Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story
Read Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story Online
Authors: Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga
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
The Author hereby asserts his/her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with Sections 77 to 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, expect by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the photographs in this book, but one or two were unreachable. We would be grateful if the photographers concerned would contact us.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Andy Warhol, Up-Tight (1965–1966)
What Was The Musical Sensibility Of The Velvet Underground?
Making Andy Warhol, Up-Tight, Continued
On The Couch At The Factory No. 1
A Short Essay In Appreciation of Nico
The Velvet Underground On Tour
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
.
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.
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 University of Texas at Austin
March 10, 1983.
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.
