Flashback
The Velvet Underground
David Styburski
Issue date: 4/2/04 Section: The Edge
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Perhaps no 1960s band took the trio of sex‚ drugs and rock 'n' roll more to heart than the Velvet Underground. At the same time hippies flooded the streets of San Francisco with messages of peace and love‚ the New York City-based Velvets chronicled the morbid nightlife of the shady pill-popping characters one encounters on street corners.
Under the management of pop artist Andy Warhol - who produced the band's debut‚ "The Velvet Underground and Nico‚" and designed the album's phallic‚ suitable for peeling banana cover - the Velvets seemed like two different groups. One act showcased songwriter Lou Reed's R-rated rock. Another served as bizarre background noise behind European model Nico's cryptic intonations.
Although Warhol wanted to make both his band and his beauty into stars‚ his two pet projects were a contrived match in terms of art.
The Velvets' second album‚ "White Light‚ White Heat‚" benefits from Nico's absence and Warhol's decreased role in the band's career. Finally the undisputed creative core of the group‚ Reed and multi-instrumentalist John Cale, indulged themselves in whatever levels of hard-edged rock or odd avant-garde sounds they wanted without having to cater to an uninterested vocalist or looking like the musical puppets of a quirky artist.
The band responded with one of the most brilliant pieces of trash ever stored inside a record sleeve. Loud‚ weird‚ horny and sloppy‚ "White Light‚ White Heat" is a '60s artifact that predates punk but sounds more raw and feistier than nearly any album to ever come out of the genre.
On "Sister Ray‚" the musicians seem to possess enough energy to pound away at their instruments forever‚ and they nearly do‚ documenting a tale packed with death‚ crime and oral sex in almost 20 minutes of Poe-like madness.
Stepping in for Nico as the Velvets' most visible source for weirdness‚ Cale contributed spooky compositions that made him into rock's version of Vincent Price. His hypnotic Welsh accent keeps listeners glued to the events of "The Gift‚" a disturbing and hilarious spoken-word piece about a man who ships himself in a box to an ex-girlfriend and is stabbed to death when she attempts to open the large package with a pair of scissors.
Even on the more mainstream title track‚ the Velvets remain defiant. Underneath the Jan and Dean-esque backing vocals‚ drummer Maureen Tucker thumps away like a deranged rabbit‚ while Reed sings a tribute to amphetamines.
A mere cult favorite during its brief existence‚ the Velvet Underground continues to earn delayed respect in the present for its priceless contributions to rock all those years ago. Peace and love are wonderful‚ but the music of the Velvets serves as a reminder to the world that‚ before anything else‚ rock 'n' roll must be dangerous.