Feelies to pay tribute to Velvet Underground at N.J. show

The Feelies (l. to r. Bill Million, Glenn Mercer, Stan Demeski, Dave Weckerman, Brenda Sauter) will perform a special set of music by the Velvet Underground at Jersey City's White Eagle Hall on Saturday, October 13. (Photo by Doug Seymour)

It's always a treat when the Feelies come back to the area for a show, but their appearance at Jersey City's White Eagle Hall on Saturday, Oct. 13, will be extra special: The venerable strum-rock legends will be performing an entire set of Velvet Underground songs along with a set of their own material.

For the uninitiated, the Velvet Underground (which featured guitarist Lou Reed and multi-instrumentalist John Cale) were virtually unknown in their own era but are revered today as one of the most influential rock bands of all time. That influence has always been keenly apparent in the Feelies' music.

Formed in the late '70s by a group of high-school chums in the post-industrial Jersey suburb Haledon, the Feelies blended minimalist lyrics, feverish polyrhythms, hypnotizing drones, and insinuating melodies that made them an underground institution, an influence on bands as disparate as Hoboken's Bongos and Athens, Georgia's R.E.M.

After an initial success with 1980s groundbreaking debut, "Crazy Rhythms," the Feelies retrenched and re-emerged in 1986 for their second album, "The Good Earth," with the lineup they still boast: guitarist/lead vocalist Glenn Mercer, guitarist Bill Million, drummer Stanley Demeski, bassist Brenda Sauter, and percussionist Dave Weckerman.

These days, the Feelies find themselves spread out over several states -- from New Jersey to rural Pennsylvania to Florida -- with families and careers and side projects to keep them busy. But the band reconvenes on a regular basis to play weekend gigs in different parts of the country, and has released two excellent albums in the 2010's on Hoboken's Bar/None Records.

Still, there have only been six albums in a 38 year career. Feelies fans don't mind; they acknowledge that this band exists outside the normal rock 'n' roll space/time continuum.

"Being in the Feelies is like living in a pyramid," Weckerman once said. "Nothing ever changes and nobody ever grows older."

The show at White Eagle Hall was set up to complement "The Velvet Underground Experience," a multi-media exhibit in Manhattan that runs through Dec. 30.

Mercer, who still lives in Haledon with his wife and children, explained how it all came about.

"The exhibit, which was launched in France, decided to come to New York, and the original schedule was for it to be here last spring, and the original venue would have been able to incorporate live performances," he said. "The curators had the idea of inviting bands who were influenced by the Velvet Underground to perform at the exhibit. But something happened that postponed the whole event."

Had the exhibit taken place when originally scheduled, the Feelies appearance would have occurred only a week after the band had played three consecutive nights at Rough Trade in Williamsburg.

"We weren't sure if people would want to see us after we had just played three shows in the area, so we thought we should do something different," Mercer said. "And that's how we came up with doing the Velvet Underground songs."

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the exhibit was moved to the fall and the new space didn't accommodate live music.

"It wasn't a prerequisite that we do Velvet Underground material. We could have done our own songs, but we decided to do the Velvets set and we started rehearsing," Mercer said.

The postponement and change of venue looked like it would quash the Feelies' participation. But with former Maxwell's owner and booker Todd Abramson now curating shows at White Eagle Hall, the band decided to follow through and do its Velvets set there.

"I've heard a lot of really good things about the hall," Mercer said. "Originally, when we were going to play at the exhibit space, it would have been a small room, so we thought, 'Oh good, we can play some of the more intimate Velvets songs.' One of the aspects that we so love about the band is that they're so diverse so we wanted to make sure that was one of the elements we were able to inject into the night.

"When people compare the Feelies to the Velvet Underground, I always think, 'Well, what period are you talking about?'" Mercer continued. "Because we can sound like the first album, but that's totally different from the third. So we were excited to have the chance to do some of those quieter songs, but now that we're doing it in the bigger hall, we thought that might not work. But we'll figure it out."

The Feelies always throw a few covers into their set, paying tribute to rock icons like Neil Young and the Rolling Stones as well as contemporaries like R.E.M.; the Velvets have always been a part of that mix. But for this performance, the band had to learn quite a few Velvets tunes that they had never assayed before.

"It's always fun learning new songs," Mercer said. "And it's been interesting because Brenda and Dave weren't familiar with some of the stuff we wanted to do so we had to put in a little extra work to figure out keys and arrangements and stuff. It was a challenge for all of us, but we had a good time."

Mercer didn't want to discuss the set list but promised a few surprises.

"We're not even sure at this point what we're going to do," he said. "But we rehearsed 20 songs. I don't know if we'll do all of them or some of them. We probably won't know until the last minute."

There are Velvets songs like "What Goes On" that have graced Feelies sets for decades and were even recorded for albums. And no one who witnessed the Feelies' final set at Maxwell's, back in July 2013, will ever forget how they closed the night with the Velvets' "After Hours."

"If you close the door," Sauter sang in a soft, whispery voice, "the night can last forever."

Nothing, of course, lasts forever. Except, maybe, the Feelies.


If you go ...
The Feelies show at Eagle Hall, 337 Newark Ave., Jersey City, on Saturday, Oct. 13, is sold out. The Velvet Underground Experience runs through Dec. 30 at 718 Broadway, New York City.

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