Other songs like VU's Sister Ray

I've been on a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds kick recently and when the song "Babe I'm On Fire" came on, it made me think this was their "Sister Ray".

Both are:

• Very long (BIOF is 14:45, SR is 17:29)
• Very repetitive
• Very chaotic
• Full of distortion
• Actual "rock" songs with a beat, not just noise
• Great fun in my opinon!

Revolting Cocks also have a song like this ("Get Down" clocking in at 13:42), but I'd like to know what other bands have their own "Sister Ray"!

 

Shouldn't it be: "Other songs like VU's Sister Ray"???

 

LOL, yes.

 

a bit on the short side, but otherwise...

 

"Sister Ray", the version on WL/WH anyway, isn't really that repetitive. Goes off in various different directions and comes back to the basic structure at the end.

 

Better!

 

Ok, this meets the length requirement (in addition to the others!)

 

Up In Her Room by the Seeds.

 

Cop Shoot Cop by Spiritualized. Pretty long + chaotic, but returns to basic melody

 

I would say the title track.

 

Iron Butterfly- In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

 

Uncle Harry's last Freakout by the Pink Fairies - pretty much directly influenced by Sister Ray.

 

You were on the right track with REVCO, check out some other Wax Trax bands
Lead Into Gold-Faster Than Light, 1990

 

"Yeti" by Amon Duul II.

 

Electronic-Make It Happen, 1999
Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr having some fun

 

Indeed!

 

There are no other songs like "Sister Ray". Maybe "You Light Up My Life" by Debbie Boone.

 

This album predates the first two VU albums and was released during the fall of 1966. I would almost bet the members of the VU heard this album prior to recording their first two albums:

 

There are no other songs like Sister Ray. A song's length (the great "Up In Her Room" by the Seeds) doesn't make it like it, and the wonderful Days Of Wine and Roses, a song about a woman threatening to commit suicide off a ledge and nobody caring anymore about things, is not nearly as discordant as Sister Ray. It's a tidy pop song in comparison.

"I can't stand my neighbors
screaming all the time
if I wasn't blasting Sister Ray
I would lose my mind!" - New York, New York by The Dictators

 

Yea, that's a good one, kind of cops the opening from Talk Talk too, and of course it's got that Dr. John voodoo in the mix.

I've always like d the long version of The Diamond Sea by Sonic Youth on Washing Machine, goes on almost 20 minutes and has one of those sections like in Cop Shoot Cop when you get kind of all lost deep inside the music, cascading colors all around. Pretty cool stuff.

And the Blue Line Swinger closer from Yo La Tengo's Electr-o-Pura, love that one, and sometimes they stretch it way past the 10 minute mark of the original.

 

A cover version of the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson song and found
as extra content from Wim Wenders' contribution to the PBS presentation
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: The Soul of a Man...

"See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" - Lou Reed.

 

When I saw the VU in Cleveland in 1969, they played a 30-minute version of "Hey, Mr. Rain" as well as a 30-minute "Sister Ray". Quite similar. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any recordings of that show, and apparently it's the only time they performed it on the tour.

 

How about a song EXACTLY like Sister Ray:

 

The Velvet Underground and Nico was actually recorded in the spring of '66 though it didn't get released until a year later, again demonstrating how far ahead of the curve they were back then.