give a music journalist starting out right now?

I’m sure you hear snarky answers to this along the lines of: “Don’t do it.” But here’s my one tip, and one that I see given surprisingly infrequently. Write about what you like the most. Tips like “don’t call the main editor, call the managing editor,” “go to the office to pitch in person so they know who you are,” or “study the publications/trends to see what they want/need the most” might be useful for some writers. But I don’t think they’ll make for a very satisfying career if that’s the focus, or if the concentration is more on getting work of any kind than the work you want.

Maybe more importantly, if you write about what you like the most, that enthusiasm and passion will carry through to your writing, and make readers and editors want to read your work more. Also, if you have a thirst for knowing more about and writing about what you like the most, you should develop expertise that will hopefully also help you stand out to editors and publishers if you can write well.

What’s your favorite part of all this?

It’s interviewing the artists and their associates, to get stories and perspectives that haven’t yet been given. Not too far behind is doing research, especially if it’s in sources that few or no one have consulted or yet discovered. I like doing the actual writing too, but finding out new stories and information is what excites me the most.

What was the best track / video or film / book you’ve consumed in the past 12 months?

This is going back a little more than twelve months, and not an offbeat choice, but the Get Back documentary on what the Beatles did in January 1969 had amazing footage that actually unearthed a lot of interesting unknown information in an enjoyable way. If you want something more off the beaten track, the 2022 coffee table book The Byrds: 1964-1967, by Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman & David Crosby, had a lot of good and mostly little known or unknown photos, but more importantly interesting first-hand memories from all three of those Byrds.

If you had to point folks to one piece of yours, what would it be and why?

The book I’m most proud of actually ended up being two books, my 1960s folk-rock history Turn! Turn! Turn!: The Folk-Rock Revolution and its sequel Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock’s Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (now combined into one ebook with extra material, titled Jingle Jangle Morning). This is because I was able to weave together many stories and careers into one overview of a major musical movement that had never been covered with one book (or two books, as it ended up), integrating some social history. 

For checking out just one piece, I wrote many for the music history website pleasekillme.com, and while they’re not adding new work, the past articles are still up. Several dozen come up if you type my name in the search field. If you want a sample, one of my most comprehensive stories, on a Van Morrison 1968 tape made shortly before he recorded Astral Weeks is here.

Anything you want to plug?

My next book, Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground, is tentatively scheduled for publication by Omnibus Press in London in spring 2025. I wrote a book on the Velvet Underground published in 2009, but it’s been out of print for quite a few years, and it was a day-by-day reference book. This book will be a standard narrative history, which allows me to present the information for wide circulation again, in a more conventionally readable format. I can also incorporate a lot of new information that came to light after my previous book was published about fifteen years ago.

Music, Rolling Stones

Obscure 1960s Rolling Stones Cover Versions

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Peter Checksfield’s recent book Undercover: 500 Rolling Stones Cover Versions That You Must Hear! details, as the title makes clear, a ton of Rolling Stones covers from 1964 to 2022. As many covers as it covers, however, it inevitably has to be selective. Although many of the versions it documents are of 1960s songs, and many of those were released in the 1960s, it didn’t include all of them.

All of most famous ones are there, of course, including the Who’s “The Last Time,” Marianne Faithfull’s “As Tears Go By” and “Sister Morphine,”  the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wild Horses,” both Otis Redding and Devo’s “Satisfaction,” the Searchers’ “Take It Or Leave It,” and Ike & Tina Turner’s “Honky Tonk Women.” A lot of obscure ones are too, like the Swinging Blue Jeans’ 1965 BBC performance of the early Mick Jagger-Keith Richards composition “So Much in Love” (never released by the Stones); the Blue Jeans’ version was only issued on a 2019 digital-only compilation, and even the Blue Jeans’ Ralph Ellis doesn’t remember doing it. Virtually all of the Stones’ originals from the ‘60s were covered at some point, and it took some digging to uncover some of the most obscure; the UK “Paint It Black” B-side “Long, Long While,” for instance, was done in 1968 by a Greek group, the Idols.

Still, a few cool or at least interesting ‘60s Rolling Stones covers didn’t make the cut. While this is not an official supplement to the book, or a criticism of it for not documenting every last cover, here are a few obscurities that might be of interest to serious collectors and/or Stones fans. I’ve listed these not in the order they were released, but in the order the Rolling Stones released the originals.

The Bootjacks, “Stoned” (1965, Sonet 45, Sweden; originally released on the UK B-side of “I Wanna Be Your Man,” November 1, 1963). “Stoned” was the very first Rolling Stones original to be released, albeit a (mostly) instrumental song that was credited to “Nanker-Phelge,” the pseudonym used for early group compositions. With a basic walking blues beat interrupted by periodic stoned/drunken-sounding utterances of the title (and a few other rambling words) by Mick Jagger, it remains particularly obscure in the US, where it didn’t make it onto an album for decades. 

It wasn’t particularly well known anywhere else either, which makes it a peculiar choice for a Swedish group to cover a couple of years later. The Bootjacks only issued four singles in their brief career, and their interpretation of “Stoned”—a strange song to begin with—was pretty weird. First, it was a live five-minute recording, at a time when live cuts and songs that lasted five minutes weren’t common on singles. While it sticks pretty close to the original arrangement, the vocals, such as they are, sound a little slowed down and distorted, as if the turntable’s running at the wrong speed. They do accelerate things for a bit of a bashing rave-up at the end. The oddest aspect is the abundance of teenage screams, which are as fervent as if the Rolling Stones themselves are in front of them.

The Bootjacks must have been big Stones fans, since another of their singles was a cover (which I’ve never been able to hear) of the first strong and well known Jagger-Richards original to feature on a Rolling Stones disc, “Tell Me.” They’re most esteemed, however, for their outstanding (and also odd) 1966 Who-ish mod rock single “In the Circle,” which was reissued for the fine Searchin’ for Shakes: Swedish Beat 1965-1968  compilation back in the mid-1980s. 

The Termites, “Tell Me” (January 29, 1965, Oriole 45 UK; original release April 26 1964 on the UK LP The Rolling Stones). Despite the Beatles-takeoff name, the Termites were two girls aged 15 and 16, not a rock group. Their harmony-heavy cover of “Tell Me,” with light orchestration, is no great shakes. But it’s refreshing as there weren’t too many girl groups who did Stones covers in the ‘60s. There’s not much info on the Termites, who put out just a couple UK singles. This track was produced by Ted Taylor, who might have been Ted “Kingsize” Taylor, leader of Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, one of the most locally popular Liverpool groups of the early 1960s, though they didn’t have hits or make many records.

The Fabulous Four, “438 S. Michigan Avenue” (1968, Mystery 45 Sweden; original release August 14, 1964, UK Five By Five EP). Although this is titled “438 S. Michigan Avenue,” it’s obviously a cover of the fabulous 1964 Rolling Stones instrumental “2120 S. Michigan Avenue,” named after the address of Chess Records in Chicago. It’s also properly credited to “Nanker-Phelge,” at least on the reissue compilation I have. While the Swedish group plays pretty tough garage rock on this cover, what really makes this stand out are the presumably overdubbed, downright deranged screams, cat-like yowls, and gunfire and car motor noises, which are almost more dominant than the music. At four and half minutes, it’s considerably longer than the Stones original, too. 

Otherwise, the Fabulous Four were a pretty bland, much more pop-oriented band, which makes it all the more astounding when the sixteen-song LP anthology I have ends with this blast. It’s almost as if they were getting all of their repressed unhinged rock’n’roll energy out at once. Like the Bootjacks, they were probably pretty dedicated Stones fans, since the other side of this single was a routine cover of “Sittin’ on a Fence,” a song the Rolling Stones hadn’t put on a UK release by this point (though they did put it on the US 1967 LP Flowers, and it had been covered in 1966 by the UK duo Twice As Much, who took it to #25 in the British charts). The name of the label on this 45, by the way, really was Mystery.

Thee Midniters, “Whittier Boulevard” (June 1965, Chattahoochee 45; original release August 14, 1964, UK Five By Five EP). They might have called it “Whittier Boulevard” and credited the songwriting to Thee Midniters, but this single by this outstanding Latino East Los Angeles group was really “2120 S. Michigan Avenue” in all but name. Sticking to the basic groove of the original, Thee Midniters did add muscular horns and infectious “areeba, areeba” shouts, as well as other miscellaneous screams and the spoken introduction “let’s take a trip down Whittier Boulevard!”—the main drag of East Los Angeles. The parts where the song has a stuttering, emphatic instrumental chorus of sorts aren’t found in the original, either.


On another 1965 single, Thee Midniters also did a good soul-rock version of another song from the Rolling Stones’ Five By Five EP (all five tracks of which were on the 12 X 5 LP in the US), “Empty Heart,” with a stomping beat and marching band-like horns. (That cover is detailed in the Undercover book.) Thee Midniters—that is the correct spelling, with a “Thee”—covered a lot of ground in their career, mixing soul, rock, garage, and some Latin music, though they didn’t get heard much outside of Los Angeles. They were the best Latino rock band before Santana. For their story, you can check out the chapter on the band in my book Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries of ‘60s Rock.

The First Four, “Empty Heart” (November 1965, Claridge 45; original release August 14, 1964, UK Five By Five EP). For a song that was just on an EP in the UK and an LP in the US, “Empty Heart” got a fair number of cover versions. Nine are listed in the huge ‘60s garage rock discography TeenBeat Mayhem!, including the ones by Thee Midniters and this one by a group from Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia).

An entirely different outfit from the Swedish Fabulous Four noted in a prior entry, they slow the song down a little and seem to be taking it a little more seriously than the Stones, whose original was (in a good way) a bit sloppy and tossed-off, especially in the vocal harmony department. Most notably, the First Four add a soul-like section in the middle where the lead singer urges the others to “bring it on down.” A few other drawn-out lyrics are added in this section that aren’t in the original, though the songwriting credit properly read “Nanker-Phelge.”

Ian & the Zodiacs, “So Much in Love” (May 1965, Philips 45; original release by the Mighty Avengers in August 1964). In their early days as composers, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards “gave away” some songs to others to record that the Rolling Stones didn’t or hadn’t yet put on their own records, though Stones demos of some ended up on the 1975 Metamorphosis compilation. Unlike John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s giveaways, not many of these were hits, with exceptions like Marianne Faithfull’s “As Tears Go By” (later of course a Top Ten US hit for the Stones themselves) and Gene Pitney’s “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday.” All of the Jagger-Richards giveaways not issued by the Stones in the ‘60s are covered in Undercover, including “So Much in Love,” originally recorded by the Mighty Avengers, who did get it into the British charts at #46.

For a rather average number aptly described in Undercover as “one of Jagger-Richards’ most convincing attempts at writing a Mersey-style Beat song,” “So Much in Love” got a good number of covers. As noted in this post’s intro, the Swinging Blue Jeans did one in 1965 on the BBC. British group the Herd tried with a somewhat harder rocking and more soul-influenced arrangement in 1966, though before Peter Frampton joined that band for their late-‘60s British hits. So did Ian & the Zodiacs.

Although they were one of the better Merseybeat groups, Ian & the Zodiacs didn’t have much luck in their own country, and actually got more records released in the US and Germany. Their version is a little better and certainly more lively than the more ponderous one by the Mighty Avengers, as they take it with a notably brisker and Mersey-ish tempo. Oddly, it was titled “So Much in Love With You” for their single. Also incidentally, though the song “The Crying Game” is primarily identified with Dave Berry (who had a #5 hit with it in 1964 in the UK), Ian & the Zodiacs’ version is better, with distinctive tone pedal guitar.

Patti Smith, “Time Is On My Side” (1977, Stoned I Never Talked to Bob Dylan bootleg LP; original release January 15, 1965 on the UK LP The Rolling Stones No. 2). This is taking some liberties as “Time Is On My Side” was definitely not written by the Rolling Stones. It was written by Jerry Ragovoy under the pseudonym Norman Meade, and first done as an instrumental by noted jazz trombonist Kai Winding. With additional lyrics by Jimmy Norman (although Ragovoy disputed this contribution), it was done as a gospel-flavored soul song by the great New Orleans singer Irma Thomas. That, and not Winding’s, is the version through which the Stones learned the song.

Nonetheless, it’s the Stones’ version that is by far more well known, giving them their first US Top Ten single in late 1964. And the Stones’ version—the one starting with an extended guitar solo that appeared in the US on their first greatest hits collection (Big Hits) in 1966, not the organ-led one that was on the 45—is definitely the one on which the Patti Smith Group modeled their arrangement. There are several live ‘70s Smith versions floating around, but the most well known one was recorded in concert in Stockholm on October 3, 1976, in part because it was also filmed for television. It’s been on several bootlegs, and I think the 1977 one titled I Never Talked to Bob Dylan (on the Stoned label) was the first.

Her take isn’t too different from the original, though more oriented toward ‘70s hard rock, and of course featuring her distinctive vocals, sometimes shouted as much as sung. The spoken bit in the middle is kind of different and improvised, too, as it was on some of the other classic rock songs she covered. There’s also a live version from October 21, 1976 recorded in Paris on the B-side of the official French single release of “Ask the Angels” in 1977. One way to distinguish the two is that she gives a shout-out to the Stones at the end of the Stockholm performance, but a shout-out to the MC5 in Paris.

Napoleonic Wars, “The Singer Not the Song” (January 1967, 20th Century Fox 45; original release October 22, 1965 on B-side of “Get Off of My Cloud”). This group from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania suburb of Greensburg were among the few acts to tackle this relatively obscure Jagger-Richards composition, used as the B-side of “Get Off of My Cloud” in the UK and on the December’s Children LP in the US. As a rather folky number with harmonies, it was also rather atypical of what Mick and Keith were writing by late 1965, and one of the final gasps of the Merseybeat influence on some of their early compositions.

This was the second of Napoleonic Wars’ pair of rare 45s, and while the Stones’ original has been criticized for some off-key guitars and vocals, this group takes it more seriously. Taken at a slightly higher key than the original, the delivery is accomplished and heartfelt, with an organ (and in the instrumental break, brief plunking piano notes) not heard in the Stones’ arrangement. They also go into a higher key for the final verse. It’s not a radical reinvention, but it’s a pleasingly straight and sincere cover of a relatively neglected early Stones song, which Alex Chilton did on a 1977 single (covered in Undercover) to far greater attention.

Rotary Connection, “Lady Jane” (February 1968, Cadet Concept LP; original release February 4, 1966 on the UK Aftermath LP). I’m a little surprised this didn’t make Undercover, and I’m guessing it’s because a couple other Rolling Stones covers by this Chicago psychedelic soul group did. “Lady Jane,” however, is the best known of their Stones interpretations. And it’s quite different from the original, with a lengthy classical instrumental introduction with high operatic vocals that sounds like it’s from an entirely different song. 

The bulk of the track, however, gives the actual “Lady Jane” song a distinctive and dramatic orchestral baroque-classical-rock treatment. Those stratospheric high vocals are by Minnie Riperton, seven years before she had her huge hit solo single with “Loving You.” Remarkably, a clip of the Rotary Connection performing (actually miming) the song on local Chicago television in the late 1960s has surfaced–recently, I think, since I only found it a few months ago.

Blondie, “My Obsession” (2016, RoxVox CD The Old Waldorf, SF CA 21 September 1977 Early and Late Shows; original release Between the Buttons LP, January 20, 1967, UK). One of quite a few outstanding songs on Between the Buttons that’s underrated and not terribly well known to most of the public, “My Obsession” was a most unpredictable cover choice for Blondie. Although they didn’t put it on their records, they even led off the early set of their concert with it at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco on September 21, 1977.

As you’d might expect, they speed and fuzz it up, with a clangorous climax. In fact, the drumming’s so fast that it teeters on collapsing on itself. Like Patti Smith’s “Time Is On My Side,” the biggest point of interest is the difference between Jagger’s original vocal and Debbie Harry’s. Blondie probably didn’t endorse this live CD, but it’s been reasonably available since 2016.

The End, “Loving Sacred Loving” (January 1968, Sonoplay 45, Spain). It’s not so well known outside of serious Stones fans, but Bill Wyman wrote a fair number of songs that were recorded in the 1960s, and sometimes released. The only one the Rolling Stones issued was “In Another Land,” a genuine highlight of Their Satanic Majesties Request album that even made the bottom reaches of the Top 100 as a single billed to Bill Wyman. The Stones did record a couple other of his compositions in the ‘60s, but “Downtown Suzie” only saw the light on Metamorphosis in 1975. The other, the routine R&B-rocker “Goodbye Girl,” was recorded in 1964, but remains unissued, although it’s long circulated (with Jagger on lead vocals) on bootleg.

Some other Wyman compositions, however, were recorded and sometimes released by other artists. None of them were hits, and in fact they’re pretty rare. They include a 1965 B-side by the Cheynes, who for a while had Mick Fleetwood on drums. Wyman sometimes wrote with Pete Gosling of Moon’s Train, and there’s a whole CD of Moon’s Train material, cut between 1965-67, with a bunch of their collaborations.

Why hasn’t there been a CD compilation, Moon’s Train aside, of the songs Wyman wrote for others in the 1960s? Well, they’re not very good, unfortunately. “In Another Land” doesn’t seem so much like a sign of untapped potential as an outlier. But Wyman was involved in writing some better psychedelic-flavored material for The End, who evolved from Moon’s Train, and had one Wyman-produced album, 1969’s Introspection.

Introspection has some cult followers, but I’m not too big on the LP. The exceptions are two songs that appeared on singles by The End in early 1968, particularly the first of these, “Loving Sacred Loving.” Although Wyman doesn’t sing or play on it, or even wholly write it (collaborating with Gosling), this is the kind of thing you’d expect more of from the guy responsible for “In Another Land.” It’s beguiling woozy psychedelic pop, with a near-hypnotic haunting melody, and shifts between eerie meditative passages and full-out rock ones – again, like “In Another Land.” Tightening the thread to the Stones, Nicky Hopkins is on harpsichord.

“Loving Sacred Loving” hasn’t been too hard to get in the CD era, with full reissues of material by the End, though it’s hard to say what’s available at any given time. Although it was first released as a single, it was also on Introspection, which also includes “Shades of Orange” (see below).

The End, “Shades of Orange” (March 1968, Decca 45, UK). Similar to but not quite as impressive as “Loving Sacred Loving,” this is another Wyman-Gosling co-write. It’s got more of the whimsical child-friendly bounce you associate with the lighter end of British psychedelic pop, and sounds closer to the kind of psychedelia of early Pink Floyd when Syd Barrett was their leader, though not as good. Wyman’s made clear his love for the blues and R&B, but based on “In Another Land” and the two End singles, for a brief time he seemed quite influenced by Sgt. Pepper-era British psychedelia. 

And an honorable mention to:

The Score, “Please Please Me” (November 1966, Decca 45, UK). “Please Please Me,” of course, is a Beatles song, not a Rolling Stones one. So what’s it doing here? Well, this heavy mod-rock makeover of the Beatles’ first hit ranks as one of the most imaginative ‘60s Beatles covers. In part that’s because it wittily, and briefly, quotes the famous main fuzz riff from “Satisfaction” near the end without overdoing it. Not much info has circulated about this London group, who only recorded this one single, which flopped at the time, but fortunately has been reissued on numerous compilations of rare ‘60s British psychedelia.

Music

The Velvet Underground’s VU and Another View

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This article first appeared a few months ago on the Fonoteca Municipal do Porto website in a Portuguese translation. I’m making it available here in the original English since a few people have asked if they could read it in that format. The Portuguese translation is here. Fonoteca Municpal do Porto is a sound archive and public space for music appreciation centered around a large collection of vinyl records from the city of Porto, Portugal.

The Velvet Underground released four albums between 1967 and 1970 while Lou Reed was in the band. Each of them is an important statement, and each of them is entirely different from each other. Had the group only issued these four LPs, their place as one of the greatest rock acts would be assured. But the Velvets also recorded a lot of other music in the studio, much of which is nearly as good as what came out while they were active, and some of which is just as good.

The best of these outtakes, along with some material that clearly wasn’t up to their usual high standards, emerged on the archival compilations VU and Another View in the mid-1980s. VU is an especially vital addition to their discography, featuring much of what would have likely been part of a “missing” fourth album between 1969’s The Velvet Underground and 1970’s Loaded. Another View, sometimes spelled Another VU, is more of a compilation of whatever additional leftovers could be found, although it has some noteworthy highlights.

Much of the material on VU was unofficially circulated on bootleg LPs before its release in February 1985. Back when Velvet Underground bootlegs first started to appear in the 1970s, the possibility of an officially sanctioned collection of the band’s outtakes seemed not only unlikely, but absurd. Their records hadn’t sold well on their official release, and by the early 1970s, some of their early albums were being sold at ridiculously low prices in bargain bins. The MGM label, which had put out the first three LPs, and companies that later acquired the rights to the records clearly thought that interest in the Velvet Underground would disappear.

Instead, the Velvet Underground’s fanatical cult built and built. The mere existence of VU bootlegs, usually reserved for superstars like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, testified to the intensity of the fans’ devotion. As more and more punk and new wave acts cited the Velvets as a seminal influence, occasionally covering Velvet Underground songs on records and (as Patti Smith did) in concert, the music industry realized there was still money to be made from the VU catalog. 

Early Velvet Underground bootleg.

VU was the first of the major excavations into the Velvet Underground’s unreleased material, and perhaps the most commercially successful. It reached #85 in the US charts—a much higher peak position than any of their albums had managed while the Velvets were active, when their highest-charting LP (The Velvet Underground & Nico) only crawled to #171. Of equal importance, it helped turn on a younger generation of listeners to the rich Velvet Underground legacy, ensuring that their four original studio albums never went out of print again.

More important than its commercial impact, however, was the actual music on VU. Eight of the ten songs were taken from 1969 sessions between their third and fourth album. The remaining two comprised a sort of unreleased 1968 single taped between their second and third LPs. Although Another View would be the title of the next outtakes compilation, these ten tracks indeed gave us a kind of “another view” of the Velvet Underground than what we hear on their first three albums.

For the most part, the songs and performances have a more light-hearted, even fun approach than the more serious and abrasive ones heard on 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, still their most famous LP by far; 1968’s White Light/White Heat, easily their noisiest and most aggressive; and 1969’s The Velvet Underground, their quietest and folkiest, yet with lyrics as complex and probing as those heard on their previous work. The Velvet Underground remain most known for their more disturbing and controversial creations, especially those that ventured into previously taboo explorations of hard drug use, unconventional sexual behavior, and dissonant avant-garde drones and electronic distortion. Yet their range also encompassed upbeat, catchy celebrations of pleasure, passion, and rock and roll, as much of the VU compilation demonstrates.

Another early Velvet Underground bootleg.

Some of that good-time feel is heard in abundance on one of the two 1968 outtakes, “Temptation Inside Your Heart.” Here the Velvets seem to be trying on soul music for size, though they can’t help letting their inner ambiguity seep through. There aren’t many soul songs, for instance, that would taunt “I know where the evil lies inside of your heart.” Or, for that matter, leave the microphone on so it caught guys murmuring “electricity comes from other planets” or comparing what they’re trying to Motown and Martha & the Vandellas, complete with uncharacteristic upper-register soul harmonies on which they seem on the verge of bursting into laughter.

Also recorded at this February 1968 issue was the lovely ballad “Stephanie Says,” graced with celeste and beautiful John Cale viola, played with as much skill as he brought to the instrument on the more grating drones he employed for the likes of “Venus in Furs.” It seems possible their Verve label (a division of MGM) wanted to somehow coax a commercial single out of the Velvets with these two songs, with the more polished “Stephanie Says” the most likely candidate. Its failure to find release in 1968 is inexplicable, though for all its attractiveness, it coats a typically ambiguous Reed portrait of a globetrotter facing death with bravery.

It also anticipates a few future Lou Reed compositions whose titles follow a woman’s name with “Says,” like “Candy Says” and “Caroline Says.” Also in that sequence is VU’s “Lisa Says,” from the sessions that might have formed the core of a missing 1969 album. This heartbreaking romantic Reed ballad is arguably the highlight of VU, although it’s not as good as the live recording heard on their great concert double LP 1969 Velvet Underground Live (recorded in late 1969, but not released until 1974). That live version has a jaunty second bridge missing from the studio track, and the composition’s failure to get revived for the Loaded sessions is a mystery. 

“Ocean” vies with “Lisa Says” as the best song on VU, and is certainly the most serious, Reed and band invoking an almost hypnotic meditative state. The quiet sections contrast with crescendos that ebb and flow like actual ocean waves. This would get attempted again at the Loaded sessions in 1970, though again it’s puzzling that it failed to find a place on that LP.

The other half dozen cuts from the 1969 sessions on VU find the Velvets in a surprisingly cheerful mood, perhaps reflecting a desire to move toward a more rock-oriented and possibly more commercial sound after three years or so of failing to land a hit record. The tunes aren’t in the same league as Reed’s best compositions, but all of them have some charm. “I Can’t Stand It” is an explosive riff-driven rocker, as well as a vehicle for some of Lou’s weirdest humor as he suffers all sorts of indignities while pining for his lost love. “Foggy Notion” isn’t much more than a catchy choppy riff with some engaging absurd lyrics, partially inspired by an obscure mid-1950s B-side by the early rock’n’roll vocal group the Solitaires. 

Less impressive, but certainly pleasant, are the uncommonly straightforward midtempo love ode “She’s My Best Friend”; the whimsically wistful “One of These Days,” which shows the Velvets at their bluesiest; and “Andy’s Chest,” an almost comic number with a touch of vaudeville, later explained by Reed as what he thought about Andy Warhol being nearly shot to death in 1968. Drummer Maureen Tucker gets a rare lead vocal on the yet more vaudevillian “I’m Sticking with You,” which almost seems like it could have been used in a western saloon-set musical from the nineteenth century. That puts it in somewhat the same style as the one track on the Velvet Underground’s four principal albums on which she sang lead, “After Hours,” though “After Hours” is better. 

Although mildly criticized by some critics and fans for its 1980s-oriented mixes, VU is a valuable supplement to their four fully realized studio albums. It’s more lightweight and not as provoking as any of those records, but consistently entertaining. “Stephanie Says,” “Lisa Says,” and “Ocean” are as artistic as almost anything else the band did at their best. Half of the songs would be remade for Lou Reed solo albums, but in every instance, the Velvet Underground’s version is better and rocks harder.

It’s not exactly the “missing” fourth album between The Velvet Underground and Loaded, however, and not just because two of the songs date from between the second and third LPs. A few more 1969 outtakes were retrieved for 1986’s Another View compilation, which the relative commercial success of VU likely made possible. The album also featured some other outtakes, dating back as far as late 1967. But Another View simply isn’t of nearly as much value as VU, and much more like the sort of random assortment of odds and ends that comprise many archival digs through the vaults.

There are still strong cuts that every Velvet Underground fan will want to hear. The best is the propulsive opening rocker “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together,” which according to a 1969 article in the Distant Drummer was being considered as a single that year, though it didn’t come out. Basic yet supremely joyous, a live version had long been available on 1969 Velvet Underground Live and outdoes the studio take in sheer frenetic energy. The finest other song on Another View, a 1969 studio version of “Rock and Roll,” is likewise outdone by both the 1969 Velvet Underground Live performance and the 1970 remake on Loaded.

Some of what was unearthed for Another View was unfinished, and it’s often obvious why the other tracks were not released at the time or even chosen for VU. The compelling hard rocker “Guess I’m Falling in Love,” “I’m Gonna Move Right In” (which isn’t much more than a repetitive riff), and the innocuous “Ride into the Sun” don’t even have vocals, although versions exist of all of these with singing.

Filling out the album, two versions of “Hey Mr. Rain” are among the most (and few) monotonous numbers in the Velvets’ catalog. “Coney Island Steeplechase” displays Reed’s sometimes regrettable taste for vaudevillian tunes. To a milder degree, so does the strange “Ferryboat Bill,” its nagging circular melody anchored by a forced pun about a dwarf. 

There are many Velvet Underground fans who want to hear everything they can by the band, and they’ll treasure, or at least want to own, Another View. But VU is a much better dig into their archives, and one of the rare compilations of unreleased material that hangs together as a consistent and enjoyable listening experience. The music later appeared on other reissues, including as bonus cuts for deluxe box set reissues of White Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground. But for the more selective fan, it still serves as the best introduction to the studio material not featured on their 1967-1970 albums, as well as documenting much of the more accessible and rock-and-rolling side of this magnificent band.

Richie Unterberger is the author of White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day.

Biking & Hiking in the San Francisco Bay Area

Carmel Valley Hikes

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Carmel, aka Carmel-by-the-Sea, is another of those world famous Northern California places I’m ashamed to admit I’d never visited. Until early November of last year, the closest I’d gotten was Monterey. But a few months ago I had a work reason to go, and made a weekend out of it, though most of what I did had little to do with the small downtown area that’s its biggest tourist draw.

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean, viewed from Carmel Valley.

If you like hiking, as I do, the Carmel area has a few spectacular ones. I only had time to do a couple, both in the Carmel Valley, which is just a bit inland from the downtown area. Both were just off the main route going east just south of downtown, Carmel Valley Road. The trail to Inspiration Point in Palo Corona Regional Park is by far the better known of the pair, though even so, it wasn’t so crowded on a Saturday morning.

View of the Valley from the lower part of the trail to Inspiration Point.

The route to Inspiration Point, from a parking lot a couple blocks after turning off Carmel Valley Road at Rio Road, isn’t too long. The 1.3 miles, however, are a little too steep to be called moderate, rising to an elevation of 850 feet at Inspiration Point. You have to wind around a hillside trail that never gets too steep, but the uphill is constant, so you should be in acceptable shape to walk it.

On the way up to Inspiration Point.

The view from Inspiration Point takes in Carmel Beach and the surrounding area, though the water’s fairly distant:

Although there wasn’t abundant wildlife on my hike, I did see a deer, who wasn’t too alarmed by my presence about fifty years away as my camera zoomed in for pictures:

There are a few pleasant bridges on the way up and down, like these:

Carmel Valley Ranch is a few miles east of the trail to Inspiration Point. You’ve got to know exactly where you’re going to find the trailhead, and if I hadn’t driven there with a local, I wouldn’t have easily gotten to the small path that gets you to the ranch’s corral:

Unusually, there are llamas at the corral, though they’re not to easy to photograph when they’re behind a railing:

There are extensive lengthy trails in the ranch that go up quite a ways, and it would take at least a half-day trip to get to hilltop views. At least you’ll likely be undisturbed by crowds, as I only saw about a half dozen others during my walk. I only had between an hour or two, but that was enough to get some of the countless views in the area of the Carmel Valley:

My brief visit was mostly hiking, but it wasn’t all hiking. Here’s some of what you’re likely to see at Carmel Beach, a quick walk from the large free parking lot at the end of the main drag, Ocean Avenue: