It’s been a year since I was last in New York City.
52 weeks since I last allowed myself to be happily ripped off in an off-Times Square pizza joint – “Seventy bucks for four slices of greasy, cheesy pizza and four cans of Coke? Tip that up to eighty and take my money ma man.”
365 days since I last had a stiff neck from looking up, down, all around at the buildings and bridges and people and possibilities of the greatest city on the planet, listening surreptitiously to the natives as they passed, deep in loud conversation, loud in deep conversation. “I used t’be afraid of the Bronx…I heard chow chows are adorable…My social life is a gawd-damned diz-ass-tuh…and he was buh-leeding awl ovah the apartment…I dunno, John, it cawsts a lotta dough…Then he jumped on the window display and pretended to be a mannequin! Hur hur hur!!!…”
That’ll be 8760 hours since I last walked upwards of 35,000 steps each day in search of musical reference points the length and breadth of Manhattan, got passively high in Times Square, rode the subway from 42nd Street, listened to a great, soulful Beatles busker at the Lennon memorial spot in Central Park, admired the art deco wonder that is the Chrysler Building, got an hour to myself to shop for records, recreated Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album cover in the wrong freakin’ street, looked into tiny but expensive apartment windows and took arty photographs atop the High Line, internally sang songs at every other street sign (Lexington Avenue, 10th Avenue etc etc), imagined seeing the singer Beck near the Empire State Building, jumped at the unexpected wail of a cop car siren, drank Brooklyn Pilsner and ate the greatest pizza in Juliana’s, sat on a brownstone stoop (should’ve broken into some doo-woo – missed opportunity) and generally had the most fulfilling experience possible.
I’m absolutely not kidding when I say that, outside of regular thoughts about family and work and what we’ll have for dinner that night and can I squeeze in a wheezy run while the boy is at the football training, the city of New York is an ever-present, permanent fixture in my head. Analytics being what they are, it’s there too in every other post in my social media feeds, and I ain’t complaining. Until I return – whenever the cost-of-living crisis hell that may be – it’s just about the next best thing.
That most New York of bands, The Velvet Underground, decamped to L.A. for their third album, 1969’s eponymously-titled release. Following the white-hot, white light/white heat abrasiveness of its predecessor, the third album is gentle, rich in melody and only occasionally rips into cacophonous rackets of the knuckle bleeding overstrumming that’s come to define them (maybe just side 2’s Murder Mystery – and that’s pushing it.) The gossamer-light Candy Says sets the scene. The soporific Pale Blue Eyes, with its woozy, almost out of tune guitar lines and Moe Tucker’s steady tambourine rattle closes side 1 perfectly. Beginning To See The Light‘s chugging acoustic guitars and ‘here we go again‘ breakdown continues the mood into side 2, before the whole thing closes perfectly on After Hours, Moe Tucker’s surprising and wobbly lead vocal sending the whole thing off to bed.
The story – the legend- goes that the band had a whole bundle of gear stolen at some point in its journey through JFK Airport, hence the lack of distortion and discord, but Lou Reed has since debunked that by saying he simply wanted to play more melodically. Not having John Cale in the band by this point might have helped too.
I’ve been obsessing this week over Some Kind Of Love, all double twang and asthmatic slide, hypnotic and groovy and never-ending. It’s really great.
Some Kind Of Love – The Velvet Underground
The lyrics are ambiguous but, naturellement, saucy, salacious and just a little perverse. “I don’t know just what it’s all about, but just, uh, put on your red pyjamas and find out,” croons ol’ Lou at the end, smiling at his smutty little self as he does so. They tell me that New York is somewhat cleaned up these days. Lou’s mind, seemingly, was as filthy as the streets that birthed his band. Lucky for us.
Plain Or Pan 