The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground is an American group of Rock of the end of the Années 1960, related to the adventure of the Factory of Andy Warhol which produces them. Initially known of the only mediums “underground New Yorkean”, he is the prototype of the group whose influence did not cease growing after its separation, like Joy Division, or the French Taxi Girl and Métal Urbain. They are also one of the principal first influences of David Bowie (with Bob Dylan inter alia), which, at its beginnings, will sing resumptions of Velvet in clubs.

Composed members of character (Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, John Fixes, Moe Tucker and, to a lesser extent, Nico, each one will continue a career solo), he knew a great musical fertility. The topics approached reflect the personal universe of Lou Reed: hard drugs, topics sadomasochistic, homosexual, etc

Many artists of the following generations were influenced by Velvet: part of the alternative Rock'n'roll anglophone, Glam rock'n'roll and New Wave, as well as personalities like Nirvana or Etienne Daho which appears on compilation the children of Velvet at the sides of Taxi Girl and of the Rita Mitsouko.

Composition

The group

  • Lou Reed, singer, principal type-setter, guitarist, of 1965 to 1970.
  • John Fixes, singer on certain songs, musician (bass player, altist, pianist, violonist…) from 1965 to 1968.
  • Sterling Morrison, second guitarist of 1965 to 1970.
  • Maureen Tucker, known as “Moe”, threshing-machine of 1965 to 1971.
  • Doug Yule, singer and musician (low, keyboard, guitar) of 1968 to 1973.

Other members

  • Angus Maclise, battery, in 1965.
  • Nico, song, in 1967.
  • Billy Yule, battery, in 1970.
  • Willie Alexander, keyboard, in 1970 and 1971.
  • Walter Powers, low, in 1970 and 1971.
  • Ian Paice, battery, in 1972.

History

The foundation

The history of Velvet Underground starts with the end of the year 1964, when Lou Reed, a young New Yorkean insane of Bob Dylan, meets John Cale, a Welshman disciple of Assembles It Young. Together, the two young men found a group, The Primitives, which was often going to change name: The Warlocks, The Falling Spikes, then, finally, The Velvet Underground (of the name of a treating work of sadomasochism that Reed held of Tony Conrad). At this time, the other members of the group are Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise.

Beginnings

The group records its first demonstration in July 1965. A few months later, in November, Reed, Fixes and Morrison accept 75 dollars to occur on the scene of Summit High School. They is 75 dollars of too for Angus MacLise, which considers that to accept money is compromising. It leaves the group.

Maureen Tucker, the little sister of a friend of Morrison Sterling, replaces it. On the instructions of the other members of the group, it decides to play in an “unusual” way, i.e. upright and without cymbals. The bases of Velvet Underground are posed, and the group then starts to be made known on the scene of New York.

Exploding. Plastic. Inevitable.

The same year, Paul Morrissey encourages his associate Andy Warhol to take the group under its wing. From now on, Reed, Fixes, Morrison and Tucker repeats with the Factory of Warhol. But according to their new manager, they miss something: a fifth member, able to sing and hold all the attention on him. It will be Nico, a German mannequin which had already attended Factory in the past.

Velvet Underground benefits from notoriety to manage to them to obtain a contract near Verve Records, a subsidiary company of MGM. During more than one year, the group becomes the central attraction of the Exploding. Plastic. Inevitable. , a spectacle of Warhol which mixes music, film projection and sadomasochistic artistic performance. The group leaves then on the roads North America, roads on which Angus MacLise joined on some occasions (and, in spite of him, for the last time) his/her former companions.

The Velvet Underground and Nico

At the same time, in 1966, the group records its first album. Andy Warhol having obtained (against the opinion of Reed) that three of the eleven songs are sung by Nico, the disc is called extremely by the way The Velvet Underground and Nico . The small pocket is an original work of Warhol which was going to become worship. It is made up of a self-adhesive banana beside which “ Peel Slowly and See is written” (“Peels slowly and looks at”). Under the sticker, one discovers a pink banana, of phallic appearance. An unfounded rumor goes even until affirming that the adhesive of the sticker would be mixed with LSD.

The album with banana leaves in March 1967. Contrary to what is often marked, the sales of the album are initially rather good. But the disc is quickly withdrawn from circulation because of a tiny legal disagreement between the recording company and a collaborator of Warhol. When the disc is finally of return in the vats, the public forgot it, and the sales do not follow.

One often allots this sentence to Brian Eno: “There is can be only 1000 people who bought the first album of Velvet Underground, but each one of them then founded a group. ”

The song Venus in Furs from this album is inspired by the novel of the same name of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

White Light/White Heat

Thereafter, Velvet hardens the tone. Whereas the first album explored the territory of an unhealthy music, poisonous, but clearly pop, in concert, the group plays extremely (it is even sponsored by the amplifiers Vox) and launches out in experiments sometimes very difficult. The second album is with the image of their performances live: gross of dismantling, rough, difficult, and voluntarily “antibeauté” as will say John Cale.

Even if the disc is once again produced by Tom Wilson, the group then moved away from Warhol and its MUSE Nico. Velvet is from now on independent (it stuck the services of the manager Steve Sesnick), but continuous to trail a time with accustomed Factory.

The album leaves in January 1968, and again is not sold very well. If, once again, it returns in the Billboard 200, it is only of accuracy: it takes down only the 199e place. In this difficult context, the tensions between Reed and Cale (two personalities with the manifestly difficult character) are accentuated. The group continues a time to repeat with Cale, then ends up doing without its services. Lou Reed, more concerned of commercial recognition than of extreme experiments, engages to replace it a young musician multi-instrumentalists and of “pop” culture very, Doug Yule.

The Velvet Underground

Extremely on this new coherence, Lou Reed, from now on only Master on board, decides to set out again of zero. The title of the third album (which leaves in March 1969) is on this eloquent subject: The Velvet Underground , quite simply. More loureedien of the albums of Velvet leaves the good share to trott folk, very far (except for some exceptions) from the eccentricities of the first two discs. But if the first album is undoubtedly most known, and that one often says that the second indirectly was confined of the punk one, one should not therefore underestimating the influence of this third opus: one finds his heritage at many pop-rock'n'roll groups and Lo-fi.

The lost album

In 1969, Velvet Underground foams the roads of North America, seeking elsewhere the success which it does not find in New York. At the time of more than 70 concerts, they create for themselves a strong foundation of fans, who regularly record the group thanks to simple tape recorders. The bands will re-appear of the years later in Bootleg S, even on official discs ( 1969: The Velvet Underground Live and The Quine Slaps ). But during this time, the group loses contact with its recording company, which, concerned to be made an irreproachable brand image, benefits from it to get rid of them.

The label keeps in its paperboards of many recordings which should have given rise to a new disc. Certain songs will remake surface for Loaded , the fourth album studio of the group, or on some of the first eight albums solos of Lou Reed. Finally, Verve Records will leave the songs in the middle of the years 1980 on compilations CONSIDERING (which contains best new pieces) and Another View (pieces considered to be less good and falls).

Loaded

Given up by their recording company, the members of Velvet Underground sign for two albums with Atlantic Records which gives them an instruction: they must produce albums “ loaded with hits ” (“charged with tubes”).

At that time, Lou Reed is tired. After a harassing round, its voice is sometimes lacking to him, and it disputes regularly with the manager Steve Sesnick, like with Doug Yule which disputes to him the leadership within the group. Openly commercial, Loaded contains some of the most known songs of Velvet Underground. Exasperated by the attitude of Yule (of which the friends and the brother invade the studio, in particular to replace very pregnant Moe Tucker with the battery), and without very awaiting the exit of the disc, Reed snap the door of the studio on August 23rd, 1970 to start a career solo.

From now on only with the orders, Yule benefits from it to still more print its leg on the album, going until erasing the voice of Lou Reed on certain songs to pose his there. The disc leaves the next month, and is not the hoped commercial success. Lou Reed swears that it would have been differently if one had let it make, while Yule affirms that it almost did not touch anything after the departure of the singer (he ran out only one month between his departure and the exit of the disc).

Squeeze

Against any waiting, the American radios entichent individual Sweet Jane and Rock-and-roll . Doug Yule, replacing Reed to the song and the guitar, recruits his/her old friend Walter Powers with low, and decides to launch the group to the attack of the scenes of Europe. It is the moment that Sterling Morrison to choose to leave in its turn Velvet Underground, to devote itself to teaching. It is replaced by the keyboard Willie Alexander. Together, they play the the United States, the Netherlands and in Great Britain. In same time, rather than to order a new album studio, Atlantic Records to them, scalded by the departure of Reed, prefers to publish an album live, Live At Max' S Kansas City , in order to honor its contract with two discs.

At the conclusion of the round in Great Britain, the manager Steve Sesnick returns Tucker (the surviving last of the beginnings of Velvet Underground), Powers and Alexander in America, and pushes Yule to record a fifth album, for the label Polydor. What will be made, in 1972: it records Squeeze , with the assistance of Ian Paice, beater of Deep Purple, and some anonymities. But at the same time, “truth” Velvet Underground is elsewhere: Reed, Fixes and Nico, which all three started careers solos, are found with London, then with Paris, for two concerts placed under the sign of the Velvet years.

If Squeeze is often décrié by the fans of Velvet Underground, it is that it does not have any more large-thing to see with the beginnings of the group. It will not be republished besides, except perhaps in France, until the Années 1980, and only out of vinyl. However, some of the compositions of Doug Yule would completely find their place on an album like Loaded . And if Yule often inherits the bad role in the history the end of the group, it appears today that the true profiteur is rather Steve Sesnick, the manager who pushed Yule has to occur under the name of The Velvet Underground while at the same time this last only aspired to begin a career solo. Moreover, a little later when Sesnick releases it, Doug Yule will put immediately fine at the “group”. Until its last round, in May 1973, it is against its liking that it will occur under the name of Velvet Underground.

Reformation

If the members of the group (except for Moe Tucker) remained a long time in very bad term, the things seemed to have changed at the beginning of the Années 1990. Reed and Morrison had approached a few years earlier, and Reed and Cale had even made up unit an album at the time of the death of Andy Warhol. Also, in 1992, the reformation of the group was possible. Only Nico, deceased four years earlier, missed with the call. Nico and… Doug Yule, that Reed and Cale probably did not wish to re-examine, in spite of the desire of Morrison Sterling.

Together, the quartet gives many concerts in Europe, and ensures in particular the first part of the European round of U2. Live will be recorded on this occasion, in Paris: Live MCMXCIII . It is even durable question of reformation, with an album studio and a MTV Unplugged with the key. But Reed and Cale are scrambled again. The death of Sterling Morrison in 1995 compromises the project definitively.

The destiny of the members of the group

  • Lou Reed , which carries the major heritage of the group, continued a career solo until today, with songs like Walk one the Wild Side or Perfect Day . Quasi-unknown with Velvet Underground, it will be regarded in 1973 by a referendum of the New Musical Express train as “the favorite singer of the kids”.
  • John Cale initially continued its career within a group, then in solo. Perhaps less known than those of Lou Reed, her many albums however received, for much, a critical nice success. It also composed of the film musics and produced very diverse artists such Nico, the Stooges, Patti Smith, The Modern Lovers or Alan Stivell.
  • Nico continued to exert its various talents of singer and actress. She died at 49 years, in 1988, of the continuations of an accident of bicycle with Ibiza, according to certain sources this one would have died of the continuations of insolation (the rock'n'roll of A to Z Albin Michel published in 2000). She had a child, fore-mentioned Ari, with the French actor Alain Delon which always refused to recognize it.
  • Sterling Morrison taught the medieval literature at the university of the Texas, with Austin, before becoming captain of tug boat. He dies in 1995, of the continuations of a cancer, at 53 years.
  • Maureen Tucker , after having raised his/her children, went back to the music in the Années 1980, often accompanied by his/her former companions by Velvet.
  • Doug Yule directed the group of 1970 to 1973, after the departure of Lou Reed then other founding members. He played then for Lou Reed on the album Sally Can' T Dance , and joined the group American Flyer. In 1977, he becomes cabinetmaker, going up on scene only as from the year 2000 for a few series in concerts in solo. Whereas he was member of Velvet Underground since 1968, Doug Yule was however not invited to the concerts of reformation of 1992, nor with the ceremony of establishment of the group to the Rock' Roll Hall off Famed.

The heritage

The career discographic of Velvet Underground lasted only approximately three years, between 1967 and 1970. At that time the group did not have almost any success, not selling more few thousands of specimens of each one of its albums. It however became with the wire of time the object of a true worship, which lasts until today.

Indeed, Velvet Underground is regularly presented as having been to the base of the Punk and the rock'n'roll underground, even like having been the first true punk group. With the listening of the albums of the group, this assertion can appear doubtful. Almost none of its compositions resembles the punk one with the current direction of the term: the complete discography of the group counts only one handle of fast and irritated pieces, and the use of saturation is generally limited to strange sound experiments which much in common have with the progressive Rock as can practice it King Crimson than with the Sex Pistols or the Clash, or even of the protopunks groups like MC5 or the Stooges.

It is necessary to dissipate this confusion to appreciate the group fully: the listener who expects irritated and politically subversive rock'n'roll will be inevitably disappointed. The specificity of the group, and the reason of its influence on many artists, is much more to seek in its manner of finding the beauty where it does not seem to have to hide: in a rudimentary and repetitive rate/rhythm like that of I' m Waiting For The Man , which should theoretically be the most tedious song of all times, but appears oddly attractive, in the voice of Nico, rigorously incompetent to sing in a traditional way, but which can move with the tears, in the violins strange and saturated with John Cale (note: John Fixes cheek of the viola, a kind of violin but more grâve), and of course in the topics of the songs: sexual Drugs, practices “deviating”… If it is added that the melodies are sometimes really superb, it is understood that the group has to see much more, musicalement speaking, with the Doors, the Beatles (in their manner of mixing beauty and experimentation) or Bob Dylan (one of the idols and principal influences of Lou Reed) that with the punk one.

The influence of Velvet Underground on the punk movement, and through him on almost all the modern Rock, comes in fact more from the attitude from the members from Velvet that from their music in itself. While continuing against winds and tides to try to impose a sound radically opposite on the preferences of the time, by living until the end their dream rock'n'roll of artistic freedom, but also by drawing their influence in the chaos and the dark sides of the human being, Lou Reed and her band had a determining influence on many artists protopunks like Iggy Pop, and indirectly on the punk movement as a whole.

Official discography

Albums studios

Albums live

Compilations and news

  • CONSIDERING (1985)
  • Another View (1986)
  • What Goes One (1993)
  • Peel Slowly and See (1995)
  • Rock'n'roll & Roll: year Introduction to The Velvet Underground (2001)
  • The Very Best off the Velvet Underground (2003)
  • Gold (2005)

External bonds

  • The Velvet Underground Web page: Page Internet regarded as most complete devoted to the group
    • Video
  • : Velvet Underground interprets " Sweet Jane" in 1993

Simple: The Velvet Underground

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