Billy's nuts, I love him. He is doing some new stuff with Cold Sun. And I know he's done some stuff with P. St. John (some of which is on that Soundcloud page) but I'm not sure how recent that is. Hopefully he'll come to town next month when Turner debuts his Satan's bride video

btw , HONEST , I did delete the two extra messages. Sorry.  

Billy said , in Ugly Things , The Velvets ' influence on Cold Sun was not as strong as that of The Elevators , but, it was there.

Chris Stigliano wrote a good article about the influence of The Velvets on artists you would'nt have imagined , The Cars , e.g. , if only by virtue of being from Boston , where The Velvets were still gigging before and after they were regarded as nobodies , and people like Jonathan Richman drew from that.(PS , I was just told , recently ,  That John Felice was "Hippie Johnny" . Don't know if that's so , or why , perhaps because of head butting within the original Modern Lovers , and that was Jonathan's revenge ?).

 

 But , I've always read Boston was the first city to really embrace VU. Tho' everytime they played Chicago , on some mismatched bill , about 100 people with shades and all - black gear would rush the stage when they came on , then leave before the next band. Of course , they played in Texas , and Roky became a big fan , tho' it's unclear whether he actually saw the band or not. He was probably at Rusk by the time they first played Houston or Austin (Didthey play Austin?) .

 

The earliest Velvets ' cover I could think of was The Yardbirds' "I'm Waiting For The Man" , which they may have only performed once (?) in LA in '68 . Stigliano told me there was a band from Holland who released a Pop version of Run , Run , Run and , maybe "There She Goes Again" (?) shortly after the first Velvets ' LP was released.  Of course , going back to Bosstown , Willie "Loco " Alexander played in a much later version of The Velvets , minus Lou. The funniest story involving Lou Reed did'nt really involve him at all. You probably read about how David Bowie talked for 20 minutes , backstage , with Lou , only to learn it was really Doug Yule , as Reed had quit the band , telling Yule "You take it. Take all of it. ". Apparently , a lot of people thought Doug WAS Lou at the time ! HA HA HA HA HA.

John Battles said:

btw , HONEST , I did delete the two extra messages. Sorry.  

Billy said , in Ugly Things , The Velvets ' influence on Cold Sun was not as strong as that of The Elevators , but, it was there.

Chris Stigliano wrote a good article about the influence of The Velvets on artists you would'nt have imagined , The Cars , e.g. , if only by virtue of being from Boston , where The Velvets were still gigging before and after they were regarded as nobodies , and people like Jonathan Richman drew from that.(PS , I was just told , recently ,  That John Felice was "Hippie Johnny" . Don't know if that's so , or why , perhaps because of head butting within the original Modern Lovers , and that was Jonathan's revenge ?).

 

 But , I've always read Boston was the first city to really embrace VU. Tho' everytime they played Chicago , on some mismatched bill , about 100 people with shades and all - black gear would rush the stage when they came on , then leave before the next band. Of course , they played in Texas , and Roky became a big fan , tho' it's unclear whether he actually saw the band or not. He was probably at Rusk by the time they first played Houston or Austin (Didthey play Austin?) .

 

The earliest Velvets ' cover I could think of was The Yardbirds' "I'm Waiting For The Man" , which they may have only performed once (?) in LA in '68 . Stigliano told me there was a band from Holland who released a Pop version of Run , Run , Run and , maybe "There She Goes Again" (?) shortly after the first Velvets ' LP was released.  Of course , going back to Bosstown , Willie "Loco " Alexander played in a much later version of The Velvets , minus Lou. The funniest story involving Lou Reed did'nt really involve him at all. You probably read about how David Bowie talked for 20 minutes , backstage , with Lou , only to learn it was really Doug Yule , as Reed had quit the band , telling Yule "You take it. Take all of it. ". Apparently , a lot of people thought Doug WAS Lou at the time ! HA HA HA HA HA.

I heard that version of "Run, Run, Run" on Intoxica Radio, which was quite a fun cover version, but I thought it was by a German band.

http://youtu.be/a9Wie9U7ggM

Chris , Could have been a German band....I've never heard it , but heard both sides were more Pop - oriented than the originals. But , they had songs like that , which other bands could have recorded at the time , and , at least , brought in some revenue.....Of course , The Yardbirds'
"Waiting" only tuned up on a bootleg , years later , making that version of "Run ,Run , Run" (and the flip?) the first officially released Velvets cover(s).

It's also funny to note , there was actually a band in Australia, at the same time , called The Velvet Underground.  Maybe they sang about scoring Tim Tams instead of Heroin (Tim Tams are chocolate- covered wafer cookies from OZ that could deep - six the Heroin trade , if they ever put 'em on the market , here....).

I've heard of the Aussie band of the same name. Why didn't JOHN Cale sue them?

CHRIS ,i REPLIED TO THIS , IT MAY HAVE ONLY TURNED UP ON YOUR PROFILE (?)

I seriously doubt that Reed or Cale knew about the Oz Velvet Underground (Whose version of "She Comes in Colors" appears on the Arthur Lee and Love cover songs collection on Music Maniac.) . It's like the UK Folk - Rock group called The Chocolate Watchband. As obscure as THE AMERICAN CWB WAS IN THEIR TIME , the English band were that much more unknown. If they did'nt have the same name as a now - accclaimed cult band , I doubt anyone would have heard of them at all , today. But , there was a law that said if two bands had the same name , the less - established of the two had to relinquish the rights to the name - So , the LA - based group , Nazz ,  became Alice Cooper , after learning Todd Rundgren's band , Nazz, had a record out , first. Arthur Lee had to give up the band name , Grass Roots , when he found out another band had a single out under that name , changing the band's name to Love. Hey , Alice and Arthur both came out ahead , in terms of which name was better for them.

 

Plus , with very few exceptions , the Aussie scene was so isolated from The US (Tho' maybe not quite as much from The UK.) , it's possible , if not probable , that the Velvets from Oz were about as familiar with The US Velvets as the latter was with the former......