The Velvet Underground song that helped shape Mercury Rev
New York experimental rockers Mercury Rev have been busting down the doors of genre and style for decades. Bringing together a potent mix of rock, electronica, noise, and lo-fi improvisation to their music, the band has also dabbled in country, new wave, ambient, and psychedelia across their three-decade-long career.
While sitting down with The Line of Best Fit, band members Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper were happy to share their diverse array of influences. Everyone from Pharoah Sanders and Billie Holiday to Suicide and Iggy Pop got nods, but a special place on the list was saved for fellow New York art-rockers The Velvet Underground.
“I grew up in a small town in Western New York, with a lot of farmland and oldie’s radio, but my Uncle was my contact on the outside and he sent me The Velvet Underground record, which came in the same box as Pharoah Saunders when I was in the 8th Grade,” Grasshopper explained.
When it was time to pick just one song, it was narrowed down to a classic track. “‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ is so otherworldly, it’s shocking in its modernity and otherworldliness, the rollicking piano, the primal drums, Nico’s singing and the guitars building up,” Grasshopper continues. “Even when I hear it now, it just seems so fresh, it feels like it’s the first time I’ve heard it, the exhilaration of it.”
“It’s one of those songs that’s just timeless,” he adds. “Even though it’s fifty years old it sounds like it could have been done yesterday, musically and the lyrics as well – ‘What costume shall the poor girl wear / To all tomorrow’s parties?’ – that idea of adolescence, that you’re going to a party and you’re trying to figure out what to wear, what’s going to happen, who you’re going to meet there and what you’re going to learn.”
“I just love the piano that John Cale plays, I think it comes out of the world of the New York minimalism of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, minimal piano that just keeps looping and rollicking along,” he concludes. “And the impact of the sound, that rollicking piano with the primal beat of Moe Tucker, it just steamrolls through relentlessly, it’s just beautiful.”
Check out ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ down below.
