Drummers You Just Can’t Beat: # 22 – Moe Tucker
Drummers You Just Can’t Beat is an occasional series here at Off The Tracks.
I got into The Velvet Underground when I was about 12; it was on the back of listening to Lou Reed a lot, and having a compilation album that had Heroin and Waiting For The Man on it. I read books about Lou Reed and knew about the VU for a while before I ever really listened to them. In high school I collected up all their albums on CD – and for a little while there I felt a bit ahead of some of my mates. They wondered what that noise was, but then came back for a second listen because in the 1990s every indie/pop band would reference them, and/or want to sound like them.
Every member of The Velvet Underground is crucial, and interesting, and though Lou’s songs were what pulled and pushed the music to go towards certain shapes and spaces, it was also because of John Cale’s musical prowess and belligerence. It was also because of Lou Reed’s stubbornness and the virtue of turning his limitations into strengths. It was because of Sterling Morrison’s lines and interplay, and later Doug Yule gave a new layer of musicality, as well as being the foil for Reed following Cale.
But I also think what really makes The Velvet Underground its truly unique thing and sound, is the drumming of Moe Tucker.
Maureen “Moe” Tucker was a female drummer when they were an absolute rarity. She was a standing-up drummer too; she played a half kit comprised of a bass drum she would hit with a mallet rather than kick with a pedal – and there was a snare and a tom and cymbal. Usually that was it.
Her minimalist playing came from African drumming, from improvisation, from jazz, and rhythm and blues. Her ability to leave space for the words and other instruments, to create a primitive beat that was, um, instrumental has gone onto influence everyone and everything from The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Raincoats, Violent Femmes, Talking Heads, Yo La Tengo and The Vaselines, to The White Stripes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Brian Jonestown Massacre. There are, literally, hundreds more.
Remember that line attributed to Brian Eno, about how not everyone bought the VU records, but anyone who did went out and formed a band, well, Moe Tucker wasn’t everyone’s idea of the best or most important drummer, but she gave licence to a lot of first-timers, a lot of people that loved music but lacked pure facility; a lot of untrained drummers saw her uncluttered, deceptively simple approach and saw it as the gateway for them.
Someone said to me, just recently, that Moe really is the alt/indie Ringo Starr. And that’s a nice way to put it too I reckon. She really developed a style of playing that is stripped-back genius. She plays only for the song and always. A lot of drummers say that. And then chuck in a tasty fill and check to see who was watching. That doesn’t mean they’re not tasteful players. But Moe almost never played fills. She only ever played the beat that was needed to propel the song, to accent, to provide percussive counterpoint to the melody and words.
A few years ago, a musician named Cam Forrester, made a love-letter of a video in tribute to Moe’s style. It also features Forrester playing perfect versions of the VU songs in the style of Moe’s playing; his drum kit set up in replica. He fascinatingly details the recording of each song on the first three albums.
It’s an “unofficial” documentary, but a must-see; it’s better than most official documents. It’s a fan’s love-letter, based on research and obsession and perfect detail.
I’ve watched this doco several times, in awe of both Forrester, and of course Tucker.
I feel like Moe Tucker was one of my favourite drummers as soon as I heard her. I love her singing, her jagged guitar playing, and the songs on her mid-90s solo albums. But it’s her drum playing that really tells her story, that really shows she was the conjurer of a special magic to support Lou Reed’s mercurial music.
Moe Tucker was a role model and influence just for being female. But more than that, she was a hero to many for the subtlety of her playing, the embracing of limitations, the interesting patterns she created that were so simple, and yet it’s unlikely anyone else would have thought to offer them.
That’s genius. That’s one of the greatest. That’s the thing that makes her playing so important. And her playing is still fresh, over 50 years later; it’s still a surprise. Still intriguing and curious and just right for that music from that band. She is quite possibly criminally underrated. But another of thinking about it is to say that the right people have found what they needed from her music. It spoke volumes to the people that were listening. I can think of no greater compliment. And no better player could have ever been the drummer for The Velvet Underground.
