Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 80

Record label: Verve

Produced: Andy Warhol and Tom Wilson

Recorded: Mayfair Studios, New York; November, 1966; TTG, Hollywood; May, 1966; Sceptre Studios, New York; April 25, 1967

Released: March 15, 1967

Chart peaks: None (UK) 197 (US)

Personnel: Lou Reed (g, v); Nico (v); John Cale (va, k, b); Sterling Morrison (g, b); Maureen Tucker (pc)

Track listing: Sunday Morning (S); I’m Waiting For The Man; Femme Fatale; Venus In Fur; Run Run Run; All Tomorrow’s Parties; Heroin; There She Goes Again; I’ll Be Your Mirror; The Black Angel’s Death Song; European Son

Running time: 48.51

Current CD: Polydor 5312502

Further listening: For the vicious side, White Light/White Heat (1968). For beautiful stuff, The Velvet Underground (1969).

Further reading: Up-Tight – The Velvet Underground Story (Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga,1983); What’s Welsh For Zen (John Cale, 1999); www.velvetunderground.com

Download: iTunes; HMV Digital

Now acknowledged as one of the most influential albums of all time, The Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut barely limped into the Billboard chart at 197, then disappeared. New York’s avant-garde art overlord Andy Warhol financed it, securing three days in Cameo-Parkway studios, Broadway, for $2,500. In return, the Velvets were obliged to use Warhol’s latest ‘superstar’, Nico, as their vocalist, and to credit Warhol, who rarely visited the studio, as producer.

‘The studio was still under construction,’ remembers Velvets’ viola player John Cale. ‘The floorboards were up, the walls were out.’ Understandably, this did nothing to mitigate their open hostility to Nico. ‘We’d hear her go off-key or hit the wrong pitch. We would sit there and snigger.’ Nico’s worst trial was I’ll Be Your Mirror, which her relentless tormentors forced her to sing endlessly until she broke down in tears.

According to drummer Mo Tucker, time restrictions meant that most tracks were recorded live, virtually no overdubs and engineering limitations forcing the band to play unusually quietly. ‘Heroin is such a good song,’ says Tucker, ‘but it’s a pile of garbage on the record. The guys couldn’t have their amps up loud in the studio, so I couldn’t hear anything.’

Once the album was complete, the band began hawking it around. ‘We took it to Ahmet Ertegun (at Atlantic) and he said, “No drug songs,”’ remembered the late Sterling Morrison. ‘We took it to Elektra and they said, “No violas.”’

They finally scored a deal with Dylan’s producer Tom Wilson, who arranged for its release on Verve. But, like Warhol, Wilson’s primary interest was Nico. He made Reed write another song for her, which he would produce and release as a single. Reed delivered Sunday Morning but, once in the studio, insisted on singing it himself. By the time the album hit the streets, Verve had lost interest and was concentrating instead on marketing another recent signing, The Mothers of Invention. Yet, despite the album’s tortuous genesis, its patchy sound and the limited playing ability of its creators, for the few who did discover The Velvet Underground And Nico, it was like that first glimpse of a Fellini movie after a lifetime of Disney. In Lou Reed’s songs, tenderness and violence were overpowering, the drugs were dangerous, and the music could scar you for life. The Record Mirror scribe who wrote ‘It’s solid and by no means freaky’ was presumably one hell of a weird dude.