The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground (abbreviated as The Velvets or V.U.) were an American rock and roll band of the late 1960s. Its best-known alumni are Lou Reed and John Cale.

Early career

The foundations for what would become The Velvet Underground were laid in late 1964. Lou Reed had performed with a few short-lived garage bands and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records, a job Reed described as "a poor man's Carole King". Reed met John Cale, a Welshman who had moved to the United States to study classical music. Cale had worked with John Cage and LaMonte Young, but was also interested in rock music. (Young's use of extended drones would be a profound influence on the early Velvet's sound). The pair rehearsed and performed together, and their partnership and shared interests steered the early direction of what would become the Velvet Underground.

Related Topics:
1964 - Lou Reed - Garage band - Pickwick Records - Carole King - John Cale - Welshman - Classical music - John Cage - LaMonte Young

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Reed's first group with Cale was the short-lived The Primitives, assembled to support a Reed-penned single, "The Ostrich". http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=4036 Reed and Cale recruited Sterling Morrison – a college classmate of Reed's who'd already played with him a few times – to play guitar, and Angus MacLise joined on percussion. This quartet was first called The Warlocks, then The Falling Spikes.

Related Topics:
Sterling Morrison - Angus MacLise

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The Velvet Underground was a book about sadomasochism by Michael Leigh that Reed and Morrison's friend Jim Tucker found lying in the street. Morrison has reported the group liked the name, considering it evocative of "underground cinema," and fitting, due to Reed's already having written "Venus In Furs", inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's book of the same name, also dealing with sadomasochism.

Related Topics:
The Velvet Underground - Sadomasochism - Michael Leigh - Cinema - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

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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 beatnik poetry, with MacLise playing gentle "pitter and patter rhythms behind the drone".

Related Topics:
New York City - Beatnik

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In July of 1965, Reed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape. When he briefly returned to England, 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, and it was released on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See.

Related Topics:
July - 1965 - Demo tape - England - Marianne Faithfull - Mick Jagger - 1995 - Box set - Peel Slowly and See

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When the group accepted an offer of $75 for their first paying performance at a high school in Summit, NJ, MacLise left the group, protesting what he considered commercialization. "Angus was in it for art", Morrison reported.

Related Topics:
High school - Summit, NJ - Art

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MacLise was replaced by Maureen "Moe" Tucker, Jim Tucker's younger sister. Tucker's abbreviated drum kit was rather unusual: She generally played on tom toms and an upturned bass drum, using mallets rather than drumsticks, and she rarely used cymbals. (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 driving rhythms (at once simple yet exotic, influenced by Babatunde Olatunji and Bo Diddley records) became an essential part of the group's music. The group earned a regular paying gig at a club, and gained an early reputation as a promising ensemble.

Related Topics:
Maureen "Moe" Tucker - Drum kit - Tom tom - Bass drum - Mallet - Drumstick - Cymbal - Babatunde Olatunji - Bo Diddley

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While the American west coast was undergoing the Summer of Love, psychedelia and flower power, the typically east coast Velvets concerned themselves with darker subject matter: transvestites, heroin addiction, and sadomasochism. Also setting them apart from their contemporaries was their use of feedback and amplifier noise in a musical context, exemplified by the seventeen minute track "Sister Ray" from their second album.

Related Topics:
Summer of Love - Psychedelia - Flower power - Transvestite - Heroin - Addiction - Sadomasochism - Feedback

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