Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Velvet Underground Evolutionary Tree



I made this simple chart because some people insist on clinging to their silly Creationist superstitions, and won't accept the truth that everything worthwhile came from the Velvet Underground.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

you materialist scientists go on and on about the VU when anybody with any common sense would look at the tree you draw and think to themselves, "how would such an orderly unfolding even be possible without the intervention of Roky Erickson?"

steve simels said...

Speaking as somebody who is a HUGE fan of the Velvets and has been for ages -- I actually saw the post Lou version with Doug Yule and his brother (they sucked, of course) -- I have no idea why we're having this argument. Other than apparently you live in some alternate universe where Lou didn't screw up that legendary meeting with Brian Epstein.

The Kenosha Kid said...

Hey, I acknowledged you on my chart!

And I won't even discuss the possibility that Roky Erickson 'intelligently designed' rock music.

Anonymous said...

Come on, people.

All this evolution is koo-koo talk.

We all know Lou Reed spontaneously budded from the forehead of Spike Jones.

Anonymous said...

You have Simels lower down the evolutionary scale than emo or art rock?

That's cold, man.
Really cold.

flory

Ken Houghton said...

You have Lou Reed higher on the evolutionary scale than John Cale?

You can have Mistrial ("The Original Wrapper" indeed) and Between Thought and Expression; I'll take Words for the Dying (or Honi Soit or Paris 1919) and What's Welsh for Zen any day.

Anonymous said...

I was gonna search around for a fine version of "There's an Abominable Snowman in the Market", but you get this instead.

Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole.

Not like Simels!
~

Anonymous said...

I could have sworn that everything came from Big Star.

cavjam said...

Then again, Lou Reed sprung from Delmore Schwartz and Allen Ginsburg, Cale from La Monte Young and the Dream Syndicate, and Nico from the Brecht/Weill voice school of "Who needs a melody?"

>Ken Houghton - Amen! though I kinda liked Lou's Live album, the one all the critics panned, surely not solely cuz of Lou's "It's the journalists, it's the fuckin' journalists" screed. Cale's latest, Black Acetate, is supreme.

Kevin said...

Shouldn't the arm pointing to Art Rock be labeled "Roxy Music"?

The Kenosha Kid said...

John Cale produced the first Iggy Pop album, as well as demos for the Modern Lovers, so he is well represented on this chart. I couldn't figure out where to squeeze in Roxy Music (or David Bowie!) but there was a discussion of them on PowerPop, so they weren't left out either. Cavjam - you are the man for coming up with those connections - but can't we blame Nico on Fellini?

cavjam said...

"... but can't we blame Nico on Fellini?"

Surely; if you think of her as clownish, a la Gelsamina(sp?) in La Strada. Her Sunday Morning, however, is nonpareil.

BTW, Cale also, IIRC, had a hand in producing Squeeze, Patti Smith, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Anonymous said...

Your first offspring -- Iggy and the Stooges -- came directly outta VU? Piffffle. Try listening to The Sonics, (e.g. "Strychnine") and it'll be obvious that the Stooges sound a helluva lot more like the Seattle badasses in their white Corvettes, than they ever did the drug-chic beatnik New York art-factory hipsters.

Peace.

Anonymous said...

For what its worth, i this is incorrect.
1. VU begat Iggy Pop?. i don't think so. VU was all about art and avant garde. VU was, and rightly so, highly influential to a large number of bands and artists (including performance artists). But Iggy was punk. Iggy was definitely at the beginnings of Punk but i think it would be more accurate to say: "Kinks -> Iggy Pop -> Pistols.
2. Also New Wave was not an offshoot of the Pistols. There's no one in their right mind that would say that Devo was the same as The Clash. Punk was a statement, New Wave was fashion.

IMO of course.

The Kenosha Kid said...

"I like the Velvet Underground and I'm one of those very few people who really, really like Nico's music." - Iggy Pop, Jazz & Pop, 1969 (as quoted in Gimme Danger)

"Bob Dylan (Bringing it all Back Home and Highway 61 Revisted) and Lou Reed (the banana album) both influenced me by the way they'd used breathy vocals and very effortlessly ride a strong beat underneath it... I used that technique on 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and 'Real Cool Time'" - Iggy Pop, Spin, 1986 ditto