Not hits, but VU's Sweet Jane and RocknRoll get radio play on the classic rock station here.
This would have been unthinkable in the mid-80s, at least in most American cities.
Actually, in the mid-80's, when "VU" and "Another VU" were released, the local "alternative" station in Boston started playing some VU stuff, mainly those 2 Loaded tracks and a couple of tracks from the then-recent albums. They started getting played (more) on the college radio punk rock shows, too.
VU is my favorite Velvet Underground LP..."I cant stand it" "Temptation inside your heart" are great tunes...there musta been some bad decision making going on back in the day...those songs should have been released.
Does anyone have mp3 or could make an mp3 of that MC5 single version of Kick Out the Jams? I've wanted a single-edit of that forever, because the LP version obviously continues live straight into the next track.
I'll be posting at one of my blogs in the next few weeks (it's the 'brothers and sisters' 45).
As far as I've been able to tell, the chronology is this:
Elektra released the uncensored LP, which had 'Motherfuckers!' in 'Kick Out the Jams', but also similar profanity in Sinclair's liners. Hudsons department stores objected to the liner notes and refused to carry the record. MC5 took out the 'Fuck Hudsons!' ad in the local underground paper, prominently featuring the Elektra logo (without the knowledge or approval of Elektra). Hudsons then pretty much said 'fuck Elektra' and refused to stock any of the label's product. This is what got them dropped. They were picked up quickly by Atlantic, who unfortunately saddled them with Jon Landau as a producer.
yeah, thats more or less the same thing i wrote
its funny, though - i once saw an old ish of Sixteen magazine (the famed teenybopper mag) from 1970, and they had a page headlined "SING ALONG WITH THE STOOGES AND MUNGO JERRY!" And there on that page they had the lyrics to MJ's "In The Summertime" and the Stooges'"Down On The Street." I don't have to tell you which one became a hit, but 16 was always giving Iggy & the Stooges a dry run with a picture or two, wondering if they'd catch on as teen idols (they did the same thing with Tim Buckley)
people like Lisa Robinson used to work at teen mags, and I think Danny Fields started as an Elektra publicist, so he would have had direct contacts at these publications. Back then, you could feasibly have a teen publication that had features on The Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper as well as Bobby Sherman. One of the reasons why that time was slightly more interesting than now in the published media. They were still throwing anything at the wall of TEEN hoping something would stick. Now, it seems the archetypes are established.
16 magazine, in particular, was always experimenting like this...i'll admit to owning an issue from '69 where you could "Sing Along With Peggy Lipton and Phil Ochs!"
I was in high school in the 70's and the only Iggy I knew was "The Passenger" and the only Lou Reed I knew was "Walk on the Wild Side." It took a trip to Spain in 1979 to open my eyes to the Velvet Underground. The guy I stayed with in Madrid loved them and Lou and Iggy. His all-time favorite song was "Vicious" which he would sing along to with his Madrid accent. To this day every time I hear it I flashback. Puta madre.
Not hits, but VU's Sweet Jane and RocknRoll get radio play on the classic rock station here.
This would have been unthinkable in the mid-80s, at least in most American cities.
Actually, in the mid-80's, when "VU" and "Another VU" were released, the local "alternative" station in Boston started playing some VU stuff, mainly those 2 Loaded tracks and a couple of tracks from the then-recent albums. They started getting played (more) on the college radio punk rock shows, too.
College radio for sure, but classic rock in the 80s was one of the most tightly-formatted genres out there. Country stations at the time were probably more open than Classic rock back then.
On that note, the first time I ever heard the Ramones ON THE RADIO, was on a top 40 station in my hometown Mankato, MN, called KDOG. They had allowed a bar in town called 'Skank's' (a punk club that boasted shows by the Suburbs and Husker Du, among other regional stars of the era) to fill an hour at 10pm every Sunday with the self-titled 'Skank's Radio Hour', hosted by Taffy Lewis(really Skank's owner/manager, Greg). They began every hour (for the 3 weeks it lasted) by blasting 'Blitkrieg Bop'. It was also the first time I heard the Butthole Surfers, Devo album tracks, and lots of other more obscuro stuff. This was on commercial radio, but the revolution was short lived. The week they ended it, they basically kicked them off mid-show. It seemed tragic to me at the time.
the first time I ever heard the Ramones ON THE RADIO, was on a top 40 station in my hometown Mankato, MN, called KDOG. They had allowed a bar in town called 'Skank's' (a punk club that boasted shows by the Suburbs and Husker Du, among other regional stars of the era) to fill an hour at 10pm every Sunday with the self-titled 'Skank's Radio Hour', hosted by Taffy Lewis(really Skank's owner/manager, Greg).
The first time I ever heard the Ramones on the radio was on The Dr. Demento Show in the late seventies. Since a lot of the first wave of punks had some element of humor, there were quite a few early punk records being aired on his show as novelties, right next to Spike Jones and Allan Sherman.
Comments
VU is my favorite Velvet Underground LP..."I cant stand it" "Temptation inside your heart" are great tunes...there musta been some bad decision making going on back in the day...those songs should have been released.
16 magazine, in particular, was always experimenting like this...i'll admit to owning an issue from '69 where you could "Sing Along With Peggy Lipton and Phil Ochs!"
College radio for sure, but classic rock in the 80s was one of the most tightly-formatted genres out there. Country stations at the time were probably more open than Classic rock back then.
On that note, the first time I ever heard the Ramones ON THE RADIO, was on a top 40 station in my hometown Mankato, MN, called KDOG. They had allowed a bar in town called 'Skank's' (a punk club that boasted shows by the Suburbs and Husker Du, among other regional stars of the era) to fill an hour at 10pm every Sunday with the self-titled 'Skank's Radio Hour', hosted by Taffy Lewis(really Skank's owner/manager, Greg). They began every hour (for the 3 weeks it lasted) by blasting 'Blitkrieg Bop'. It was also the first time I heard the Butthole Surfers, Devo album tracks, and lots of other more obscuro stuff. This was on commercial radio, but the revolution was short lived. The week they ended it, they basically kicked them off mid-show. It seemed tragic to me at the time.
The first time I ever heard the Ramones on the radio was on The Dr. Demento Show in the late seventies. Since a lot of the first wave of punks had some element of humor, there were quite a few early punk records being aired on his show as novelties, right next to Spike Jones and Allan Sherman.