Nightmares in Velvet

The Velvet Underground are generally seen as one of the original punk rock bands, but they were too literate and cultured for that. 

However, the Velvets did channel a darkness that rock n' roll had not yet been exposed to. 

The darkness and edginess of the Velvets may have scared fans off in the hippie days, but would have a far-reaching impact on later bands, both musically and lyrically. It was through the Velvets that themes of death and decadence would become fair game in rock n roll.

Velvets leader Lou Reed had a relatively conventional suburban upbringing on Long Island. However, this being the 1950s, part of that conventional upbringing was undergoing shock treatment, used then to zap away any homosexual tendencies. 

Surviving that, Reed attended Syracuse and majored in creative writing. He developed a yen for free jazz, whose pointless skronking would influence the Velvets’ noise jams.

After getting his degree, Reed moved to New York and scored a songwriting gig at Pickwick Records, who specialized in kiddie records but also released knockoff albums in which studio bands aped the latest hits. 

There Reed met John Cage, an avant-garde musician from Wales looking to score some quick cash doing sessions for Pickwick. The two clicked creatively and Reed enlisted two college buddies - guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen ‘Mo’ Tucker - and so the Velvet Underground was born.

At the same time, Andy Warhol was fishing around for a rock and roll band to add to his media empire, and the Velvets’ studied decadence fit the bill. Warhol took the band under his wing, landing them a plum gig at Max’s Kansas City, one of New York’s most fashionable new clubs. 

Warhol thought the Velvets lacked sex appeal and strong-armed the band into letting statuesque German fashion model/actress Christine ‘Nico’ Paffgen join in on vocals.

The Velvets’ dark, droning music was everything that the pop scene of the time was not. Reed wrote songs about drugs (‘Heroin’, ‘Waiting for the Man’), kinky sex (‘Venus in Furs’), and violence (‘There She Goes Again’). 

The band also traded in moody ragas like ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’, whose lyrics prefigured Black Sabbath. The effect was druggy and weird, but in a non-groovy way that scared off the flower children.

Warhol dreamed up a multimedia extravaganza for the Velvets’ first tour he called "The Exploding Plastic Inevitable." The Factory entourage performed artsy dances and skits and Warhol’s pretentious art films were screened. 

It didn’t win the Velvets many fans. A review in The Chicago Daily News concluded that “The flowers of evil are in full bloom.”

Cher walked out of a show at LA hotspot ‘The Trip’ declaring the Velvets would, “Replace nothing but suicide,” though Jim Morrison nicked his leather-lizard look from Warhol protege Gerard Melanga. 

The Velvs' first album went nowhere, so after they shook off Nico and Warhol, they set to work their second album, White Light White Heat. The lyrical concerns stayed much the same, particularly on the 17-minute epic ‘Sister Ray’, based around transsexual prostitutes, drugs, and murder. The LP barely scraped the Top 200, but would have a huge influence on glam, punk and similar styles.

With money and attention running low, the Velvets replaced Cale with Doug Yule and set to work on a self-titled LP based in more traditional rock. Though the lyrics eased up a bit, the opening track ‘Candy Says’ was a tribute to Factory drag queen Candy Darling. 

The final album with Reed, Loaded (1970), would continue the move towards simpler rock and produce two of the Velvets’ best known songs, ‘Sweet Jane’ and ‘Rock And Roll’. But success continued to elude them and Reed quit the band a month before Loaded was released. An ersatz touring band was assembled with Tucker the sole remaining original member. 

But even Tucker is missing from Squeeze (1973), a Doug Yule solo LP in all but name, universally dismissed from the Velvets canon. Reed went on to a solo career, and his 1972 Transformer LP was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. The LP featured Reed’s homage to Warhol’s ‘superstars’, ‘Walk on the Wild Side, ’ the first Top 20 single to refer to “giving head.”

This piece is an excerpt from The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll, available at fine booksellers everywhere.