The Velvet Underground
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“Well, it's all about diversity”
- ~ Andy Warhol on Velvet Underground
| The Velvet Underground | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Origins | California | ||
| Years Active | 1964-1968 | ||
| Genre(s) | "Alt"-Rock | ||
| Labels | Andy Warhol | ||
| Members | Lou Reed, John Cale, Some German Cow | ||
The Velvet Underground consisted of Lou Reed, Joan Cale, the Tall Professor, and Maurice Tucker. Cale and Dobbs were students of the Tall Professor's at Slippery Rock University, where they sniffed onions and listened to tapes of Richard Feynman played backwards to reveal the secret recipe for Dr Pepper. Although the recipe was useless, as none of them had access to prunes, they still enjoyed each other's company enough to try and deafen each other with squalls of feedback. When the Tall Professor pointed out that feedback contained the first six letters of the alphabet, Cale and Dobbs threatened to bury him in a coffin with soft lining. Several onions later, this mutated into a band name.
One day Maurice, an exterminator who killed bugs one at a time with wooden sticks, came to Lou's apartment to do what he did best. Seeing as how the cockroaches were so plentiful they'd held elections for city council the previous fall (winner: a pre-fame Herve Villechaize), there was a lot for Maurice to do. His steady death knells did not go unnotice by the other three, and he was taken in with open arms.
The four performed in dives throughout New York City, wherever there were more roaches than humans. As the roach population declined, Tucker's beats became more and more minimal, until there were songs in which he did nothing but crawl around the stage cooing. This caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who told them he would produce their first album if they let Nicole Richie Senior sing the vocals. This album, The Velvet Underground and Nicole, reached number 200 on the Billboard charts and number 199 on the Retail charts. Their second album, White Wine/White Feet, debuted at number 2, plummeting to number 338 the following week when rumors that the entire album consisted of Paul McCartney playing with himself proved unfounded (that album wouldn't be released for another year and a half).
Cale left the group after she found a prune shop in Denmark; Tucker followed after the release of The Velvet Underground and No Nicole, as he's run out of bugs. Dobbs left the year after that, confiding to the press, "No hope? Don't mope - smoke dope!" Ironically, the Tall Professor would then go on to have four straight number one albums, all of them in Gaelic; his concept album on the life of D. B. Cooper remains the high point of the solo performers' legacy.
Noted Swedish wit and raconteur Gary Wilmott coined the oft-quoted wryly hilarious phrase of the Velvet Underground: "Only one thousand people ever heard the Velvet Underground - but every single one gave them a big hand."
[edit] Discography
- The Velvet Underground (shoddy self titled debue)
- The Velvet Underground & Nico (Poor second album with freaky German chick)
