![]() ![]() Its name was something of a misnomer, as neither the owners nor the handful of customers appreciated the way-out sounds. Instead, Aronowitz found them a residency in a Greenwich Village club, the Café Bizarre. “We were so loud and horrifying to the high school audience that the majority of them – teachers, students and parents – fled screaming,” Cale says in American Masters. School gymnasiums were not the ideal venue for the band. John Cale on Velvet Underground's Debut: 'We Weren't There to F-k Around' She was, and the classic lineup was in place. Desperate to fill his spot on the drums, they asked Morrison’s friend Jim Tucker if his sister Maureen (known as “Moe”) was available. When informed that they would be receiving money for the performance, he quit on the spot, grumbling that the group had sold out. This irritated the bohemian MacLise, who resented having to show up anywhere at a specific time. The fledgling Velvet Underground were befriended by pioneering rock journalist Al Aronowitz, who managed to book them a gig at a New Jersey high school that November. Lacking a consistent name – they morphed from the Primitives to the Warlocks, and then the Falling Spikes before taking their soon-to-be-iconic final moniker from a pulp paperback exposé – the quartet rehearsed and recorded demos in Cale’s apartment throughout the summer of 1965. Together they formed a loose band with Cale’s roommate Angus MacLise, a fellow member of the Theater of Eternal Music collective. Sterling Morrison became involved with the duo after a chance meeting with Reed, his classmate at Syracuse University, on the subway. “The Black Angel’s Death Song” got the band fired from their residency. There was a certain meeting of the minds there.”Ģ. ![]() “He made me nice cup of coffee out of the hot water tap, and sat me down and started quizzing me as to what I was really doing in New York. “More than anything it was meeting Lou in the coffee shop,” Cale says in a 1998 American Masters documentary. Clearly on the same musical wavelength, they connected on a personal level afterwards. Gathering to rehearse the song, Cale was astonished to discover that the “Ostrich tuning” produced essentially the same drone he was accustomed to playing with Young. And I was kidding around and I wrote a song doing that.” “This guy at Pickwick had this idea that I appropriated,” he told Mojo in 2005. “The Twist” had nothing on “The Ostrich,” a hilariously oddball number featuring the unforgettable opening lines: “Put your head on the floor and have somebody step on it!” While composing the song, Reed took the unique approach of tuning all six of his guitar strings to the same note, creating the effect of a vaguely Middle Eastern drone. When ostrich feathers became the hot trend in women’s fashion magazines, Reed was moved to write a parody of the increasingly ridiculous dance songs sweeping the airwaves. What we were doing was churning out these rip-off albums.” “We just churned out songs that’s all,” Reed remembered in 1972. Reed’s professional music career took root in 1964 when he was hired as a staff songwriter at Pickwick Records, an NYC-based budget label specializing in soundalikes of contemporary chart-toppers. Lou Reed first united with John Cale to play a knockoff of “The Twist.” Read on for 10 fascinating facts about the album’s creation.ġ. ![]() In many ways, The Velvet Underground and Nico was the first rock album that truly seemed to invite the designation alternative.įifty years after its release, the LP still sounds stunningly original, providing inspiration and a blueprint for everything from lo-fi punk rock to highbrow avant-garde – and so much in between. Bolstered by the patronage of Andy Warhol and the exotic vocal contributions of Nico, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker declared their independence from Top 40 decorum with a gritty, innovative and unapologetically self-possessed work. Released on March 12th, 1967, the Velvet Underground‘s debut was an album that brought with it an awareness of the new, the possible and the darker edge of humanity. Pepper kind but an eerier, artier, more NYC-rooted strain. It was released in 1995, but not in the U.S.A half-century on, The Velvet Underground and Nico remains the quintessential emblem of a certain brand of countercultural cool. The Best of Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground is a compilation of some of Lou Reed's and some of The Velvet Underground's songs. ![]()
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