For the sec­ond year in a row, Foo Fight­ers front­man Dave Grohl and pro­duc­er Greg Kurstin have launched The Hanukkah Ses­sions, a fes­tive music series where they cov­er a song–one for each night of Hanukkah–originally cre­at­ed by a Jew­ish musi­cian. For the fourth night of Hanukkah this year, they cel­e­brate “quite pos­si­bly the loud­est and proud­est of hard rock­ing Jews, David Lee Roth” with a rol­lick­ing ver­sion of Van Halen’s “Jump.” To watch their oth­er cel­e­bra­to­ry tracks, click here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin Cov­er 8 Songs by Famous Jew­ish Artists for Hanukkah: Bob Dylan, Beast­ie Boys, Vel­vet Under­ground & More

Musi­cal Come­di­an Reg­gie Watts Rein­vents Van Halen’s Clas­sic, “Pana­ma”

Dave Grohl Rocks Out, Play­ing Drums Along to the Orig­i­nal Record­ing of “Smells Like Teen Spir­it”

Dave Grohl Falls Off­stage & Breaks His Leg, Then Con­tin­ues the Show as The Foo Fight­ers Play Queen’s “Under Pres­sure” (2015)

A high school girl from Levit­town, New York, the country’s first sub­urb, Mau­reen “Moe” Tuck­er hard­ly fit the pro­file of a rock star in one of the most influ­en­tial bands of the 1960s. Then again, nei­ther did any of the mem­bers of the Vel­vet Under­ground. Lou Reed, John Cale, Ster­ling Mor­ri­son, and Tuck­er had bare­ly begun before Andy Warhol intro­duced them to Nico and billed them as the Explod­ing Plas­tic Inevitable, and it was Warhol who helped turn them into cult heroes. But Tuck­er made them sound like no one else. “Her style of drum­ming, that she invent­ed” Reed once remarked, “is amaz­ing. I’ve tried to get a drum­mer to do what she did and it’s impos­si­ble.” Her approach to Reed’s songs was a “mix of African trance rhythms and Ringo-like arrange­ment genius,” Adam Bud­of­sky writes at Mod­ern Drum­mer. “Her play­ing style was huge­ly respon­si­ble for the Velvet’s sin­gu­lar per­son­al­i­ty.”

Lis­ten, for exam­ple, to 1970’s Loaded – which Tuck­er sat out due to preg­nan­cy — next to The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico, White Light/White Heat, or The Vel­vet Under­ground. Loaded, the only Vel­vet Under­ground album nev­er to go out of print, may be called by some a “near-per­fect rock album,” but it’s also the least exper­i­men­tal and least inter­est­ing of the band’s four stu­dio releas­es, the sound of the band with­out Cale and Tuck­er, reach­ing for radio hits. The Vel­vet Under­ground with Moe Tuck­er, on the oth­er hand, was the sound of a band that was con­stant­ly falling apart while root­ing down into a pri­mal rock and roll that would out­last them. It’s sub­lime, and Tuck­er deserves her rep­u­ta­tion as “one of the head hyp­no­tists,” in the words of Jonathan Rich­man.

Her con­tri­bu­tion was as much youth­ful enthu­si­asm and nerve as raw tal­ent. Com­pelled to play the drums by a love for the Rolling Stones, the Bea­t­les, and Niger­ian drum­mer Babatunde Olatun­ji, she might have banged away in unre­mark­able Long Island cov­er bands in her youth, becom­ing a more tra­di­tion­al play­er, had not Reed, who knew her broth­er, giv­en her the chance to play the first pay­ing VU gig at Sum­mit High School in New Jer­sey. As she remem­bers it in the punk oral his­to­ry project Please Kill Me:

I was a ner­vous wreck when we played that show. We were allowed to play three songs and we had prac­ticed them at John Cale’s loft. We played, “Wait­ing For the Man,” “Hero­in,” and I think the third one was “Venus In Furs.” 

Our set was only about 15 min­utes at the most and in each song some­thing of mine broke. All my stuff was falling apart! The foot ped­al broke in one song, the leg of the floor tom start­ed going loose. I thought, Oh shit, I’m going to ruin this!

Instead of ruin, what fol­lowed were more gigs and a peri­od of exper­i­men­ta­tion in which Tuck­er, who start­ed with only a snare, tried out dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions of the drum kit in long jam ses­sions at Warhol’s Fac­to­ry: play­ing her bass drum with mal­lets on the floor, then on chairs while stand­ing up, eschew­ing cym­bals alto­geth­er, mak­ing judi­cious use of tom toms and tam­bourines, play­ing a few mem­o­rable shows with trash­cans when her drums were stolen.… She had no train­ing, no one in the band told her she was doing it wrong, and so she was free to rein­vent the drums her way.

As you’ll see in the thor­ough doc­u­men­tary above, Foun­da­tion Vel­vet, by Cam For­rester, Tuck­er’s way was exact­ly what the Vel­vets need­ed to recre­ate rock and roll in their image. She had a “dis­ci­pline with regards to play­ing the song, and not the instru­ment,” For­rester says. You’ll also see him recre­ate Tuck­er’s instru­men­ta­tion. In the time­stamps below, click on the demon­stra­tions to see her drum set­up for each track on the band’s first three albums.

Quotes/Introduction — 0:00
Back­ground & musi­cal begin­nings — 3:50
“Tucker’s sis­ter plays drums?” — 6:14
Andy Warhol, ‘The Fac­to­ry’, and Nico — 9:07
The ‘Explod­ing Plas­tic Inevitable’ Shows — 12:46
A female drum­mer? — 15:09
‘The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico’ Ses­sions — 17:38
DRUM DEMONSTRATIONS — 21:22
Good­bye to Nico & Andy…hello to VOLUME! — 25:02
‘White Light/White Heat’ & DRUMMING DEMONSTRATIONS — 28:18
John Cale leaves, and Doug Yule joins — 34:35
The third album & DRUMMING DEMONSTRATIONS — 37:07
‘Loaded’, band breakup, and solo career — 43:09
Moe’s hero­ic return to the drums — 45:58
Retire­ment from the music busi­ness — 53:48
Influ­ence & lega­cy — 54:28
“A nat­ur­al drum­mer…” — 57:03

One can approx­i­mate Tuck­er’s style and recon­struct her influ­ences, as For­rester has done here bril­liant­ly, but there will nev­er be anoth­er drum­mer like her.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Vel­vet Under­ground: Get a First Glimpse of Todd Haynes’ Upcom­ing Doc­u­men­tary on the Most Influ­en­tial Avant-Garde Rock­ers

The Vel­vet Under­ground & Andy Warhol Stage Pro­to-Punk Per­for­mance Art: Dis­cov­er the Explod­ing Plas­tic Inevitable (1966)

Watch The Vel­vet Under­ground Per­form in Rare Col­or Footage: Scenes from a Viet­nam War Protest Con­cert (1969)

Watch Footage of the Vel­vet Under­ground Com­pos­ing “Sun­day Morn­ing,” the First Track on Their Sem­i­nal Debut Album The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico (1966)

Andy Warhol Explains Why He Decid­ed to Give Up Paint­ing & Man­age the Vel­vet Under­ground Instead (1966)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Make sure to watch the video above with the sound on. In it musi­cians from around the world all play a well-known com­po­si­tion: 4′33″ by John Cage. “I spent weeks ask­ing strangers on the inter­net to send me their rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tions, and boy did they deliv­er,” writes the video’s cre­ator Sam Vladimirsky. “My inbox filled with adap­ta­tions by an Aus­tri­an death met­al band, a marim­ba play­er, a bun­ny rab­bit, the Muse­um of Musi­cal Instru­ments in Phoenix, a mid­dle school music teacher, a ver­sion played on Gui­tar Hero and over Zoom.” Though orig­i­nal­ly com­posed for piano, 4′33″ is eas­i­ly trans­posed to all these instru­ments and oth­ers, call­ing as it does for their play­ers to do the very same thing: noth­ing.

“Inspired by Zen Bud­dhism, the Dada move­ment and Cage’s strong dis­taste for the ubiq­ui­tous muzak of the time,” says Aeon, “its score instructs per­form­ers not to play their instru­ments for the piece’s four-minute, thir­ty-three-sec­ond dura­tion.” The result is not silence but “the unique ambi­ent sound­scape of the envi­ron­ment in which it’s per­formed, reflect­ing Cage’s belief that music is ever-present.”

Here the sub­mit­ted per­for­mances take place in such envi­ron­ments as a class­room, a bed­room, a court­yard, a dri­ve­way, a bus, and a sub­way sta­tion. Vladimirsky pairs the videos, allow­ing us to enjoy not just par­al­lel view­ing expe­ri­ences but a lay­ered lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence of these ambi­ent sound­scapes.

“Stuck inside,” writes Vladimirsky, “pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians, ded­i­cat­ed ama­teurs, awk­ward teens and col­lege stu­dents found 4′33″ to be the music of our moment.” If the Rolling Stones could play “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in lock­down, each from his sep­a­rate home, then who’s to say this isn’t the next log­i­cal step? Each per­for­mance of 4′33″ reflects not just its imme­di­ate set­ting but its cul­tur­al peri­od: com­pare the clip just above, in which Cage him­self plays it in Har­vard Square in 1973. Most of us haven’t seen the inside of a con­cert hall in quite some time, let alone heard the ambi­ent sounds pro­duced with­in it in the absence of prop­er music. But each of us can, at least, per­form 4′33″ for our­selves when­ev­er and wher­ev­er we like — one way of doing it being sim­ply to play the video at the top of the post with the sound off.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch John Cage Play His “Silent” 4’33” in Har­vard Square, Pre­sent­ed by Nam June Paik (1973)

The Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4’33”

John Cage’s Silent, Avant-Garde Piece 4’33” Gets Cov­ered by a Death Met­al Band

The 4’33” App Lets You Cre­ate Your Own Ver­sion of John Cage’s Clas­sic Work

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played By Musi­cians Around the World (with Cameos by David Cros­by, Jim­my Buf­fett & Bill Kreutz­mann)

The Vir­tu­al Choir: Watch a Choir Con­duc­tor Dig­i­tal­ly Unite 3500 Singers from Around the World

How to Find Silence in a Noisy World

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Alice’s Restau­rant. It’s now a Thanks­giv­ing clas­sic, and some­thing of a tra­di­tion around here. Record­ed in 1967, the 18+ minute coun­ter­cul­ture song recounts Arlo Guthrie’s real encounter with the law, start­ing on Thanks­giv­ing Day 1965. As the long song unfolds, we hear all about how a hip­pie-bat­ing police offi­cer, by the name of William “Obie” Oban­hein, arrest­ed Arlo for lit­ter­ing. (Cul­tur­al foot­note: Obie pre­vi­ous­ly posed for sev­er­al Nor­man Rock­well paint­ings, includ­ing the well-known paint­ing, “The Run­away,” that graced a 1958 cov­er of The Sat­ur­day Evening Post.) In fair­ly short order, Arlo pleads guilty to a mis­de­meanor charge, pays a $25 fine, and cleans up the thrash. But the sto­ry isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Lat­er, when Arlo (son of Woody Guthrie) gets called up for the draft, the pet­ty crime iron­i­cal­ly becomes a basis for dis­qual­i­fy­ing him from mil­i­tary ser­vice in the Viet­nam War. Guthrie recounts this with some bit­ter­ness as the song builds into a satir­i­cal protest against the war: “I’m sit­tin’ here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough to join the Army, burn women, kids, hous­es and vil­lages after bein’ a lit­ter­bug.” And then we’re back to the cheery cho­rus again: “You can get any­thing you want, at Alice’s Restau­rant.”

We have fea­tured Guthrie’s clas­sic dur­ing past years. But, for this Thanks­giv­ing, we give you the illus­trat­ed ver­sion. Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing to every­one who plans to cel­e­brate the hol­i­day today.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His Sar­cas­tic “Thanks­giv­ing Prayer” in a 1988 Film By Gus Van Sant

Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe

William Shat­ner Raps About How to Not Kill Your­self Deep Fry­ing a Turkey

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 13 Tips for What to Do with Your Left­over Thanks­giv­ing Turkey