PAGE 12 March 15,1985 =~

 

 

 

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ee

The Velvet Underground? What the
hell is the Velvet Underground?

In an overly simplistic sense, the
Velvets were an obscure late sixties

 

by DAVE WATSON

 

band featuring Lou Reed (Walk On
The Wild Side and I Love You,
Suzanne). Their songs were dark,
sordid, harsh and highly experimental.
Only New York was big enough to
generate the widespread decadence
the band wallowed in. As a result, an
urban mood and subject matter pre-
vade every song they wrote. The
Velvet Underground had an impact on
rock music far out of proportion to
their limited record sales.

A famous quote, attributed to a
variety of sources, states that even
though their first album only sold
20,000 copies, everyone who bought
one eventually started their own band.
Their enormous influence has emerg-
ed in the work of a variety ot
performers including David Bowie,
The Doors, Roxy Music, The Cars,
R.E.M., and the Psychedelic Furs.

In addition, their pioneering tech-
niques and sound led (through a
convoluted chain) to the late 70’s punk
rock boom that was spearheaded by
Malcom McLaren and the Sex Pistols.
The works of these artists (as well as
Lou’s solo albums) have resulted in a
gradually increasing public recogni-

tion of the band.
In order to cash in on the growing

interest in the Velvets, Polygram
Records (who now own MGM/Verve,
their old label) have released the apo-
craphyl ‘Great Lost Velvet Under-

ry

ground Album’ under the title V.U. in

conjunction with the remastering and
reissuing of the three albums preceed-
ing it.

The album fills the creative gap be-
tween those first 3 MGM albums and
the 1970 Loaded on the Atlantic label.

      

 

To properly assess the ‘‘new’’ album,
an analysis of the history and impact of
the Velvet Underground is required.

Lou Reed was born March 2, 1942 tc
a pair of fairly well off tax accountants.
By the age of 8 he was training in
classical piano. By the time Lou was a
teenager his family moved from Brook-
lyn to Long Island where he formed
The Shades at the age of 14. They cut a
record called So Blue which earned
Lou ‘‘78 cents in royalties’’. Despite
this humble beginning (and the elec-
troshock therapy his parents briefly
forced him to undergo) Lou decided to
continue as a musician.

The early 60’s found Lou enrolled in
a private Syracuse university. There

 

 

he met a creative writing. instructor
and poet named Delmore Schwartz,
who became his lifelong role model.
Lou described Delmore as ‘‘the first
great man | ever met.’’ Delmore was
prone to excess, especially in his
consumption. of alcohol and amphet-

ines, later Reed’s favourite drugs.

The Velvet Under

Lou met fellow guitarist Sterling
Morrison in the dormitory at Syracuse
and they began to practice together.
Soon afterwards, in his senior year,
Lou was expelled from university for
reasons that still remain vague. He
began working for Pickwick records as
a staff songwriter where he created a
dance record called the Ostrich. The
company was not interested in Lou’s
other compositions like Heroin and I’m
Waiting For The Man, however, and
they soon parted ways.

Sterling and Lou met John Cale at
this point. Cale was a genuine musical
prodigy, playing piano at 3, viola at 5
and featured in a BBC concert at 8.
The_three became close friends and

  

formed The Primitives with a drummer
named Angus MacLise. Cale would
alternate between viola and bass,
while Lou played rhythm guitar or lead
“ostrich’’ on a specially rewired guitar

which produced several tones for each

string.

They all liked the same drugs,
primarily Valium, Thorazine, amphet-
amines and alcohol. An inclination to
inject resulted in a name change to
Falling Spikes.

Angus picked up a pornographic
book in 1965 which gave the group its
name: The Velvet Underground. This
became his one major contribution to
rock history because he quit before
their first paid gig (for $75 at a high
school dance). In desperation, the
band added 20 year old Maureen
Tucker (the sister of a friend) as
drummer.

The next place they were hired in
was the Cafe Bizarre. They were a
little too bizzarre for it, however, and
were fired in a week. Fortunately, that
week was enough time for pop artist
Andy Warhol to hear of them and see
the show. Warhol liked them because
their music and his films dealt with the
same subjects: ‘‘desperation, drugs,
beauty, dreams, rage, escape and pan-
sexual behavior.’’

The. Velvets soon moved into the
Factory on 47th street, Andy Warhol’s
home for decadent artists and hangers
ion. Brain Jones of the Rolling Stones
brought Nico there one night for one of
the frequent acid and speed parties.
Nico was a German model in her mid-
twenties with a fashionable list of
accomplishments. Bob Dylan had writ-
ten a song for her, she had been in a
Fellini movie and Jimmy Page of the
Yardbirds had produced an English
single for her. She had a fondness for
worshipful adolescent boys like 16 year
old Jackson Browne.

Nico split lead singing duties with
Lou and the band was incorporated
into Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevit-
able, a multi media show based at the

Factory. Its success sparked a West
Coast tour confined to California. The
tour was seen by Jim Morrison in the
embryonic days of the Doors, who was
greatly impressed, and by Cher, who
didn’t seem affected at all (except to
comment that ‘‘It will replace nothing
—except maybe suicide’’).

Before leaving, the group was
signed to MGM, mainly as a result of
Andy’s influence. Eight hours in a
New York studio and a three hour
followup in Los Angeles was enough to
prepare The Velvet Underground and
Nico, their first onslaught on the world
which was highlighted by a Warhol
designed cover featuring a peel off
yellow banana.

‘This sort of thing hasn’t been tried
— let’s just see what happens. What
happens is you get banned from the
radio.’ - John Cale

It’s a wonder this album wasn’t
banned from retail sale when it was
released in March 1967. Actually it~
opens innoculously enough with Sun-
day Morning, a gentle and beautiful
ballad, breathlessly sung by Lou. On
closer examination the lyrics reveal
that the song is about coming down off
the strong drugs from Saturday night.
It is followed by I’m Waiting For The
Man, a straightforward rock song
about an excursion to Harlem to buy
heroin. Nico then sings Femme Fatale,
another ballad, which, if not about her,
is about someone just like her.

The serious, decadence begins with
Venus In Furs, a tale of a dominatrix
and her servant Severin. In live show
Nico would play the ‘‘whiplash girl-
child in the dark’’ with Reed as
Severin, acting out the song against
‘the slow motion thrash of the instru-
ments, highlighted by Cale’s eerie
viola.

Severin, down on your bended
knee/taste the whip in love not given
lightly/taste the whip/now bleed for
me.

Heroin is an intense journey through
the highs and lows of addiction, exud-
ing a frightening authenticity. The
End by Jim Morrison is obviously
influenced, in style if not in content, by
this piece.

| don’t know just where I’m going/
but I’m going to try for the kingdom if |
can/Cause it makes me feel like I’m a
man/when | put a spike into my vein/
Then | tell you things aren’t quite the
same/When I’m rushing on my
run/and | feel just like Jesus’s son/
Heroin/It’s my life and it’s my wife.

European Son to Delmore Schwartz
consists of two verses of almost spoken

lyrics over a guitar riff. Suddenly a
lion-like roar and breaking glass
herald an explosive guitar on each

   

channel. Gradually instruments
added, finally overwhelming the |
tener in a wall of noise before the so
concludes. We won’t even discuss t
Black Angels Death Song.

The next album, White Light/Wh
Heat, came in December 1967 and to
a day to record. Nico had left the gro
by this point, effectively ending W
hol’s involvement. This album is to
sonic bombardment, not unlike a
minute car crash. Apparently
reissued version of this record clea
up a lot of the distortion that wa
supposed to be there, but I’ve go
so used to it this way that I’ve gro
love it, muddy mix and all.

This album is full of doom and
musicians were filled with amp
amines, producing a spectacle of de
unparalleled in rock. The all bl
cover was imprinted with a sk
visible only at a certain angle.

White Light/White Heat is
album that created punk music, es
cially hardcore thrash punk.
record is probably not for all tastes

The title song opens things up wi
speed freak ditty driven by frantic
frenzied guitar attacks. David Bo
still does this one in concert.

The Gift is an odd one. One cha
contains a somewhat amusing sto!
Waldo Jeffery’s plan to mail him

    
  
    
    
     
    
    
   
   
   
    
   
   
   
    
  
    
  
  
  
  
    
   
   
  
    
    
   
  
   
    
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
   
   
  
  
   
    
    
   
   
  
 
  
  
 
 
   
  
    
  
  
   
  
   
    
    
   
   
  
   

to his girlfriend while the o
channel is filled with typical he
psychedelic background music.

Side two holds only two songs, |
intricate and ballsy rocker | Heard
Call My Name and the 17 mi
Sister Ray. Sailors, heroin and or
tumble through this feedback o
which originated the playing of a
guitar in a different key than the o
instruments. The end result is a
violence with a jazz-like abstract
This song will kill your parents if
play it loud enough.

What could they possibly do nex
mostly acoustic folk-rock album
course, simply titled The Velvet
derground. Cale was no longer in
group, having left in 1968. He ei
quit or was kicked out by Reed;
stories differ on this point. Doug
was added as bass player.

The new album stood out in f
contrast to the others, as it contai
glimmers of hope throughout. Mos
the songs are ballads arranged aro
the story of Candy’s search for
answer to the hollowness of decaq
life. Each song explores an option,
in the end no resolution is reached
just a sense of hope that sev
possibilities for resolution do e
Since Lou had known people like
for years, Candy’s personal ody
has a sense of detail that con
authenticity and honesty. The g