an appreciation of a quiet legend

We’re here to talk about Doug Yule.

Per some recent comments by friends, first let me say he is still alive. Apparently, I do so many eulogies they just assume when I write about an older legend it means they’ve kicked the bucket.

No, presumably Doug Yule is alive and well on today, his 79th birthday, and I’m so happy about that.

I think his place in the VU pantheon is finally secure, after years of being dogged by purists.

I never understood this.

I ranked that right up there with “Ringo got lucky” and “Yoko broke up the Beatles” in you-have-no-fucking-idea-what-you-are-talking-aboutedness.

In late ‘68, Yule got called in to basically save the band.
He went on to do that multiple times.

After John Cale’s departure, he was recruited to play bass, but he was beyond competent on all of the rock band instruments, and then some. You know, the bass player is either the worst guitarist in the band or the best all-rounder.

Yule was the latter.

It’s a tough job to be brought in to help an existing band keep moving. On a much, much smaller scale I’ve done this three times, and it’s a difficult space to navigate.

On one hand, you need to respect what’s come before you, and stay in your lane.

On the other, the band is, perhaps, in shambles, rudderless, or at the very least, seized up in some way, and you’re there to help.

Now add Lou Reed into this equation, and it’s a whole other thing.

For Yule to enter into that world and make things happen proved that he’s an exceptionally special man.

I’d say fearless, in fact.

To the point that he’s essentially the co-leader on Loaded.

When I was but a wee VU fan, it was a straight up accepted fact by the cork sniffers and the snobbier record store clerks that Loaded was a weak album.
And Squeeze?

Forget it, y’all.

When I finally heard Loaded I absolutely loved it. I wasn’t so sure about tracks like “Lonesome Cowboy Bill,” so I guess it’s more accurate to say the songs I loved, I really loved.

“Who Loves The Sun” is a masterpiece, all the way down to the “gling” that appears as a leitmotif throughout it.

“I Found A Reason” stands up to any ballad VU ever did.

“Train Round The Bend” is a classic Velvets quarter note vamp, the feedback-tagged riff is Fripp-level, and you even get that Lou “aaahhAAAAhhOOoo” thing we all love.

Jesus M. Christ, haters, “Rock & Roll” is on this album.

I just didn’t see how any VU fan couldn’t find something to love in this record. These days it seems history has righted itself, and it gets the respect it always deserved.

Squeeze is another story.

Hunter S. Thompson said “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench. A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

Fairly or not, this quote comes to mind when I think of VU’s manager, Steve Sesnick, whose name I always read as “Steve Seasick.”

That may or may not be an accident.

Sesnick is always referred to as a “businessman” above all else, which is probably why he thought it was OK to push Yule, plus some hired hands, as “The Velvet Underground.” Not only to fulfill some obligations, but to squeeze (ahem) the last bit of juice out of VU.
Sesnick went on to do such rock and roll things as become a golf consultant.

Yule is the only VU member on the record. When you consider he’s not a founding member it is very much a stretch to call this iteration “The Velvet Underground.”
However, if you listen to Squeeze as a Doug Yule solo record, there’s a lot of good stuff in there. He plays most of the instruments, in fact.
And sitting in for Mo Tucker is…
Deep Purple’s Ian Paice?
That is a hard reset, right there.
Like any VU fan, I love Tucker’s minimalist drumming. She was the right person for the job. So replacing her with a maximalist is an unexpected flex.

Yule wasn’t included when VU were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which is a crime. So if you need another reason to be skeptical of that institution, there you go. He was in the orbit of the band when a lot of the material that would later be released on the VU record was recorded.
Remember, in 1985, how utterly thrilled we were to have “new” material from them? He’s on most of it. There’s a strong argument that tracks like “The Ocean” had an influence on shoegaze and dream pop. Years later the second-wave, gaze-adjacent Ambulance LTD would lovingly cover it.

Our hero eventually dipped out and decided to focus on trad acoustic instruments. I only know this because of a chance occurrence that I’m still processing.

My dear friend Pete Weiss is not only a fantastic recordist, producer, and mastering engineer, he’s a frighteningly good guitarist. When he’s not remastering some classic like Dusty In Memphis, he leads a space/surf rock band called The Weisstronauts.

My home has always welcomed bands on tour. I try to have a spare bed or sofa available for budget-minded friends who are playing in town. Pete was coming through with the band, so I put blankets on any soft surface. They had a fill-in bass player for the run. He and I stayed up after the others had gone to bed, for a nightcap. We talked about how, these days, he was mostly going to campouts where people played pop up folk and bluegrass sets. But it was cool to be out playing bass again, since that was his main instrument for many years. I asked if I knew any of his previous bands, and he said “I guess The Velvet Underground is the best-known one.”
For a microsecond I thought he was kidding, as if he were saying “well perhaps you’ve heard of a little band called The Rolling Stones” as a joke,