The Velvet Underground
Squeeze

THE REVIEW

Normally I prefer to review new stuff. Having always suffered through the deceitful celebrations of old magazines, which inevitably concluded, “if you don’t have this record, you’re an idiot” — which prompted me to rush out and buy the record only to call myself an idiot for having it after just two tracks — I like to think I can offer an alternative opinion (such as, “this record is crap”) and save the readers from wasting money.
This time, however, an archaeological relic has fallen into my hands, and I decided to review it anyway just to tell a couple of tales about musical events from bygone days...

Who are we talking about? “Squeeze,” the fifth studio album of the Velvet Underground, released in 1973, not by Lou Reed or John Cale, who had already departed for their dazzling solo careers, nor by Moe Tucker, who went on to be a mother and a supermarket cashier, nor by Sterling Morrison in Texas pursuing a teaching career and later becoming a boat captain, but by a certain Doug Yule, a twenty-one-year-old from Boston who had been mingling in the Velvet’s orbit for some time and who ended up being swept away by the descending whirlpool that took them away, not to resurface until ‘93 (but that’s another story).

Having first dispatched Nico, then Cale, by ‘68 Lou Reed had already co-opted this young talented multi-instrumentalist from Boston, emerging from the band Green Menagerie, whom he referred to as “my younger brother.”
As the universally acclaimed critic reports, he became an important element for the band's live performances where he would sing whenever Lou's voice couldn’t handle much, and heavy traces of Yule’s presence in the Velvet’s recordings can be found in everything that Reed — heading towards ‘70, already disinterested and tired — let him do, which Yule executed with more skill than feeling (and surely without deeply understanding the sick vein that produced those pieces), first among a series of talented individuals from whose proximity Lou always drew support and inspiration (or cynically exploited) for artistic relaunches in lean times (David Bowie, Robert Quine, Mike Rathke), much akin to the collaborations Bowie himself was accustomed to forge across the pond (Tony Visconti, Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Reeves Gabrels). The softening of “The Velvet Underground” compared to the previous “WLWH” thus serves as a precursor to the sounds of “Loaded,” an album where Yule is finally credited and where his touch and his voice are very much felt, perhaps even too much (it’s well known he sings three of the four best songs of the album and his hand is behind many of the guitar parts), but then again, soon enough Lou would be leaving the bandwagon himself, probably caring no more...

Left with Moe and Sterling with Doug Yule at the helm — and manager Steve Sesnick behind the scenes trying to cash in on a name that was beginning to sell when its creators had already decided it no longer belonged to them — these sad Velvet successors recruited Yule's former bandmate, Walter Powers (bass), and toured Europe to promote “Loaded” and attempt to convince Atlantic to allow them to make the second and final album stipulated in the contract.
Instead, Atlantic preferred releasing “Live at Max’s Kansas City,” leading to Morrison's departure in ‘71, and introducing another former Grass Menagerie member, Willy Alexander (keyboards), with whom the band continued to perform until the summer of ‘72, when Sesnick negotiated a new contract with Polydor, dismissed everyone, kept only Yule, and locked him in an English recording studio with Ian Paice (yes, exactly, HIM), a certain Malcom Duncan playing saxophone parts, and a nameless female backing vocalist. Yule played all the other instruments and composed, arranged, and produced all 11 tracks of the album, which was released in February ‘73 in England, France, Spain, and (allegedly) Germany. It would never be released in the United States and has never been reissued on CD (presumably to avoid legal disputes related to using such a cumbersome name).

The cover’s hand doesn’t grip a banana but a skyscraper and just like here there’s no Andy Warhol, in the album’s tracks, there are no Velvet Underground. Yule is talented and gifted, but he is neither Reed nor Cale and certainly did not have the aggressive and schizoid profound inspiration that made the two the architects of the masterpieces we know. If it’s true, as someone wrote, that “Squeeze” picks up where “Loaded” left off, it’s to continue not necessarily lowering but certainly in another direction, one that veers away from New York's soul’s night to sunny carefree days that don’t match with the “real” Velvets: this should have been Doug Yule’s first solo album, but the name was less marketable, and Mr. Sesnick wouldn’t have been able to “squeeze” out those few dollars.

Among the country flickers and guitar sounds we already heard in “Loaded” and Beatles-like references (“Crash”), oscillating between pop (in many parts, the voice-piano reminds me of Bowie from “Hunky Dory”) and typical ‘70s rock (“Mean Old Man”) and filled with choruses that at times recall “Sympathy for the Devil,” Yule’s 11 songs — although not bad per se — are unfortunately a foretold failure, where it’s clear that there was someone talented who, however, did everything alone, crafting honest material (“Little Jack,” “Caroline,” the two songs already demoed in ‘71 “Friends” and especially “She’ll Make You Cry”) but not exceptional, thus becoming — if I may make an analogy, valid for the outcome — another Jobriath. All considered, certainly a waste, because good Doug was indeed good: the band he assembled to promote the upcoming album played in Europe until the end of ‘72, but after the release and commercial failure of “Squeeze,” he too gave up. He played a bit more with Lou himself (on “Sally Can’t Dance”), with the band American Flyer active until ‘77, and then disappeared for twenty years, returning with sporadic performances. An album of his 2000 concert was released in Japan (“Live in Seattle”). Today he lives in Ithaca, NY, and builds violins, or at least that’s what Wiki-P claims.

Without wanting to be as cruel as the anonymous blogger who wrote: “I can forgive Doug Yule for almost negating the greatness of such songs as ‘New Age’ and ‘Oh! Sweet Nuthin’’ with his vacuous readings and clueless deliveries, but using The Velvet Underground name for such pedestrian, uninspired material as ‘Squeeze’ is inexcusable,” and without succumbing to the excesses of recovery where everything from thirty years ago must be inherently beautiful, we can surely agree with this other who writes: “If you are suspecting another raw and cold-hearted velvets album (...) ‘Squeeze’ doesn’t sound like the Velvets at all. With the absence of the two insane, cynical, and depressed songwriters, John Cale and Lou Reed, The Velvets are free to explore (...) a happier and carefree direction.”

A nice contribution to the debate on whether this should/could/wants/etc. to be considered a Velvet album, if you’re interested, you can read it here:

http://www.sentireascoltare.com/CriticaMusicale/

Side A

Little Jack
Crash
Caroline
Mean Old Man
Dopey Joe
Wordless

Side B

She’ll Make You Cry
Friends
Send No Letter
Jack and Jane
Louise