Robert Quine

np quine/maher "basic"

While doing some recording a couple weekends back we got stumped trying to figure out a guitar part on one song. I played the solo on 'Love In Spurts' to explain the feel for my friend to try on the part and it ended up influencing what we recorded.

RIP.

there is quite an informative site here.

Even if he hadn't been a damn good guitarist, for the VU set last year alone he deserves credit. RIP.

RIP

His squeals and weals, his steers off-road and up-neck. His lurches and car crashes of sound; his conjured explosions and high twang drifters.

Terrible news...

it is.

Anyway, let the anecdotes begin: anyone else hear the story of the '74 or '75 Richard Hell tour with the Ramones in the UK, where - older and crankier than his tourmmates - Quine allegedly throttled whatever gobbers dared spit on his nice guitar?

(message ends)

'Don't Look Back', 'Sweetheart' (1990)

'Tell Your Sister (The "L" Word) (1991)

'Like Lovers Do' (1995)

'Man on the Verge' (2000)

or many others.

Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation (1977)
Lydia Lunch - Queen of Siam (1979)
Material - Temporary Music 1 (1981)
Robert Quine - Escape (with Jody Harris) (1981)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Destiny Street (1982)
Lou Reed - The Blue Mask (1982)
Material - Red Tracks (1982)
Get Crazy - film soundtrack (1983)
Lou Reed - Legendary Hearts (1983)
Lou Reed - Live in Italy (1984)
John Zorn - The Big Gundown (1984)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - R.I.P.: The ROIR Sessions (1984)
Robert Quine - Basic (with Fred Maher) (1984)
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs (1985)
Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)
Wiseblood - Dirtdish (1986)
John Zorn - Spillane (1986)
Marianne Faithfull - Strange Weather (1987)
Matthew Sweet - Earth (1989)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Funhunt (Live at CBGB & Max's) (1990)
Lloyd Cole - Lloyd Cole (1990)
Lloyd Cole - Don't Get Weird On Me Babe (1991)
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend (1991)
Dim Stars - Dim Stars (1992)
Brian Eno - Nerve Net (1992)
Lou Reed - Between Thought and Expression (1992)
Suzanne Rhatigan - To Hell With Love (1992)
John Zorn - Film Works 1986-1990 (1992)
Hal Willner - Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus (1992)
The Odds - Bedbugs (1993)
Matthew Sweet - Altered Beast (1993)
Sion - I Don't Like Myself (1993)
Matthew Sweet - Son of Altered Beast (1994)
They Might Be Giants - John Henry (1994)
Lloyd Cole - Love Story (1995)
Mike Mainieri - Come Together: Guitar Tribute to the Beatles, Vol. 2 (1995)
Richard Hell - Go Now (1995)
Matthew Sweet - 100% Fun (1995)
Matthew Sweet - We're the Same (1995)
Mikel Erentxun - El Abrazo Del Erizo (1995)
John Zorn - Film Works V: Tears of Ecstacy (1996)
Material - Secret Life (1996)
Corin Curschellas - Valdun—Voices of Rumantsch (1997)
Ikue Mori (with Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works III (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works IV: S&M (1997)
John Zorn - Film Works VII: Cynical Hysterie Hour (1997)
John Zorn - Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach (1997)
Reiss - Vibe of Life (1998)
John Zorn - Bribe (1998)
Material - Best of Material (1999)
John Zorn - Godard/Spillane (1999)
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - 'Oh' - MUSICBLITZ.com (2000)
Kazuyoshi Saito - Cold Tube (2000)
The Odds - Singles—Individually Wrapped (2000)
Sion - Songs (2000)
Wayne Kramer Presents Beyond Cyberpunk (2001)
Andre Williams - Bait and Switch (2001)
The Velvet Underground - Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (2001)
Lloyd Cole - Etc. (2001)
Richard Hell - Time (2002)
Michael DuClos - Lustro (2002)
Tom Clark and the High Action Boys - Cross-Eyed and Bow-Legged (2002)
Lys Guillorn - Lys Guillorn (2003)

I saw this today for the first time ("A Night With Lou Reed", from 1983). Lou Reed's playing is good (the vocals are nothing special), but the band pretty much pwns him. Quine looks badass in his dark glasses, sloppy-collared shirt and open jacket. Lou Reed is supposed to be the tough guy with the poses and a leather jacket, but Quine is the cold-blooded killer.

loving this record, just heard it for the first time last week:
Ikue Mori (with Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)

think i need to put together a quine mixtape, with the best of his sideman stuff, or something.

also been listening to an audio rip of that night with lou reed video mentioned above -- quine pretty much walks away with the show. every solo he plays is rad.

please do put that together

looking at that discog posted above, there's a lot I don't have!

loving this record, just heard it for the first time last week:
Ikue Mori (with Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)

― tylerw, Friday, March 25, 2011 12:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

This is a fabulous record, that I'm guessing many haven't heard. Great use of cheap rhythm box.

this sounds interesting:
did another thing like that with Zorn and Bill Frissell. We jammed together a lot. It was a concert at Harvard in '87 at a chapel. We cleared the place. There was no discussion as we walked out to the stage. Bill and I had loop machines so we had four guitars and a sax playing. They made a recording of it and it'd be nice to come out.
from here: http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine.html

i also love this quote from the same interview
After that, what would you say about the time you played with Lou Reed?

Musically, the first week and a half was really great, out of the four years.

Would have been 70 today.

I remember when Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" was in heavy rotation on MTV, and it was such a wonderful mindfuck that you could hear Robert Quine multiple times a day on TV.

mindfuck that you could hear any good music on TV.

But yeah, RIP Bob Quine. I remember feeling pissed off on his behalf when I read in Victor Bokris's book (hatchet job?) "Transformer" that Lou Reed mixed Bob Quine so low on one of his albums (Blue Mask or Legendary Hearts, I don't remember) that Bob repeatedly drove over the tape in his driveway after putting it in his cassette deck.

the woman on the right is j@ne quine, either mother or aunt of robert quine (i can't remember exactly, but i know she was related)
she was super cool
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6p23avsDm1rzge1ho1_1280.jpg

A friend of mine just told me that Robert's uncle was William Van Orman Quine.

But yeah, RIP Bob Quine. I remember feeling pissed off on his behalf when I read in Victor Bokris's book (hatchet job?) "Transformer" that Lou Reed mixed Bob Quine so low on one of his albums (Blue Mask or Legendary Hearts, I don't remember) that Bob repeatedly drove over the tape in his driveway after putting it in his cassette deck.

― Poliopolice, Sunday, December 30, 2012 6:40 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm gonna guess Legendary Hearts, only because he's all over The Blue Mask (as he should be). Ironically, he stuck around to tour with Lou (cf. Live In Italy).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7bXk4N5no

Try again, with http instead of https:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7bXk4N5no

i still don't know his subsequent work very well, but even just the first voidoids album is enough to make him one of my all-time favorites.

he was able to take the contradictory impulses of (what became) punk rock -- to revisit earlier forms of rock music and to wreck them all -- and make them materially real, as a player. he could play the whole corpus of traditional american guitar playing upside down and backwards. and so, he did.

Total throw down by Quine here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzl3AB5tw-w

Also, wow! Had no idea he was on Scritti Politti's Cupid and Psyche.

dennis miller is the most annoying man on the entire planet

His cousin Tim Quine has a good blog, Rubber City Review, where he posted a couple commentaries on Bob several years ago--this one is about the music, incl mp3s of several things I hadn't heard; think they all still work, but haven't checked the l0u lately (most likely to be removed?) http://rubbercityreview.com/2010/05/robert-quine-the-hits-2/

Here's Tim's first post: close encounters and some music links as well: http://rubbercityreview.com/2010/03/encounters-with-quine/

ha pretty sure the drummer in that clip is the guy from Mr Mister

Big session dude IIRC

Def the Mr. Mister guy, who has spent the past 15 years or so in king crimson. Bassist is sara lee, who played in gang of four and b-52s. Dunno the other guy.

Quine is on the Scritti Polliti because the band was basically Material. That album was produced by Fred Maher, who also produced girlfriend.

those blog posts are great, thanks for sharing...
quine was known for a certain type of guitar playing, but he really was super versatile -- as those blog posts note about his solo on that reed's "betrayed" (from live in italy), he was an amazing country rock guitarist, too.

Oh yea, forgot Quine was in Material--did he ever play on a track w Sharrock? Or Frith?

I don't think so. Not sure Quine was a Material regular, either, but he was in the same orbit as Laswell. I know Quine and Maher did an album together called Basic.

Those Manhattan bohos of the mid to late eighties all knew each other. Maher and Matthew Sweet played on Lloyd Cole's good 1990 eponymous record; he returned the favor by playing on Girlfriend.

He makes just one appearance on C&P '85 but he makes it count: a solo on "Don't Work That Hard"

Yeah I've got Basic, and I used to buy everything I could find w Quine in the credits. Haven't heard the first Cole, but got the second, Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe, with Quine-Sweet-Maher. He and Maher are always worth hearing, though he did do a lot of one-offs, like C&P 85. Consult your local yard sale.

He had a good column in Guitar World (or was it Guitar Player). Thought of that recently when Mickey Baker died.

Is that his solo on "She's a Girl and I'm a Man"?

sounds like it. Love that song.

Think so, yeah.

That whole album is good! I'm a Lloyd Cole apologist, but I would like to know who encouraged his sleazy makeover right before the first solo album.

long bangs and stubble!

He did look dissolute by mid decade though.

btw I asked my mom about the woman in the picture and her relationship to Robert Quine and we decided she was probably his aunt. I knew her before I ever knew who he was. Akron's a small place!

Do you know Tim Quine? He's also like the uncle or something of Dan Auerbach, who wrote about finally meeting Bob, during a family get-together. He was shy at first, but then they got into talking about guitar music. Some thought of asking him to play on a Black Keys album, but then he died. (Patrick Carney's Uncle Ralph, of Afterbirth of the Cool etc., did play on a Black Keys record, I think--small world indeed!)

Oh yeah, Ralph was in Tin Huey too!

Not personally, but I'm sure friends of mine do -- it's a pretty small town when you avoid all of the boring people. Jane is Dan A's grandmother, so I think she is related to Robert through her husband's side of the family, which would make her his aunt I think? I'm awful with family tree terminology -- I don't even know what a second cousin is tbh.

<3 Tin Huey!
Rubber City 4 eva

>I don't even know what a second cousin is tbh.

Put simply, your second cousin is the son/daughter of your mom/dad's first cousin.

so a stranger, then? ;)

A friend of mine just told me that Robert's uncle was William Van Orman Quine.

Whoa. That's the big time. Maybe one of these days I will read a fraction of what I want to read, including Quine.

Willard Van Orman Quine >>>> Robert Quine.

listening to a lot of Lou Reed in the last week has made me miss Quine as well. his strangled, gasping, desperate tone was a big gateway drug for me in terms of sonics - when I was in high school I found a copy of Richard Hells' Blank Generation LP based solely on Lester Bangs' 5-star RS record guide interview, and the solos were what resonated with me first. his album with Fred Maher is also good, and he is probably on a shitload of records I don't even know about like that Ribot/Mori one.

also just his contribution to that whole NY scene, his recordings of the VU getting released, and that great long interview quote from the Lou Reed RIP thread about playing guitar with Lou... can't find it now.

Did you check those Tim Quine blog links upthread? And this is Bob central, or close as we've gotten, I think: http://www.quine.org/robertquine.html

Also The Hound's blog (but his claims about his longtime running buddy RQ's demise are---well, you might not wanna go to that part) http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/

That interview at Perfect Sound Forever with Quine is the best thing ever, especially his comments about the late Lou Reed.

Looking again for his own columns in that guitar magazine, found instead another interview with RQ, re even more stuff I didn't know he did:
http://www.vintageguitar.com/2918/robert-quine/

Thanks. Listening to those Lloyd Cole songs he singled out now. Miss this guy and am always happy to read any interview with him.

awesome. i made a playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/elishasessions/playlist/7suPRxt8JDKgu4UleqYCig

Recently read an interview with Ivan Julian in which he said that he, Quine and Richard Lloyd were never around except singly with Matthew Sweet- he could only handle one of these characters at a time.

This finally appeared on xgau's site:

Robert Quine
To me the most striking thing that Robert Quine has done in two decades is to die. I liked him tremendously and, as an uxorious man, think the story of his last year unspeakably tragic. We got to know each other in the wake of Lester Bangs's death, always as mutually respectful casual acquaintances. I ran into him on the street every few years, although it occurs to me that the last time I saw him something in me held back and I didn't greet him; I don't know whether he saw me, but his body language must have told me not to approach. So the last time I spoke to him was in the Village two or three years ago, I think his wife was with him, and he told me nobody wanted to play with him anymore. I said I'd spread the word to the few musicians I know, and I did, but nothing came of it. When I first heard of his death I wondered whether he'd even get an obituary anywhere. Yet here two days later is a big one with a photo in the Times, and the next day someone on Fresh Air is playing "Waves of Fear" and telling listeners what DVD's they can buy to see him in action. I think Quine would have been astonished by this response, and sardonic about it. But it's clear that those who were touched by him were touched deeply. I would say that his tiny body of work makes him one of the great rock guitarists, kind of like Pete Cosey's work with Miles, and that many many people know that. Moreover, quite a few of them are intelligent and articulate people with media connections. So he won't pass unnoticed. Good.

The other thing I would mention is that Quine, while a very decent man, was also a very dour one--more dour than I think the state of music or the world ever fully justified. He was bitter with me about both Richard Hell and Lou Reed. And indeed, these were and are difficult and egotistical men, as artists with something to say tend to be. To make your mark as a sideman, which was clearly Quine's appointed role, you have to be able to shrug off the temperament and selfishness of those whose role is to be leaders. Quine couldn't do this. On one level you say, Good for him, he was better than them anyway. But on another level it's also temperament, and an important part of why he left this world the way he did. Now the way is open for him to become a legend. Oddly enough, he may just make it.

Postscript Notes:

For the rest of Perfect Sound Forever's Robert Quine tribute, see the index.http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine/index.html

Perfect Sound Forever, 2004http://www.furious.com/perfect/quine/robertchristgau.html

Surely he'd been around the neighborhood---starting as a tax preparer, for other musos, for inst---long enough to be well aware of Hell's and Reed's reps as employers (and colleagues), but I guess figured they were worth a shot, as who would not. I think the filmed concert mentioned on here several times was where I saw Reed actually throw back his head and laugh, as Quine played some succinctly outrageous interjection---"I saw my head laughing, rolling on the ground"--but also remember a quote from Fernando Saunders, re Reed taking away his solo in "New Age," after it was mentioned in concert reviews---and another quote from somebody about Reed's insecurity about Cale's musical proficiency, why they kept falling out, supposedly--maybe this had something to with his treatment of Quine as well.

Given Quine's fruitful tenure with the likes of Reed, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, Laswell, Zorn, etc., I find it hard to believe that no one wanted to work with him, unless he was truly hard to work with.

Maybe he just got that way, or more that way, toward the end; the drug problem got pretty bad, judging by his running buddy The Hound's account, still posted maybe.

Just came across this recently!
https://sorcererrecords.bandcamp.com/album/escape

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3080446209_10.jpg

I saw him around pretty consistently for 20 years, as I lived a few streets over from him, and his body language was always "do not approach," which is also true of fucking Xgau, Jarmusch, Glass and nearly every single notable person to live the East Village from 1975 to 2000.

Given Quine's fruitful tenure with the likes of Reed, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, Laswell, Zorn, etc., I find it hard to believe that no one wanted to work with him, unless he was truly hard to work with.

not hard to imagine him being too proud to chase after work in those later years as well, the kind of person who laments that no one calls but never picks up the phone

yeah, he didn't have a management/PR structure of any kind that would get his name out there…and not that I knew him, but certainly I knew enuff people who knew him to attest that his pride, combined with his dogged belief that Raw Power and Agharta were the last remotely good records ever made, would have prevented him from working steadily… he was surly as fuck, and Lou Reed (or Sylvia) signs the checks, so he would have been the one that gets to be surly… I don't imagine Mike Rathke would get awfully testy…

xpost - one eye open i bet that is exactly right

I fucking love that Harris/Quine LP, very cool and unique sound

definitely one of my favorites, I didn't know the ending of the story was this sad though.

I sold my copy of "Escape" back when it was way out of print and going for good money, it was interesting but kinda not my thing, but different strokes.

Basic and Escape sound a heck of a lot more contemporary to me now than they did when I heard them back in the late 90s for the first time. Back then I kept thinking - you know this would sound so much better with a full band - now it kinda just sounds like how more like how music is made. You got to pay to get sample packs that sound that grungy, that's an upgrade now.

Sorry, thought I'd already linked this, which incl. lots of Quine talk, esp. lately:
Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

Hadn't seen this interview before!
https://www.vintageguitar.com/2918/robert-quine/

also:
For this feature we spoke with Quine’s bandmates Richard Hell and Ivan Julian, his longtime collaborator Fred Maher, songwriters Matthew Sweet and Lloyd Cole, disc jockey and author James “the Hound” Marshall, and others. Times good quotes from The Man Himself:
https://www.premierguitar.com/artists/forgotten-heroes-robert-quine

that vintage guitar interview is fantastic. what an articulate, self-aware guy he is there. and what a scholar of early rock guitar. tremendous.

That’s a great interview. His mention of Mickey Baker brought to mind Andrew Hickey’s “A History Of Rock In 500 Songs” podcast episode on “Love Is Strange”: https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-49-love-is-strange-by-mickey-and-sylvia/

I was listening to that episode while driving. My surprise at hearing that Baker had studied with Xenakis — and hearing one startling result of those studies — almost made me drive off the road.

wonderful, thank you for posting

Speaking of Quine and guitars, I remember reading eons ago that during the Voidoids tour of the UK (opening for the Ramones, maybe?) he would get into fights in the audience with gobbers for spitting on his vintage Strat.

just another thank you for that Vintage Guitar interview, really cool

like, I love how he casually drops this

After the Velvet Underground, there hasn’t been much that influenced my playing. There are three, however – Iggy & the Stooges, Raw Power; Miles Davis from ’72 to ’75, and Brian Eno’s On Land from ’82.

(can you spot the one that's different?)

Thanks to sleeve for recent Television thread remynder of this one!

Ikue Mori | Robert Quine | Marc Ribot ‎– Painted Desert [Full Album]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vGHBqept3Q

Think the interview in here is already linked above, but had not seen this whole slew of tributes, memories etc of friends, fans,collaborators, on Perfect Sound Forever, also a link to one fan's Top Ten Quine solos, and links to other RQ mentions:
https://www.furious.com/perfect/quine/index.html

Not related to Robert Quine's passing, but he was related to W.V.O. Quine, who is maybe one of the Anglosphere's five or ten most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Funny to think that one of the original punks was related to a distinguished Harvard professor.

Just realized that info was already posted upthread

Misleading title, since this new piece is mainly about stompboxes, but good mention of grooving with Quine:

Stompbox Shopping with Robert Quine
Pat Irwin

That was such a great read, thank you Dow

Nice! Hadn’t heard the Art Garfunkel story before

i'm not super familiar with quine's work, but when i was putting together my beatles cover project, i was really taken by the quine/harris version of "yes it is". i wouldn't call it "angular" or any of those kinds of words that often get used to describe quine's playing (tho i don't have a problem with "angular" as a description!). i just think it's really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLejh80bsVM

Starting to finally think more clearly of what angular might mean after all these years. Yeah, he would never be angular, too much early rock and R&B in his playing combined with the outsideness– some of the outside quality comes from early rock!

Rock ‘n’ roll, yeah rock ‘n’ roll

Wouldn’t call Ivan Julian angular either

Feel like angular means hardly any blues influence, hardly any direct European melodic influence, classical or otherwise, and no distortion but maybe a chorus effect

Does anyone really know what's meant by angular though? I think of Andy Gill as angular and he comes out of Wilko Johnson, so plenty of blues there.

it's all that tolkien

Lol

Some people say it means big intervals instead of small

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/define-angular-guitar.76043/

I would say the Love Comes in Spurts solo is "angular," to me. I'd put the leads from, say, Safe As Milk to be in that category as well, as another example that's definitely blues based. I guess I'd say it is playing that is at angles with the key/mode that would be expected for the song.

Not trawling through some Hoffman link to find out but as well as the above I'd say playing at an angle to the rhythm, however you want to define that. Arto Lindsay, for example, just plays across the whole thing.

it's a short thread! allow me to summarize:

It's a weak descriptive adjective with no real meaning. It's a horrible rock critic cliche whose user is too lazy to actually "write" what he means.

Yes, it's a bad description. I think the writer means that the rhythm guitarist is playing single lines instead of strumming the entire chord at once

btw I fucking love Quine's playing on the Voidoids LP. I always took the original "angular" to be the post punk dry clean guitar sound, eschewing effects, e.g. Entertainment! and Crazy Rhythms.

Arto is a perfect example!

I think of angular to mean lots of syncopated phrases with space in between, and probably using a lot of dissonance too.

Yes I think of it as meaning staccato/chugging guitar parts or like erratic arpeggios or something

I don’t think Lindsay is angular - he admits he can’t play guitar traditionally and treats it completely as a percussion instrument; angular guitar isn’t really *just* that

Angular guitar has too many notes that are purposely played.

I've always thought of Jay Graydon's solo on "Peg" as the ur-angular guitar break.

nothing more angular than the waves of fear solo though.

btw I fucking love Quine's playing on the Voidoids LP. I always took the original "angular" to be the post punk dry clean guitar sound, eschewing effects, e.g. Entertainment! and Crazy Rhythms

otm, yeah i think a lot of people habitually deploy "angular" when what they're really responding to isnt the playing but a certain sharp piercing tone

I've always thought of Jay Graydon's solo on "Peg" as the ur-angular guitar break.

i always like seeing this thread revived. what is it about quine? his obvious insecurity, his obvious talent.. i think we all sometimes think of ourselves as quine-ish (self aggrandizingly, perhaps)

Lol

Angular to me was using tritones, diminished or augmented chords that literally have the notes going at an angle on the fretboard. They are not minor or major more going for dissonance.

Like that opening chord of Liars Beware and the licks that follow.

I listened to the back half of Girlfriend today, which Quine dominates. Talk about an okay pop record turned into a great one thanks to Quine (and Richard Lloyd and to a lesser extent Lloyd Cole).

point of order: talk about a great pop record turned into a SUBLIME one, etc etc (one does not need to belittle Sweet's achievement to celebrate Quine and Lloyd imo)

ha, fair!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-5V3PJ90E

Ah yes