The Mysterious Forgotten Founder of The Velvet Underground
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- Опубліковано 14 чер 2024
- In this video I tell the life story of one of the founding members of The Velvet Underground, Angus MacLise, alongside Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison. MacLise's life was incredibly interesting to take a look at, so join me as I tell tale of the "dream drummer" as Lou Reed once called him.
New York Electronic, 1965 - angusmaclise.bandcamp.com/alb...
Twitter: / joefikifiki
00:00 Intro
01:52 Early life and Dead Language Press
04:22 The Velvet Underground and drum style
09:04 Post Velvet Underground and life in Nepal
10:51 Death and Conclusion
I'm almost positive his name is pronounced Mac-Leese.
I searched long and hard for a video where someone says his name and couldn't find anything, so I just went with my gut. But yes my pronounciation of his name may be incorrect.
In Scotland we tend to say it as “Macleesh” (indistinguishable from MacLeish).
literally who cares?
@@avidodd26The guy who made the video? Which he showed by gracefully thanking the viewer for pointing it out..constructive criticism is helpful in most cases. Just because you're a nihilist doesn't mean everyone else is. 😜(not an insult btw)
@@avidodd26I do, wiseass!
One thing omitted regarding Angus MacLise's brief return to drum at a gig when Reed had hepatitis, was that while they were jamming in rehearsal, the basic instrumental structure for what would become 'Sister Ray' came together. (This is from the booklet that came with the Velvet Underground boxset from 1995.)
I didn't know that, that's a very interesting detail indeed!
That is a very interesting box set.
I didn't know that either. Excellent info.
yep, there are bootlegs in existence with maclise playing drums and cale on vocals while lou was laid up with hepatitis
Don't forget that Moe Tucker switched to rhythm guitar while Sterling played lead at that time.
In 1977 Angus and Hetty were in London, where they contributed to International Times. I was the music editor and worked next to them, writing about the new 'punk' scene, which Angus seemed to like the idea of. I had no idea of his background. Quiet, charming, and gracious.
Thanks so much for this video. I’m 62 and have loved the Velvets since I was 15, but I’ve never heard of this fascinating man and his involvement in the band. This has brightened my day!
I'm a bit older, but was 'punk' as possible from around '70 to '79. First, the 'Detroit Sound', and then the Velvets and Lou Reed, were my intro and mainstays, and hold a permanent place in my heart. :)
Angus MacLise reminds me a lot of Syd Barrett of early Pink Floyd fame minus the psychosis. Both were enigmatic founders of highly influential avant-garde experimental rock groups. Perfectly understandable why the Velvet Underground couldn't continue as a band with MacLise even with his unique style of 'genius'. Same eventual fate as Syd. Very sad and unfortunate but such were the stories of more than a few notable individuals in the musical arts during the '60s..
Great video! You mention Tony Conrad as "a friend of John Cale" which is true - but also, Tony Conrad was a member of The Theater of Eternal Music (also sometimes known as "The Dream Syndicate," but not to be confused with another, later band of the same name) and was really as much of a creative visionary in that group as La Monte Young. He went on to make great music with the German group Faust and also many other musical projects over the decades. A brilliant, terribly underrated artist who passed away in 2016.
"Outside the Dream Syndicate" is a fucking masterpiece!
I was fortunate enough to witness the 1995 revisiting of Outside The Dream Syndicate. It was awesome!
ua-cam.com/video/Aav9yXcSyuo/v-deo.html
In the early 1970s I studied with Tony Conrad at the University of Buffalo Media Studies "wing". He was on-loan from Antioch, University of Ohio at Yellow Springs.
At the time, he was "exploring" what he called "The Flicker Effect": the rapid alternation of black-and-white "Pattern Geometries" on film -- an "interesting field", figure-ground experiment which; ancillary to its espoused intention; could provoke epileptic-like seizures in a small percentage of the test subjects. Ultimately VERY interesting ...and dangerous.
I had more than one conversation with Tony -- always a challenge -- wherein we discussed Film as an Art form and, variously, the Fate of the Revolution -- Mercurial, to say the least, and patently unique to his Person/Persona.
His influence resonated, and continues to resonate sympathetically in my Art -- the Hallmark of a true Artist and instructor.
✋
@@GAMakin
That relates to a discussion on Art that I came across a while ago. It was in relation to Voice of Fire, a very large and very expensive painting that had been purchased by the Canadian federal government. It’s 5.4 metres (18 feet) tall and 2.4 metres (about 8 feet) wide. It was originally commissioned for the 1967 Centennial celebrations. Since it’s an abstract painting consisting of 3 vertical stripes, it was bound to cause some controversy. The stripes are of equal width. The centre vertical stripe is red, while the two outer stripes are black. Two people were discussing the painting, with the usual “Is this Art?” topic.
One person was an artist. He explained that No, what’s hanging on the wall is not the Art. The Art is in the viewer’s head. The piece hanging on the wall is the ignitor. When the viewer looks at it, if the Art is effective, it opens the mind to many possibilities. It’s unlikely to produce this effect after a single glance, unless it’s a “fast discharge” type. Many works of art are “slow discharge”, which require a little (or a lot of, or repeated) time to produce their effects/work their magic. One is not better than the other. Both types are equally valid, but the slow discharge type requires you to spend some time with the piece, maybe looking contemplative all the while. Yes, everything that requires looking at can produce Posers, who may be more interested in looking cool than in understanding what the Artist is or was trying to say. Take your time, see if the piece seems to be saying something to you. Maybe you’ll learn something, maybe you won’t. Sometimes the effort is the important part.
Conrad's "Four Violins" opened the door to that species of drone-y music for me. At first, i thought it was obnoxious, then, somehow, i was able to discern the harmonic overtone series and the millions of potential melodies cracked open. Each tone is actually an expanse of tones (fundamental, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.) multiplied by 4, gives you a lot of harmonic and melodic material to "choose your own [melodic] adventure."
A chapter of the VU I didn't know. Thank you for the video and bringing Angus MacLise into the light.
Lou Reed’s description of him betrayed none of his usual malice.
I was thinking the same thing!
Thank you Joe for this very interesting clip. It's the first time I've heard about Angus MacLise.
9:55 this is not as hard to swallow as the fact that they made Stephen Segal a Lama and said he was a re-encarnated from a 12th century Monk.
He isn’t forgotten as NY avant garde composer. His brief tenure as the Velvet memeber is rather obscure though. There are still die hard followers, who are into 60s minimalism. Coil dedicated their album to MacLise. The sad part is that Poor Richard’s gig with him is the bad audience recording and insufferable La Monte didn’t allow to release the performances with MacLise.
Which coil album is it
He's wearing a スカジャン(Yokosuka Jumper) in that first picture! It was a common souvenir a lot of GI's stationed in Japan had made on their way home from the War.
Thank you for this!
Always love backstories like this.
Keep up the great work, just subscribed.❤
Thank you! 🙂
Fascinating video. Thanks for creating it.
Thanks man and thank you for watching it!
It is rumoured that McLise became the 6th Beatle in 1972.
Great piece - thx for putting the bio-doc together
Great video! ❤ I knew this guy's name because I adore the band's music, but I never read into it as much as I would like to, to be honest, so big thank you for narrating the story. Also, thanks for mentioning the Bardo Matrix, because it also seemed like a somewhat familiar name, so I checked, and it took me on an hour-long internet rabbit hole tour, because I liked the art so much 🙃 Those people and times are something truly unique. Nice job, seriously ❤
Thank you so much for the kind words! 🙂 I'm glad my video made you go digging for more info on that scene!
Wow.! Thanx 4 uncovering that "side-note" in history. I'm a fan of anything "Velvet Underground" & pre-punk history.
I learnt a lot. Thank you for the production.
Thank you for covering this. I have a book on the band and even that tome has very little about Angus.
Thanks for this...Excellent. It must take unbelievable courage and integrity to try to live life being guided so strongly by spiritual enquiry and such unconventional beliefs. It is reassuring and beautiful to me that these "soul warriors" exist and thrive enough to create and sometimes seed the world with ideas and art. Thanks again for a wonderful story told wonderfully.
Though if we want to be serious about these things rather than immature, self-indulgent dilettantes, spiritual integrity intrinsically involves not being a drug addict. Spiritual integrity involves having the discipline to deny oneself things harmful to oneself and one’s spiritual integrity! And that of course goes for all of us in our lives!
@stalkek I get what you mean and liked your comment. But I disagree entirely.
I didn't know this person, or have much additional context beyond what I learned in the video. But from what I did gather, it would seem that he evolved and maintained certain personal spiritual and moral convictions and ethics over an extended period of time, and (apparently) in defiance of difficult opposition and in stead of the comfort and convenience of popular cultural convention and potential financial and material reward... To me, those are some of the defining characteristics of integrity.
I think I understand your point that drug addiction and spiritual enlightenment are incompatible. I presume this follows from the belief that anyone so ignorant, selfish and/or confused, so chemically-altered and addled, and so basically self-unaware, etc., can't build or maintain spiritual integrity. Hey, you're probably right...
Buuuuut I wouldn't be quick to ascribe a general rule like that (or, hell, ANY kind of rule, for that matter) to something as complex and so individual and so deeply personal as this. Personally, for me, I find the damn thing difficult enough to investigate, analyze, describe, and potentially attain -- even just for me, let alone talking about anybody else -- that I find it kind of arbitrary and maybe useless to try to pin down what is a mostly shifting target.
But thanks for your considered reply. I respect your point of view.
I would think a person who is well balanced in all things regarding life and our world, can take drugs that are part of this world.
If I walk in a garden and take a poppy pod to chew on, then I do not automatically become excluded from being good to myself and others.
My perception of me stays the same, only the ignorant persons around me change their views.
If a person is happy taking drugs and dying at 40, let them. As long as they dont hurt others in the process.
If for me, or you, living til 40 seems too short, we might need to make some decisions other ways.
I was in icu, where I came out with a near death experience.
I came out thinking I knew it all..
Then I saw this video.
I was hospitalized in Chicago...
Thank you for this.
Very interesting. Well done! I’ve long wondered about MacLise.
Good work Joe! Thanks!
This was exceptionally interesting. Thanks!
Incredible ❤thank you for sharing 🥁
Thanks for your efforts🦝🌘🪄
Fantastic video. Subscribed. Greetings from the UK.
Angus exemplified the purist "starving artist" archetype. They are thin on the ground in these harder times...most people are not very focused on developing their art/ writing/ music , more on marketing their " brand" ...
But it is possible( even in 2023) to not care much about marketing/ popularity and live as a starving artist with only a few people in the world who " get" what you do...
I believe we are out there still,..but few were as extreme as Angus.
His poverty contributed to his early death..
If only he had a bit more of a comfortable living situation he could have been creating for many more years .
I treasure the few recordings I've heard by Angus ." invasion of the thunder bolt pagoda" might still be up on YT.
amazing story, went to check the wikipedia to follow up and got to read this video, word for word, all over again!
Love hearing these little side stories that the basic docs don't mention. After watching this I thought, "nice work, I should subscribe", only to realize I was already subscribed. XD
I also love them, especially when they are as weird as this one xD
Thanks for this great video! I’d never heard of him.
Thank You! Great video.
Never Ever forget the Velvets major inspiration was one Brian Wilson! THE g.o.a.t!!
wow, that was wild. i never knew about AM. thanks for cluing us in. i've loved VU since i was a teen in the late 70s.
Thank you for the story!
- Very interesting.
Nice to hear he was from Bridgeport CT. That's my hometown. I thought we only had Robert Mitchum, lol.
Awesome topic and video and subscribed
I'm not really a big fan of the Velvet Underground, but this video was freakin' fantastic. Very interesting from beginning to end and a piece of music history I had no idea about.
You gained yourself another sub. Looking forward to more great content from you.
I would take it back even further and call La Monte Young the forgotten founder of the VU. That's where MacLise, Cale, and the whole early drone sound came from. Brian Eno called him "the daddy of us all." He's the greatest unknown classical minimalist composer of all time.
Yes he was influential but he was never in the band. It's like saying John Cage was a forgotten founder. But I get where you are coming from.
Ahhh, wow, it's all coming together
@@johnziggykelleher4871what a preposterous thing to say
@@Rich_P_Anya You are misunderstanding. John Cage , Phillip Glass , Robert Fripp , Beethoven
to name a few.
But then John Cale also studied and worked under the guidance of John Cage and Yannis Xenskis and tranfered the techniques and ideas he learned there and combined them all into the Velvets sound. So it's not all about LaMonte.
Great video thank you
It was very interesting. Thank you.
Great vid. Would be nice to have some dates included though to create more of a timeline.
Wow excellent! Thank you, really.
No idea about this gentleman, thanks for bringing him to lufht for me!
Very wonderful video! Also, the game!
Thank you , as a young man , in the 1980s , The velvet underground and Nico album haunted me with its otherworldly sound , today , it still stands the test of time , i was able to hear what heroin sounds like ............
I would IMAGINE that heroin sounds much more like The Stranglers' "Golden brown".
Fascinating cornerstone.
Ossian is a perfectly fine name for the son of a poet of Scottish descent. Look him up.
Makes me appreciate Moe Tucker even more.
Never heard of him - amazing story!
excellent work lieutenant chekov thank you
Great video!
great video (love your subtle use of background music) - i'm wondering if Moe Tucker ever heard Angus Maclise play?
I consider the whole Fluxus scene to be the origin of western drone and ambient music, however I had no idea about Angus and his connection with the velvets!
Yeaaa Fluxus is TOP
They are the most interesting people. Good video ✌️☘️
Thank you for the deep dive! This was excellent. I was somewhat familiar with him because he's one of those names that always pops up when reading about the history of the group, but I knew nothing about his life and what he went on to do. The high praise from La Monte Young makes me want to go check out some of his music.
Thank you. I first bought a Velvet Underground LP in 1971. I never knew about McLIse.
Nice. A true individual, his life was art, he was art.
I was aware of Angus. But didn't know much about his later years. Thanks.
Very good video
Thank you Joe, this was very interesting, I didn't know anything a/ Angus...
His best solo record is the soundtrack to Ira Cohen's The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda.
Well-made 🙏✨
Thanks! 🙂
It’s popular knowledge that Lou heard Sterling jamming out, liked what he heard, and said let’s jam together. Now the name might not have been hashed out or the sound, Tho I suspect Lou had written a handful of what would become VU songs. Those Demo recordings where Lou is purposely sounding like Bob Dylan are solely to get gigs, at least that’s what I’m gonna believe unless I hear facts that dispute that. Then came John Cale another musical genius in his own right and Moe Tucker to create that so original and integral VU stomp. That unchanging beat was hypnotic and along with Cales’ viola drone and Lou’s one chord strum VU opened the door to Phaserock. I’ve heard about this 5th VU member, but he didn’t make it to the wax and even tho Nico did I don’t consider either a founding member. That’s not to say he didn’t add anything and Nico did some excellent solo work. When it’s comes down to brass tacks the founding sound that we all know as the VU is Lou, Sterling, Cale, and Tucker.
Nice! Top Content. I've Subscribed.
Just discovered your channel... great stuff. Looking forward to watching your other videos. Quick Question: Are you also known as Living Ironically in Europe?
I LOVE the Velvet Underground! 🙂
Very much interesting, yes. A forgotten part of american music history that deserves the attention.
Aside from the mispronunciation of Maclise and Lamonte, this video is really excellent! Nice 👍🏽
Thanks for the New York Electronic, 1965 link. Perfect for a Covid Fever. If I focus on this strangeness hard enough I think I might destroy reality ... possibly.
I was born exactly 20 years to the day after him March 14, 1958. I've been in rock bands my entire life. Currently perform as Paul McCartney in a Beatles Tribute, yet, just like Angus, until this moment, none of you have heard of me. Coincidence...I think not ( smile )
😆"I have Billy Shepherd you old faker- 🐍.. LOL...
lots a luv *not* from da pool that's Liverpool where your *not* from.🙄
🤣@@amarshmuseconcepta6197
Amazing!
among the early members there was Walter de Maria too
Good doco.
Oh my god I love this ❤
Great stuff man,,,nice soundtrack you did there as well,,,
A wonderful book on drones with much parallel to and with Angus MacLise - Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion by Harry Sword
The falling spikes is a dope name though
It's certainly suggestive of drug (ab)use.
Nice job! Wonder what happened to Ossian.
I recognise the name from years back, from the La Monte Young et al "Dream Syndicate" project and perhaps in relation to Velvet Underground as well, but I don't think I ever knew anything more about him. Thanks for the video.
P.S. are you Polish? Your pronunciation is good, of course, I'm just guessing out of curiosity.
Yeah, he was just another one of those names you hear tossed around and you never hear nothing about them besides a short mention in random articles. It's always fun to go digging for info on these people, especially when they live interesting lives like MacLise. I'm the one who has to be thankful for the view and the comment!
Naaa I'm Portuguese. Thanks for the compliment! It's hard trying to record in another language, so I'm glad people can understand me well.
@@joefikifiki Ah, Portuguese -- Polish was pretty wide of the mark then, haha. I'm Norwegian, so I have a bit of an accent myself.
Anyway, yeah, it never really occurred to me to go looking deeper, so it was cool to see it summed up here. Cheers man.
Cool, I am American but have Portuguese heritage from both my parents along with a couple of other nationalities. Makes me even happier I subbed awhile back.
Amazing
Thank you
Best name on UA-cam.
It’s usually pronounced ‘maclees’ isn’t it? Did Angus pronounce it ‘maclies’?
Dream Person would be a good name for a boat, since there were times when a person was called a dreamboat.
Good vid'with subtitles on .
Their "quine tapes" live mix is amazing.
+Hes like the blanco 5th beetle.
You have to wonder - genius or just plain bonkers? about such peoiple but there is no denying they had an effect on us
Same question I've always had about Syd Barrett.
I love this group…our band covered "Femme Fatale."
CD's and at least one LP of his music are out there. Difficult listening at times, but worth the effort if you're into that sort of thing.
he literally marched to the beat of his own. Drummer.
Thanks
Great thanks 🙏
I'm almost positive that you're right! The narrator pronounces many names rather strangely but English isn't his first language.
Thanks. I dididn't know this VELVET UNDERGROUND member.
Always you know something more day by day. 🤣🤣🌐👍🐱
Thanks.
I met Hedi, his wife/partner after the Velvet Underground years later at a Buddhist Center in Colorado. The son you spoke of was living in Crestone Colorado at the time at a billionaire´s spread. . Her other son, Jason, raised by Pigpen of the Grateful Dead was with her. at the center: He was nothing but trouble and got kicked out. Hedi was a trip.
I did not know that a founding member of the Velvet Underground was part of a performance art troupe that included Yoko Ono. As one of her (very few) fans, for me, this video could be titled "the forgotten link between Yoko Ono and the Velvet Underground."
I already knew a little about Angus, of course.
Don't worry, you'll have plenty of company as fans of Yoko Ono when she passes away. You will never imagine that she had so many fans then. There'll be no more jokes about her backing Chuck Berry. 😂
@@Da_Publick cynical but true, therefore funny. Well said
It takes guts to say you're a fan of Yoko Ono I respect that. I saw Sean Lennon in concert in 97 opening up for Pearl jam in Seattle.
@@Da_PublickI know squares try to make fun of her but she already has lots of fans, for an experimental artist. Work shown in major galleries all the time, sold a lot of records etc
@@jimburton1 She does have fans, even appreciation in some spheres. But you'll think the whole world always loved her, all along, when she passes. They'll be saying she 'pushed The Beatles to greater depths.'
Hard to forget a cat named Angus great content
Interesting.
Art and business are seldom compatible. Angus made art. Business went about the business of staying in business. Warhol and Reed were very good businessmen. It just couldn't last.
Agreed 150%.