The Velvet Underground is, for me, rock's - or specifically indie/alternative rock's - all time greatest band because it is its most influential. The list of bands and musicians influenced and inspired by the VU is enormous and includes U2, the Cure, the Strokes, REM, Luna, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Patti Smith, to name just a few. I am the proud owner of their boxed set, Peel Slowly and See which is one of the few boxed sets I own. I also own some solo records by various Velvets, including Lou Reed, Nico, and John Cale. I brought my friends to see the film "I Shot Andy Warhol," which reconstructed the era of Warhol's Factory, when the Velvets (well played in the film by Yo La Tengo) were the house band. I now own a copy of that fine film, as well.
(Here, as a bit of proof, is a really crude, lo-fi and amazing film clip of the band playing, apparently at the Dom on 8th Street (Manhattan) April 1966. It's a crude clip, but its very Warholian and gives a good sense of what the VU sounded like during their mid 60s period. Such 60s NYC underground royalty as Barbara Rubin, Tuli Kupferberg, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol all appear to be present.)
Even though I was born in 1961, and was thus a bit too young to have known about and understood the Warhol Factory era, I do remember the tail end of the 60s. And I remember Greenwich Village and lower Manhattan from back then. I had an aunt who loved the City and who used to take me over there, from our NJ home, on a regular basis and I have specific memories of witnessing 60s freaks in Washington Square Park. I must have been about six years old at the time. As I got older, I came to a realization of the significance of the 60s, of Warhol, of Greenwich Village, and of the seminal band connected to all three: Lou Reed, John Cale, Mo Tucker, Sterling Morrison - the Velvet Underground.
I bought a rather old, scratchy copy of this record, which I found in a used record bin, while in high school in the mid/late 1970s, which is also the period of time when I, influenced by 70s rock mags like Creem and Circus, began to discover the music of Lou Reed (e.g., Coney Island Baby, Transformer, Street Hassle, etc; this was also a follow-up to my love of the music of David Bowie, whom I discovered in the 8th grade, in 1975, which is also around the time I remember seeing LP covers f0r Roxy Music). However, I didn't truly get deeply into Lou and the Velvets until a bit later, when I bought a Velvet compilation, and began listening to them, as well as the various Velvets solo stuff more frequently and carefully. Nevertheless, having first listened to this record and its classic proto noise/no wave track "Sister Ray," when I did, planted a seed. I recall liking a few of the songs here - the title track, "Sister Ray," and "Here She Comes Now," and not quite knowing what to make of the rest, particularly John Cale's nihilistic little story song "The Gift" or Lou's freak out guitar solo on "I Heard Her Call My Name." I was also less than impressed with the cruddy production values of the recording, made worse by my scratchy used copy.
Listening now, and thinking about it further, I now realize what a gem even a scratchy used copy of this is. This, indeed, is a great album. This is also mainly Lou's album, and in it, you can hear him asserting himself as the band's leader. And you can also hear the band pushing him back. And listening to the whole band thrash away on "Sister Ray" - with its deviantly awkward, erotically charged lyrics -one hears what a rock drone is meant to be. In short, the lo-fi production and the inherent tensions within the band made for a proto-punk, proto-indie rock classic recording, one which truly captures the anomic and polarized mood of the late 60s, a time of drugs, violence, political confrontation, of social and artistic change. The whole world was being turned upside down, and the Velvet Underground managed to capture a small piece of the tenor of the times. This recording belongs in the music collection of everyone interested in the history of rock, punk, indie rock or Warholiana.
Finally, Olivier Landemaine maintains a very informative Velvet Underground web page .
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