Grant McPhee has launched a website with contemporary press clippings about The Velvet Underground, organised by year. If anything, the bulk of the articles make it abudantly clear that the band was misunderstood by most writers during their short tenure.
Included are also links to a few in-depth essays he wrote on the most popular stories that have been making the rounds for decades. Did Beatles manager Brian Epstein wanted to manage them? How well did their debut album sell?
Cam Forrester made an in-depth 3-part documentary about Sterling Morrison, the Velvet Underground's understated guitar hero, who became a teacher and a tugboat captain before returning to music.
Yet another book about The Velvet Underground sees the light of day on August 31. Written by English journalist Dylan Jones, this one also covers the band members' career after the band folded:
Dylan Jones' definitive oral history of The Velvet Underground draws on contributions from remaining members, contemporaneous musicians, critics, film-makers, and the generation of artists who emerged in their wake, to celebrate not only their impact but their legacy, which burns brighter than ever into the 21st century.
Loaded: The Life (and Afterlife) of The Velvet Underground is published by White Rabbit.
The Velvet Underground - New York Extravaganza opens on October 10 at 718 Broadway. John Cale wil be doing a Q&A on October 11. From BrooklynVegan:
The Velvet Underground Experience opens week in NYC and they’ve been lining up special events for opening week. One of those is with actual VU member John Cale who will participate in a Q&A on October 11 at 5 PM. That event is first-come, first-served and is included with admission to the exhibitions.
Two years after The Velvet Underground - New York Extravaganza exhibition in Paris, the artefacts, sounds and movies get another outing in the band's hometown New York. Renamed The Velvet Underground Experience it opens on October 10 at 718 Broadway. Caveat: the official website contains a truly awful I'm Waiting For The Man (64Kbps MP3 or something like that).
John Cale has announced that he will re-imagine The Velvet Underground & Nico once again in Liverpool @ the North Liverpool Docks on May 26, 2017 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the album. He performed in its entirety this year at the Philharmonie de Paris on April 3.
I'm often reluctant to spend too much time on things past - then, a time marker shows up - The Velvet Underground & Nico turns 50 ! As so many bands can attest to, its the fulfillment of the ultimate dream to record your first album. We were an unfriendly brand, dabbling in a world of challenging lyrics and weird sonics that didn't fit into anyone's playlist at the time. Remaining ferociously true to our viewpoints, Lou and I never doubted for a moment, we could create something to give a voice to things not regularly explored in rock music at the time. That bizarre combination of 4 distinctly disparate musicians and a reluctant beauty queen perfectly summed up what it meant to be The Velvet Underground.
Tickets for the Liverpool show go on sale on October 28.
December 11, 1965. The Velvet Underground play their first ever concert at a high school in Summit, New Jersey. Most of the kids hated them and walked out, but those who stayed were changed forever. Tony Jannelli was there. Aged 15 he fell in love with the sound of the band and became a lifelong fan. He teamed up with Robert Pietri to create an animated short about the event, since there are no photos or audio from the actual concert. They hope to raise $30,000 via Kickstarter:
...as a 10th grader sitting in the 3rd row, this was one of the first concerts I had ever been to. It was also my first concert where I witnessed booing, shock, horror, and bewilderment. I’ve always enjoyed telling my story about seeing the Velvet Underground at their, in some minds,
While on stage for merely 20 minutes, The Velvet Underground performed three songs, There She Goes, Venus in Furs, and Heroin. The Summit High School audience responded with, as one of the band recalled in 1983, a “murmur of surprise that greeted our appearance” that “increased to a roar of disbelief as we started to play" which"swelled to a mighty howl of outrage and bewilderment…” Half the audience walked out.
Using eyewitness accounts, we will put you there... in the middle of the first Velvet Underground concert. This short animated documentary film will combine hand-drawn and 2D computer animation techniques in a simple, graphic, and graffiti-like style (or zine-style) that reflects the texture of the period -- mid 1960's.
» The Velvet Underground Played at My High School on Facebook
A huge chunk of the legacy of The Velvet Underground is secure. The archives of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY have acquired 25 boxes of rare material for their library. The material was donated by collector and author Johan Kugelberg. Curator Katherine Reagan:
With this collection, we can see how they were being marketed, categorized, packaged, consumed. We can see how the perception of counterculture changed over time, and how the Velvets came to be seen as one of the most influential rock bands of their era. The narratives supported by this kind of material are increasingly important in academic discourse – faculty across multiple disciplines are interested in these important, countercultural, music-based collections.
John Cale and guests will re-imagine The Velvet Underground & Nico at the Philharmonie de Paris on April 3, 2016. Fingers crossed for Maureen Tucker on drums.
There she goes again ... The fabled Velvet Underground acetate is up for auction again. It sold for $25,200 in 2006 by which the seller, collector Warren Hill, made a killing. He spotted the acetate at a street sale in New York City in 2002 and bought it for 75 cents.
The acetate contains alternate mixes and takes of nine tracks from the Velvets debut album. The acetate was made by engineer Norman Dolph in 1966. Only two copies have survived. Maureen Tucker has the other one, which was used for an official release on vinyl in 2012 and as part of the 45th anniversary deluxe edition box set. The album will be auctioned off in July through Shuga Records:
The Velvet Underground and Nico acetate is a 'one of a kind' surviving copy of a record that carries an obscure history to match its audio cadence, and this extremely rare album has revived itself again on the market in America.
Recorded in April of 1966 by Norman Dolph at Scepter Studios, the test-press acetate was created after-hours in secret at Columbia records by Dolph himself. Andy Warhol, who was managing the Velvet Underground at the time, exchanged an original painting for Dolph's 'ghost producing' the project.
Initially, Andy Warhol had pitched this completed recording for release to Columbia records. Columbia Records returned the recording, dismissing it with a blatant and bold rejection (a note that said something akin to "do you think we're out of our fucking minds?"). Andy Warhol, John Cale, Norman Dolph, and John Licata could all be considered as contributing producers on the 'Scepter Sessions'. A re-recording was released by Verve Records in 1967, with Tom Wilson as the official producer. The album became a success and remains a success to this day.
In 2002 Warren Hill bought the Scepter Sessions Acetate at a street sale in Chelsea, New York for 75 cents. After giving a closer inspection to this delicate acetate, Warren investigated its history and value further. Once he gathered more details, he listed the acetate on Ebay with full knowledge of its value. The closing bid sat at $155,401 with a winning bidder who failed to finalize the transaction. The acetate was then re-listed and sold at $25,200. A limited edition pressing of 5,000 was released on Black Friday/Record Store Day of 2012, supposedly made from Moe Tucker's copy of the acetate.
Shuga Records, a high quality record merchant that specializes in one-of-a-kind items, based in Chicago, Illinois. They will be hosting the transaction of the item in July of 2014 on behalf of its owner who will remain anonymous.
10% of the sale will be donated to an animal rights charity.
Adam Ritchie has an exhibition at Artisan in London, showing his photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd.
The photographs capture the energy and colour of their legendary earliest appearances in New York and London. Some have been shown at the Tate, the V&A, the Whitney and are in the Andy Warhol and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Collections. Signed and numbered prints on archive paper available at reasonable prices.
The show runs from Friday 9th March to Saturday 24th March 2012 and will be at 80 Harlesden Road, London NW10 2BE – see artisan80.com for more details.
UK photographer Adam Ritchie has redesigned his website with vintage photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd:
Here are pictures of the Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd in some of their earliest performances.
The Velvet Underground in New York in 1965/6 during the making of “Venus in Furs”, the 1966 film by Piero Heliczer; at the Cafe Bizarre; at the NY Cinemateque and, through Andy Warhol, performing for the American Society of Clinical Psychiatry at Delmonico’s Hotel.
I came back to London in June 1966 and photographed Pink Floyd at the Round House, UFO and the AA “Think Pink Party”.
