The Velvet Underground
Encyclopedia
The Velvet Underground was an American rock
band formed in New York City
. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed
and John Cale
, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited by many critics as one of the most important and influential groups of the 1960s. An often-repeated statement, usually attributed to Brian Eno
or Peter Buck
, is that "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band."
Andy Warhol
managed the Velvet Underground and it was the house band at his studio, the Factory
, and his Exploding Plastic Inevitable
events. The provocative lyrics of some of the band's songs gave a nihilistic
outlook to some of their music.
Their 1967 debut album, titled The Velvet Underground & Nico (which featured German singer Nico
, with whom the band collaborated) was named the 13th Greatest Album of All Time
, and the "most prophetic rock album ever made" by Rolling Stone
in 2003. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the band #19 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
had performed with a few short-lived garage bands
and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records
(Reed described his tenure there as being "a poor man's Carole King
"). Reed met John Cale
, a Welshman
who had moved to the United States to study classical music upon securing a scholarship. Cale had worked with experimental composers Cornelius Cardew
and La Monte Young
but was also interested in rock music. Young’s use of extended drones
would be a profound influence on the band's early sound. Cale was pleasantly surprised to discover that Reed’s experimentalist tendencies were similar to his own: Reed sometimes used alternative guitar tunings to create a droning sound. The pair rehearsed and performed together; their partnership and shared interests built the path towards what would later become the Velvet Underground.
Reed’s first group with Cale (and his best-known group) was The Primitives, a short-lived group assembled to issue budget-priced recordings and support an anti-dance single penned by Reed, "The Ostrich", to which Cale added a viola passage. Reed and Cale recruited Sterling Morrison
—a college classmate of Reed’s at Syracuse University—as a replacement for Walter De Maria, who had been a third member of The Primitives. Morrison played the guitar, and Angus MacLise
joined on percussion to complete the four-member unit. This quartet was first called The Warlocks, then The Falling Spikes.
The Velvet Underground
by Michael Leigh was a contemporary pulp paperback about the secret sexual subculture of the early '60s that Cale's friend Tony Conrad
showed the group. MacLise made a suggestion to adopt the title as the band's name, and according to Reed and Morrison the group liked the name, considering it evocative of "underground cinema
," and fitting, as Reed had already written "Venus in Furs
," a song inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
's book of the same name
, dealing with masochism. The band immediately and unanimously adopted the Velvet Underground as its new name in November of 1965.
poetry, with MacLise playing gentle “pitter and patter rhythms behind the drone.”
In July 1965, Reed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape
at their Ludlow Street loft. When he briefly returned to Britain
, Cale gave a copy of the tape to Marianne Faithfull
, hoping she’d pass it on to Mick Jagger
. Nothing ever came of the demo, but it was eventually released on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See
.
Manager and music journalist Al Aronowitz
arranged for the group's first paying gig—$75 to play at Summit High School, in Summit, New Jersey
, opening
for The Myddle Class. When the group decided to take the gig, MacLise left the group, protesting what he considered a sellout
. “Angus was in it for art
,” Morrison reported.
MacLise was replaced by Maureen “Mo” Tucker
, the younger sister of Morrison's friend Jim Tucker. Tucker’s abbreviated drum kit
was rather unusual: she generally played on tom toms
and an upturned bass drum
, using mallet
s as often as drumsticks, and she rarely used cymbal
s. (The band having asked her to do something unusual, she turned her bass drum on its side and played standing up. When her drums were stolen from one club, she replaced them with garbage cans, brought in from outside.) Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic (influenced by the likes of Babatunde Olatunji
and Bo Diddley
records), became a vital part of the group’s music. The group earned a regular paying gig at the Café Bizarre and gained an early reputation as a promising ensemble.
became the band's manager in 1965 and suggested they feature the German-born singer Nico
on several songs. Warhol's reputation helped the band gain a higher profile. Warhol helped the band secure a coveted recording contract
with MGM's Verve Records
, with himself as nominal "producer", and gave the Velvets free rein over the sound they created.
During their stay with Andy Warhol, the band became part of his multimedia roadshow, Exploding Plastic Inevitable
, for which they provided the music. They played shows for several months in New York City, then traveled throughout the United States and Canada until its last installment in May 1967. The show included 16 mm film projections and colors by Warhol. Early promo posters referred to the group as the "erupting plastic inevitable". This soon changed to "the exploding plastic inevitable".
In 1966 MacLise temporarily rejoined the Velvet Underground for a few EPI shows when Reed was suffering from hepatitis
and unable to perform. For these appearances, Cale sang and played organ
and Tucker switched to bass guitar
. Also at these appearances, the band often played an extended jam they had dubbed "Booker T", after musician Booker T. Jones
; the jam later became the music for "The Gift" on White Light/White Heat
. Some of these performances have been released as a bootleg
; they remain the only record of MacLise with the Velvet Underground.
In December 1966, Warhol and David Dalton designed Issue 3 of the multimedia Aspen
. Included in this issue of the "magazine", which retailed at $4 per copy and was packaged in a hinged box designed to look like Fab laundry detergent, were various leaflets and booklets, one of which was a commentary on rock and roll by Lou Reed, another an EPI promotional newspaper. Also enclosed was a 2-sided flexi disk, side one produced by Peter Walker
, a musical associate of Timothy Leary
, and side two titled "Loop", credited to the Velvet Underground but actually recorded by Cale alone. "Loop", a recording solely of pulsating audio feedback
culminating in a locked groove, was "a precursor to [Reed's] Metal Machine Music
", say Velvets archivists M.C. Kostek and Phil Milstein in the book The Velvet Underground Companion. Indeed, "Loop" predates Reed's almost identical concept (Metal Machine Music being a double album, obviously with different feedback, also concluding side four with a locked groove) by nearly ten years ("Loop" also predates much industrial music
as well). More significantly, from a retail standpoint, "Loop" was the group's first commercially available recording as the Velvet Underground.
sang with the band on three songs of their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. The album was recorded primarily in Scepter Studios in New York City during April 1966. (Some songs were re-recorded, along with the new song "Sunday Morning
", later in the year with Tom Wilson producing). It was released by Verve Records
in March 1967.
The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a yellow banana
with “Peel slowly and see” printed near a perforated tab. Those who did remove the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath.
Eleven songs showcased their dynamic range, veering from the pounding attacks of "I’m Waiting for the Man
" and "Run Run Run", the droning "Venus in Furs
" and "Heroin
", the chiming and celestial "Sunday Morning
" to the quiet "Femme Fatale
" and the tender "I’ll Be Your Mirror
", as well as Warhol's own favorite song of the group, "All Tomorrow's Parties
."
The overall sound was propelled by Reed’s deadpan vocals, Cale's droning viola
, Nico's equally deadpan vocals, Morrison's often rhythm and blues
– or country
-influenced guitar, and Tucker’s simple but steady beat. Another distinct feature on many songs was the "drone strum", an eighth-note rhythm guitar style used by Reed.
The album was released on March 12, 1967, peaking at #171 on Billboard magazine's Top 200 charts. The promising commercial debut of the album was dampened somewhat by legal complications: the album’s back cover featured a photo of the group playing live with another image projected behind them; the projected image was a still of actor Eric Emerson from a Warhol motion picture, Chelsea Girls
. Emerson had been arrested for drug possession and, desperate for money, claimed the still had been included on the album without his permission (in the image his face appears quite big, but upside down). MGM Records pulled all copies of the album until the legal problems were settled (by which time the record had lost its modest commercial momentum), and the still was airbrushed out.
The Velvet Underground performed live often, and their performances became louder, harsher and often featured extended improvisations
. Cale reports that at about this time the Velvet Underground was one of the first groups to receive an endorsement from Vox
. The company pioneered a number of special effects, which the Velvet Underground utilized on the album.
Sterling Morrison
offered the following input regarding the recording:
The recording was raw and oversaturated. Cale has stated that while the debut had some moments of fragility and beauty, White Light/White Heat was "consciously anti-beauty." The title track and first song starts things off with John Cale pounding on the piano
like Jerry Lee Lewis
. It was later included in the repertoire of David Bowie
.
The eerie, hallucinatory
"Lady Godiva
’s Operation" remains Reed’s favorite track on the album. Despite the dominance of noisefests like "Sister Ray
" and "I Heard Her Call My Name
," there was room for the darkly comic "The Gift," a short story
written by Reed and narrated by Cale in his deadpan
Welsh accent. The meditative "Here She Comes Now" was later covered by Galaxie 500
, Cabaret Voltaire
, and Nirvana
, among others.
The album was released on January 30, 1968, entering the Billboard
Top 200 chart for two weeks, at number 199.
However, tensions were growing: the group was tired of receiving little recognition for its work, and Reed and Cale were pulling the Velvet Underground in different directions. The differences showed in the last recording session the band had with John Cale in February 1968: two pop
-like songs in Reed’s direction ("Temptation Inside Your Heart" and "Stephanie Says") and a viola-driven drone in Cale’s direction ("Hey Mr. Rain"). (None of these songs were released until they were included on the VU
and Another View
compilation album
s.) Further, some songs the band had performed with Cale in concert, or that he had co-written, were not recorded until after he had left the group (such as "Walk It and Talk It," "Guess I’m Falling in Love," "Ride into the Sun," and "Countess from Hong Kong").
of Boston group the Grass Menagerie, who had been a close associate of the band. The Velvet Underground
was recorded in late 1968 (released in March 1969). The cover photograph was taken by Billy Name
. The LP sleeve was designed by Dick Smith, then a staff artist at MGM/Verve. Released on March 12, 1969, the album failed to make Billboard’s Top 200 album chart.
It has often been reported that the early edition of the Velvet Underground was a struggle between Reed and Cale's creative impulses: Reed's rather conventional approach contrasted with Cale's experimentalist tendencies. According to Tim Mitchell, however, Morrison reported that there was creative tension between Reed and Cale but that its impact has been exaggerated over the years.
In any case, the harsh, abrasive tendencies on the first two records were almost entirely absent on their third album. This resulted in a gentler sound influenced by folk music
, prescient of the songwriting style that would form Reed's solo career. Another factor in the change of sound was the band's Vox
amplifiers and assorted fuzzboxes being stolen from an airport while they were on tour. In addition, Reed and Morrison had purchased matching Fender 12-string electric guitars
. Doug Yule plays down the influence of the new equipment, however.
Morrison's ringing guitar parts and Yule's melodic bass guitar
and harmony vocals are featured prominently on the album. Reed's songs and singing are subdued and confessional, and he shared lead vocals with Yule, particularly when his own voice would fail under stress. Doug Yule sang the lead vocal on "Candy Says" (about the Warhol superstar
Candy Darling
), which opens the LP, and a rare Maureen Tucker vocal is featured on "After Hours," which closes the album. It is a song that Reed said was so innocent and pure he couldn't possibly sing it himself. The album's influence can be heard in many later indie rock
and lo-fi recordings.
was recorded in October 1969 and released in 1974 on Mercury Records
at the urging of rock critic Paul Nelson
, who worked in A&R
for Mercury at the time. Nelson asked singer-songwriter
Elliott Murphy
to write liner notes for the double album which began, “I wish it was a hundred years from today….”
During the same year, the band recorded on and off in the studio, creating a lot of material that was never officially released due to disputes with their record label. What many consider the prime of these sessions was released many years later as VU
. This album has a transitional sound between the whisper-soft third album and the pop-rock songs of their final record, Loaded.
The rest of the recordings, as well as some alternate takes, were bundled on Another View
. After Reed’s departure, he later reworked a number of these songs for his solo records (“Stephanie Says,” “Ocean,” “I Can’t Stand It,” “Lisa Says,” “She’s My Best Friend”). Indeed, most of Reed’s early solo career’s more successful hits were reworked Velvet Underground tracks (albeit, the ones he wrote), released for the first time in their original version on VU, Another View, and later on Peel Slowly and See.
, was hired. Curb decided to purge the labels of their many controversial and unprofitable acts. The drug
or hippie
-related bands were released from MGM, and the Velvets were on his list, along with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Frank Zappa
’s Mothers of Invention. Nonetheless MGM insisted on retaining ownership of all master tapes of their recordings.
Atlantic Records
signed the Velvet Underground for what would be its final studio album with Lou Reed: Loaded, released on Atlantic’s subsidiary label Cotillion
. The album’s title refers to Atlantic’s request that the band produce an album “loaded with hits”. Though the record was not the smash hit the company had anticipated, it contains the most accessible pop
the VU had performed, and several of Reed’s best-known songs, including "Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll.”
Although Tucker had temporarily retired from the group due to her pregnancy
, she received a performance credit on Loaded. The drums were actually played by several people, including Doug Yule, engineer Adrian Barber, session musician Tommy Castanaro, and Yule’s brother Billy
, who was still in high school at the time.
Disillusioned with the lack of progress the band was making and pressured by manager Steve Sesnick
, Reed decided to quit the band in August 1970. The band essentially dissolved while recording the album, and Reed walked off just before it was finished. Lou Reed has often said he was completely surprised when he saw Loaded in stores. He also said, “I left them to their album full of hits that I made.”
However, Reed was perturbed about a verse being edited from the Loaded version of “Sweet Jane
.” “New Age
” was changed as well: as originally recorded, its closing line (“It’s the beginning of a new age”) was repeated many more times. A brief interlude in “Rock and Roll” was also removed. (For the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See
, the album was presented as Reed intended; the "Fully Loaded" two-disc edition also features the full versions of "Sweet Jane" and "New Age.") On the other hand, Yule has pointed out that the album was to all intents and purposes finished when Reed left the band and that Reed had been aware of most, if not all, of the edits. The few weeks between Reed’s departure in late August and Loaded’s arrival in the shops in September of the same year also would have left little room for the whole process of editing, reviewing, mastering and pressing.
on bass, with Doug Yule taking over lead vocals and guitar, went on the road once more, playing the U.S. East Coast and Europe. By that time, however, Sterling Morrison had obtained a B.A.
degree in English, and left the group to pursue a Ph.D. in medieval literature at the University of Texas at Austin
. His replacement was singer/keyboard player Willie Alexander
. The band played shows in England, Wales, and the Netherlands, some of which are collected on the 2001 box set Final V.U..
In 1972 Atlantic released Live at Max's Kansas City
, a live bootleg
of the Velvet Underground’s final performance with Reed, recorded by fan Brigid Polk on August 23, 1970. Meanwhile, the Doug Yule-fronted version of the band was touring the United Kingdom when Sesnick managed to secure a recording contract with Polydor Records
in England. He then allegedly sent Tucker, Powers and Alexander back to the US (effectively ending their tenures with the group) while Yule recorded the album Squeeze under the Velvet Underground name virtually by himself, with only the assistance of Deep Purple
drummer Ian Paice
and a few other session musicians.
Prior to the release of Squeeze, a new Velvet Underground lineup was assembled to tour the UK to promote the upcoming album. This version of the Velvet Underground consisted of Yule, Rob Norris on guitar, George Kay (Krzyzewski), bass guitar, and Mark Nauseef
, drums. Sesnick left the band shortly before the tour started, and Yule left when the brief tour ended in December 1972.
Squeeze was released a few months later in February 1973, in Europe only. The album is a controversial item among Velvet fans, generally held in low regard by fans and critics: Stephen Thomas Erlewine
notes that the album received "uniformly terrible reviews" upon initial release, and was often "deleted" from official V.U. discographies.
in 2003.
Before that, Cale and Nico had developed solo careers. Nico had also begun a solo career with Cale producing a majority of her albums. Reed started his solo career in 1972 after a brief sabbatical. Sterling Morrison was a professor for some time, teaching Medieval Literature at the University of Texas at Austin
, then became a tugboat
captain in Houston for several years. Maureen Tucker raised a family before returning to small-scale gigging and recording in the 1980s; Morrison was in a number of touring bands, among others with Tucker’s band.
Although Yule had theoretically put an end to the Velvet Underground in late 1972, in the spring of 1973 a band featuring him, Billy Yule on drums, Kay on bass and Don Silverman, guitar (he later changed his name to Noor Khan), played the New England bar circuit, and was billed as "The Velvet Underground" by the tour's manager. The band members objected to the billing, and in late May 1973, the band and the tour manager parted ways. Yule subsequently toured with Lou Reed and played on the latter's Sally Can't Dance
album, became a member of American Flyer
, then dropped out of the music industry altogether before reappearing in the early 2000s.
In 1985 Polydor released the album VU
, which collected unreleased recordings that might have constituted the band's fourth album for MGM in 1969 but had never been released. Some of the songs had been recorded when Cale was still in the band. More unreleased recordings of the band, some of them demos and unfinished tracks, were released in 1986 as Another View
.
On July 18, 1988, Nico died of a cerebral hemorrhage following a bicycle accident.
Czech
dissident playwright Václav Havel
was a fan of the Velvet Underground, ultimately becoming a friend of Lou Reed
. Though some attribute the name of the 1989 “Velvet Revolution
,” which ended more than 40 years of Communist
rule in Czechoslovakia
, to the band, Reed points out that in fact the name Velvet Revolution derives from its peaceful nature – that no one was "actually hurt" during those events. Reed has also given at least one radio interview where he stated that it was called the Velvet Revolution because all of the dissidents were listening to the Velvet Underground leading up to the overthrow, and this music was an inspiration for the events that followed. After Havel’s election as president, first of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, Reed visited him in Prague
. On September 16, 1998, at Havel’s request, Reed performed in the White House
at a state dinner
in Havel’s honor hosted by President Bill Clinton
.
, dedicated to the recently deceased Andy Warhol
. (“Drella” was a nickname Warhol had been given, a combination of “Dracula” and “Cinderella”.) Though Morrison and Tucker had each worked with Reed and Cale since the V.U. broke up, Songs for Drella was the first time the pair had worked together in decades, and rumors of a reunion began to circulate, fueled by the one-off appearance by Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker to play "Heroin" as the encore to a brief Songs for Drella set in Jouy-en-Josas
, France.
The Reed–Cale–Morrison–Tucker lineup officially reunited as "The Velvet Underground" in 1992, commencing activities with a European tour beginning in Edinburgh
on June 1, 1993, and featuring a performance at Glastonbury which garnered an NME
front cover. Cale sang most of the songs Nico had originally performed. The band's opening act was Luna
. As well as headlining, the Velvets performed as supporting act for five dates of U2
’s Zoo TV Tour
.
Given the success of the Velvet Underground's European reunion tour, a series of US tour dates were proposed, as was an MTV Unplugged
broadcast, and possibly even some new studio recordings. However, before any of this could come to fruition, Cale and Reed fell out again, breaking up the band once more.
On August 30, 1995, Sterling Morrison died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after returning to his hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, at age 53.
When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1996, Lou Reed and John Cale reformed the Velvet Underground for the last time, with Maureen Tucker in tow. Doug Yule was absent. At the ceremony, the band was inducted by singer/poet Patti Smith
, and the trio performed "Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend", written in tribute to Morrison.
The Velvet Underground continues to exist as a New York–based partnership managing the financial and back catalog aspects for the band members, but no performances will be forthcoming.
In December 2009, to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the band's formation, Reed, Tucker and Yule (with Cale not present) gave a rare interview at the New York Public Library
.
and experimental rock
. Artists who have acknowledged their influence include David Bowie
, the Dream Syndicate
, R.E.M.
, The Cars
, The Strokes
, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Roxy Music
, Beck
, The Fall, Pixies, Can
, Kraftwerk
, Neu!
, Faust
, Glenn Danzig
, Pavement
, Sonic Youth
, My Bloody Valentine and Crystal Castles
. All four of their albums were included in Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
. They were ranked the 19th best artist by the same magazine and the 24th greatest artist in a poll by VH1. In 1996 they were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band formed in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
and John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited by many critics as one of the most important and influential groups of the 1960s. An often-repeated statement, usually attributed to Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
or Peter Buck
Peter Buck
Peter Lawrence Buck , is an American rock guitarist who is best known for playing in and co-founding alternative rock band R.E.M....
, is that "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band."
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
managed the Velvet Underground and it was the house band at his studio, the Factory
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was "only about one hundred dollars a year"...
, and his Exploding Plastic Inevitable
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, screenings of Warhol's films, and dancing and performances by...
events. The provocative lyrics of some of the band's songs gave a nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
outlook to some of their music.
Their 1967 debut album, titled The Velvet Underground & Nico (which featured German singer Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
, with whom the band collaborated) was named the 13th Greatest Album of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
, and the "most prophetic rock album ever made" by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
in 2003. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the band #19 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
Pre-career (1964–1965)
The foundations for what would become the Velvet Underground were laid in late 1964. Singer/guitarist Lou ReedLou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
had performed with a few short-lived garage bands
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records was an American record label and distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo , Hurrah, Grand Prix, and children's records on the Cricket and Happy Time labels.The label is also...
(Reed described his tenure there as being "a poor man's Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
"). Reed met John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
, a Welshman
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
who had moved to the United States to study classical music upon securing a scholarship. Cale had worked with experimental composers Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
and La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
but was also interested in rock music. Young’s use of extended drones
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
would be a profound influence on the band's early sound. Cale was pleasantly surprised to discover that Reed’s experimentalist tendencies were similar to his own: Reed sometimes used alternative guitar tunings to create a droning sound. The pair rehearsed and performed together; their partnership and shared interests built the path towards what would later become the Velvet Underground.
Reed’s first group with Cale (and his best-known group) was The Primitives, a short-lived group assembled to issue budget-priced recordings and support an anti-dance single penned by Reed, "The Ostrich", to which Cale added a viola passage. Reed and Cale recruited Sterling Morrison
Sterling Morrison
Holmes Sterling Morrison, Jr. was one of the founding members of the rock group The Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and singing backing vocals.-Biography:...
—a college classmate of Reed’s at Syracuse University—as a replacement for Walter De Maria, who had been a third member of The Primitives. Morrison played the guitar, and Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise
Angus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:...
joined on percussion to complete the four-member unit. This quartet was first called The Warlocks, then The Falling Spikes.
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground (book)
The Velvet Underground is a paperback by journalist Michael Leigh that reports on paraphilia in the USA, published in September, 1963.Cover text: Here is an incredible book. It will shock and amaze you...
by Michael Leigh was a contemporary pulp paperback about the secret sexual subculture of the early '60s that Cale's friend Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
showed the group. MacLise made a suggestion to adopt the title as the band's name, and according to Reed and Morrison the group liked the name, considering it evocative of "underground cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
," and fitting, as Reed had already written "Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs (song)
"Venus in Furs" is a song by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and originally released on the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico. Inspired by the book of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the song includes sexual themes of sadomasochism, bondage and...
," a song inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name....
's book of the same name
Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series...
, dealing with masochism. The band immediately and unanimously adopted the Velvet Underground as its new name in November of 1965.
Early stages (1965–1966)
The newly named Velvet Underground rehearsed and performed in New York City. Their music was generally much more relaxed than it would later become: Cale described this era as reminiscent of beatBeat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poetry, with MacLise playing gentle “pitter and patter rhythms behind the drone.”
In July 1965, Reed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
at their Ludlow Street loft. When he briefly returned to Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Cale gave a copy of the tape to Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, hoping she’d pass it on to Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
. Nothing ever came of the demo, but it was eventually released on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See
Peel Slowly and See
Peel Slowly and See is a five-disc box set of material by The Velvet Underground. It was released in September 1995 by Polydor.-Compilation:...
.
Manager and music journalist Al Aronowitz
Al Aronowitz
Alfred Gilbert Aronowitz was an American rock journalist best known for introducing Bob Dylan and The Beatles in 1964.Aronowitz was born in Bordentown, New Jersey...
arranged for the group's first paying gig—$75 to play at Summit High School, in Summit, New Jersey
Summit, New Jersey
Summit is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 21,457. Summit had the 16th-highest per capita income in the state as of the 2000 Census....
, opening
Opening act
An opening act or warm-up act is an entertainer or entertainment act that performs at a concert before the featured entertainer...
for The Myddle Class. When the group decided to take the gig, MacLise left the group, protesting what he considered a sellout
Selling out
"Selling out" is the compromising of integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for money or "success" . It is commonly associated with attempts to tailor material to a mainstream audience...
. “Angus was in it for art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
,” Morrison reported.
MacLise was replaced by Maureen “Mo” Tucker
Maureen Tucker
Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker is a musician best known for having been the drummer for the rock group The Velvet Underground.- The Velvet Underground :...
, the younger sister of Morrison's friend Jim Tucker. Tucker’s abbreviated drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
was rather unusual: she generally played on tom toms
Tom-tom drum
A tom-tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snare.Although "tom-tom" is the British term for a child's toy drum, the name came originally from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala; the tom-tom itself comes from Asian or Native American cultures...
and an upturned bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, using mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...
s as often as drumsticks, and she rarely used cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s. (The band having asked her to do something unusual, she turned her bass drum on its side and played standing up. When her drums were stolen from one club, she replaced them with garbage cans, brought in from outside.) Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic (influenced by the likes of Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji
Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist.- Biography :Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, a small town near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Yoruba people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at...
and Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
records), became a vital part of the group’s music. The group earned a regular paying gig at the Café Bizarre and gained an early reputation as a promising ensemble.
Andy Warhol and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–1967)
Andy WarholAndy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
became the band's manager in 1965 and suggested they feature the German-born singer Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
on several songs. Warhol's reputation helped the band gain a higher profile. Warhol helped the band secure a coveted recording contract
Recording contract
A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist , where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote...
with MGM's Verve Records
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
, with himself as nominal "producer", and gave the Velvets free rein over the sound they created.
During their stay with Andy Warhol, the band became part of his multimedia roadshow, Exploding Plastic Inevitable
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, screenings of Warhol's films, and dancing and performances by...
, for which they provided the music. They played shows for several months in New York City, then traveled throughout the United States and Canada until its last installment in May 1967. The show included 16 mm film projections and colors by Warhol. Early promo posters referred to the group as the "erupting plastic inevitable". This soon changed to "the exploding plastic inevitable".
In 1966 MacLise temporarily rejoined the Velvet Underground for a few EPI shows when Reed was suffering from hepatitis
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...
and unable to perform. For these appearances, Cale sang and played organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
and Tucker switched to bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
. Also at these appearances, the band often played an extended jam they had dubbed "Booker T", after musician Booker T. Jones
Booker T. Jones
Booker T. Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. and the MGs. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime...
; the jam later became the music for "The Gift" on White Light/White Heat
White Light/White Heat
The album briefly appeared on the Billboard 200, although only peaking at number 199. Despite its poor sales, the distorted, feedback-driven, and roughly recorded sound on White Light/White Heat became a notable influence on punk and experimental rock...
. Some of these performances have been released as a bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
; they remain the only record of MacLise with the Velvet Underground.
In December 1966, Warhol and David Dalton designed Issue 3 of the multimedia Aspen
Aspen (magazine)
Aspen was a multimedia magazine published on an irregular schedule by Phyllis Johnson from 1965 to 1971. Described by its publisher as "the first three-dimensional magazine," each issue came in a customized box or folder filled with materials in a variety of formats, including booklets, "flexidisc"...
. Included in this issue of the "magazine", which retailed at $4 per copy and was packaged in a hinged box designed to look like Fab laundry detergent, were various leaflets and booklets, one of which was a commentary on rock and roll by Lou Reed, another an EPI promotional newspaper. Also enclosed was a 2-sided flexi disk, side one produced by Peter Walker
Peter Walker (guitarist)
Peter Walker is an American folk guitarist noted for dextrous instrumental pieces that reference the Indian classical and Spanish flamenco traditions...
, a musical associate of Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
, and side two titled "Loop", credited to the Velvet Underground but actually recorded by Cale alone. "Loop", a recording solely of pulsating audio feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
culminating in a locked groove, was "a precursor to [Reed's] Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
", say Velvets archivists M.C. Kostek and Phil Milstein in the book The Velvet Underground Companion. Indeed, "Loop" predates Reed's almost identical concept (Metal Machine Music being a double album, obviously with different feedback, also concluding side four with a locked groove) by nearly ten years ("Loop" also predates much industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
as well). More significantly, from a retail standpoint, "Loop" was the group's first commercially available recording as the Velvet Underground.
The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
At Warhol's insistence, NicoNico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
sang with the band on three songs of their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. The album was recorded primarily in Scepter Studios in New York City during April 1966. (Some songs were re-recorded, along with the new song "Sunday Morning
Sunday Morning (The Velvet Underground song)
"Sunday Morning" is a song by The Velvet Underground. It is the opening track on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It was also released as a single in 1966 with "Femme Fatale".-Recording:...
", later in the year with Tom Wilson producing). It was released by Verve Records
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
in March 1967.
The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a yellow banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
with “Peel slowly and see” printed near a perforated tab. Those who did remove the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath.
Eleven songs showcased their dynamic range, veering from the pounding attacks of "I’m Waiting for the Man
I'm Waiting for the Man
"I'm Waiting for the Man" is a song by the American rock band The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed. It was first released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico....
" and "Run Run Run", the droning "Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs (song)
"Venus in Furs" is a song by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and originally released on the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico. Inspired by the book of the same name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the song includes sexual themes of sadomasochism, bondage and...
" and "Heroin
Heroin (song)
"Heroin" is a song by The Velvet Underground, released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Written by Lou Reed in 1964, the song is one of the band's most celebrated compositions, overtly depicting heroin use and abuse...
", the chiming and celestial "Sunday Morning
Sunday Morning (The Velvet Underground song)
"Sunday Morning" is a song by The Velvet Underground. It is the opening track on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It was also released as a single in 1966 with "Femme Fatale".-Recording:...
" to the quiet "Femme Fatale
Femme Fatale (song)
"Femme Fatale" is a song by The Velvet Underground from their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. At producer Andy Warhol's request, band frontman Lou Reed wrote the song about Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick...
" and the tender "I’ll Be Your Mirror
I'll Be Your Mirror
"I'll Be Your Mirror" is a song by The Velvet Underground. It appeared on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico. It also surfaced as a single a year earlier with "All Tomorrow's Parties" in 1966....
", as well as Warhol's own favorite song of the group, "All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by The Velvet UndergroundAll Tomorrow's Parties may also refer to:* All Tomorrow's Parties , an annual festival in England...
."
The overall sound was propelled by Reed’s deadpan vocals, Cale's droning viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, Nico's equally deadpan vocals, Morrison's often rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
– or country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
-influenced guitar, and Tucker’s simple but steady beat. Another distinct feature on many songs was the "drone strum", an eighth-note rhythm guitar style used by Reed.
The album was released on March 12, 1967, peaking at #171 on Billboard magazine's Top 200 charts. The promising commercial debut of the album was dampened somewhat by legal complications: the album’s back cover featured a photo of the group playing live with another image projected behind them; the projected image was a still of actor Eric Emerson from a Warhol motion picture, Chelsea Girls
Chelsea Girls
Chelsea Girls is a 1966 experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films...
. Emerson had been arrested for drug possession and, desperate for money, claimed the still had been included on the album without his permission (in the image his face appears quite big, but upside down). MGM Records pulled all copies of the album until the legal problems were settled (by which time the record had lost its modest commercial momentum), and the still was airbrushed out.
White Light/White Heat (1968)
Nico moved on after the band severed its relationship with Andy Warhol, and recording began on their second album in September 1967, White Light/White Heat, with Tom Wilson as producer.The Velvet Underground performed live often, and their performances became louder, harsher and often featured extended improvisations
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
. Cale reports that at about this time the Velvet Underground was one of the first groups to receive an endorsement from Vox
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
. The company pioneered a number of special effects, which the Velvet Underground utilized on the album.
Sterling Morrison
Sterling Morrison
Holmes Sterling Morrison, Jr. was one of the founding members of the rock group The Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and singing backing vocals.-Biography:...
offered the following input regarding the recording:
There was fantastic leakage 'cause everyone was playing so loud and we had so much electronic junk with us in the studio—all these fuzzers and compressors. Gary Kellgren, who is ultra-competent, told us repeatedly: "You can't do it—all the needles are on red." and we reacted as we always reacted: "Look, we don't know what goes on in there and we don't want to hear about it. Just do the best you can." And so the album is fuzzy, there's all that white noise.... we wanted to do something electronic and energetic. We had the energy and the electronics, but we didn't know it couldn't be recorded.... what we were trying to do was really fry the tracks.
The recording was raw and oversaturated. Cale has stated that while the debut had some moments of fragility and beauty, White Light/White Heat was "consciously anti-beauty." The title track and first song starts things off with John Cale pounding on the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
like Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
. It was later included in the repertoire of David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
.
The eerie, hallucinatory
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
"Lady Godiva
Lady Godiva
Godiva , often referred to as Lady Godiva , was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants...
’s Operation" remains Reed’s favorite track on the album. Despite the dominance of noisefests like "Sister Ray
Sister Ray
Sister Ray may mean one of the following:* "Sister Ray", 1968 song by The Velvet Underground* A fictional enormous laser cannon in the video game Final Fantasy VII* Sister Ray , a punk rock band from Youngstown, Ohio...
" and "I Heard Her Call My Name
I Heard Her Call My Name
"I Heard Her Call My Name" is a song by American avant-garde rock band The Velvet Underground. It is the fifth track from the band's second album, White Light/White Heat. It is a particularly loud, brash and aggressive song that features a pair of atonal guitar solos performed by Lou Reed and...
," there was room for the darkly comic "The Gift," a short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
written by Reed and narrated by Cale in his deadpan
Deadpan
Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone, solemn, blunt, disgusted or matter-of-fact voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor...
Welsh accent. The meditative "Here She Comes Now" was later covered by Galaxie 500
Galaxie 500
Galaxie 500 was an American alternative rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three albums.-History:Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time...
, Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
, and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, among others.
The album was released on January 30, 1968, entering the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Top 200 chart for two weeks, at number 199.
However, tensions were growing: the group was tired of receiving little recognition for its work, and Reed and Cale were pulling the Velvet Underground in different directions. The differences showed in the last recording session the band had with John Cale in February 1968: two pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
-like songs in Reed’s direction ("Temptation Inside Your Heart" and "Stephanie Says") and a viola-driven drone in Cale’s direction ("Hey Mr. Rain"). (None of these songs were released until they were included on the VU
VU (album)
VU is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in February 1985 by Verve Records.-Composition and collection:...
and Another View
Another View
Another View is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in 1986 by Verve Records and is comprised of material recorded between 1967 and 1969.-Composition and collection:...
compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s.) Further, some songs the band had performed with Cale in concert, or that he had co-written, were not recorded until after he had left the group (such as "Walk It and Talk It," "Guess I’m Falling in Love," "Ride into the Sun," and "Countess from Hong Kong").
The Velvet Underground (1969)
Before work on their third album started, Cale was eased out of the band and was replaced by Doug YuleDoug Yule
Douglas Alan Yule is an American musician and singer, most notable for being a member of The Velvet Underground from 1968 to 1973.- Early career :Yule began playing with various bands in Boston in the 1960s...
of Boston group the Grass Menagerie, who had been a close associate of the band. The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground (album)
The Velvet Underground is the third album by American rock group The Velvet Underground. It was their first record to feature Doug Yule, John Cale's replacement. It was recorded in 1968 at TTG Studios in Hollywood, California. This album's softer sound marks a radical shift in approach in style...
was recorded in late 1968 (released in March 1969). The cover photograph was taken by Billy Name
Billy Name
Billy Name, , is an American photographer, filmmaker and lighting designer. He was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol's work, including his films, paintings and sculpture...
. The LP sleeve was designed by Dick Smith, then a staff artist at MGM/Verve. Released on March 12, 1969, the album failed to make Billboard’s Top 200 album chart.
It has often been reported that the early edition of the Velvet Underground was a struggle between Reed and Cale's creative impulses: Reed's rather conventional approach contrasted with Cale's experimentalist tendencies. According to Tim Mitchell, however, Morrison reported that there was creative tension between Reed and Cale but that its impact has been exaggerated over the years.
In any case, the harsh, abrasive tendencies on the first two records were almost entirely absent on their third album. This resulted in a gentler sound influenced by folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, prescient of the songwriting style that would form Reed's solo career. Another factor in the change of sound was the band's Vox
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
amplifiers and assorted fuzzboxes being stolen from an airport while they were on tour. In addition, Reed and Morrison had purchased matching Fender 12-string electric guitars
Fender Electric XII
The Fender Electric XII was a purpose-built 12-string electric guitar, designed for folk rockers. Instead of using a Stratocaster-body style, it used one similar to a Jaguar/Jazzmaster body style. It was also a departure from the typical "Stratocaster"-style headstock, instead featuring a long...
. Doug Yule plays down the influence of the new equipment, however.
Morrison's ringing guitar parts and Yule's melodic bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and harmony vocals are featured prominently on the album. Reed's songs and singing are subdued and confessional, and he shared lead vocals with Yule, particularly when his own voice would fail under stress. Doug Yule sang the lead vocal on "Candy Says" (about the Warhol superstar
Warhol superstar
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life...
Candy Darling
Candy Darling
Candy Darling was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A male-to-female transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt , and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.-Early life:Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest...
), which opens the LP, and a rare Maureen Tucker vocal is featured on "After Hours," which closes the album. It is a song that Reed said was so innocent and pure he couldn't possibly sing it himself. The album's influence can be heard in many later indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
and lo-fi recordings.
Year on the road and the "lost" fourth album (1969)
The Velvet Underground spent much of 1969 on the road, feeling they were not accepted in their hometown of New York City and not making much headway commercially. The live album 1969: The Velvet Underground Live1969: The Velvet Underground Live
1969: The Velvet Underground Live is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released as a double album in September 1974 by Mercury Records. The September 1988 CD re-release was issued as two separate single CD volumes, with one extra track per disc...
was recorded in October 1969 and released in 1974 on Mercury Records
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
at the urging of rock critic Paul Nelson
Paul Nelson (critic)
Paul Nelson was a folk and rock music critic who wrote for Sing Out! and Rolling Stone. He was instrumental in launching and supporting the careers of Bob Dylan, The New York Dolls, Elliott Murphy, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon...
, who worked in A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
for Mercury at the time. Nelson asked singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Elliott Murphy
Elliott Murphy
Elliott James Murphy is an American rock singer-songwriter, novelist, producer and journalist living in Paris.-Biography:Elliott James Murphy, Jr. was born in Rockville Centre, New York to a show business family...
to write liner notes for the double album which began, “I wish it was a hundred years from today….”
During the same year, the band recorded on and off in the studio, creating a lot of material that was never officially released due to disputes with their record label. What many consider the prime of these sessions was released many years later as VU
VU (album)
VU is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in February 1985 by Verve Records.-Composition and collection:...
. This album has a transitional sound between the whisper-soft third album and the pop-rock songs of their final record, Loaded.
The rest of the recordings, as well as some alternate takes, were bundled on Another View
Another View
Another View is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in 1986 by Verve Records and is comprised of material recorded between 1967 and 1969.-Composition and collection:...
. After Reed’s departure, he later reworked a number of these songs for his solo records (“Stephanie Says,” “Ocean,” “I Can’t Stand It,” “Lisa Says,” “She’s My Best Friend”). Indeed, most of Reed’s early solo career’s more successful hits were reworked Velvet Underground tracks (albeit, the ones he wrote), released for the first time in their original version on VU, Another View, and later on Peel Slowly and See.
Loaded (1970)
By 1969 the MGM and Verve record labels had been losing money for several years. A new president, Mike CurbMike Curb
Michael Curb is an American musician, record company executive, NASCAR and IRL race car owner. A Republican, he served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979-1983 under Democratic Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr...
, was hired. Curb decided to purge the labels of their many controversial and unprofitable acts. The drug
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
or hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
-related bands were released from MGM, and the Velvets were on his list, along with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
’s Mothers of Invention. Nonetheless MGM insisted on retaining ownership of all master tapes of their recordings.
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
signed the Velvet Underground for what would be its final studio album with Lou Reed: Loaded, released on Atlantic’s subsidiary label Cotillion
Cotillion Records
Cotillion Records was a subsidiary of Atlantic Records and was active from 1968 through 1985. The label was originally formed as an outlet for blues and deep Southern soul; its first single, Otis Clay's version of "She's About A Mover", reached the R&B charts. Cotillion's catalog quickly expanded...
. The album’s title refers to Atlantic’s request that the band produce an album “loaded with hits”. Though the record was not the smash hit the company had anticipated, it contains the most accessible pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
the VU had performed, and several of Reed’s best-known songs, including "Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll.”
Although Tucker had temporarily retired from the group due to her pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, she received a performance credit on Loaded. The drums were actually played by several people, including Doug Yule, engineer Adrian Barber, session musician Tommy Castanaro, and Yule’s brother Billy
Billy Yule
William "Billy" Yule is best known for having been a sit-in drummer for The Velvet Underground during 1970.-1970:When in early 1970, regular Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker became pregnant, a temporary replacement was needed to fulfill the band's live obligations...
, who was still in high school at the time.
Disillusioned with the lack of progress the band was making and pressured by manager Steve Sesnick
Steve Sesnick
Stephen Sesnick was a club owner who served as manager of The Velvet Underground after the band ended their association with Andy Warhol in 1967....
, Reed decided to quit the band in August 1970. The band essentially dissolved while recording the album, and Reed walked off just before it was finished. Lou Reed has often said he was completely surprised when he saw Loaded in stores. He also said, “I left them to their album full of hits that I made.”
However, Reed was perturbed about a verse being edited from the Loaded version of “Sweet Jane
Sweet Jane
"Sweet Jane" is a song by The Velvet Underground, originally appearing on their 1970 album Loaded. The song was written by band's leader Lou Reed, who continued to incorporate the piece into live performances years later as a solo artist....
.” “New Age
New Age (Velvet Underground song)
"New Age" is the fifth song from the 1970 The Velvet Underground album Loaded. It is one of the songs that feature Doug Yule on vocals, encouraged by main singer and songwriter Lou Reed....
” was changed as well: as originally recorded, its closing line (“It’s the beginning of a new age”) was repeated many more times. A brief interlude in “Rock and Roll” was also removed. (For the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See
Peel Slowly and See
Peel Slowly and See is a five-disc box set of material by The Velvet Underground. It was released in September 1995 by Polydor.-Compilation:...
, the album was presented as Reed intended; the "Fully Loaded" two-disc edition also features the full versions of "Sweet Jane" and "New Age.") On the other hand, Yule has pointed out that the album was to all intents and purposes finished when Reed left the band and that Reed had been aware of most, if not all, of the edits. The few weeks between Reed’s departure in late August and Loaded’s arrival in the shops in September of the same year also would have left little room for the whole process of editing, reviewing, mastering and pressing.
The Doug Yule years (1970–1973)
Even though Loaded’s spin-off single “Who Loves the Sun” had little success, “Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll” became U.S. radio favorites, and the band, featuring Walter PowersWalter Powers
Walter Powers III is an American bass guitarist best known for having been a member of The Velvet Underground from late 1970 until late 1971.Walter Powers was born in Boston, Massachusetts...
on bass, with Doug Yule taking over lead vocals and guitar, went on the road once more, playing the U.S. East Coast and Europe. By that time, however, Sterling Morrison had obtained a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in English, and left the group to pursue a Ph.D. in medieval literature at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. His replacement was singer/keyboard player Willie Alexander
Willie Alexander
For the football player of the same name see Willie Alexander .Willie "Loco" Alexander is an American singer and keyboard player based in Gloucester, Massachusetts....
. The band played shows in England, Wales, and the Netherlands, some of which are collected on the 2001 box set Final V.U..
In 1972 Atlantic released Live at Max's Kansas City
Live at Max's Kansas City
Live at Max's Kansas City is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released on May 30, 1972, by Cotillion, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records.-About the album:...
, a live bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
of the Velvet Underground’s final performance with Reed, recorded by fan Brigid Polk on August 23, 1970. Meanwhile, the Doug Yule-fronted version of the band was touring the United Kingdom when Sesnick managed to secure a recording contract with Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
in England. He then allegedly sent Tucker, Powers and Alexander back to the US (effectively ending their tenures with the group) while Yule recorded the album Squeeze under the Velvet Underground name virtually by himself, with only the assistance of Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
drummer Ian Paice
Ian Paice
Ian Anderson Paice is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the English rock band Deep Purple. As of Jon Lord's departure in 2002, he is the only founding member of the band who never stopped performing with the group, and the only member to appear on every album the band has...
and a few other session musicians.
Prior to the release of Squeeze, a new Velvet Underground lineup was assembled to tour the UK to promote the upcoming album. This version of the Velvet Underground consisted of Yule, Rob Norris on guitar, George Kay (Krzyzewski), bass guitar, and Mark Nauseef
Mark Nauseef
Mark Nauseef , is a drummer and percussionist who has enjoyed a varied career, ranging from rock music during the 1970s with his time as a member of the Ian Gillan Band and, temporarily, Thin Lizzy, to a wide range of musical styles in more recent times, playing with many notable musicians from all...
, drums. Sesnick left the band shortly before the tour started, and Yule left when the brief tour ended in December 1972.
Squeeze was released a few months later in February 1973, in Europe only. The album is a controversial item among Velvet fans, generally held in low regard by fans and critics: Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
notes that the album received "uniformly terrible reviews" upon initial release, and was often "deleted" from official V.U. discographies.
Post-VU developments (1972–1990)
Reed, Cale and Nico teamed up at the beginning of 1972 to play a concert in Paris at the Bataclan club. This concert was bootlegged, and finally received an official release as Le Bataclan '72Le Bataclan '72
Le Bataclan '72 is a sixteen-track live album by Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico. It was recorded from the soundboard and heavily bootlegged over the years, before it gained an official release in 2004....
in 2003.
Before that, Cale and Nico had developed solo careers. Nico had also begun a solo career with Cale producing a majority of her albums. Reed started his solo career in 1972 after a brief sabbatical. Sterling Morrison was a professor for some time, teaching Medieval Literature at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
, then became a tugboat
Tugboat
A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...
captain in Houston for several years. Maureen Tucker raised a family before returning to small-scale gigging and recording in the 1980s; Morrison was in a number of touring bands, among others with Tucker’s band.
Although Yule had theoretically put an end to the Velvet Underground in late 1972, in the spring of 1973 a band featuring him, Billy Yule on drums, Kay on bass and Don Silverman, guitar (he later changed his name to Noor Khan), played the New England bar circuit, and was billed as "The Velvet Underground" by the tour's manager. The band members objected to the billing, and in late May 1973, the band and the tour manager parted ways. Yule subsequently toured with Lou Reed and played on the latter's Sally Can't Dance
Sally Can't Dance
Sally Can't Dance is the fourth solo album by Lou Reed. It is Reed's highest-charting album, reaching the Top 10. It is also the first solo Lou Reed album not to feature any songs originally recorded by Reed's earlier band, The Velvet Underground, as well as the first of Reed's solo studio albums...
album, became a member of American Flyer
American Flyer (band)
American Flyer was an American folk rock supergroup.They formed in 1976 and released two successful albums on United Artists before disbanding in 1978. They also charted one minor hit, "Let Me Down Easy", which hit #80 on the U.S...
, then dropped out of the music industry altogether before reappearing in the early 2000s.
In 1985 Polydor released the album VU
VU (album)
VU is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in February 1985 by Verve Records.-Composition and collection:...
, which collected unreleased recordings that might have constituted the band's fourth album for MGM in 1969 but had never been released. Some of the songs had been recorded when Cale was still in the band. More unreleased recordings of the band, some of them demos and unfinished tracks, were released in 1986 as Another View
Another View
Another View is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in 1986 by Verve Records and is comprised of material recorded between 1967 and 1969.-Composition and collection:...
.
On July 18, 1988, Nico died of a cerebral hemorrhage following a bicycle accident.
Czech
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
dissident playwright Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
was a fan of the Velvet Underground, ultimately becoming a friend of Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
. Though some attribute the name of the 1989 “Velvet Revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
,” which ended more than 40 years of Communist
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
rule in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, to the band, Reed points out that in fact the name Velvet Revolution derives from its peaceful nature – that no one was "actually hurt" during those events. Reed has also given at least one radio interview where he stated that it was called the Velvet Revolution because all of the dissidents were listening to the Velvet Underground leading up to the overthrow, and this music was an inspiration for the events that followed. After Havel’s election as president, first of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, Reed visited him in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. On September 16, 1998, at Havel’s request, Reed performed in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
at a state dinner
State dinner
A state dinner is a dinner or banquet paid by a government and hosted by a head of state in his or her official residence in order to renew and celebrate diplomatic ties between the host country and the country of a foreign head of state or head of government who was issued an invitation. In many...
in Havel’s honor hosted by President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
.
Reunions (1990–2009)
In 1990, Reed and Cale released Songs for DrellaSongs for Drella
Songs for Drella is a concept album by Lou Reed and John Cale, both formerly of The Velvet Underground.On January 9, 1989 Cale and Reed performed a selection of Songs for Drella at The Church of St. Anne's in Brooklyn. The first full version was played on November 29–30, and December 2–3 at the...
, dedicated to the recently deceased Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
. (“Drella” was a nickname Warhol had been given, a combination of “Dracula” and “Cinderella”.) Though Morrison and Tucker had each worked with Reed and Cale since the V.U. broke up, Songs for Drella was the first time the pair had worked together in decades, and rumors of a reunion began to circulate, fueled by the one-off appearance by Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker to play "Heroin" as the encore to a brief Songs for Drella set in Jouy-en-Josas
Jouy-en-Josas
Jouy-en-Josas is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the south-western suburbs of Paris from the center.Jouy-en-Josas is home to the prestigious HEC School of Management.-Geography:...
, France.
The Reed–Cale–Morrison–Tucker lineup officially reunited as "The Velvet Underground" in 1992, commencing activities with a European tour beginning in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
on June 1, 1993, and featuring a performance at Glastonbury which garnered an NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
front cover. Cale sang most of the songs Nico had originally performed. The band's opening act was Luna
Luna (band)
Luna was a dream pop/indie pop band formed in 1991 by Dean Wareham after the breakup of Galaxie 500, with Stanley Demeski and Justin Harwood...
. As well as headlining, the Velvets performed as supporting act for five dates of U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
’s Zoo TV Tour
Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993...
.
Given the success of the Velvet Underground's European reunion tour, a series of US tour dates were proposed, as was an MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
broadcast, and possibly even some new studio recordings. However, before any of this could come to fruition, Cale and Reed fell out again, breaking up the band once more.
On August 30, 1995, Sterling Morrison died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after returning to his hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, at age 53.
When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
in 1996, Lou Reed and John Cale reformed the Velvet Underground for the last time, with Maureen Tucker in tow. Doug Yule was absent. At the ceremony, the band was inducted by singer/poet Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, and the trio performed "Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend", written in tribute to Morrison.
The Velvet Underground continues to exist as a New York–based partnership managing the financial and back catalog aspects for the band members, but no performances will be forthcoming.
In December 2009, to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the band's formation, Reed, Tucker and Yule (with Cale not present) gave a rare interview at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
Legacy
The Velvet Underground have been considered among the most influential bands in rock history. Their legacy has stretched into alternativeAlternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and experimental rock
Experimental rock
Experimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....
. Artists who have acknowledged their influence include David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, the Dream Syndicate
Dream Syndicate
The Dream Syndicate was an alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California active from 1981 to 1989. The band was associated with the Paisley Underground music movement.-History:...
, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Cars
The Cars
The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...
, The Strokes
The Strokes
The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....
, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
, Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
, The Fall, Pixies, Can
Can
Can may refer to:-Container:* Aluminum can* Steel can, an airtight tinplate container for storing food and other predominantly liquid products* Beverage can, a can designed to hold a single serving of a beverage* Oil can...
, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
, Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
, Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
, Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig...
, Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, My Bloody Valentine and Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles (band)
Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and...
. All four of their albums were included in Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. They were ranked the 19th best artist by the same magazine and the 24th greatest artist in a poll by VH1. In 1996 they were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Lineups
| Year | Band | Recordings | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vocals, guitar Guitar The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... |
Multiple instruments Multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony... , vocals |
Guitar | Percussion Percussion instrument A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration... |
||
| April–November 1965 | Lou Reed Lou Reed Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades... |
John Cale John Cale John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground.... |
Sterling Morrison Sterling Morrison Holmes Sterling Morrison, Jr. was one of the founding members of the rock group The Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, and singing backing vocals.-Biography:... |
Angus MacLise Angus MacLise Angus MacLise was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher probably best known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground.-Biography:... |
Disc 1 of Peel Slowly and See Peel Slowly and See Peel Slowly and See is a five-disc box set of material by The Velvet Underground. It was released in September 1995 by Polydor.-Compilation:... (1995; minus MacLise) |
| December 1965–September 1968 | Lou Reed | John Cale | Sterling Morrison | Maureen Tucker Maureen Tucker Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker is a musician best known for having been the drummer for the rock group The Velvet Underground.- The Velvet Underground :... |
The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), White Light/White Heat White Light/White Heat The album briefly appeared on the Billboard 200, although only peaking at number 199. Despite its poor sales, the distorted, feedback-driven, and roughly recorded sound on White Light/White Heat became a notable influence on punk and experimental rock... (1968), two tracks on VU VU (album) VU is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in February 1985 by Verve Records.-Composition and collection:... (1985), three tracks on Another View Another View Another View is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in 1986 by Verve Records and is comprised of material recorded between 1967 and 1969.-Composition and collection:... (1986), discs 2–3 of Peel Slowly and See (1995) |
| September 1968–August 1970 | Lou Reed | Doug Yule Doug Yule Douglas Alan Yule is an American musician and singer, most notable for being a member of The Velvet Underground from 1968 to 1973.- Early career :Yule began playing with various bands in Boston in the 1960s... |
Sterling Morrison | Maureen Tucker | The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground (album) The Velvet Underground is the third album by American rock group The Velvet Underground. It was their first record to feature Doug Yule, John Cale's replacement. It was recorded in 1968 at TTG Studios in Hollywood, California. This album's softer sound marks a radical shift in approach in style... (1969), Loaded (1970; minus Tucker), Live at Max's Kansas City Live at Max's Kansas City Live at Max's Kansas City is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released on May 30, 1972, by Cotillion, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records.-About the album:... (1972; minus Tucker), 1969: The Velvet Underground Live 1969: The Velvet Underground Live 1969: The Velvet Underground Live is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released as a double album in September 1974 by Mercury Records. The September 1988 CD re-release was issued as two separate single CD volumes, with one extra track per disc... (1974), eight tracks on VU VU (album) VU is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in February 1985 by Verve Records.-Composition and collection:... (1985), six tracks on Another View Another View Another View is an outtakes compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was released in 1986 by Verve Records and is comprised of material recorded between 1967 and 1969.-Composition and collection:... (1986), discs 4–5 of Peel Slowly and See (1995), Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes is a triple live album by The Velvet Underground. It was released on October 16, 2001 by Polydor, the record label overseeing The Velvet Underground's Universal Music Group back catalogue.... (2001) |
| Vocals, guitar | Bass guitar Bass guitar The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... |
Guitar | Drums Drum kit A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... |
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| November 1970–August 1971 | Doug Yule | Walter Powers Walter Powers Walter Powers III is an American bass guitarist best known for having been a member of The Velvet Underground from late 1970 until late 1971.Walter Powers was born in Boston, Massachusetts... |
Sterling Morrison | Maureen Tucker | Studio demo of two songs, "She'll Make You Cry" and "Friends" (as yet unreleased) |
| Vocals, guitar | Bass guitar | Keyboards Keyboard instrument A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments... , vocals |
Drums | ||
| October 1971–December 1971 | Doug Yule | Walter Powers | Willie Alexander Willie Alexander For the football player of the same name see Willie Alexander .Willie "Loco" Alexander is an American singer and keyboard player based in Gloucester, Massachusetts.... |
Maureen Tucker | Discs 1–2 and part of disc 4 of Final V.U. 1971-1973 Final V.U. 1971-1973 Final V.U. 1971–1973 is a box set by The Velvet Underground, comprising live recordings from after founder and primary songwriter Lou Reed had left the group... (2001) |
| Vocals, multiple instruments | |||||
| January 1972–February 1973 | Doug Yule | --- | --- | --- | Squeeze (1973), discs 3–4 of Final V.U. (2001; both with hired hands) |
| Vocals, guitar | Multiple instruments, vocals | Guitar | Percussion | ||
| June 1990; November 1992–July 1993 | Lou Reed | John Cale | Sterling Morrison | Maureen Tucker | Live MCMXCIII Live MCMXCIII Live MCMXCIII is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was released simultaneously in single and double CD/Cassette formats on October 26, 1993 by Sire Records. The single CD is an abridged version of the double CD edition: there are no different takes of songs across the two editions... (1993) |
| 1996 | Lou Reed | John Cale | Maureen Tucker | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,... induction ceremony |
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| 2009 | Lou Reed | Doug Yule | Maureen Tucker | Group interview at the New York Public Library | |
Temporary members, additional live and studio musicians
- Angus MacLise – sat in on percussion with Tucker switching to bass guitar and Cale and Morrison to lead vocals during a Chicago engagement when Reed was taken ill with hepatitis, June–July 1966.
- Henry FlyntHenry FlyntHenry Flynt is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism.-Background:...
– stand-in for Cale for four live dates during September 1966. - NicoNicoNico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
– collaborator on vocals with the band on four tracks on The Velvet Underground & Nico and several Exploding Plastic InevitableExploding Plastic InevitableThe Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, screenings of Warhol's films, and dancing and performances by...
engagements, 1966–1967. In addition, about half of the tracks on Nico's 1967 debut LP, Chelsea GirlChelsea Girl (album)Chelsea Girl is the debut solo album by Nico. It was released in October 1967 by Verve Records, also home to The Velvet Underground. The name of the album is a reference to Andy Warhol's 1966 film Chelsea Girls, which Nico starred in...
, feature songs written by and/or featuring Reed, Cale and Morrison. Some of these songs are included on compilations like the Peel Slowly and See box set and the Gold 2-CD set. - Billy YuleBilly YuleWilliam "Billy" Yule is best known for having been a sit-in drummer for The Velvet Underground during 1970.-1970:When in early 1970, regular Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker became pregnant, a temporary replacement was needed to fulfill the band's live obligations...
– stand-in on drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
for a pregnant Tucker on three tracks on Loaded and at the Max's Kansas City 1970 engagement, including Live at Max's Kansas CityLive at Max's Kansas CityLive at Max's Kansas City is a live album by The Velvet Underground. It was originally released on May 30, 1972, by Cotillion, a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records.-About the album:...
; and the 1973 Boston engagement. - Tommy Castanaro – stand-in on drums for a pregnant Tucker on two tracks on Loaded.
- Adrian BarberAdrian BarberAdrian Barber is a musician / producer who is responsible for recording the Beatles "Gray Zone" Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.-Musician / electronics:...
– stand-in on drums for a pregnant Tucker on a number of tracks on Loaded. - Larry Estridge – tour stand-in (bass guitar) for Walter Powers, June 1971.
- Rob Norris (of The BongosThe BongosThe Bongos were a rock band from Hoboken, New Jersey, primarily active in the 1980s. With a unique blend of British Invasion-flavored power pop, jangly guitars, and dance beats they made the leap to national recognition with the advent of MTV.-Biography:...
) – tour member (guitar) for the 1972 UK Squeeze tour. - George Kay – tour member (bass guitar) for the 1972 UK Squeeze tour and the 1973 Boston engagement.
- Don Silverman – tour member (guitar) for the 1972 UK Squeeze tour.
- Mark NauseefMark NauseefMark Nauseef , is a drummer and percussionist who has enjoyed a varied career, ranging from rock music during the 1970s with his time as a member of the Ian Gillan Band and, temporarily, Thin Lizzy, to a wide range of musical styles in more recent times, playing with many notable musicians from all...
– tour member (drums) for the 1972 UK Squeeze tour. - Ian PaiceIan PaiceIan Anderson Paice is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the English rock band Deep Purple. As of Jon Lord's departure in 2002, he is the only founding member of the band who never stopped performing with the group, and the only member to appear on every album the band has...
– session musician (drums) for Squeeze (1973).
Discography
- The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
- White Light/White HeatWhite Light/White HeatThe album briefly appeared on the Billboard 200, although only peaking at number 199. Despite its poor sales, the distorted, feedback-driven, and roughly recorded sound on White Light/White Heat became a notable influence on punk and experimental rock...
(1968) - The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground (album)The Velvet Underground is the third album by American rock group The Velvet Underground. It was their first record to feature Doug Yule, John Cale's replacement. It was recorded in 1968 at TTG Studios in Hollywood, California. This album's softer sound marks a radical shift in approach in style...
(1969) - Loaded (1970)
- Squeeze (1973)
External links
- The Velvet Underground Web Page
- "Style It Takes" (John Cale on Studio 360 radio program from June 2, 2006); MP3 file; John Cale performing "Style It Takes" (talking about Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, the subject of that song). - "Loop" from Issue 3 of Aspen magazine (December 1966).
- Podcast of the Velvet Underground live at the Hilltop Rock Festival in 1969
- Unofficial Fan Site