Velvet Underground "After Hours"

I was at a pumpkin carving party on Saturday with my wife and kids, when someone looked up from their phone and said, "Lou Reed died."

Looking at Facebook a few hours later, my feed was filled with Reed songs.  Obvious choices like "Walk On The Wild Side" and "Perfect Day."  Less obvious ones like "Street Hassle" and "Vicious."

Funny enough, the first song I thought of was one he wrote, but didn't sing.  Because it encapsulated my thoughts on his passing.

Back in the day, when the parties I went to didn't have pumpkins or children, but instead had copious amounts of alcohol, the Reed-penned/Moe Tucker sung/Velvet Underground song "After Hours" was our choice for our end-of-the-night anthem.

And if you close the door
the night could last forever
Leave the sunshine out
and say hello to never

It would be 6 in the morning.  The sun would be coming up.  We knew the party was over.  We'd always known that the party would end.

But we didn't want it to end.  There was always this kind of faint hope that the fun could continue, that we'd never tire, that the night could last forever.

I can't say that I'd thought about Lou Reed in the last few days (it had been a couple weeks).  I wasn't wondering if he were alive or dead.

And after I heard "Lou Reed died" today, I immediately wished I could un-hear it.  That I could close the door and go on assuming that Lou Reed was still out there, being Lou Reed.

Parties end.  Rock stars pass away.  You say goodbyes.  Things change.

But sometimes you just want to put on an old record and pretend, even for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, to say hello to never.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Velvet Underground "Last Night I Said Goodbye To My Friend"

Here's the dream I had a few nights ago:

I was in a police academy, and we had to run a very complicated obstacle course.  There was lots of crawling through small spaces and climbing walls and ladders and narrow points of entry to the next step.  I was actually doing pretty well, meeting the challenge, making it through at good speed, except . . . there were many, many other people on the course and the congestion they created was making things complicated.


My wife had a very difficult last week.

(Let me stop here to say that I put a lot of my personal life out there/in this blog, but am also sensitive of her feelings and the feelings of the many folks that are involved in the story that follows.  So I'm keeping the details very general, hoping only to draw the larger point)

She lost a close friend.  A former co-worker.

They spoke (texted, actually) one day.  The next day, the friend was gone.  Sudden, and shocking.

As you would expect, my wife experienced a range of emotions in the following days.  Deep, bottomless-feeling sadness.  Anger.  Blame.  Helplessness.  And that weird, familiar need that we have to do something.

Her first reaction was to go to the place where she used to work.  Where her friend had continued to work.  She reconnected with mutual friends and former colleagues and shared in their grief.

But when she got home, she questioned herself.  Was that an appropriate thing to do?  To show up at the old workplace?  Was that something that would seem out of line to other folks still on the job?

My wife is an artist.  And part of her do something response was to create some art for the memorial service.  And to invite as many mutual friends and former colleagues as possible into her studio space to join her.  She spent the afternoon buzzing around the house, trying to get the studio ready, and calling, calling, calling people to get the word out.

After one particular call, she questioned herself.  The friend she had just spoken to was in a very dark place, overwhelmed with sadness.  My wife was in do something mode, very upbeat and resolute.  After hanging up the phone she said, "My God, I must've sounded completely insensitive!  I was zipping around talking about creating art, and she's on the other end of the line, a complete mess."

One more vignette.  At the memorial service, she approached someone that she expected was hit hard by the loss.  She hugged this person.  The person asked, "So how's PJ?"

"It was a complete disconnect," my wife told me later.

"Everyone is in a different place right now, processing this all at different speeds," I said.  "(This person) is probably in a very numb place right now."

Over the course of the week, my wife had felt deep, bottomless-feeling sadness, anger, blame, helplessness, and that weird, familiar need that we have to do something.

All her friends were feeling those things too.  But not at the same time.

The hardest part of grieving, sometimes, is dealing with other people's grieving.  If what they are feeling in the moment isn't the same as what you are feeling in the moment, you can appear insensitive to them, and they to you.

You can be like Lou Reed, John Cale and Mo Tucker, and write and perform a song for your friend Sterling Morrison, because that is how you process the loss.  But maybe to someone else, doing so comes of as self-serving or attention seeking or somehow inappropriate.

You can choose to ignore the feelings of others, and grieve the way you need to grieve.  Or you can moderate your feelings, in deference to others, and perhaps not process your grief in the way you need to.


I think my dream was basically telling me this.  There are obstacles in life.  You can run to meet them and even relish the challenge.

But there are other people running the course.  And ultimately, the real challenge is navigating people without bulldozing them to get to where you need to go, nor letting their progress (or lack of it) hold you back.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Foxygen "No Destruction"

Several years ago, while doing a periodic look at the gaps in some of our "library" stuff, we decided to put a couple of Velvet Underground songs into rotation at MVY.

Of course, we'd had a number of Lou Reed songs in rotation for years, including his more contemporary work.  (His visit to the station in the 90s is a great slice of MVY lore).  But adding Velvet Underground served the dual purpose of beefing up our representation of the late 60s and 70s without resorting to any worn-out classic rock, and it was an important nod to some of the roots of what MVY is.

We've always prided ourselves on playing bands that no one else plays, or songs that no one else plays.  And in particular, we want to show the blueprint.

There's a reason we play a lot of Bob Dylan.  It's because his stamp is directly on many, many of the artists and songs that followed, and that we play today.

And that was part of the reason I felt strongly that we should include some Velvet Underground tracks.

Last week, I heard "Pale Blues Eyes" on the station, and I had this thought:  Where are the Velvet Underground influenced bands?

I mean, there are guys out there who are cribbing straight from Dylan (Jake Bugg, Tallest Man On Earth).  There are bands who are direct descendents of R.E.M. and Talking Heads (Decemberists and Bell X1).  And folks drawing influence straight from The Grateful Dead ("Queen Of California" and The Chris Robinson Brotherhood's "Rosalee").

To be sure, The Velvet Underground's influence is within many, many current bands.  But its an influence that's two or three steps removed.

Not long after having this thought, I heard Foxygen's "No Destruction."  And there it is.

Straight out of the Lou Reed school of vocal delivery, complete with New York City images, here's a band that directly references The Velvet Underground, instead doing it of by way of R.E.M. or Talking Heads or any other Lou Reed/VU acolytes.

What do you think?  Does this track have a place on MVY?


Hear the song on Youtube.