It’s perfectly fitting that Haledon, New Jersey indie rock legends The Feelies would pay tribute to the Velvet Underground. They were every bit as much children of the VU as Jonathan Richman, Yo La Tengo, and countless others, as anyone who has ever heard the amphetamine jingle jangle of their 1980 debut LP, Crazy Rhythms, can attest. And while it could well be urban legend, Lou Reed is supposed to have once told The Feelies they were the only band that “got” the Velvet Underground.
The Feelies were primarily influenced, as were most of the 500,000 bands that owed their existence to a chance encounter with the albums of the most influential band never to make a commercial dent in their own time, by the less avant garde and poppier side of Lou Reed’s split personality. They sidestepped Lou the denizen of the demimonde and zeroed in instead on the propulsive “What Goes On” (from the Velvets’ third studio album, 1969’s The Velvet Underground) making it a template of their sound. And its not as if they tried to hide the fact, anxiety of influence being what it is. Instead, they went so far as to make clear their debt by covering the song on their 1988 LP Only Life.
The Feelies recorded the brand spanking new double live LP Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City in 2018 as part of the touring exhibition “The Velvet Underground Experience.” The Feelies took the stage on an October night and proceeded to tear through eighteen Velvets numbers, many of them de rigeur but some quite surprising.
It was to be expected they’d give numbers like “Heroin” and Sister Ray”—none of them being convivial to The Feelies sound—a wide berth, although part of me wishes they’d given “Heroin” the old college try. But they do include a few minor shockers along the lines of ”After Hours,” “I Heard Her Call My Name,” and “Run Run Run.” Only one cut, “I Can’t Stand It,” didn’t appear on the Big Four albums the Velvets released during their all-too-brief existence. The results are often exhilarating, both band and audience sound like they’re having enormous fun, and you’ll wish you’d been there.
The Feelies cleverly bookend the show by opening with “Sunday Morning,” the very first song on the very first Velvet Underground LP, 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, and shutting things down with “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’,” the final song from the VU’s fourth and last release, 1970’s Loaded. They attack the songs in between with the exuberance of fanatical fans, and if the album has any weaknesses its that the performances are occasionally more enthusiastic than tight and Glenn Mercer’s voice is, on several tracks, not quite strong enough to do a song justice. But these are minor caveats. The Feelies secret weapon is sheer adoration—an adoration clearly shared by the audience.
Mercer’s vocals are the weak link on opener “Sunday Morning”—his voice sounds muddled, lost in the mix. Nor does the band capture the crisp, chiming Sunday morning clarity of the original, although allowances have to be made for the fact that they were playing live. I’m not a huge fan of Mercer’s vocals on follow-up “Who Loves the Sun” either, but that’s a minor caveat—The Feelies do an excellent job of conjuring the song’s ironically perky pop simplicity. I wouldn’t call “There She Goes Again” an uninspired choice, but it’s never ranked high on my list of the Velvets’ best songs. Still, the rhythm section keeps her going at a brisk clip, Mercer emotes, the backing vocals are excellent, and the band breaks into a gallop at the end that would make Lou and the gang proud.
The non-stop propulsion of “What Goes On” is a triumph. The Feelies give the song the requisite swing, and lock into the groove like they invented it rather than developed a life-long crush on it. The pretty intro to “Sweet Jane” is ramshackle and perfunctory, and I’ve certainly heard better covers; once again Mercer’s vocals aren’t quite up to the task, although you can’t say he doesn’t give it all he’s got. The band don’t do anything dumb like slow it down like the Cowboy Junkies, and I love the way they take it out in a burst of Stutz Bearcat acceleration. The methamphetamine groove of “Head Held High” is tailor made for the band—in fact they can’t resist ramping up the tempo some, before shouting out the title come song’s end.
The Feelies jack-up the tempo of “I’m Waiting for the Man” like its speed they’re looking to score and not smack, Dave Weckerman pounds the eighty-eights while Stanley Demeski doubles down on the pneumatics on drums, and it’s like your heart is beating in quadruple time in anticipation of your dealer finally turning the corner. And they throw in a brutally unhinged guitar solo—while Weckerman really doubles down on the keys—to add to the internal agitation.
The Feelies then up the adrenal levels even more by taking “White Light/White Heat” at warp speed, before shutting it down with a chaotic, speed-induced guitar break that will leave you grinding your teeth to the accompaniment of a beautiful amphetamine hum. The band deserves the Red Badge of Courage for tackling “I Heard Her Call My Name,” perhaps the most unhinged performance of Reed’s entire career.
His vocals are pure psychotic break, and he announces: “And then my mind split wide open,” before unleashing what is less a guitar solo than the sound of a deranged mind splintering into a thousand jagged shards. This isn’t music, it’s a particularly terrifying exorcism—his guitar does everything but spider across the ceiling and vomit pea soup. There’s simply no way The Feelies—or anyone—could match the intensity and wild-eyed lunacy of Reed’s performance, but Mercer and guitar foil Bill Million do their best, and theirs is no disgrace as drummer Stan Demeski does a wonderful imitation of Mo Tucker’s primal pound, pound, pound.
They slow things down on their cover of the elegiac “New Age,” one of Reed’s more enigmatic compositions. And they generate a thrill with the repeated, “It’s the beginning of a new age” that takes the song out. “That’s the Story of My Life” is the album’s single uninspired inclusion; it hardly ranks as one of the best of the Velvets’ songs. Their cover is good, but I can’t help but wish they’d looked elsewhere—songs like “Beginning to See the Light,” “Lonesome Cowboy Bill,” and “Train Round the Bend” would all have been more exciting jingle-jangle gist for the Feelies’ mill. Fortunately it’s followed by the hammering drone of “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” on which bassist Brenda Sauter does her best to compete against the frigid tonsils of Teutonic Ice Queen Nico. It’s mesmerizing, a real highlight–the guitars have as much Byrds in them as Lou Reed, but the song always was a kind of mutant New York adaptation of Yhe Byrds’ twelve-string drone.
The Feelies were born to play the high-octane “Rock ’n’ Roll.” They up the tempo to a hyper-strum, Mercer does a fine job on vocals, and the twin axes of Mercer and Bill Million add muscle and jangle appeal respectively. And the Feelies ramp things up even more on their cranked-up rendition of party anthem “We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together,” on which Reed demonstrated he wasn’t above producing party anthems, and was far more than just the Most Serious Artiste in NYC. “Run Run Run” is unexpected but not really–it may often be overlooked in the Velvets’ canon, but its breakneck tempo is perfect for The Feelies. And the pair of fuzzed-out guitar interludes, which prove The Feelies know almost as much about raw power as The Stooges, are even more clamorously cathartic than their guitar turn on “I Heard Her Call My Name.”
The Feelies would have been remiss not to include “I Can’t Stand It”—it’s as tailor made for ‘em as “What Goes On.” They take it at a wonderful gallop, and Mercer delivers his strongest vocal performance. It kinda makes me wonder why they didn’t toss in “Foggy Notion”—another propulsive jangle-rocker from the 1985 compilation VU—while they were at it. The Mo Tucker vocal showcase “After Hours” is a mite surprising—it’s a throwaway and more of a curio than anything else, but Sauter puts in a charming performance, and its end of the party vibe is appropriate coming as the song does near show’s close. Would I have preferred they toss in something else? For sure. But there it is, and the audience certainly liked it.
The laid-back but emotionally intense “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” is a triumph and the perfect closer—it’s a shut your eyes and swayer, and a lullaby that will send you off to dreamland. And the guitar work is both powerful and elegiac. Vocalists/guitarists James Maestro and Richard Barone of The Bongos took the stage at some point in the proceedings—all of the king’s horses and all the king’s men haven’t brought me a bit closer to knowing when—but I suspect they’re on stage for this one.
Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground succeeds in part on the strength of its performances, and in part on the power of sheer love. The Feelies obviously adore these songs, the audience clearly adores these songs, and the experience of hearing them played live, one after another, is revelatory—and transcendent. The songs of the Velvet Underground belong to all of us—they’re folk music at its best—and hearing them played before an audience by a band as simpatico as The Feelies brings them on home. By no means do The Feelies hit all of these songs out of the ballpark. Instead they do something far more life-affirming—they turn them into a celebration. We’re gonna have a real good time together indeed.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
