Velvet Underground

This page is written with didactic and moralizing intent: it is our firm intention to root out the widespread bad habit whereby someone who only owns the first Velvet Underground record and none of the others can consider themselves at peace with their conscience.
It is our intention to instruct on the advantages and pleasures of owning
the second work, "White Light/White Heat".

In an alternative reading, the famous theory of Brian Eno that "everyone who bought The Velvet Underground & Nico went on to form a band" can be read another way: as an anecdote about just how poorly that record actually sold, and thus how ignored and underrated it was at the end of the far-sighted Sixties. It's highly unlikely that the Velvet Underground could ever have become idols to a mass audience, turning their backs on the crowd and with nobody in the lineup capable of working a hip in line with the glorious tradition of frontmen, but it's still wrong to paint them as a completely ignored band. The group (lineup, for newcomers: Lou Reed on vocals and guitar, John Cale on viola, organ and occasionally bass, Sterling Morrison on guitar and reluctantly bass, and Maureen Tucker on percussion) and Nico were followed on tour by Andy Warhol for the staging of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, who advised them, coddled them, and had his name printed in big letters on the posters. That alone was more than enough to guarantee a certain amount of hype.

Because of this, the debut came out amid favorable expectations, at least in certain circles, as shown by its swift entry into Billboard's Top 200 and Cashbox's Top 100. A heroic feat, given that it was reviewed by very few magazines and got no radio support whatsoever. The release had also been delayed for months to make way for label mates The Mothers of Invention, which dampened a fair amount of the initial enthusiasm, and just when it seemed to be picking up steam anyway, it was pulled from sale over a legal dispute with someone who appeared in a live photo on the back cover and believed he was owed money. In short, rather than "a habit of losing", this was simply a case of terrible timing.

All the factors that turned "The Velvet Underground & Nico" into a commercial flop, despite its potential as a hit machine, would prove decisive in shaping its follow-up, "White Light/White Heat", released in 1969 on Verve and recorded by a band that was, to put it mildly, quite different from the one on the banana cover. And we're not just talking about the lineup.

In the aftermath of the troubles surrounding the debut, the Velvet Underground - frustrated by the lack of success, Reed especially, and by having no money for anything beyond food, cigarettes or drugs - decided (or rather, Lou decided for everyone) that the thing to do was to stop performing in art galleries and go head-to-head with the actual record industry. To do so, they fired Warhol, whom they figured was tired of them anyway. They played live a great deal, alongside people like Zappa and the big West Coast names, or with the MC5. This brought about a shift on a purely sonic level. The crowds at the foot of the stage wanted to dance - they hadn't been to art school, and there were no projected images to distract them. The Velvets became less minimal and more "hard". Reed, who had always had a soft spot for catchy hooks and "jewel-box" songs, believed the way forward lay along the lines he had reluctantly given to Nico to sing (she'd been shown the door, elegantly, even before Warhol). Cale, meanwhile, increasingly unwilling to pick up the bass, believed instead that experimentation was the way, and his path involved turning those "little jewels" into something menacing, grandiose and epic.

This is a simplification, as anyone familiar with the two of them will realize (in a recent, none-too-conciliatory interview, Cale boasts that some of his solo tracks have melodies so beautiful and effective they'd make great cell phone ringtones, unlike Reed's...), but it's useful for describing a band adrift and unsure of its own future. Amid exhausting arguments and general irritation - with Sterling refusing to bend to playing the bass that Cale kept neglecting in favor of his beloved organ, leaving the band without a defined sound - the group pitched Verve a record cut live in the studio, structured like a live show.

The label, which hadn't made any money off them even with Warhol in the picture and reasonably figured it wouldn't do any better now, handed them over without much soul-searching to the easygoing producer Tom Wilson. The Velvets thus made a record with sound quality far inferior to their debut, one that sold even less and never got any FM airplay. There's nothing paradoxical about that, though, as we're about to find out...

The first thing to say about this record is that, whatever format you listen to it on, the audio quality is atrocious. The common belief is that the technology of the time simply wasn't able to capture the band's fantastic sound, but a single listen quickly debunks that. Generally, on records from the Sixties the instruments don't blur into one another. On this one, sometimes, they do.

Legend has it that the producer spent most of the sessions making out, in a studio that was hardly America's finest, and that this drove Reed absolutely up the wall. According to Cale, the idea of recording at insanely high volumes was born out of that fury. Add to that the fact that they didn't use many channels, and the upshot is that plenty of bootlegs, even analog ones, sound better than this. The album falls a second short of 40 minutes, and at the songwriting stage, the band's folk vein coexists with its proto-noise, experimental side. In execution, though, it tips decisively toward the latter.

"White Light/White Heat", which opens the album, is quite different from the famous versions scattered across Lou Reed's live shows. You'll have to strain your ears to catch the organ and guitar, and the same goes for Tucker's timid beats. Not because they're being drowned out by anything, but because the backing track comes close to being one single, shrill, muffled wall of sound. Still, it's symptomatic of the shift in direction outlined above, given that you can actually dance to it.

Next comes "The Gift". Cale takes the mic for the first time and narrates the surreal story of Waldo, who mails himself in a package to visit his girlfriend. The parcel arrives at its destination, but his unsuspecting beloved Marsha decides to slice open the wrapping with a large pair of scissors, which pierce "through the head of Waldo Jefferson, who gently split apart amid rhythmic red arcs that pulsed gently in the morning sun". On one channel, the serene Cale; on the other, a soul-funk backing track, as groovy as the voice is not. Calling it rap would be a stretch, since voice and backing track brazenly ignore each other, but it's black music through and through.

"Lady Godiva's Operation" is a bit more folk-leaning, but strange and obsessive. One of Reed's finest lyrics explodes in the contrast between Cale's subdued voice and Lou's own cutting one, which cuts in to underscore the end of the verses. Superb, it distills and pushes to the extreme what made them unique. What made them indispensable comes later.

"Here She Comes Now" had been written for Nico and was meant to be on the first record.

"I Heard It Call My Name" isn't too far from what the MC5 were doing in Detroit, just with a lot more beat to it. The undisputed star of this track, after being a decisive factor on the others, is little, never-loved-enough Moe. It's monotonous and fast, backing convulsive, reckless guitar solos. The accompaniment, the usual drones and guitar rhythms, is almost indistinguishable.

The album in question would be a masterpiece on the strength of "The Gift", "Lady Godiva's Operation" and "I Heard Her Call My Name" alone, but then there's "Sister Ray", and that's a whole other legend. For 17 minutes the band bleed themselves dry at stratospheric volumes, as you can tell from the recording flaws. The story goes that, to avoid arguments over "my instrument sounds better on the other tape" and knowing that would be exhausting, the Velvets decided the first take would be the good one. For that reason, every idea had to go in right away. The lyrics told of a gay orgy with a corpse; the music, or whatever was known of it before plugging in, was supposed to develop around a few basic melodic and rhythmic ideas, and never stray from that linearity. As throughout the record, there are plenty of drones and lots of feedback. Melody and lyrics lock together, and at the five-minute mark the organ and drums face off in an epic duel that for a while makes the two guitars vanish from earshot. Proof of how useful good taste can be: even a keyboard solo can avoid being baroque, whatever anyone weaned on punk might think. Precise and systematic until then, Tucker only eases off at the ten-minute mark, introducing the first change in rhythm. After a good stretch of rhythm and drones, with no other embellishments and Reed-style vocals that a certain Patti Smith would take good note of, the guitars rise again in joyful chaos and collapse, happily spent.

Before listening to it, anyone who has followed a rock 'n' roll path can't help but wonder how 17 minutes can hold up without a combination of notes that could be called "beautiful" in the sense dear to Coltrane, nothing you're made to wait for in particular. The answer: through sheer energy. Beyond its revolutionary scope and ambitious intent, I'm talking about the hysterical joy oozing out of track 6 on the CD, the same joy of someone who knows two notes and repeats them to the point of exhaustion, easy to recognize even for those who've never heard of minimalism. The kind of joy that Moe Tucker, patron saint of dyslexic drummers, is ultimately a symbol of. The image of the four of them draining their resources dry to pad out the song is about as poetic as it gets, and reason enough to put the record on right now.

By the end of the listen, the terrible sound quality almost becomes a defining trait: it's hard to imagine "White Light/White Heat" recorded decently. As it stands, it has a pleasing flatness that makes it as monolithic and cohesive in sound as it is open-ended and troubled in its themes.

The less accessible imagery compared to its predecessor, the greater ambition and the more extreme choices make it feel more alien, while its conciseness keeps it from falling into the usual pitfalls of records of its kind. If the debut was a room opened onto chilling windows, this is a cupboard with a door leading out onto streets that are cold and dark, yet enticing. If you can feel fulfilled and satisfied by "The Velvet Underground & Nico", the same is never true of "White Light/White Heat". You'll always want more.

It has no banana on the cover, and it's the summary of unfulfilled promises from one of the greatest bands ever, one that could have been so much more. It's impossible to imagine exactly what, but certainly more. An album that's difficult to describe in words but thrilling to listen to in practice, born of the raw side of the '60s — the real one — full of questions and with zero answers, like all honest works that don't wallow in their own honesty... It is and will remain a rite of passage for countless revolutionaries and an everlasting joy to their ears.

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13/11/2006