Maureen Tucker

Moe Tucker, 1992

Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944 in New Jersey ) is a former American drummer. She was a member of the group The Velvet Underground .

life and work

Maureen Tucker was one of the first women to achieve international fame on drums and was involved in most of the Velvet Underground's recordings until 1970. Exceptions are their studio album Loaded and three live albums from 1969. When these recordings were made, she paused because she was pregnant; she was replaced in the band by Doug Yule and in live performances by his brother Billy.

Tucker's drumming differed from conventional use of a drum kit in several ways. So she preferred to play while standing instead of sitting, as usual. She used the bass drum with the batter head facing up and played it with drumsticks in her hands instead of a pedal . In addition, she almost always refrained from using pools . Occasionally she used a tambourine , which she placed on the heads of her drums, among other things. In some tracks by Velvet Underground, she also contributed to deliberately used agogic tempo changes, which are primarily known from classical music and are rarely heard in rock and pop music. The most striking example of this is the song Heroin from the album The Velvet Underground and Nico .

Tucker is the singer of the song After Hours , which appeared on the album The Velvet Underground in 1969. She can be heard as the second voice in the song The Murder Mystery .

After leaving Velvet Underground in 1971, Maureen Tucker interrupted her touring activities and initially devoted herself to her family life; Billy Yule took part in the recordings for Loaded (1970). Only fifteen years later, in the late 1980s, did she go on tour again - first as a singer, guitarist and drummer with the group Half Japanese , and later with her own band.

In an interview published in mid-October 2010, she announced that she had retired from music in favor of her grandson. Her most recent publication is a guest appearance as a drummer in the play Red Tan of the band The Raveonettes , appeared in 2005 on their album Pretty in Black .

Trivia

• In 2009, Tucker appeared as a sympathizer of the tea party movement , which only caused a stir in 2011.
• Paul Morrissey described Tucker's androgynous physical appearance as one of The Velvet Underground's great attractions .
• In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked Tucker as one of only five women among the 100 best drummers of all time .

Discography

Solo albums

• 1981: Playin 'Possum
• 1985: Another View (EP)
• 1987: Moejadkatebarry (EP)
• 1989: Life in Exile After Abdication
• 1991: I Spent a Week There the Other Night
• 1992: Oh No, They're Recording This Show (live)
• 1994: Dogs Under Stress
• 1998: Waiting for My Men (sampler)
• 2002: Moe Rocks Terrastock (live)

Moe Tucker & Half Japanese

• 1990: Fire in the Sky

Individual references and sources

1. ↑ ^{a b} Mark Appelstein: Interview: Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground Sets the Record Straight. (No longer available online.) October 18, 2010, archived from the original on October 20, 2013 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Christoph Dallach: Pop-News: Grumbling pensioner. In: Spiegel Online . October 8, 2010, accessed January 7, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Paul Morrissey quoted in: Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain: Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Grove Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-8021-1588-8 , p. 7: "And they had the drummer who was totally androgynous, there was absolutely no way of telling if Maureen Tucker was a boy or a girl. So those were the big attractions. "
4. ↑ 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Rolling Stone , March 31, 2016, accessed August 6, 2017 .