Nearly everyone who had dealings with Reed agreed he was remorselessly obnoxious.Ĭale called him "a twisted, scary monster", and when he had a liver transplant a satirical magazine reported the news under the headline: "New liver complains of difficulty working with Lou Reed." So his ghastliness is hardly news. He later described himself as a "f-ing faggot junkie", but it seems he preferred women to men (he married three times) and amphetamines and whisky to heroin, so that was just a pose.Īfter demolishing the band by firing Nico, then Warhol (who called him a "rat"), then Cale, he abandoned it himself in despair at its commercial failure, to embark on what Rolling Stone called "one of the most self-indulgent and self-defeating solo careers in the annals of rock". And John Cale, "the mad Welshman from India", was a musician from the classical avant-garde who played hypnotic "drones" on his viola.īut the star was Lou Reed, who wrote the lyrics and delivered them with an atonal camp sneer that charmed as it insulted. Maureen Tucker, the "chick drummer", played standing up and without cymbals or pedals. Sterling Morrison was an excellent guitarist who later became a professor of medieval English and a tugboat captain.
Throughout his career, Reed delivered his lyrics with an atonal, camp sneer that charmed as it insulted. Andy Warhol, as patron and "producer", bestowed instant glamour, and imposed on them the fascinating German chanteuse Nico. Their shifting personnel were a remarkable bunch. They made pop music at its least popular, and their sales were feeble, but although they lost the battle they won the war: flower power turned out to be a dead end, while the Velvets inspired countless "art" and punk bands. Gleefully uncouth, they were also cool and witty, and their sound was exhilarating. Instead of peace, love and soft drugs, they sang about paranoia, perversion and hard drugs. With the four albums they released between 19, the Velvet Underground challenged the prevailing musical fashion set by California hippies.
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