Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story Read online

  Copyright © 1983 Omnibus Press

  This edition © 2009 Omnibus Press

  (A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London, W1T 3LJ)

  ISBN: 978-0-85712-003-8

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  CONTENTS

  Information Page

  Credits

  Editor’s Note

  Introduction

  Andy Warhol, Up-Tight (1965–1966)

  What Was The Musical Sensibility Of The Velvet Underground?

  Making Andy Warhol, Up-Tight, Continued

  The Dom

  On The Couch At The Factory No. 1

  A Short Essay In Appreciation of Nico

  The Velvet Underground On Tour

  The Balloon Farm

  Despite All The Amputations

  1. 1967 — The Banana Year

  2. 1968 — The Black Year

  3. 1969 — The Grey Year

  4. 1970 — The White Year

  The Cult Of The Velvet Underground

  The Velvet Underground – 1993

  Update 1983

  The Naked And The Dead …

  The Velvet Underground Discography

  Credits

  We would like to specially acknowledge the contributions of the following people: Philip Milstein was President of The Velvet Underground Appreciation Society when we began writing this book and his untiring and generous assistance helped us more than any other single factor. He gave us free access to his archives, allowed us to quote at will from his magazine and gave his time to advise us throughout the project. He also read and criticized the finished manuscript. Phil is no longer publishing his excellent magazine What Goes On, The Velvet Underground Appreciation Society’s newsletter which he issued three times. He is now in a band tentatively called Disneyland. Sterling Morrison contributed his archives and advice throughout the project and read the manuscript for accuracy as well as contributing the introduction. We could not have written this book without his aid. Andy Warhol kindly allowed us to quote from his book POPism, which covers the Sixties and his collaboration with The Velvet Underground extensively. Most Warhol quotes come from this source. Nigel Trevena’s pioneering book on The Velvet Underground was an invaluable aid to us at the beginning of this project. We salute him for his groundbreaking research. Nat Finkelstein returned to New York in the middle of the project and assisted us with his vitality and visual memory. Price Abbott supported our efforts with her constant care and presence. We thank her for her great meals, encouragement and patience. Miles contributed throughout with his encouragement and clarity. His was the third mind on this project. Allen Ginsberg blessed us. Danny Fields, Maureen Tucker, Henry Geldzahler, Billy Linich, Tony Conrad, Al Aronowitz, John Wilcock, Betsey Johnson, Ed Sanders, Wayne Kramer, Chris Stein, Debbie Harry, Jonathan Richman, Jim Condon, Pinkie Black, Allen Reuben, Leslie Goldman, Karen Rose, Paul Bang, Ralph Perri, Fayette Hickox, Jed Horne, Steven Sesnick and Mark Saunders were most helpful. We thank them all for their time and memories.

  In our research on this book we have drawn on interviews with or about The Velvet Underground by Jim Condon, Allan Richards, Nigel Trevena, John Wilcock, Glenn O’Brien, Mary Harron, Philip Milstein, Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, Richard Goldstein, Nat Finkelstein, Giovanni Dadomo and Jean Stein. We acknowledge and thank these pioneers for their reports which were published in the following magazines: What Goes On, Little Caesar, High Times, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Sounds, Record Mirror, Trouser Press, New York Rocker, and from the following books: POPism by Andy Warhol (New York, 1980), Edie by Jean Stein, edited with George Plimpton (New York, 1982), The Sex Life and Autobiography of Andy Warhol by John Wilcock (New York, 1971), and No One Waved Goodbye (London, 1974).

  The update section of this edition of Uptight draws on interviews by the following: David Fricke (Rolling Stone), Lisa Robinson (New York Post), Roger Morton (NME), Adam McGovern (Cover), Jon Pareles (New York Times) and Matt Snow (Vox).

  The discography for this edition was compiled by Peter Doggett in 2001.

  Dedicated, with gratitude, to Sterling Morrison, Andy Warhol and Christopher Whent.

  Editor’s note

  This edition of Uptight – The Velvet Underground Story contains the entire text from the original edition, first published by Omnibus Press in 1983 and republished as a ‘Royal’ paperback in 1996. The original edition was designed by Neville Brody and liberally illustrated throughout, and some text referred directly to photographs or illustrations reproduced in adjacent positions. Where this occurred the text in this edition has been slightly re-edited in order to avoid confusion.

  The update chapter at the end – Velvet Underground 1993 – was written by Victor Bockris during 1994. It replaced an initial ‘update’ page which closed the original edition (apart from a ‘Where Are They Now?’ appendix and discography) in which Bockris briefly put The Velvet Underground’s achievements into perspective by quoting NME writer Mary Harron and the late Lester Bangs on the subject of the group. This text has now been re-instated after the 1994 update.

  Since the first publication of Uptight, Victor Bockris has – amongst many other works – written an acclaimed biography of Lou Reed and a book about John Cale’s life and music, done in collaboration with Cale.

  Introduction

  I like Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga’s book and am impressed by the scope of it. What I would change, and clearly which cannot be changed, is the overall tone of the work, starting with “uptight” in the title, and proceeding to recount the disintegration of first the show, and then of the band. It becomes a chronicle of doom (sort of). What has been buried is the laughter and happiness that attended all of this; the jokes; the parties; the zany adventures. We were serious about what we did, but not grim (very often).

  I’m probably picturing something other than a factual account of what went on, and what happened later. I suspect that my main fear concerns my final comment about the experience being fun. In the light of all that is described, my comment seems insensitive and shallow. Nevertheless, as serious as I was as a “crusader,” I had no desire to become a martyr. The fun and enjoyment of the people and things we were caught up in sustained me in no small measure. I was having, shall we say, the time of my life, and I savored it, knowing full well it couldn’t last. In fact, “exploding,” “plastic,” and “inevitable” sum it all up from an apocalyptic perspective – the origin of the universe and its contents, the mutability of form, and the inescapable decline, entropy, the end.

  Against this backdrop, how can a handful of artists, dancers, and musicians hope to fare any better?

  Sterling Morrison,

  Dept. of English

  The U
niversity of Texas at Austin

  March 10, 1983.

  ANDY WARHOL, UP-TIGHT (1965–1966)

  The Formation of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

  FREDERICK VIGNERON: “If you were to compare The Velvet Underground to an ice cream flavour, which one would it be?”

  ANDY WARHOL: “Aaaah … white.”

  MAKING ANDY WARHOL, UP-TIGHT

  If you had been in New York City in February 1966, you might have been one of a thousand people who received a flyer in the mail advertising Andy Warhol, Up-Tight at the Film-Makers Cinematheque on West 41st Street.

  If you’d gone to the new location of the Film-Makers Cinematheque, you would have been about to see a multimedia rock show formed out of a combination of films by Andy Warhol, lights by Danny Williams, music by The Velvet Underground and Nico, dancing by Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgwick, slides and film projections by Paul Morrissey and Warhol, photographs by Billy Linich and by Nat Finkelstein who hada show of his super enlarged contact sheets of The Velvets at the Factory in the foyer of the Cinematheque all week, movie cameras by Barbara Rubin, and the audience by themselves. Donald Lyons and Bob Neuwirth (Dylan’s roadie and confidant), listed in the ad, came as Edie’s escorts.

  The Cinematheque was a small avant-garde movie house. The show began with a film called Lupe starring Edie Sedgwick. The second to last film she and Andy made together, it details the last night of the Mexican Hollywood star Lupe Velez, who planned the perfect suicide by dressing up, lighting candles all around her bed and taking a big dose of barbiturates, but ended up drowning in her own vomit in the toilet bowl that nausea had made her crawl to. The parallels between Velez and Sedgwick are inescapable.

  After two 35-minute reels of Lupe, The Velvet Underground and Nico walked onto the stage in front of the movie screen and began to tune up in the dark. Andy, who was working one movie projector, now trained a silent version of Vinyl, his interpretation of A Clockwork Orange, starring Gerard Malanga as a juvenile delinquent, on the screen. Superimposed on this by another movie projector run by Paul Morrissey were close-up shots of Nico singing ‘I’ll Keep It With Mine’ by Bob Dylan. Looking ghostly in the flickering movie lights, Nico on stage picked up the song from Nico on screen and the band joined in behind her. Then, as The Velvet Underground went into ‘Venus In Furs’, Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgwick moved to centre stage and began gyrating in a free form dance pattern. The whole ensemble was now playing in front of two movies Vinyl and The Velvet Underground and Nico: A Symphony of Sound being shown silently next to each other.

  While Nat Finkelstein circulated taking Up-Tight photographs (“Maybe I worked so well with the Up-Tight series because part of my own technique was to move in as close as possible so everybody knew there was a camera there”), Danny Williams, the Factory’s Harvard grad electrician, began to project colour slides over the band and the films. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a huge spotlight came crashing down and shone directly on the audience, as Barbara Rubin rushed down the aisle with her sun-gun glaring into their faces screaming questions like “Is Your Penis Big Enough?” and “Does he eat you out?” It was Barbara who had suggested the Andy Warhol, Up-Tight name and developed the concept of making people uptight rather than relaxed by filming their responses with her movie camera. As The Velvets went into ‘Run Run Run’, Lou leaned into his guitar grinning maniacally in black dungarees, a rumpled black jacket over a black T-shirt and high-heel boots. John Cale was hunkered over his viola in a black suit with a rhinestone choke necklace designed by Kenny Jay Lane in the shape of a snake, while Nico, tall, thin, hauntingly beautiful, stood silhouetted alone in a chic white pants suit. Maureen Tucker, the innocent looking drummer whose sex nobody could at first discern, stood behind her bass drum using tom tom mallets to hit it with a machine-like precision, while rhythm and lead guitarist extraordinaire Sterling Morrison, all in black, stood rock still in the midst of this terrible discordant-chaotic-flashing commotion of light, sound, and sight. For the most part the audience sat there too stunned to think or react. The music was supersonic and very loud. The Velvets turned their amps up as high as they could go. The effect vibrated all through the audience. To some it seemed like a whole prison ward had escaped. Others speak of it today as hypnotic and timeless.

  HENRY GELDZAHLER: “As far as I can remember the presentation was thrilling but the music was to me much more romantic and melodic. Andy Warhol, Up-Tight was explosive and abrasive but I kept finding the traditional, almost folk substructure of The Velvets music. I was more impressed with the music than with the other effects, but it was enhanced by the combination.”

  Lou began to sing ‘Heroin’. Gerard slowly unwound, came to rest on the floor of the stage, and proceeded to light a candle and, in a kneeling position, slightly bent over, undid his belt. He pulled out a spoon from his back pocket, rolled up his sleeve, heated the spoon over the flame of the candle, touched the spoon with what appeared to be a hypodermic needle (actually a lead pencil), wrapped the belt around his arm tightly, and began to flex his arm in a sweeping up-and-down motion. Then he pressed the “needle” into his arm, slowly rose and began to whirl frantically around the stage. Lou was in the high-pitched middle instrumental segment of the song. Behind the projector in the audience Paul Morrissey was explaining to a reporter that this is “a completely different kind of rock’n’roll”. Behind the other projector in the projection booth Andy Warhol was explaining the simultaneous showing of the movies to another reporter: “On the one screen you have a movie that takes an hour and a half. On the other screen you have a movie that takes an hour anda half. Except that … it takes longer than an hour anda half.” Below them, Gerard was lying full length on the stage staring blankly up at Lou Reed.

  This was the beginning of a one-and-a-half-year collaboration between Warhol and The Velvet Underground that would shortly result in The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a twelve person group (or team, as they saw themselves) that toured the States from 1966 halfway through 1967 changing the way people saw, heard and felt rock’n’roll in the US and subsequently the world. This first half of our book Andy Warhol, Up-Tight is the story of the formation of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which introduced The Velvet Underground in the States, and constituted Warhol’s major contribution to rock’n’roll. Before delineating its details, let’s step back and take a look at where the different members of the group came from and how they got together, since what each brought to the project puts the overall effect of the team into perspective.

  In the winter of 1965 Andy Warhol was working very fast and accurately through a series of changes that had made him into a media superstar. There wasn’t a week that went by that the newspapers or magazines didn’t carry a story about him. Already famous for his pop paintings and his revolutionary movies, he was reaching a watershed in his highly successful collaboration with Edie Sedgwick. They had made eight movies together and Edie was the envy of every girl in town, but the pressures of the life she was leading weighed heavily upon her exotically unstable character. A growing involvement with Bob Dylan’s circle, where the manipulative use of acid and amphetamine did little to bolster her ego, was further debilitating her, and Warhol was finding it hard to continue the collaboration, even though he wanted to. Jonas Mekas had offered him a week at the Cinematheque and they’d decided to do an Edie Sedgwick Retrospective. Meanwhile Andy had temporarily stopped painting and was looking for new sources of income to support the movies which weren’t making any money yet. Paul Morrissey, who had just joined the factory, worked the sound and lights.

  PAUL MORRISSEY: “Do you remember the details of why The Velvet Underground was brought to the Factory and we bought them amplifiers? For the record, a famous Broadway producer called Michael Myerberg, who’d just done Waiting For Godot, invited Andy and I over to Sardi’s one night to make a deal. He was going to open up the first discotheque with an enormous dance floor in an airplane hangar in Queens. And he said he would pay Andy to come out ther
e every night, with as many people like Edie Sedgwick as he wanted, to bring it publicity. I immediately said, ‘I have a better suggestion. There’s no real reason to just come out and sit there and get paid.’ (It wasn’t much money anyway.) ‘The only reason Andy will go is if he could be like Brian Epstein and present a group he managed.’

  “Myerberg liked this idea and said if we did that he might even use Andy’s name in the title of the discotheque. It turned out he was bullshitting us but he seemed sincere at the time and Andy said, ‘Why don’t we call it Andy Warhol’s Up.’ And I said, ‘Not only will Andy’s presence be justified because his group is there, but behind the group we’ll be projecting two or three images of film footage,’ because we were making all these movies that we’d been showing at the Cinematheque that had no commercial value, and I thought this would be a good way to have them generate some money too. This was agreed upon and I was set to go out and find a rock’n’roll group. I didn’t know what group it was going to be.”

  As Morrissey began his search, Barbara Rubin, a boyishly attractive, precocious 21-year-old art groupie, came to the factory and invited Gerard Malanga, who was Andy’s Prime Minister without portfolio, to go with her to see a group called The Velvet Underground. Malanga had been a dancer on Alan Freed’s Big Beat TV show when Freed got busted in a payola scandal (that also affected, among others, Dick Clark) and the show got closed down. Rubin was an intimate of, among others, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Bob Dylan, Jonas Mekas and Andrei Voznesenskv, who had, according to Ginsberg, “dedicated her life to introducing geniuses to each other in the hope that they would collaborate to make great art that would change the world”. It was the middle of December 1965.