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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