| I don't want a movie that tells you how great the band is: I want a movie that shows you how great they are, and then *you* figure that out. | | | | |  | A collage from Todd Haynes' "The Velvet Underground."
(Apple TV+) | | | | | "I don't want a movie that tells you how great the band is: I want a movie that shows you how great they are, and then *you* figure that out." | | | | Film Fatale
Almost every time a contemporary critic, historian or any such "expert" shows up in a music documentary, it's a sign the documentary has failed. Failed to get someone who was there to say exactly what the director wanted to say. Or failed to get the images or sounds the director needed you to see or hear. The expert is there less to provide insight or context than to cover up the documentary's holes, to tell what the film does not show.
There are no such voices in director TODD HAYNES' THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, which, after brief sketches of the film's, and the band's, two main protagonists growing up in Long Island and Wales, drops them and you into the middle of the avant garde film, art, literature and music scene of 1960s New York, leaving you to encounter all of it as you might have if you, too, were there. There's a dizzying barrage of imagery, often in split screen—Haynes has said he licensed two and a half hours of footage, more than the running time of the film. There are stories, some with beginnings and ends, some without, told by key players including LA MONTE YOUNG, JONAS MEKAS, MARY WORONOV, AMY TAUBIN, JONATHAN RICHMAN (the MODERN LOVERS founder was a superfan who the band took under its wings) and two of the band's three surviving members (DOUG YULE declined to participate, which may be why the band's end gets a lot less play than its beginning, though it may also be that Haynes found the end a lot less interesting). There are other voices, contemporaneous ghosts, on tape.
The documentary is, in a sense, about all of it and all of them, about a transitional moment when it became clear, as Jonas Mekas puts it, "We are not part, really, of subculture or counterculture. We are the culture!" There are the basic details of a band forming, a band finding its voice and a band falling apart, and there are holes and elisions, which Haynes displays no particular urgency to fill. The essence of the story, he seems to be telling us, is there to be felt and absorbed, as is. The sound and imagery aren't there to tell the story. They are the story. They are the culture.
Like all of Haynes' music films, "The Velvet Underground" is super stylized. It looks, sounds and feels very much like the time and place it's documenting, with all those pop-art split screens, scratchy sounds and footage, and images and stories that dissolve into each other, not always sequentially. It's easy to forget, as you're watching, that this story took place more than 50 years ago, that only three of the VU's six principals are alive, and that precious little footage of the band has survived. That's part of Haynes' miraculous achievement in a documentary about a band that in many ways was headed for failure, but that refuses to fail itself.
After Hours
Oh, and then there's the film's closing credits, which I'll let music producer/preservationist ANDY ZAX explain, for they may be "The greatest part of Todd Haynes's truly great VU documentary." Film school, as it were.
Rest in Peace
Film and TV composer RALPH CARMICHAEL, best known for his score for "The Blob." He also wrote hundreds of gospel songs and worked as Nat King Cole's arranger/conductor... British field recordist and sound archivist IAN RAWES... Dallas punk scene fixture OLAN MARTIN.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
|
| | |  | | The New York Times |
| | Meet the New Owners of the Wu-Tang Clan's One-of-a-Kind Album | | by Ben Sisario | | The government sold "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" to satisfy a judgment against its first owner, Martin Shkreli. The buyers? A collective called PleasrDAO that paid $4 million. | |  | | Complex |
| | How a Federal Initiative Is Fueling the Criminalization of Rap | | by Andre Gee | | The Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative has been methodically trumping up gun possession cases to federal crimes in order to inflict harsher sentences on its targets. Several hip-hop artists, including Memphis artist Pooh Shiesty, Brooklyn rapper Jeezy Mula, and Louisiana rapper SOD Bankroll, have been targeted. | |  | | Penny Fractions |
| | Does Anyone Want a Virtual Concert? | | by David Turner | | Is the flood of cash into funding livestreaming companies filling a consumer demand or investor dreams? | |  | | NPR |
| | From bankruptcy to IPO in a year? It's a tune Guitar Center might play | | by Alina Selyukh | | Mattress Firm, Claire's, Guitar Center are bankruptcy survivors going from a year of shuttered stores to planning a new life as publicly traded companies. | |  | | Interview Magazine |
| | Miley Cyrus Tells Lars Ulrich How She Found Her Inner Rock Star | | by Lars Ulrich and Miley Cyrus | | After running her natural pop instincts through hip-hop, country, and psychedelic filters, the 28-year-old musician has reached her final form. Here, she tells the Metallica drummer how she did it and what it means. | |  | | The Ringer |
| | Lil Wayne Lives Twice | | by Abou Kamara | | The onetime best rapper alive has recently sounded like he could make a run at the title again. Could a Weezy rebirth be in the offing? | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | A rock star's favorite guitar was stolen. One of his biggest fans tracked it down in Japan. | | by Sydney Page | | Randy Bachman's beloved guitar was missing for nearly 45 years | |  | | Cyanite.ai |
| | How Do AI Music Recommendation Systems Work | | Music recommendation systems can significantly improve the Since the need for satisfactory listening and music recommendations is so high, the MRS (music recommendation systems) field is developing at a lightning speed. | |  | | Appetite for Distraction |
| | What NFTs Promise Music Creators--And What They Actually Do | | by Yash Bagal | | Why own anything in the age of abundance? | |  | | Slate |
| | Todd Haynes' Velvet Underground Documentary Will Change the Way You Think About the Band | | by Carl Wilson | | The new movie, streaming on Apple TV+, rescues the group from being just a band that inspired other bands. | | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | It's still very, very good to be Duran Duran | | by Rob Tannenbaum | | Set to release their 15th album, Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon and John Taylor talk recovering from COVID, their favorite bad review and plastic trousers. | |  | | DJ Mag |
| | The fight against the opioid crisis in US clubbing | | by Ria Hylton | | Shocked by the spate of accidental opioid overdoses in the US clubbing community, DJ and producer Lauren Flax decided to take action. With the help of healthcare professionals and friends, she launched Last Night A Deejay Saved My Life, a harm reduction programme that is saving clubbers' lives. | |  | | Vulture |
| | Young Thug's Punk Rebirth Isn't Quite That | | by Craig Jenkins | | Neither was Lil Wayne's. | | | | The New York Times |
| | With His New Album, 'Far In,' Helado Negro Confronts Earthly Anxieties | | by Isabelia Herrera | | The Ecuadorean American musician's new album, "Far In," is filled with celestial lullabies that confront earthly anxieties. | |  | | Synchblog |
| | Who Wins in the Future of Sync Licensing? | | by Nick Bennett | | A plethora of both new and established players are taking advantage of a booming sync market. | |  | | Variety |
| | The Problem With Digital Radio's Payment System (Guest Column) | | by David Israelite | | They say there are no secrets in the music industry. But here's one. In the United States, record labels and recording artists collect twice as much as songwriters and music publishers from the radio industry, despite terrestrial radio not paying record labels and artists anything at all. You read that correctly. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | 'My mission has been accomplished': how Susana Baca resurrected Afro-Peruvian music | | by Ammar Kalia | | In her 50-year career, Baca has been a singer, ethnomusicologist and Peru's minister of culture. As she releases her 16th album, she reveals why her work is as vital as it has ever been. | | | | Variety |
| | Grammy Nominations Forecast: Could the Top Categories Be a Battle of the Teen Titans? | | by Chris Willman | | Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish lead a crowded field of contenders in the Grammys' key races, including album, record and song of the year. But Taylor Swift and Lil Nas X are favored for multiple nods, too. | | | | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" | | |  | | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator | | |  |
| | | |
| | |
| |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment