| Quite
simply everything about The Velvet Underground was astonishing. Take a female drummer with one beat (Mo
Tucker), a classically trained Welshman (John Cale), a
blonde German beauty who couldn't sing (Nico), and two
buddies from Syracuse University (Sterling Morrison and
Lou Reed) who all collided together as a band formed to
promote Lou's song 'The Ostrich' !!!! Add another blonde
who painted soup cans, a name derived from a novel about
sado-masochism and Verve as a major label and you arrive
at the VU a band who rewrote the rules for music as we
know it. |
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The
band looked and sounded like no other. Dissonant, atonal, provocative and featuring sometimes the tortuous
vocals of Nico (God help us she was dire !!!!) contained
in mainly classic songs featuring among other subjects
heroin, bondage, more heroin, transvestites and oral sex...Forget The Beatles pissing about with backward tape
loops stoned here was Cale running a chair into metal
plates to simulate glass smashing !!! Forget that piano
note of 'A Day in a Life' that goes on forever here was
the sound of pure white noise as the blues were turned
inside out for 'Run Run Run' with a wall of feedback.
While people developed studio professionalism here was
Cale and Reed turning their instruments up to try and
drown each other during their behemoth 'Sister Ray' while
developing the prototype punk guitar sound everyone wanted
in 77. Forget Love and peace here was a band who on their
second album had a cover featuring soldiers going over
the top bayonets fixed and with a title about mainlining
drugs !!! If you don't think 'Venus in Furs' is sublime
then you have no idea about music and if you listen to
'Sister Ray' all the way thru nodding wisely then you are
not much better. |
| Classics
include 'What Goes
On', 'Pale Blue Eyes' and
'Sweet Jane'
. They were the first band to recognise and incorporate
the underbelly of life into rock'n'roll and yet able to write emotional
& tender songs with Reed's voice almost breaking at times and
yet not sounding twee or sugary. Their first two albums
'VU with Nico'and
'White Light/White Heat' probably sold
30 copies put together but their influence is still felt
today. After those first two albums they declined as Cale
left and they attempted to take a more commercial
direction that failed.
Lou's solo career basically
carried off where the Velvets ended. Lou Reed is a complex
character and it is no suprise that a bloke who is a
total asshole should have been given this talent for
music !!!! Lou is a bit of a mystery who started sucking
knobs, married his press agent, went out with and married
a transvestite ,allegedly f***ed Bowie and so on and
with a healthy dollop of drugs added at various times.
His sexuality was as confused as his music which ranges
from the crap to the sublime - to the white noise of
Metal Machine Music to the anger of
Blue Mask with Robert
Quine from the Voidoids on guitar to the epic Street
Hassle with
Bruce Sprinsteen.
While hippies were singing about flowers and the
Beatles were boring us rigid with St Peppers the Velvets
were sticking a spike in their arm and too busy sucking
on a ding dong. They gave us a vision where it wasn't all
harmony sweetness and light love and the long winding
road. Music could appall as well as appeal to.
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that we love them. Their influence stretches for ever thru Iggy,
Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith , Television and Bowie thru punk,
the Jesus & Mary Chain, Sisters of Mercy and every
alternative band in the universe. It comes as no suprise that
'Waiting For My Man' was the most covered UK Punk toon done by
among others Eater, The Wasps, Slaughter & The Dogs and the
UK Subs. |
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| VU &
Nico |
White
Light White Heat |
Velvet Underground |
Loaded |
Live
1969 |
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