The Velvet Underground

Perhaps the most influential alternative rock band that ever came out, The Velvet Underground couldn't sell 100 copies of their first album but Brian Eno said whoever bought them formed a band.  If there was any other band that was like the Velvets that would have been The Fugs in terms of turning three chords into much more sinister.  With John Cale in the band being polar opposites with Lou Reed their first two albums are an exercise in melody and mayhem and chaos.  But with Andy Warhol playing a role with oddball movies, a light show and dancers to boot,  there were the first true alternative band.

But after losing Andy Warhol and later John Cale, they turned to be more of a garage rock bar band and after the meltdown that was White Light/White Heat, Lou Reed booted Cale out of the band (at the urging of Steve Sesnick who singlehandedly killed the Velvets when he did the divide and conquer rule to Doug Yule after Loaded was finished) and opted for a more laid back but mellow but still a garage rock sound.  Sad to say MGM didn't know what to do with them and after completing what would be released as VU a decade and half later, moved over to Atlantic for their most accessible album to date Loaded, a phase coined by Reed as an album Loaded with hits and he's right, all 10 songs would have sounded good on either AM or underground FM.  Atlantic, demoted them to Cotillion for Loaded and used Bridgit Polk's cassette recording of the Max's Kansas City Show as a final offering.

Doug Yule ended up taking over for the import only and mostly unheard Squeeze, which isn't a bad album but it's not a true Velvet Underground either, none of the original members play on it and despite no notes and a basic album cover, the big story was that Ian Paice played drums on some of the songs.  Hard to imagine the Deep Purple drummer being a part of Velvet Underground.  But no US label would touch it and it came out on Polydor UK.

Back to the beginning, The Velvet Underground with Nico starts out somewhat mellow a calm before the storm with Sunday Morning but even then Lou Reed warns you to look out and then the next song becomes Waiting For The Man, made famous by John Cale's crazed barrel house piano playing.  Nico does three songs, the mellow Femme Fitale, the failed single All Tomorrow Parties and I'll Be Your Mirror but she would be gone soon after although The Velvets did play on some of her Chelsea Girls album that came out later on.  Buoyed by Maureen Tucker's primitive drumming, Run Run Run is another horror story done in by plenty of Reed's feedback and free form lead guitar.  There She Goes Again could have been a good single had Verve put it out but it has been covered a few times over by the likes of REM and The Beat Farmers.  But side 2 leads off with Heroin, which Reed tells it from a junkie's view and John Cale's viola and Tucker's drumming leads up to a big falling apart toward the end of the song.  To end the album with Black Angel's Death Song to which Cale hisses after Reed spits out the verse and the strange European Son ends things on a chaotic note, not exactly a good thing but this record probably says more about how Reed and Cale would operate on their own solo recordings.

The noise fest that is White Light/White Heat is that, all noise, amps cranked up to ten and did I mention more noise.  The title track becoming yet another failed hit single, the trainwreck ending to which Cale sounds like the bass is strangling him and side 2 is I Heard Her Call My Name and the 19 minute Sister Ray which will drive the old ladies out of the building if they heard it.  I give it points for effort but I didn't like The Gift or Lady Godiva's Operation much, nor the 2 minute throwaway Here She Comes Now. http://bigread.mojo4music.com/2013/11/velvet-underground/

The third album is polar opposite, mostly nice and mellow and only the 8 minute throwaway Murder Mystery to which Lou And Sterling speaking gibberish first and then Maureen and Doug doing what I'm guessing is the chorus line doesn't get much playing time but it leaves you back to the first side to almost perfect pairing of Candy Says leading to What Goes On, then Some Kinda Love and Pale Blue Eyes and then Jesus.  Take away Murder Mystery and this could have been their classic album.

But then that would be saved for Loaded and there's not a bad track anywhere. Another failed single Who Loves The Sun b/w the 7 minute Oh Sweet Nuthin' but this is where you get to hear the original Sweet Jane and a revisit of Rock And Roll (the original was on the 4th album). My other faves are Head Held High and Train Around The Bend.  Even the lesser known songs (Lonesome Cowboy Bill and I found A Reason) have a bit of heart to them as well.  But sad to say, Maureen Tucker doesn't play drums on it at all, she was pregnant at the time and bowed out so Doug Yule and brother Bill took over most of the drumming as well as Adrian Barber.

The original Live At Max's Kansas City was upgraded to a 2 CD set and is much better overview should you find it.  Robert Quine recorded a bunch of live Velvets and some of the highlights came out on the 1969 Live on Mercury.  With the 10 minute Ocean and the 9 minute What Goes On, you really get the feeling that you had to be there to see it and the recording is rougher than the Max's Kansas City but till the 1993 reunion live album that was all we had to go on.

The albums didn't sell and Polygram only had the Velvet Underground And Nico in print but in 1984, they reissued much of the 4th album that MGM rejected and it's a worthy listen and the songs were so good, Lou Reed would use them for his early solo albums.  Leading off with I Can't Stand It  and the other side with Foggy Notion, The Velvets never rocked harder. A couple of 1967 sessions with John Cale doesn't leave him out.  VU, the album sold well enough that Another View was issued a year later, and basically a bottom barrel scraping adventure although we do get to hear the original We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together and a feisty Guess I'm Falling In Love, an instrumental that the original vocal on the tape were too damaged to use.

For years, there would not be a Velvet Underground reuinon of sorts till 1991 although John Cale and Lou Reed buried the hatchet to do a 1990 tribute to Andy Warhol, Songs From Drella.  Three years later the Velvets did reunite to do a European tour and Sire issued both a one cd and two cd set of the shows and it's a mixed bag for either version although you're better off with the 2 CD set.  But it wouldn't last and the band imploded, and Sterling Morrison passed away in 1995.

Mark Prindle thinks their overrated and he could have a point but if you take them at their music and not get caught up in the media praise, the Velvet Underground was still a very good bar band, and they were if you had to chance to see them in the late 60s after Doug Yule joined up, with John Cale they were more of a cabaret band with a chance to shock with the S & M imagery of Venus In Furs or documenting a sick party like Sister Ray.  Andy Warhol may have "produced" the first album but the dirty work recording was from the late Tom Wilson (Bob Dylan, Animals), and everybody from Sterling on down to Maureen played a vital role in the music, Tucker being the inspiration to Meg White although Tucker was by far the better drummer. Even though Doug Yule was a big part of the VU, he was all but forgotten when the original band got back together in 1993 and when they became part of the rock and roll hall of fame in 1996.

There are plenty of best ofs out there And The Velvet Underground Gold pretty much gets rid of the filler of the albums that were released on Verve/MGM/Polydor but nothing from the Atlantic albums. A 1989 best of does feature two cuts from Loaded (Rock And Roll and Sweet Jane of course) but for me the Gold set was the better buy.  Still the original albums speak for themselves and if you really want to know how Alternative Rock started, The Velvet Underground and Nico is that album.  Last year, Universal put out a limited edition of the Scepter Sessions which was the basis of the first album and it's rougher and cruder but worth a listen.  You'll never hear Squeeze anyway and you're better off for it but in the end, The Velvet Underground carved out a territory that no other band dared go to, celebrating drugs, drag queens and adultery but could pin a nice little love song, or a tribute to the radio and even a song about Jesus.  But still uncompromising but still rock and roll rebellion, no band ever sounded like that before them.  But they sure had a lot of imitators after that as well.  The perfect compliment.

Albums:

The Velvet Underground  Scepter Sessions Acetate (1966 reissued 2012 Polydor) B+
The Velvet Underground And Nico (Verve 1966)  A
White Light/White Heat (Verve 1968) B+
The Velvet Underground (MGM 1969)  A
Loaded (Cotillion 1970) A
Live At Max's Kansas City (Cotillion 1971) B
Squeeze (Polydor UK 1973) B-
1969 Velvet Underground Live (Mercury 1974) B+
VU (Verve 1985) A
Another View (Verve 1986) B
Best Of (Words And Music By Lou Reed) (Verve 1989) A-
Velvet Underground Gold (Polydor) A-
Live 1993 (Sire 1993) B
Final VU (Captain Trip 2001) B