The Velvets- Fragments of a History, Chapter 2: Peel Slowly & See

Simply put, The Velvet Underground's debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, was a game-changer that, over the course of the four+ decades since its release, has served as a precursor to everything from glam-rock to punk to industrial and beyond, a deceptively unassuming album whose particular effect was best summed up in Brian Eno's famous pronouncement: "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." As the album cover suggests, the back-story of The Velvets' debut is very much about their brief stint as members of Andy Warhol's Factory, for it was through Warhol's mentoring and patronage that they were able to record (a now legendary) album that they themselves never thought would materialize. However, from the beginning of their association with Warhol, there was conflict. Paul Morrissey, an avant-garde filmmaker and factory regular, convinced Warhol that The Velvets needed a more appealing lead singer, as Lou Reed was prone to appearing withdrawn and abrasive on stage. German fashion model and fledgling singer Nico, whom Warhol had used in a few of his films, most notably Chelsea Girls, was Morrissey's recommendation to Warhol, who in turn set about convincing Reed and John Cale to accept Nico as the band's "chanteuse." Despite their initial resistance to the idea, Reed and Cale were eventually persuaded to not only accept Nico into the band, but to write a few songs specifically for her; being the intelligent opportunists that they were, they likely realized that being given new instruments, free rehearsal space, food, drugs, sex (of all kinds), and Warhol's pop-art cache were perks that few, if any, bands could ever dream of enjoying.

Despite much evidence to the contrary, Sterling Morrison has suggested that the band was actually quite open to Nico's participation: "She was around because of Andy, but he couldn't talk us really into anything. We thought it would be a good idea. I mean that's how the whole thing was worked on the first album: The Velvet Underground and Nico. In other words, we were a unit with or without her. And she could do some things we really like, so we said do some songs. It was a complicated working arrangement because she said if I don't sing, I don't do anything. So it was always a question of how many songs Nico would do, should she do all of them, which we didn't want, and that was the only cumbersome aspect of it." Whether or not the band was initially receptive to Nico, her lack of musical experience had a divisive effect. At their first rehearsal with their new vocalist, the band reportedly drowned her voice in guitar noise every time she tried to sing. As Sterling Morrison has also revealed, after joining, Nico was often a detrimental force within the band: "There were problems from the very beginning because there were only so many songs that were appropriate for Nico, and she wanted to sing them all [....] And she would try and do little sexual politics things in the band. Whoever seemed to be having undue influence on the course of events, you'd find Nico close by. So she went from Lou to Cale, but neither of those affairs lasted very long."

Warhol's first major project involving The Velvets was a multimedia exhibition called the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which involved the band playing in front of a silent 70 minute black & white film entitled The Velvet Underground & Nico: A Symphony of Sound. Performing in the EPI allowed The Velvet Underground to regularly explore and indulge their interest in musical improvisation, a trait that would be put to use soon thereafter while recording their debut album. In 1966, the first step a band would typically take before recording an album was securing a recording contract. In the case of The Velvets, Warhol decided instead to finance the album himself with the help of Norman Dolph, a Columbia Records Sales Executive who hoped Columbia would ultimately agree to sign the band and distribute the record. In mid-April 1966, after much rehearsing and endlessly working on new arrangements intended to accurately reflect the innovative approach they had honed earlier that spring playing in the EPI, The Velvets entered Scepter Studios, an old, decrepit recording studio in New York City, with Warhol as ostensible producer to record an acetate that would be peddled to various record companies. Lou Reed has clarified Warhol's role during the recording sessions: "Andy was the producer and Andy was in fact sitting behind the board gazing with rapt fascination at all the blinking lights. He just made it possible for us to be ourselves and go right ahead with it because he was Andy Warhol. In a sense he really produced it because he was this umbrella that absorbed all the attacks when we weren't large enough to be attacked. As a consequence of him being the producer, we'd just walk in and set up and did what we always did [....] Of course, he didn't know anything about record production, he just sat there and said, 'Oooh that's fantastic,' and the engineer would say, 'Oh yeah! Right! It is fantastic isn't it?'"

Despite the austere recording conditions, The Velvets made the most of the opportunity. Norman Dolph: "Most of the actual tracks, there was only one good unbroken take, maybe two of some of them. I'll say this: at no time did anybody on either side of the glass say, well, we'll fix it in the mix. That was never said. They performed it, and they'd come in, and we'd play it back end-to-end. If there was not a simultaneous agreement, they'd go back and do it over. But usually, anything that sounded like rough or iffy or from an engineering point of view didn't please John, he or I would break it down. We'd never even finish the take. Then they'd start a new one over, and then they'd come in and say, yeah, that's it, next case. And there was never any 'I'll play it back tomorrow, see if I like it tomorrow, and if I don't, then I'll redo it.' None of that. It was all just like they'd just sung it live, and they couldn't go back and redo it, because it was live. Because we were paying for the tape at probably $125 a roll, usually the broken takes were backed up and recorded over. Otherwise there would be some interesting scraps lying around [....]  It seems to me that "Heroin" was either done last, or the very first of the second day. 'Cause I remember that that was the one where Lou Reed needed to kind of get his head in the right place for that. And I remember in that one, in the control room, nobody moved a muscle when he was singing that song. And you didn't want anything to go wrong with that take at all, because if it had, he would have torn a wall down. Every bit of the energy in the song, you experienced in his persona at that point." The result, known as the Norman Dolph Acetate, ended up being roundly rejected by Columbia who didn't feel the band had any talent (ditto Atlantic and Elektra); however Morrissey managed to sell it to Verve/MGM, who promptly decided to sit on it until the following year because they had just released another "weird" album, Freak Out  by The Mothers of Invention and weren't quite sure how to market The Velvets. The delay gave the band a chance to re-record a few songs under better conditions in Los Angeles while on tour as part of the EPI and to record some new material (including "Sunday Morning") with Verve staff producer Tom Wilson in New York.

An often overlooked characteristic of The Velvet Underground & Nico is the album's sonic diversity. At the time, The Velvets were derogatorily referred to as an "amphetamine band"; they were especially reviled by the so-called "flower children" of the San Francisco music scene who saw the band as excessively dark and out to destroy the last shreds of rock music's innocence. For the 10,000 or so who actually bought the debut album when it was released, they were treated to a varied and uncompromising journey into the nether regions of the growing counter-cultural phenomenon. Not surprisingly, drug-culture steps forth front and center in the form of the album's then-scandalous centerpiece, "Heroin," which features some of Reed's most brilliant lyrics, equally evocative of a love-letter and a suicide note to the song's namesake. In addition, the song's slowly building dynamic mimics the effect of heroin as it hits the bloodstream, thus lending even more emotive power to the lyrics. On "I'm Waiting for the Man," Reed's lyrics treat the listener to the other, even darker side of heroin addiction: the perpetual need to score more skag: "I'm feeling good feeling so fine, until tomorrow but that's just some more time." The song's grimy, staccato feel provides a powerful counterpoint to the dreamy insularity of "Heroin." Much to her chagrin to be sure, Nico ended up with only three songs on the album, all of which are gorgeously off-center due to her singular vocal style. The album is at its most innovative and confrontational on the more avant-garde songs such as "Venus in Furs" and "The Black Angel's Death Song," both of which make heavy use of Cale's haunting electric viola. Not long after the release of the album, the relationship between Warhol and The Velvets began to badly deteriorate due to contractual issues relating to the distribution of album royalties as well as Warhol's decision to focus (again, at the urging of Morrissey) on Nico's solo career. In hindsight, The Velvet Underground & Nico can be viewed as an early death-knell of the hippie movement; as such, it is an abrasively avant-garde, unprecedentedly literate, unflinching existential journey into the dark soul of the sixties, while simultaneously functioning as a harbinger of nearly every underground music scene that has followed in its wake.

The Velvet Underground & Nico: 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (1967/2012)

Disc I- The Velvet Underground & Nico (Stereo Version)
 1. Sunday Morning
 2. I'm Waiting for the Man
 3. Femme Fatale
 4. Venus in Furs
 5. Run Run Run
 6. All Tomorrow's Parties
 7. Heroin
 8. There She Goes Again
 9. I'll Be Your Mirror
10. The Black Angel's Death Song
11. European Son 
-Alternate Versions-
12. All Tomorrow's Parties (Alternate Single Voice Version) 
13. European Son (Alternate Version)
14. Heroin (Alternate Version)
15. All Tomorrow's Parties (Alternate Instrumental Mix) 
16. I'll Be Your Mirror (Alternate Mix)

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Disc II-
The Velvet Underground & Nico (Mono Version)

 1. Sunday Morning

 2. I'm Waiting for the Man
 3. Femme Fatale
 4. Venus in Furs
 5. Run Run Run
 6. All Tomorrow's Parties
 7. Heroin
 8. There She Goes Again
 9. I'll Be Your Mirror
10. The Black Angel's Death Song
11. European Son 
-The Singles-
12. All Tomorrow's Parties (Mono Single)
13. I'll Be Your Mirror (Mono Single - Alternate Ending)
14. Sunday Morning (Mono Single - Alternate Mix) 
15. Femme Fatale (Mono Single) 

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Disc III- Nico, Chelsea Girl (2012 Remaster)

 1. The Fairest of the Seasons

 2. These Days

 3. Little Sister

 4. Winter Song

 5. It Was a Pleasure Then 

 6. Chelsea Girls

 7. I'll Keep It with Mine

 8. Somewhere There's a Feather

 9. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams

10. Eulogy to Lenny Bruce 

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Disc IV- Scepter Studios Sessions & the Factory Rehearsals

-Scepter Studios Sessions-

 1. European Son (Alternate Version) 

 2. The Black Angel's Death Song (Alternate Mix) 

 3. All Tomorrow's Parties (Alternate Version) 

 4. I'll Be Your Mirror (Alternate Version)

 5. Heroin (Alternate Version)

 6. Femme Fatale (Alternate Mix)

 7. Venus in Furs (Alternate Version)

 8. Waiting for the Man (Alternate Version) 

 9. Run Run Run (Alternate Mix)

-The Factory Rehearsals-

10. Walk Alone

11. Crackin' Up / Venus in Furs 

12. Miss Joanie Lee 

13. Heroin 

14. There She Goes Again (with Nico)

15. There She Goes Again

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Disc V- Live at Valleydale Ballroom, Columbus, Ohio, November 4, 1966, Part I

1. Melody Laughter 

2. Femme Fatale 

3. Venus in Furs

4. The Black Angel's Death Song 

5. All Tomorrow's Parties 

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Disc VI- Live at Valleydale Ballroom, Columbus, Ohio, November 4, 1966, Part 2

1. Waiting for the Man

2. Heroin

3. Run Run Run

4. The Nothing Song

Release History  1  2

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Additional Velvet Underground Series Posts