Back to the Velvet Underground!: "Sweet Jane" b/w "Rock n' Roll"

What can you say about the Velvet Underground that's not been said already? I figure you should always have a few VU tunes in your back pocket, with Nico or without, however you take 'em. Both these songs, here played by me and my old Iona Prep buddy John Stackpole in summer '11, come off the VU's 1970 swansong, "Loaded".  Yet another Rock Pantheon record, "Loaded" was a fun, transitional one, with Lou starting to step away from the Velvets, John Cale already gone, Mo Tucker away on maternity leave, and Doug Yule beginning to take the reins.  Anyway, that disc continues to supply great cover fodder such as these tunes and more obscure numbers like (watch this site!)"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'".

As to these, I've managed to wheedle almost every band I've been in to play a version of "Sweet Jane", goddarn national anthem that it is to many of us. I do love including the melancholy "heavenly wine and roses" bridge section that proverbial "studio execs" clipped from the "Loaded" version but which was played on the Velvets' "Live, 1969" record and resuscitated by the Cowboy Junkies.  Here, though, we hew to the bones of the rockier versions.  This one is patterned off that done through the early '70s by then-huge, and now-unsung Mott the Hoople (featuring the even more unsung but still-going-strong Ian Hunter).

I have less of a history with "Rock n' Roll" but recall taking a stab at it with the post high-school band (Dillo, Maff and maybe Andy O') back in the day. This particular version is in the vein of Lou Reed's early 80s band of Robert Quine, Fernando Saunders and Fred Maher (check out "Live in Italy"!).  Certainly, the world probably doesn't need another cover of either of these tunes but you can't keep me from playing the first one and on this one it sure was fun to double track those funny slide parts on the lap steel, to approximate Lou's sing/ speak, and all that.  Stag's lead guitar makes its big entrance after the last chorus. Rock n' roll indeed!

Sweet Jane:      https://www.box.com/s/165i4et38c2aeyy0sq6n

Rock n' Roll:     https://www.box.com/s/si4ccmso9082lcq698lb

Re-gifted, 2012

Well, we may've done botched our time management this year, here at RKBS Industries.  Sadly, we have a couple holiday tunes in construction, but they didn't manage to squeak in under the yule wire for '12.  Irregahdless, that kinda thing happens.  Maybe we'll put them in the Cry-O-Vac 'til next year.  Maybe just change some things around and make them into Easter Songs, or Labor Day.  But in the meantime, I did get the chance to remix the old Christmas hits, so here you go, new coat of paint and all.  With all the usual sloppy kisses and hopes to see you this year, or see more of you:

Christmas Ain't for Family:        https://www.box.com/s/vk72ls7ajmstuh0dgix0


Christmas Parties:                       https://www.box.com/s/ns5e81i7f1ntibd8olle


Everyday Christmas:                   https://www.box.com/s/9czyyvj38hvywhm94av0

The Man Known Only as Beez

He asked that we refer to him only as "Beez".  It was just over one year ago that from distant (?) lands (south and west?) he came, with messages in a peculiar tongue.  We still don't know whether "Beez" is even his real name, or perhaps one of many.  In any event, we thought it wouldn't help to ask, as concepts like "true" and "false" seemed not to concern him much.  Anyway, what was the point?  We suspected that his true nature would remain beyond our mortal ken, just over the horizon.   Miss Oonagh and I did our best to make him comfortable during his stay, and I tried to convert his messages to, I suppose, a more common parlance.  And then he was gone, as if dreamt.  There's blurry Flipcam video of some kind of blinking light he sported, and some audio, as follows:

"Tree":    https://www.box.com/s/u7z46qpeyou2hsxzgw33


"Looks Like We'll Have to Row":  https://www.box.com/s/ocll81dlsmve0haa2xi8


"Nine More Minutes":      https://www.box.com/s/s31v4sz2zrnp1844znkt


"Tree (acoustic demo)":    https://www.box.com/s/1gpuglc4vlm2ajszfq34