Movatterモバイル変換
[0]ホーム
UN-SUNGHEROES OF VELVET UNDERGROUND-DOM
Everyone with a significant interest in the Velvet Underground knowsthe names of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker,Nico, and Andy Warhol. As with any major rock group, however, therewere dozens of figures making significant contributions to theirevolution that are generally overlooked, undercredited, or evenvirtually unknown to the larger public.White Light/White Heat: The VelvetUndergroundDay-By-Daydiscussesmany of them. Here's a brief guide to someof the most notable:
Doug Yule: Many would find itstrange to classify a full-time member of the Velvet Underground fromOctober 1968 to mid-1973 as someone who's overlooked or obscure.Consider, however, that several film documentaries covering the Velvetsfail to even mention Yule's name. Consider, too, that he was notinducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Lou Reed, John Cale,Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker when the Velvet Underground wereadmitted to that institution in 1996, although he actually plays onmore commercially released Velvet Underground recordings than Caledoes, even discounting the post-1970 recordings made without Reed inthe band.
More important than the quantity of Yule's work, however, is itsunderrated quality. While not the idiosyncratic talent that Cale was asan instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, Yule was a fine bassist whoquickly and adeptly eased the group's transition to a more powerful, ifmore conventional, rock sound. It's also overlooked that he madesignificant contributions as a multi-instrumentalist, also playingorgan with the group onstage—that's his electrifying swirl on the1969 Velvet Underground Liveversion of "What Goes On"—and also chipping in on keyboards, drum,guitar, backup vocals, arrangements, and the occasional lead vocal("Candy Says" being the standout) in the studio and in concert. Farfrom being an incidental, faceless entity needed to fill out thelineup, as some accounts might have you believe, Yule was not just anadequate replacement—he was a very considerable asset to the group.
Angus MacLise: Although he wasthe group's original drummer and a full member of the VelvetUnderground for much of 1965, there's a good reason why the name ofAngus MacLise isn't familiar, even to many VU fans. He doesn't appearon any of their commercially released recordings (although hecan be heard on the versions of"Heroin" and "Venus in Furs" on the soundtrack of the short filmAndy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable,shot at the Velvet Underground's performances in Chicago in mid-1966,during which MacLise temporarily rejoined the lineup to help cover foran ill Lou Reed's absence). Nor did he go on to fame in any othercapacity, or even release any music in his lifetime other than anobscure flexidisc, though several CDs of his recordings have come outposthumously.
Still, MacLise's idiosyncratic percussive style—sometimes likened tothe sound of falling rain, and incorporating world music influencesfrom his travels in the Far East—helped shape the avant-garde aestheticthat immediately set the Velvet Underground apart from other rock bandswhen they formed in 1965. MacLise also supplied voltage for theirelectric guitars in their very early days, the band running extensioncords between their apartments through the hall in 56 Ludlow Street onNew York's Lower East Side. Not incidentally, both Hetty MacLise (whomAngus married in the late 1960s) and Terry Riley, both of whom laterworked with Angus in settings outside the Velvets, feel in retrospectthat Angus's experience as a poet was influential upon the nature ofthe material the group developed.
Paul Morrissey:Ask mostpeople who managed the Velvet Underground, and their answer will beAndy Warhol. That's only partially true. Though Warhol was indeedinvolved in their management from the beginning of 1966 through aroundmid-1967, technically speaking he co-managed them with Paul Morrissey,a filmmaker who himself managed Warhol. It should also be noted thatthe Velvets were briefly managed by Al Aronowitz (though he didn't bindthem to a legal agreement) in late 1965 before meeting Warhol, and thatSteve Sesnick would take control of their affairs from mid-1967 throughtheir demise in the early 1970s.
Morrissey said in his interview forWhiteLight/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day By Day that many ofthe ideas often credited to Andy originated from Morrissey himself. Asfor Warhol's direct involvement with the functions usually associatedwith a rock manager—getting them gigs, dealing with record labels,dealing with the logistics of their stage show, and so forth—certainlyMorrissey was more involved than Andy was. According to Paul, "Inactual reality, the basis of these things came almost always from me,and not from him, during these years I was there. I'm the one that metthem, told them I would manage them, put Nico in the group, and Andywould present them, be called the manager. But have you ever heard of amanager whohad a manager?I'd love for you to come up with another situation where there wassomebody who was a manager who had a manager who told him what thingsshould be done and then went and did them himself."
Steve Sesnick: Unlike AndyWarhol, Paul Morrissey, or even Al Aronowitz, Steve Sesnick is notrenowned for anything other than managing the Velvet Underground. Too,he's often cast as a villainous character for sowing discord within theband, both Lou Reed and John Cale calling him a "snake" in differentinterviews after they left the Velvets. In particular, Cale has feltthat Sesnick tried to push Reed as the band's leader at the expense ofgroup harmony, and Sesnick's pressure to live up to certainexpectations and images has been cited as a key factor in Reed'sdeparture from the band in August 1970. "The real snake is a guy namedSteve Sesnick," said Reed in the November 1987 issue ofCreem. "He was a very bad person,trying to divide everyone, telling one person one thing, tellinganother person something else, and pitting people against each other,starting with John and me, and then working his way down through theband. That way he could maintain power. I quit in the middle ofLoaded because I couldn't stand itanymore."
There's usually a different side to every story, and while defendingSesnick's overall performance isn't an enviable task, it should be saidthat hedid do a lot for theVelvets in certain respects. He took on a very uncommercial band andworked hard on their behalf, helping them in their transition fromtheir role as part of Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable into astandalone rock act that toured nationally in prominent venues. DougYule has said Sesnick did a lot to extract financial support from MGM,the band's label before 1970, at a time when the Velvets weren'tselling that many records.
"He tended to, let us say, exaggerate or elaborate upon the truth,"says Steve Nelson, who dealt with Sesnick on numerous occasions overthe next few years as manager of the Boston Tea Party and a promoter atvenues where the band played elsewhere in Massachusetts. "So sometimesit was hard to know what was the truth about what he was really saying.I think that that was one of his weaknesses, although he used it as astrength in terms of as a promoter, talking his way into people. Healways had a good patter.
"His strength was, he was really dedicated to the band. He wasn't thereas some music-biz guy to kind of exploit them. 'Cause first of all, itwasn't really like a huge commercial opportunity. There was a part ofhim that came from his heart, in terms of really being committed to theVelvet Underground. When they booked, they showed. He got them there.And that wasn't always true with people that we booked in those days.Sometimes things got pretty flaky. But I never had any problems withhim in that regard. In terms of business dealings, he was prettystraightforward. I booked them a lot, and he never let me down once."
Tom Wilson: The Verve/MGMexecutive who signed the Velvet Underground, when every other labelthey had approached—definitely including Columbia, and according toSterling Morrison, also including Atlantic and Elektra—had turned themdown. He also produced their second album,White Light/White Heat, and thoughhe's only credited as the producer of one track ("Sunday Morning") onThe Velvet Underground & Nico(with Andy Warhol credited as producer of record for the rest of theLP), it's been speculated that Wilson might have been the actualproducer of the May 1966 Los Angeles recordings of "Heroin," "Venus inFurs," and "I'm Waiting for the Man" that are used on the record.
The depth of Wilson's actual contributions to the 1966-67 VU recordingshas been questioned. It's been recalled that, for the VU sessions andthose of some other bands he produced, he'd spend much of his time onthe phone with girlfriends. According to Paul Morrissey, he primarilysigned the Velvets because of Nico, feeling she was the only commercialaspect of the band. But as John Cale toldCreem in 1987, "He was inspired,though, and used to joke around to keep everybody in the band light."And Lewis Merenstein—a close friend of Wilson's who first worked withTom as an engineer back when the producer broke into the recordbusiness in the mid-1950s, and co-produced Cale's first solo LP—feelsWilson would have given the Velvets "freedom and enthusiasm. Tom didnot have a heavy hand. He wanted people to be who they were. He gotalong with everybody. He was truly a free spirit."
In his very distinguished career, Wilson also produced Bob Dylan, Simon& Garfunkel, the Mothers of Invention, the Animals, the SoftMachine, Dion, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Cecil Taylor.
Norman Dolph: The ColumbiaRecords sales executive who co-financed the April 1966 sessions atScepter Records Studios in New York that produced the bulk of thebanana album. In essence he was a co-producer of sorts for the sessionsthemselves as well, acting much more in that traditional capacity thanAndy Warhol did, though Warhol and not Dolph would be officiallycredited as the producer of the tracks on the LP. Dolph also used anacetate made from these sessions to try and get the group a deal withColumbia, but was immediately and forcefully turned down. (One of theacetates made from the sessions would sell on eBay for about $25,000about 40 years later, marking one of the highest prices ever paid for amusic disc.)
John Licata: The engineer forthe April 1966 sessions at Scepter Records. Licata "was a wonderful,cooperative, easy to get along with, unfreaky guy," observes Dolph. "Hewas the total antithesis of the Velvet Underground. At no time did anyof the musicians ever tell him what to do. They went in and played, andhe got what they wanted. On the banana album, they credit Val Valentinwith the engineering. He may have done much of the remix or whatever,but he's certainly not the engineer that was responsible for the soundof the album at its basis. When I heard the banana album [a yearlater], it sounded to me just like what we did. It didn't soundappreciably different from what we did at Scepter."
Tony Conrad: Now well known inhis own right as an experimental musician and filmmaker, Conrad playedwith John Cale in La Monte Young's group from late 1963 to late 1965.With Cale, he was instrumental in developing that group's jet-strengthamplified drone on stringed instruments—a quality that Cale was in turninstrumental in bringing into the Velvet Underground. Conrad alsoplayed alongside Cale and Lou Reed briefly in late 1964 and early 1965live in the rock band the Primitives, and according to most accountsfound the book lying on a New York street,The Velvet Underground, that theband named themselves after.
La Monte Young: One of the mostesteemed avant-garde composer/musicians of the twentieth century, inwhose group Conrad and Cale played, as did Angus MacLise, who playedwith Young for various periods between 1962 and 1965.
Walter De Maria: Drummer in thePrimitives, the pre-VU band also including Lou Reed, John Cale, andTony Conrad, playing several concerts in late 1964/early 1965. De Mariahad also played in a rock group that briefly existed in 1963 which alsoincluded La Monte Young and none other than Andy Warhol.
Terry Philips: The PickwickRecords producer who signed Lou Reed to the label as a staff songwriterin late 1964, getting credited (along with other writers) alongsideReed for composing numerous mid-'60s Pickwick releases. The mostnoteworthy of these is "The Ostrich," the late 1964 single credited tothe Primitives on which Lou Reed takes lead vocal.
Some accounts would have it that Philips and Pickwick stifled Reed'screativity, and particularly discouraged the recording of controversialsongs like "Heroin." But in his interview forWhite Light/White Heat: The VelvetUnderground Day By Day, Philips repeatedly stated his admirationfor Reed's talents and regrets that he and Pickwick couldn't haveworked with him more. "I helped encourage him on his writing to dothings that were more like 'Heroin,' and more like the kind of writinghe did in short stories," he stated. "We were working towards a goal. Ithought he could be what he became." It's also worth noting that Reedwas not the only hip musician whose path Philips crossed, as Terry hadalso worked with Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Phil Spector. He wouldalso record free jazz musicians Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, PharoahSanders, and Larry Young, and be a partner at one point with renownedwriter LeRoi Jones in a jazz label.
Delmore Schwartz:Theacclaimed short story writer (most famous for "In Dreams BeginResponsibilities") and novelist was a professor to Lou Reed at SyracuseUniversity, helping to inspire Reed's own writing. In the songwritingcredits forThe Velvet Underground& Nico, "European Son" is titled "European Son to DelmoreSchwartz." It's somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek dedication, however;knowing Schwartz's aversion to rock lyrics, the group chose the songwith the least words to name in his honor. "Delmore despised rock androll lyrics, he thought they were ridiculous and awful, and 'EuropeanSon' has hardly any lyrics so that meant that was a song that Delmoremight like," explained Sterling Morrison in his 1986 interview withIgnacio Julia for Spanish television. "He didn't care about the musicpart of rock and roll, he just hated the lyrics, so we wrote a songthat Delmore would like: twenty seconds of lyrics and seven minutes ofnoise."
Piero Heliczer: Experimentalfilmmaker, and longtime friend of Angus MacLise, at whose multimediaevents or "happenings" the Velvet Underground played some of theirfirst shows in 1965. It's clear these "happenings" had a big effect onSterling Morrison, who wrote in the literary magazineLittle Caesar, "For me the pathahead became suddenly clear. I could work on music different fromordinary rock'n'roll since Piero had given Lou, John, Angus and me acontext to perform it in."
Kate Heliczer: Then-wife ofPiero Heliczer, she circulated demos of the Velvet Underground inBritain in 1965 and 1966 in an attempt to help them find managementand/or a record deal.
Al Aronowitz:New York Post reporter who wasamong the first journalists to take rock seriously, introducing theBeatles to Bob Dylan in 1964. While dabbling in rock management, hehandled the Velvet Underground for a month or two near the end of 1965,though as he didn't sign them to a contract, it was easy for the groupto leave him in favor of Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The lateAronowitz's highly opinionated account of his stint with the Velvetscan be read at http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/blackj/column80.html.
Barbara Rubin: The youngexperimental filmmaker and friend of Allen Ginsberg who urged AlAronowitz to take on the Velvet Underground in late 1965, and thenurged Gerard Malanga to see the Velvets in December of that year at theCafé Bizarre in Greenwich Village. That in turn led to PaulMorrissey and Andy Warhol seeing the Velvets at the club and offeringto manage the group.
Henry Flynt: Experimentalmusician who, like John Cale, had circulated in the New Yorkavant-garde scene of the early-to-mid-'60s with the likes of TonyConrad and La Monte Young. In September 1966, he filled in for Cale forfour Velvet Underground performances at the Balloon Farm in New York.Though a few other musicians are known to have sat in informally withthe Velvets in 1965 and 1966 (including Piero Heliczer, Helen Byrne,Richard Mishkin, and Bobby Ritchkin), Flynt's brief run seems to havebeen the most extensive such stint.
Edie Sedgwick: A dancer at someof the Velvets' very earliest performances after they hooked up withWarhol in early 1966. By most accounts she severed her contact withWarhol and the Factory, and thus the VU, in February of 1966. As muchattention as she gets these days for her relationship to Warhol and theFactory, her role in the Velvet Underground story is very slight,though it does include a brief romantic relationship with John Cale fora few weeks in early '66.
Gerard Malanga: Andy Warholassistant and poet/photographer/filmmaker who was perhaps the mostrenowned of the dancers of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable,particularly for doing a "whip dance." Some have speculated that hisdress and image influenced Jim Morrison of the Doors.
Mary Woronov: Another EPIdancer, frequently enacting routines with Malanga, and subsequently anacclaimed film director.
Danny Williams: Sometimescredited with handling lights at the EPI shows, disappearing on July25, 1966 in an incident that's often been thought to have been asuicide. His story is told, and excerpts from his films shown, in the2007 documentaryA Walk into the Sea,directed by his niece, Esther Robinson. The movie also includes briefsilent snippets of the Velvet Underground rehearsing in early 1966 thatwere shot by Williams, taken from footage that lasts about fifteen totwenty minutes altogether. For the record, Paul Morrissey maintainsthat Williams "didn't have do anything to do with any lights or thePlastic Inevitable; that was done entirely by me. There was no lightshow other than the five film projections, five slide projections, andone spotlight that was used in a mirror ball that revolved. We didn'tneed any other lights, nor could we afford them; there was no place toput them or anyone to work them."
Eric Emerson: Another EPIdancer, as well as sometime Nico boyfriend and actor (alongside Nicoand her son Ari) in the filmTheChelsea Girls. Sometimes regarded as one of the chief villainsof the Velvet Underground story for threatening legal action for use ofhis photo (in a projection at an EPI performance) on the back ofThe Velvet Underground & Nico,causing the album to be withdrawn from distribution for a while andhelping to kill whatever commercial momentum it might have gathered.
Billy Name: Important part ofthe Factory who took the pictures for the covers of bothWhite Light/White Heat andThe Velvet Underground.
Ron Nameth: Filmmaker who shotthe 1966 short filmAndy Warhol'sExploding Plastic Inevitable during the Velvet Underground'sperformances in Chicago in mid-1966. Although Lou Reed and Nico weremissing from these performances (for which original drummer AngusMacLise temporarily rejoined the group), and although the Velvets canonly be seen briefly (though they're heard on the soundtrack), this isthe most comprehensive on-screen document of the Exploding PlasticInevitable.
Ari Delon: Nico's son (and onlychild, usually considered to have been conceived with star French actorAlain Delon), who appears with the Velvets in Andy Warhol's movieThe Velvet Underground: A Symphony of Sound,shot at the Factory in early 1966.
Charlie Rothschild: Bookedshows for the Velvet Underground in California in May 1966, and againin September-October 1966 at the Balloon Farm in New York.
Gary Kellgren: Engineer on manyof the Velvet Underground's late-1960s recordings. More renowned as anengineer on some of Jimi Hendrix's recordings, and as co-founder of theRecord Plant recording studios in New York City, which the Velvetssometimes used.
Hans Onsager: Road manager forthe Velvet Underground in the late 1960s, and son of Lars Onsager,winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Steve Nelson: Manager of theBoston Tea Party, the Velvet Underground's favorite venue, in the late1960s, subsequently frequently booking the Velvets (at a time wherethey were in definite need of the work) at several clubs he operated inthe state of Massachusetts.
Vic Briggs: Formerly guitaristwith Eric Burdon and the Animals, he tried to produce the VelvetUnderground for a few nights in late 1968 at the sessions for theirthird LP before it was mutually decided that it wasn't working out.
Billy Yule: Drummer for theVelvet Underground for their two-month stint at Max's Kansas City inNew York between late June and late August of 1970, playing on theLive at Max's Kansas City album andsome of the recordings used onLoaded.Other members have since expressed regret that they didn't wait until apregnant Maureen Tucker had given birth and was ready to resume herplace in the band before recording Loaded, and Billy Yule's moreconventional rock style wasn't as suited for the group as Tucker's moreidiosyncratic one. But Billy was there to fill the drum chair in summer1970 at both one of their most important long-running gigs and some ofthe sessions for their final studio album with Lou Reed, and for that,his contributions can't be discounted.
Ahmet Ertegun: Signed theVelvet Underground to Atlantic Records in early 1970, enabling them toescape an unsatisfactory situation with MGM and make a moreprofessionally recorded album,Loaded,than any of their previous efforts. Ertegun and Atlantic wouldsubsequently be criticized by some band members, however, for failingto promoteLoaded well,failing to give the Reed-less band an opportunity to record a follow-upstudio album, and for issuing a live LP (Live at Max's Kansas City) with theReed lineup that had bootleg-quality sound. Sterling Morrison has alsosaid that Ertegun and Atlantic were among the parties to reject theVelvet Underground when they were shopping for a record deal in early1966.
Tommy Castanaro: A real mysteryman, this Long Island session drummer, probably recruited through theMusicians Union, appears on a couple tracks onLoaded.
Adrian Barber: Co-engineer andco-producer ofLoaded, alsoplaying some drums at the sessions. He also worked with Cream, the BeeGees, and the Allman Brothers. A former member of the Liverpool groupthe Big Three, way back in December 1962, he'd also made lo-fi livetapes of the Beatles that were released almost 15 years later asLive! At the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany.
Geoff Haslam: Another Englishco-producer/co-engineer onLoaded,his most famous other credit being producing the MC5'sHigh Time album.
Shel Kagan: The leastcelebrated ofLoaded's threeproducers.
Robert Somma: Editor ofBoston-based, nationally-distributed rock magazineFusion who, though rarely credited,was perhaps the journalist who did more than any other (with thepossible exception of Richard Williams in the UK) to raise the VelvetUnderground's visibility in the rock press in the late 1960s and early1970s, championing them via pieces inFusionand other publications.
Jonathan Richman: Perhaps theVU's most fanatical fan, seeing them many times in Boston and elsewhereas a teenager, and becoming one of the first important VelvetUnderground-influenced musicians as leader of the (occasionally JohnCale-produced) Modern Lovers in the early 1970s.
Richard Williams: Thejournalist who did more than any other to popularize the VelvetUnderground in the British rock press in the late 1960s and early1970s, especially via rave reviews inMelodyMaker. Later to sign John Cale and Nico to Island Records, andcurrently chief sportswriter at the UK national paperThe Guardian.
Danny Fields: Atlantic Recordspublicist who helped arrange for the sale and release of the August 23,1970 tapes issued onLive at Max'sKansas City.
Brigid Berlin (aka Brigid Polk):Andy Warhol Factory worker and actress who tapes the Velvet Undergroundat Max's Kansas City on August 23, 1970, their final night before LouReed left the band. These are the tapes later issued on the LP andexpanded CD versions ofLive atMax's Kansas City.
Richard & Lisa Robinson:Husbandand wife who were instrumental in encouraging Lou Reed to begin a solocareer after his exit from the Velvet Underground, with RichardRobinson producing Reed's debut solo LP in early 1972.
Paul Nelson: Mercury A&Rman whose idea it was to compile and issue the two-LP set1969 Velvet Underground Live, oneof the greatest live rock albums ever, in 1974, when such lengthyarchive concert releases of cult bands are virtually unknown.
Elliott Murphy:Singer-songwriter who helped compile1969Velvet Underground Live, and wrote the LP's liner notes.
Patti Smith: The first starpunk/new wave musician to help retroactively popularize the VelvetUnderground, not only via their incorporation of the group's influenceon her John Cale-produced 1975 debut LP, but also by covering some oftheir songs in concert. Prior to her recording debut, she also wroterave reviews of the Velvet Underground rock critic, as did herguitarist, Lenny Kaye.
M.C. Kostek & Phil Milstein:Editors of the Velvet Underground fanzineWhat Goes On, the organization thatdid more than any other to spread the growth of the group's cult aftertheir dissolution.
HOME WHAT'S NEW MUSIC BOOKS MUSIC REVIEWSTRAVELBOOKSLINKS ABOUT THE AUTHOR SITE MAP EMAIL RICHIE BUY BOOKS
[8]ページ先頭