There was a girl from where I worked who said, “My boyfriend has a band and they’re looking for a drummer.” She must’ve known I was fooling around with drums. Were the Velvets the first band you ever played with? In the documentary, Sterling suggests you’d played with an all-girl band at one point. It just will not be the same without Charlie. I would sit in my room, play the Stones’ first album over and over, and play along with it, just having fun, you know? So he was the biggest influence, I think, on how I was playing. There wasn’t a cymbal crash at the end of every four measures, you know? When I got a snare drum, and that’s all I had at first, I was not thinking, “I’ll be a drummer.” It was just much more fun to play along with this music that I loved then to just listen. I particularly liked because of his simplicity. So you got to see both Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr back in the day? And so she zoomed to Sears, bought both items and got two tickets for us. She saw this ad in the paper - I think it was for Sears - that said if you bought an appliance, you’d get a free ticket. My mom was looking to buy a new stove, as I recall, and a refrigerator. I’ll tell you how I got the tickets, it’s funny. You also saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It can be difficult to remember this or that, and I don’t like making things up, unless I’m damn sure I do remember, exactly. But she did make time to speak with us on the occasion of The Velvet Underground’s release. Tucker hasn’t been active on the music front lately, given her responsibilities as a grandmother in Georgia. She’s matter-of-factly informed the sound, look, and gender parity of countless bands around the world. Tucker’s unique style channeled a mix of influences: girl groups, the drummer-composer Baba Olatunji, 1960s R&B, doo-wop, and the Rolling Stones. And a dazzling new documentary on the band by director Todd Haynes (which drops on Apple TV+ on October 15th) reminds you how often that pulse kept all of the band’s sound and fury from coming apart at the seams. Her minimalist pulse - typically hammered out on tom-toms and an upended bass drum, which she played standing up, with mallets - was a signature of the Velvet Underground. Maureen “Moe” Tucker, 74, remains one of the most important drummers in rock-music history.
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