Chapter VCRIMSON
Do the Ostrich
The Velvet Underground, Warhol’s Factory and drone as rock ’n’ roll
Showing all 022 works
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001
Skinhead
Richard Allen
A few years ago I wrote a feature on the New English Library – the cult London pulp publisher made (in)famous by Richard Allen’s lecherously grotesque Skinhead series.
Book Open ↗ Goodreads -
002
Withnail and I
Bruce Robinson
It was a Withnail and I-esque scene of bohemian austerity: no heat or running water, a rotating cast of addicts and starving artists dropping in and out, wooden pallets smashed and burnt for heat, everyone surviving on festering pots of porridge that would sit on the stove for days on end.
Film 1987 Open ↗ IMDb -
003
Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese
It evoked cramped stress, humidity, the ‘sick, venal’ New York immortalised in Taxi Driver some years later.
Film 1976 Open ↗ IMDb -
004
Sleep
Andy Warhol
In Sleep (1963), for example, he filmed the poet John Giorno sleeping naked for five hours.
Film 1963 Open ↗ IMDb -
005
Empire
Andy Warhol
Empire (1964) was eight hours of the Empire State Building shot through the late afternoon gloom.
Film 1964 Open ↗ IMDb -
006
Blow Job
Andy Warhol
It was a descent into sensorial oblivion, presided over by the twitching Warhol, a wild show where the Velvets played at extreme volume, backs to the audience, feedback droning while Warhol projected movies like Blow Job, Sleep and Eat onto the backdrop.
Film Open ↗ IMDb -
007
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Terry Gilliam
Graham snapped and started screaming a diatribe worthy of some deranged Midwestern sheriff from the conference at the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: ‘You disgusting germs from New York!
Film 1998 Open ↗ IMDb -
008
The Velvet Underground and Nico
The Velvet Underground
The band cut The Velvet Underground and Nico in a day.
Album 1967 Open ↗ YouTube -
009
White Light/White Heat
The Velvet Underground
White Light/White Heat removed most of the moments of respite in favour of a heat-seeking howl.
Album 1968 Open ↗ YouTube -
010
Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
A cursory look at the big records released in 1968: the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet; the Beatles’ White Album; Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks; the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society – reveal not so much gap, as chasm between the Velvets and almost everybody else.
Album 1968 Open ↗ YouTube -
011
Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
A cursory look at the big records released in 1968: the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet; the Beatles’ White Album; Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks; the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society – reveal not so much gap, as chasm between the Velvets and almost everybody else.
Album 1968 Open ↗ YouTube -
012
Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks
A cursory look at the big records released in 1968: the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet; the Beatles’ White Album; Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks; the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society – reveal not so much gap, as chasm between the Velvets and almost everybody else.
Album 1968 Open ↗ YouTube -
013
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The band lumbered on without Cale, releasing the middling The Velvet Underground in 1969.
Album 1969 Open ↗ YouTube -
014
Loaded
The Velvet Underground
They remained a dynamic live unit without Cale, however, as borne out by their incendiary 1969: Live LP. However, 1970’s Loaded was equally uninspiring, trading on lumpen workaday rock (the title was related to the fact that MGM had told Reed that they wanted the band to deliver a record that was ‘loaded with hits’ – they didn’t) and lacked Moe Tucker, whose absence was felt every bit as strongly as Cale’s: her no-frills drumming was a vital audio hallmark.
Album 1970 Open ↗ YouTube -
015
Chelsea Girl
Nico
On parting ways with the Velvets she’d made a record – Chelsea Girl (1967) – which, mainly due to an overly busy production by Tom Wilson, left her unhappy.
Album 1967 Open ↗ YouTube -
016
The Marble Index
Nico
Her next album The Marble Index (1968) was, therefore, a line in the sand, a serious statement of artistic intent.
Album 1968 Open ↗ YouTube -
017
The Company of Wolves
Neil Jordan
It evokes a similar bodement later conjured by Neil Jordan in his dark gothic fantasy The Company of Wolves – some opulent fantasy that shimmers with eerie luminescence, an ever-present sense of dread.
Film 1984 Open ↗ IMDb -
018
Desertshore
Nico
1970’s Desertshore was Nico’s most mystical record.
Album 1970 Open ↗ YouTube -
019
Drama of Exile
Nico
Undertaking notoriously gruelling world tours in a cramped van with a revolving entourage that sometimes included her son Ari, himself a heroin addict (she had introduced him), alongside her band and manager, her later albums included the excellent Drama of Exile, which saw her explore synth-infused post-punk territory.
Album 1981 Open ↗ YouTube -
020
The Prelude
William Wordsworth
Indeed, Wordsworth’s poem The Prelude – from which The Marble Index took its title – serves as a fitting epitaph: ‘The marble index of a mind for ever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.’
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021
Metal Machine Music
Lou Reed
Despite the shocked critical reception at the time, and the painting of the album as revolutionary since, there was nothing remotely original about Metal Machine Music (1975) – it was karaoke Cale, a direct result of the influence of the Theatre of Eternal Music.
Album 1975 Open ↗ YouTube -
022
Transformer
Lou Reed
There was no reason that a rock audience would get the reference points (by this stage Reed had launched his successful solo career and released Transformer [1972] – a record that, commercially at least, had eclipsed his modest cult following in the Velvets) and, for a long time, it was seen as an unlistenable aberration.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube
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