Velvet Underground

1969 — The Velvet Underground Live

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, May 1974

THE LAST YEAR has seen sufficient scholarly exegeses on the subject of Lou Reed to see us through the decade; and the release of 1969, ...

The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly And See

Review by Lenny Kaye, MOJO, October 1995

The brief, brilliant life of The Velvet Underground, from jug-band rags to hypercool chronicles – experiments, cast-offs, fights and all – on five CDs. Immortal, ...

AUDIO: Velvet Underground's Mo Tucker (1991)

Interview by Richard North, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1991

Ms Tucker talks about the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and the Factory scene, and about her life post-Velvets and becoming a solo artist.

File format: mp3; file size: 43mb, interview length: 46' 58" sound quality: ***

Mama Cass: Andy Warhol And the Big Bird — Pop Pope Casts Cass

Report by Danny Fields, Hullabaloo, May 1967

SHE HAD ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED WITH HIM... AND HE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO MEET HER ...HULLABALOO SAW THEM TOGETHER, SAW HER POSING, SAW HIM FILMING ...

Andy Warhol: A Mirror Of American Death

Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, June 1968

The Andy Warhol and Robert Kennedy shootings, and the Velvets ...

The Velvet Underground c/o New York, NY

Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Fusion, March 1970

NONE OF THIS concerns anything except maybe the back room at Max's Kansas City, which is on Union Square in Manhattan but not worth finding ...

The Velvet Underground: Max's Kansas City, NYC

Report by Mike Jahn, New York Times, July 1970

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND was playing experimental rock in 1965 when the Beatles just wanted hold your hand and San Francisco was still the place where ...

The Velvet Underground: Loaded

Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1970

LOU REED HAS always steadfastly maintained that the Velvet Underground were just another Long Island rock 'n' roll band. But in the past he really ...

Shards of Velvet Afloat in London: Nico and John Cale

Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, February 1971

JOHN CALE REACHES too hard for the pay phone in the lobby of his hotel. Bang. It explodes into the soft corner of his forehead, ...

Velvet Underground: Lowdown on the Underground

Profile and Interview by Tony Stewart, NME, October 1971

Tony Stewart reports on the 'mysterious' Velvet Underground – a super-hip cult based on four reluctant 'intellectuals' ...

The Velvet Underground: 1969 Live

Review by Chrissie Hynde, NME, April 1974

IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT. I'm alone and all I don't wanna do is keep leafing through this copy of Vogue I got in my mits - ...

The Velvet Underground: Velvet Underground Live With Lou Reed (Mercury)

Review by Gene Sculatti, Zoo World, July 1974

THE GREATEST thing about Lou Reed is that, until recently, his lyrical vocabulary was the perfect compliment to his music. His capacity in both depts. ...

Up From The Underground: Sterling Morrison

Interview by Bill Bentley, Austin Sun, October 1975

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND was often accused of being ahead of their time. Not true. The band was very much of their time. But it was ...

Tom Wilson: The Man Who Put Electricity Into Dylan

Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, January 1976

TOM WILSON is an elegant, very tall (6ft 4in) black American, a former Harvard man who talks a little like Bill Cosby but whose pencil-thin ...

The Velvet Underground

Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977

OBVERSE, REVERSE, INVERSE, PERVERSE. A whiplash girl-child waits in the dark, splintered in blue fragments, pinpricks of white heat. The Velvet Underground cauterized their time, ...

Velvet Underground: 1969 Velvet Underground Live (Mercury)

Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, February 1979

BUT LOU REED, Lou’s got real problems. Ever since he started out he’s been trying to wheedle Jehovah into making him Keith Richard (‘Rock And ...

Velvet Underground: 1969 Velvet Underground Live (Mercury)

Review by Paul Morley, NME, March 1979

THE VELVETS, specifically Lou Reed – maybe even this 'invisible' live double – say more about rock'n'roll, its implications and complications, than anyone else. ...

Pop Art/Art Pop: The Warhol Connection

Report and Interview by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, February 1980

Like to be a galleryPut you all inside my show— David Bowie, 'Andy Warhol' Some people claim that only James Brown can match Andy ...

The Lost History of the Velvet Underground: An interview with Sterling Morrison

Retrospective and Interview by Mary Harron, NME, April 1981

THE VELVET Underground were the first avant-garde rock band, and the greatest. ...

The Velvet Underground: Mo Tucker

Interview by Mary Harron, NME, May 1981

LIKE STERLING MORRISON, Maureen Tucker went in the opposite direction when she left the Velvet Underground in 1971. She moved back to Long Island, became ...

Velvet Underground: White Light/Dark Shadows

Essay by Robot A. Hull, Creem, July 1981

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen. – T.S. Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ ...

In The Nico Time

Interview by Chris Bohn, NME, Spring 1981

HEY-HO, is it really that time of the decade already? Once again Nico has surreptitiously floated into the public consciousness – just when she was ...

Velvet Underground: Everything You've Ever Heard About… (VU Records)

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, December 1982

THE LEGEND rolls on and on, the more it grows the more it encourages. In the context of the semi-legal this was the one we'd ...

The Velvets Hit Hollywood

Book Excerpt by Victor Bockris, Gerard Malanga, Omnibus Books, 1983

An extract from Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris & Gerard Malanga, first published by Omnibus Press in 1983. (Currently available as a ...

Velvet Underground: VU (Polydor)***.5

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, February 1985

CONFUSION REIGNS. The deliberately-leaked rumours of the last few months maintained that Polydor had uncovered 'The Great Lost Velvet Underground Album', a disc that never ...

The Velvet Underground: VU

Review by Mat Snow, NME, February 1985

"IF YOU PLAY the albums chronologically they cover the growth of us as people from her to there, and in there is a tale for ...

The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Boxed Set (Polydor)

Review by Mat Snow, NME, May 1986

WHEN POP-JOURNALISTS say "classic", we mean a record that we’ll still be playing in ten years. Marketing sharpies, however, have a far surer handle on ...

The Velvet Underground: Another View

Review by Cynthia Rose, Creem, September 1986

INTO THE HANDS of today's waiting worshippers – and yet, the mystery remains. ...

Moe Tucker: Tucker's Luck

Interview by Richard North, Siren, February 1992

"Like Virginia Woolf, I am aware of the women who are not with us here because they are washing the dishes and looking after the ...

Party On, Dudes!

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1993

The kinky boots and whips have gone; so have the "interesting" light shows and the medicinal heroin. But, yes, The Velvet Underground — the most ...

A Dark Prince at Twilight: Lou Reed

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1996

THE DAY DOES not begin auspiciously. The first flakes of a snowstorm descend as I open the curtains in my hotel room, adding yet another ...

Time Machine: Velvet Underground

Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 1997

Launched largely from a platform provided by their association with the decade’s most celebrated artist, Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground without Nico had become New ...

John Cale: Central Park Life

Interview by Cliff Jones, Arena Homme Plus, Fall 1997

John Cale arrived in New York City in 1963, a 21-year-old classical music prodigy from the Welsh valleys. He never went home. Via the colour ...

John Cale: What's Welsh for Zen?

Interview by David Dalton, Gadfly, January 1999

THE VELVET Underground in their classic phase (1966-1968) lasted barely two years and released only two studio albums, but their influence has been immense. ...

Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Bootleg Series, Volume One — The Quine Tapes

Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001

Audience recordings of rare live gigs from 1969 ...

The Last Days of the Velvet Underground

Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2004

ON AUGUST 23, 1970, Lou Reed played his last ever show with the Velvet Underground, the band he had led since its formation as psychotic ...