TS: Mo Tucker vs. Ringo Starr

Mo, Mo, Mo.

Mo's finest moment: the nervous-but-steady beat of "Foggy Notion."
Ringo's finest moment: "Rain."

Moe!

Agreed on both.

First song was 'Guess I'm falling in love', and she's a fine drummer!

I next saw them when they played Reading Uni, with Sterling in the and. Even got to meet them after the gig. (I was going to say backstage, but they didn't go, they just finished the gig and sat down out front for a chat.

I asked about "guess" as they hadn;t played it. "Hey, we can't play everything every night" said Moe. A moment later, she turned to someone in the band and said "Actually, we haven't played that for a long time, have we?"

Next time I saw her was the VU gig in Shepherds Bush. "Guess" was back in the set, with a non-bored Lou vocal (guess he hadn;t played it himself for a long time).

All hail me.

Did Mo ever play a normal kit on anything post-VU? Or was it all stand-up?

Moes drumming suits the songs well enough, the groove is good on stuff like What Goes On, but I think she's over-praised for doing something pretty basic and being a cool person obv.

I'm going to go for Ringo, because I love his slightly-behind-the- beat natural swing. He sounds fantastic just laying down a straight 4-4 (Day Tripper, Paperback Writer, Things We Said Today, Drive My Car) and could roll it around with the best of them (Rain, Come Together). A terrific drummer!

Fact is, she was a fine drummer! Heck, she was playing along to Olatunji and Bo Diddley before joining the Velvets.

I think Ringo just won by default.

Oh man.

She's sticking with Newt
Tax hikes he's gonna dispute
Obama may be quite cute
But she's sticking with Newt

I'm not disappointed or anything. This is the woman who wrote "Spam Again" and "Hey Mersh!"

Crikey

http://www.badreputation.de/VU_Boston_Tea_Party-front.jpg

"Ideology Corrected. Resequenced."

If Sterl had still been around he'd have given her a stern talking to

Maybe a fresh listen to New York pushed Moe over.

When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

WTF Moe, I thought you were cool :(

gonna love to see how many of you are still democrats when yr 66

That's no excuse

Don't think I'll think "socialism" is evil when I'm 66 tbh

Try a little harder there, Whiney. If anything I've grown more left with time.

Peter Cortner (Dag Nasty, et al) on my Facebook link for this: "Maybe she really IS made out of glue."

gonna love to see how many of you are still democrats when yr 66

you're assuming many of us are Democrats now.

yeah, had heard that mo was mixed up with the tea partiers ... oh well! whaddaya gonna do. sure, she was in the coolest band of all time, but she's also a sixty something mom who used to work at walmart.

First Lou Reed makes Susan Boyle cry, and now THIS!

Mo Tucker makes me cry

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9m9xms78a1qzpiyuo1_500.jpg

you're really sticking with that joke huh

He's made out of glue.

i'm sure i'll see the light when i'm 66

gonna love to see how many of you are still democrats when yr 66

becoming more conservative as you age isn't the same as joining forces with the undermedicated lunatic fringe dude - yeah if you get a lawn you're gonna want kids to stay off it but it doesn't mean you lose yr mind completely, I mean by yr own math aren't you now a guy who's not to be trusted or listened to?

i actually think its quite common for people to lose their mind completely as they age

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-EhpnOxN4Q

So sad all these 66-year-olds have lost their minds completely.

Michael Douglas
Danny Trejo
Danny DeVito
Sam Elliott
Timothy Dalton
Swoosie Kurtz
Rutger Hauer
George Lucas
Harold Ramis
Tony Scott
John Rhys-Davies
R. Lee Ermey
Stockard Channing
Gary Busey
Jacqueline Bisset
Frank Oz
Jeffrey Tambor
Craig T. Nelson
Bernard Hill
Ian McDiarmid

(Okay, there's one in there that's completely lost his mind, but I don't think age had anything to do with it.)

i actually think its quite common for people to lose their mind completely as they age

my point is that as you age you'll almost doubtless think that less and start coming around to the conclusion that your former opinion was largely a baseless reflexive young-cat affectation

More like motorcycle accidents

xpost

Whiney, aren't you like 25?

naw man whiney is like OLD, like no-longer-trustable old iirc

All 66 year olds are senile fascists when you're 25 obviously

reflexive young-cat affectation

haha, have you heard the saying "I'm too old a cat to be fucked by a kitten like you?"

like I'm not saying nothing but his age rhymes with plover benty whine if you know what I'm sayin

Faculties already beginning to fail then

anyway my dad, who is 70, has seemingly become more liberal as he's gotten older (although what's really happened is that the Republicans went batshit crazy on him to the point where his normal "I vote on business issues" stance couldn't justify voting for candidates he found intellectually vacant and/or socially reprehensible)

^the deej "people I know" of politics

Yeah Dan stop invoking strawman people who don't exist.

my dad has actually gotten more lefty as he got older too, so http://www.purezc.com/forums/html/emoticons/icon_shrug.gif

*scratches head*

he was just trying to make conversation earlier

great theory

tbf she's probably a moderate in Albany, Georgia (nb I am from Georgia before any of you mfs start calling me out for northern aggression)

my dad has actually gotten more lefty as he got older too, so

that's because your "old people get more conservative" thing is as I say something young cats like to think that isn't really true

can't believe ringo supports the BNP

Natural Law Party for Ringo surely

It's possible trying to reason with a 66-year-old ex-Wal Mart employee who hates taxes would be easier than talking to this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I624EwvFZXE

He is a miserable sod

To be fair, he was 69 when he made that, three years more insane than Mo.

russieross
4 days ago

What a jerk this guy is! His last top 40 single and his last top 40 album were back in 1976! He has too much to do? 10 of his albums failed to even reach the top 100! Yeah, this no talent creep is a real chartbuster! LOL

peace and love, peace and love

hahahahahahahah ringo

like real great career move going on the most popular tv show of all time and doing a bit about how you answer every single piece of fan mail by hand

he wasn't as busy back then

peace and love peace and love

sorry I didn't come into work today, I have too much to do

peace and love peace and love

all tomorrow's tea parties

it's the beginning of a newt age

What goes on in your mind (Mo)?

Oh, Sweet Nutbag

weird. how did Mo end up in Albany, GA? I lived there for about four years when i was in elementary/ jr high

also, it's one thing to dislike how our govt spends (wastes) tax dollars, but getting in bed w/ Newt & FreedomWorks?? how's about "fuck you"? if you don't know by now that these guys only care about "less" govt for corporations and the extremely wealthy, then srsly, fuck you. sorry, that goes for you, too, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, etc.

It's going to be awkward in a some years when Georgia Hubley calls the liberal president a Communist, and I have to explain to Beeps that she was in fact cool at one time.

hah. hey, you're back.

tea party kicked me out.

Liberal media getting more conservative as it gets older

(Am I really the first?)

Palin Blue Eyes

Lisa Murkowski Says

White Light/White People

Lady Godiva's Operation Something Something Socialized Medicine

so that's why they played a lot at the Boston Tea Party

yes - they did it to stem the red tide of communism

she worked at wal-mart? i assumed she was living on fat royalties, lighting virginia slims 120s with burning five dollar bills.

daniel love you man but I am just continually shocked by how people think this vague quality called "royalties" is really enough to sustain anybody except the top .001 of performers at anything above the bare-subsistence level

they only sold 1000 record iirc

1000 records

They don't get to collect royalties from the 1000 bands that they spawned?

those bands never sold any records

the actual quote has been corrupted over the years - originally it was not a lot of people bought the first velvets album, but everyone who did was suggest-banned

lol

I actually had the same train of thought w/r/t mo tucker and royalties and wal-mart today, just when trying to figure out how the hell mo tucker becomes a republican

I'm pretty sure the only VU payday Moe got was after the '93 reunion show. In one of my Velvet books, she reveals to the interviewer that she and Sterl ceded their "points" for $600 or $800 each in the seventies. "Worst mistake I ever made," she said.

Wait, why would being a working-class senior make someone an economic conservative?

welcome to america

i interviewed moe about 9 or 10 years ago and she was bitter as hell about wal-mart -- hated it, but it was the only place in town to work, and also the only place to shop, like in a lot of small towns. at the time it scanned as aging-beatnik anti-corporate stuff, but i think really she was just pissed off that she's had a hard life. the tea party thing makes sense in that light.

life is sad

she's Beginning To See The Light

nah j/k this has made me a sad panda.

daniel love you man but I am just continually shocked by how people think this vague quality called "royalties" is really enough to sustain anybody except the top .001 of performers at anything above the bare-subsistence level

― aerosmith: live at gunpoint (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, October 2, 2010 9:06 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i literally got an ASCAP royalty statement for one penny.

http://www.starpulse.com/news/media/wiseguy.jpg

let the good times roll

To be fair: some people work very hard, awwww, but they never move to the right.

that's because your "old people get more conservative" thing is as I say something young cats like to think that isn't really true

This gets complicated when you discuss social issues. If the general trend is for society to move towards the left and your opinions don't change at all over the years, you're still going to be characterized as "moving towards the right," by people e.g. In the last thirty years if someone says "marriage is between a man and a woman" the left-wing reaction to that will have changed from "duh!" to "ugh..."

So if people's opinions don't get more left-wing as they age they are, potentially, "getting more conservative"

tbh I have more sympathy (albeit marginal) with Moe's purported rightwards shift than Lou's crackpot shit on New York.

if -- as i assume -- lou reed is the person to whom tucker "ceded" her interest in VU for, what, $600.00, i have no sympathy for him.

IT WAS YULE

glad to see soto adding purported, lotta assumptions being made here and elsewhere

okay, fair enough; looks like i made a hasty assumption.

i have no idea if it was actually yule

it was Stan Polley

That soulless bastard.

IT WAS YULE

― balls, Saturday, October 2, 2010 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Naw, he had his hands full working at the printing company that did the cover for Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town
http://www.thelightindarkness.com/wingate/
(scroll about halfway down)

lou he is a wanker and mo she is a clllerk

this just seems sad

i remember reading before about how little money she got from vu and surrendering royalties was unfortunate if true

they should have done some more shows anyway

Flying. Blue Jay Way. The entire first Plastic Ono Band (the Yoko one) LP. Ringo could drone the fuck out and drop the chill beats when he wanted to.

daniel love you man but I am just continually shocked by how people think this vague quality called "royalties" is really enough to sustain anybody except the top .001 of performers at anything above the bare-subsistence level

yeah. the world has f--d up priorities. i'm not a marnie stern fan, but this passage -- quoted in a dusted review this morning -- left an impression on me:

Not that Stern wouldn’t if she could. In an interview from a few weeks ago, she was asked about selling her songs for sponsorship, to which she replied:

Oh, fuck yeah, I’ll sell, I am so poor. Plus I never understood that thing because anything I put out I’m really proud that I did it, so I’ll put it anywhere, anywhere. Like, here it is, I made it! I’m real proud. I don’t feel embarrassed. But, if I was making money off the record, if I had more choices. But considering that I’m so in debt all the time . . .

If we've made any progress as a civilization, it's foregoing this "purity" about songwriting intentions.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2486/3812795249_8ef3d60020.jpg

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=146&p=9192&title=does_it_matter_if_moe_tucker_s_right_win&more=1&c=1

It’s so strange – authors are given the privilege of detaching from their work. When you read American Psycho, you don’t believe that Bret Easton Ellis could be capable of such stomach-turning acts of rape and murder. So likewise, surely if musicians sympathise with certain aspects of right-wing politics, we should surely afford them that same separation of personality and art.

qed

dude [Visitor] //October 5 2010 at 16:44
so do you listen to skrewdriver?

Laura Snapes [Member] //October 5 2010 at 16:47
@dude
Nope, they're a neo-Nazi hate rock band whose lead singer is one of the most notorious white supremacists going.

lead singer not doing all that much "going" these days iirc

Sheesh, those comments. Is there an all-points bulletin for tea-party trolls to stick their fucking oar in on every website?

peace and love, peace and love

basically agree with the op: whogivesashit what the bass player from drimble wedge thinks

not rly sure about the b.e.e. comparison

don't think lyricists are always creating a fictional character

you don’t believe that Bret Easton Ellis could be capable of such stomach-turning acts of rape and murder.

Eh, it wouldn't 100% surprise me.

Ellis comparison makes no sense at all - it's backwards. And very few lyricists are interested in, or capable of, creating narrators radically different from themselves.

Irt main argument, I think there's a middleground between not giving a shit and throwing your CDs in the skip in outrage - degrees of discomfort and disappointment, varying according to your preconceptions about the artist. Just because it doesn't affect my love of VU doesn't mean I can't be a little bit pissed off. The problem with the piece is it starts with a personal POV - she doesn't give a shit, that's fine - and magnifies it into a general point about art, which doesn't really stand up.

don't think mo has played on a record i've listened to since 1970

bit like [extended analogy involving brigitte bardot]

OK, I have met Mo. She seemed really nice.

I don't have any great impetus to throw all my MoSolo albums away, much less the VU stuff. She used to work at Walmart and got 'exploited' as cheap labour, so it would make sense to assume she'd be in favour of something that would redress the balance, but maybe she's not in that situation anymore....

It all looks like she's way misguided about what it all means. But I have not studied the US political situation, so I can't say otherwise anyway.

wait are ppl giving a shit about this beyond o_O-ing at it? that would be weird. i thought everyone had quit being all up in arms over cred politics or whatever, but otoh i guess i've been retreating more and more into my own private vaccuum over the years, so idk!

And very few lyricists are interested in, or capable of, creating narrators radically different from themselves.

O RLY

this is a weird thing to say. I mean how do you even judge what the lyricist is REALLY LIKE, in comparison to the narrators they create?

maybe a separate thread topic (if there isn't one already)

I meant in the context of this argument that you can't just put a songwriter's politics in a box and pretend they don't filter into the songs because the songs are in "character". I don't see what's weird about saying that very few songwriters consistently create narrators that they have nothing at all in common with (and sometimes when they do, eg Holiday in Cambodia, it's abundantly clear that they hate the narrator). This isn't really relevant to Moe because she's a drummer, not a lyricist, but it is relevant to the NME article's example of Micah P Hinson.

narrators that they have nothing at all in common with (and sometimes when they do, eg Holiday in Cambodia, it's abundantly clear that they hate the narrator).

um, wha?

See, I always read "HolinCam" as a more aggressive version of "Streets of London"...

Sorry, distracted when I typed that. Obv not Holiday in Cambodia but Jello character songs like California Uber Alles, Kill the Poor, etc.

Ah, right. Thought I'd missed something.

Moe Tucker IS a songwriter; I Spent A Week There The Other Night is one of the best solo Velvets albums.

Oops again. I've been giving up smoking and withdrawal seems to have made part of my brain fall out. I hereby resign from this thread.

If Bret Easton Ellis were a teabagger, yes we would be talking about it.

peace and love, peace and love

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/10/moe_tucker_interview_2010_politics_tea_party_velvet_underground_video.php

What are your feelings about the online reactions? Many people seem upset or outraged.

I'm stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant. I thought liberals loved everyone: the poor, the immigrant, the gays, the handicapped, the minorities, dogs, cats, all eye colors, all hair colors! Peace, love, bull! Curious they have no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. You disagree and you're immediately called a fool, a Nazi, a racist. That's pretty f'd up!! I would never judge someone based on their political views. Their honesty, integrity, kindness to others, generosity? Yes. Politics? No!

Well, she's just doing it wrong then.

Wait till her friends find out about the fag with the whip who danced in front of her in '67.

Peace, love, bull!

She knows about this thread, doesn't she?

Interesting interview though.

heh while i obv disagree with the thrust of her diatribe, that's actually one of the more cogent, thoughtful tea party memos i've read/ heard (i would like to see some of the specifics wrt 1" fish, turtle tunnels, etc). maybe mo should run for office.

:-/

I'm not quite sure that you have to agree with a musician's politics in order to enjoy that musician's music. Is it really that big a deal that she holds political views different than yours? Does anybody posting hear know what Ringo Starr's political affiliation is?

peace and love, peace and love

It's a small step through a turtle tunnel to an octopus' garden.

Morbz Tucker

Ah, now that's low.

I mean, he might be 66-years-old, but he's not a tea partier.

I'm not quite sure that you have to agree with a musician's politics in order to enjoy that musician's music

Is anyone saying you have to? One thing that has annoyed me about some responses to this story is the idea that either you're some weird hardliner who throws away your VU records because you don't like the drummer's politics or you shouldn't care at all. Surely there's a huge middleground of disappointment/discomfort that is interesting to explore.

xpost -- Haha I meant more like "Disappointment with the Obama administration, now who does that remind me of..."

I'm stunned that so many people who call themselves liberal yet are completely intolerant.

ALSO THEY ARE THE REAL RACISTS AMIRITE?

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/10/moe_tucker_interview_2010_politics_tea_party_velvet_underground_video.php?page=2

oops that's page 2

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/atoz/2010/10/moe_tucker_interview_2010_politics_tea_party_velvet_underground_video.php

she's right, bugs are to be feared

Are you still involved in Tea Party activities?

___________________________________

I do my own protesting via email and postcards

she should take her protests where they'll have a real impact: on message boards.

"DEAR INTERNET:"

Mo would bring some pizazz to the US politics thread, & it would be tough to sb her.

that's actually one of the more cogent, thoughtful tea party memos i've read

except for it being incorrect in all points of fact, of course.

i wonder if she stands up when she posts on the internet

except for it being incorrect in all points of fact, of course.

yeah, I can't speak to any of the claims she makes (salamanders, donkey museums, etc) but the rest of it is just a matter of rhetoric and degrees i suppose. (e.g. the govt "taking over" the auto industry etc.)

my biggest issue is this: "I started listening to what Obama was promising"

ok really? what did Obama say during the election that made you think he wasn't actually going to push for all the super magical things he's attempted (health care, financial reform, school loans, etc)? if anything he's been forced or spooked into scaling back. now to be fair, maybe Moe wasn't too thrilled from the moment an Obama admin became a viable prospect. but it's just something i've heard a lot of from people (moderates) who voted for him. which prob doesn;t include Ms. Tucker so i shut up now.

Her list is kind of astonishing as a compendium of talking points and canards she heard on Fox News - there's no distinction between justifiable concerns, petty complaints and bizarre phobias. As an insight into the garbled thinking of a Tea Partier it's fascinating.

Can't believe a drummer out of a band wd have different political opinions to me tbh

Is anyone saying that at this point in the thread? I don't think so.

Pretty sure that's all the recent portion of this and the other Mo T threads say but hey ho

Dorianlynsky's favorite response on this thread is to simply say "Is anybody saying that on this thread". A phenomenal debate technique.

Her list is kind of astonishing as a compendium of talking points and canards she heard on Fox News - there's no distinction between justifiable concerns, petty complaints and bizarre phobias. As an insight into the garbled thinking of a Tea Partier it's fascinating.

― The baby boomers have defined everything once and for all (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, October 20, 2010 4:40 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Is anybody saying that on this thread?

Is anybody saying that on this thread?

...maybe?

Ha, OK, obviously I haven't managed to make the distinction I was trying to make. To try again: I think you can discuss this, and be interested in what Moe's words reveal about how someone can end up aligning themselves with the Tea Party without perceiving themselves as right-wing, without it having anything to do with your enjoyment of that person's music - the VU didn't even cross my mind while I was reading this latest interview. I'm interested in this as a case study in Tea Party thinking so I find her language revealing. That's all. But I'll leave this thread to Bill Magill and his phenomenal "being a prick" debating technique.

The working at Wal-Mart definitely influenced her anti-union stances. As a Wal-Mart employee, you're practically expected to NAME NAMES anytime the dreaded u-word comes up.

You'd think that being an employee of Wal-Mart would eventually make you pro-union.

Stockholm Syndrome

Stockroom Syndrome

I'm Stocking With You

Venus in Stockings

Andy's Check-out

The Black Angel's Debt Song

What Goes On (Markdown)

I Heard Her Call My Name on the Store Intercom

^^ lol

sounds like X-Ray Spex

It's a small step through a turtle tunnel to an octopus' garden.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 19 October 2010 17:13 (1 week ago)

love this

"Sundazed to issue a 2cd, 3lp best of Moe in September. The set will include some hard to find tracks as well as one previously unissued beauty."
should be good!