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Just take a look at that picture. If you see what I see, you see something that is imperfectly perfect. Buildings of all shapes and sizes converge and two are even designed to slope into one another. The saving grace is indeed the fact that it is NYC and as such it forms a captivating image. In some ways, it looks like a mistake, but one that is photographed hundreds perhaps thousands of times a year and has become iconic. That brought me to think of moments in life that could be considered mistakes but have turned into either wonderful learning moments or opportunities that have emerged in the aftermath. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In the grand scheme of things and to get educational for a moment many of the things we have in our life today were the result of mistakes or accidents. To name but a few, microwave ovens, post-it notes, penicillin, X-rays, and pacemakers. Another thing that came to mind when I gazed at this image was the Sheryl Crow song Favorite Mistake and although there is no real connection it does tell of a relationship that, although a mistake, was a favorite one. So now we have effortlessly landed squarely on the subject of mistakes hopefully without incurring any motion sickness. Often in life, we chastise ourselves for making mistakes, and errors in judgment, and curse ourselves or others for landing ourselves in situations where, for a moment we feel powerless. However, sometimes a mistake can be a life-changing event like it was for Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd. In the course of recording Wish You Were Here he accidentally coughed during the intro he was a habitual smoker at that time. The cough was left in the track but Gilmour decided to quit smoking for life after hearing it on playback. A few seconds later she restarted. I consider that our greatest triumph. Right at the beginning of the track, there is a burst of tuneless piano followed by a laugh. This was when Sting went to sit on a nearby piano in the sound studios without noticing that the lid was up. The result was left on the track. I could write a whole post on the subject of glitches that were left on the final recordings of well-known musical tracks. However, for this post that was a detour another one on our journey. In general, there are few mistakes we make in life and even our most profound errors in judgment serve as learning lessons. In a funny reflection from my own life recently I was talking to this woman about my original birthplace. For some reason the fact that I was born and lived in Scotland till my mid-twenties is of great interest to people. I reflected that before marrying my father my mother dated an American guy, a GI. Had they married I may have been born in the USA and no I am not going to highlight that track, haha. Now that would have saved me a lot of anguish BUT it would have changed the entire trajectory of my life. It is unlikely I would have entered the music industry as a journalist, manager, or publicity agent and of course, I would not have experienced the character-forming experience of spending more than ten years of my life trying to move to the USA. Would I have been born a different gender and not had the experience of living half my life as a different gender to the one I have today? So many questions and so many rapids I may not have had to navigate. But…wait a minute, if my mother had married that GI and had a child it would not have been me! I would not exist! I often turn to the time I spent as a writer in the bodybuilding industry and consider it a waste of time, a mistake. However, had I not been involved in that industry I would not have been invited to NYC to write about an American supplement company for the British magazines. In short, I would not have found my new home or the amazing people I have in my life as a result. We could ruminate endlessly on parts of our lives we may consider to be errors in judgment but the reality is that each of these so-called mistakes has led us to where we are today. In conclusion, there are no mistakes, every mess can be beautiful. Love your last line. Seems everything serves a purpose! Love all the 'mistakes' you talked about! Hope this finds you well Lee. Share this post. A Beautiful Mess leepenman. Copy link. A Beautiful Mess A ramble that began with a skyline. Lee Penman. Jul 31, Previous Next. Discussion about this post Comments. Deborah T. The World According to Velvet. Well said. I have been thinking similar thoughts Expand full comment. Ready for more? Start Writing Get the app. Substack is the home for great culture. This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts. I have been thinking similar thoughts Expand full comment Reply Share.

A Beautiful Mess

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Summary : The Velvet Underground are probably the most influential band of the entire history of rock music. The Velvet Underground, named after a journalistic book of that examined non-conventional sexual practices, scavenged the narrow alleys of the bad parts of town, and scavenged the subconscious of the urban kid, for emotional scraps that were a barbaric by-product of the original spirit of rock'n'roll. Their goal was only marginally the sonic reproduction of the psychedelic experience. Their true goal was to provide a documentary of the decadent, disaffected, cynical mood that was spreading among the intelligentsia. Vocalist Lou Reed who had studied poetry and cinema , bassist and viola player John Cale who had played with avantgarde composer La Monte Young , androgynous drummer Moe Tucker and German actress Christa 'Nico' Paeffgen were not hippies, these were elitist musicians who were aware of the avantgarde movements: they began playing in as part of Andy Warhol's multimedia show 'The Exploding Plastic Inevitable'. They originated the 'pessimistic' strand of psychedelic music as opposed to San Francisco's optimistic strand. The Velvet Underground probably remain the most influential band in the entire history of rock music. Above all else, they originated a spirit of making music independent, nihilistic, subversive that ten years later will be labeled 'punk'. Rock music as it is today was born the day the Velvet Underground entered a recording studio. They are immersed in the dark, oppressive atmosphere of German expressionism and French existentialism, but they also exhaled an epic libido: each song was a sexual fetish, and a cathartic sadomaso release. It was difficult to find a precedent for the Velvet Underground's music, because these barbarians were educated to the classical lieder and to LaMonte Young's minimalism, while they borrowed very little from rock'n'roll and pop music. Although less impressive, White Light White Heat contains Sister Ray , which probably remains the ultimate, definitive masterpiece of rock music, an epic piece that rivals Beethoven's symphonies and John Coltrane's metaphysical improvisations. The Live album contains a few more uncontrolled jams in the style of Sister Ray. By hailing drug addiction and deviant sex, the Velvet Underground revealed a whole new category of edonistic rituals. Their albums evoked a Dante-esque vision in which the border between hell and paradise was blurred. Those songs were also unique in the way they fused funeral elegy and triumphal anthem: they were terrible and seductive at the same time. Semiotically speaking, those songs constituted 'signs' by means of which reality was encoded in sounds: the metropolis was reduced to an endlessly pulsing noise, daily life was reduced to an unconscious delirium, and everything, both public and private, was clouded in pure, Freudian libido. The Velvet Underground's hyper-realism was deformed by a mind constantly in the grip of drugs and perverted fantasies. At the same time, their music was a visionary chaos from whose fog the mirage of a better world could rise. Their music was always majestic, even when sinking into the depths of abjection. Translated by Ornella C. Grannis from my original Italian text The Velvet Underground are in all probability the most influential band in the entire history of rock music. One of the most widespread anecdotes in rock music, attributed to Brian Eno, is that only one hundred people initially bought the Velvet Underground's first album, and today each one of them is either a music critic or a rock musician. The Velvets gave birth to pessimistic psychedelic rock as opposed to the optimistic nature of San Francisco psychedelia , raga-rock rock influenced by classic Indian music , and that which one day came to be known as New Wave. But above all, with them was born the will to make music - independent, subversive, nihilist - in the style that eventually was christened 'punk'. The glory of the band remains entrusted to the first two albums and to a couple of songs that followed. These few compositions changed forever the perception of what music was all about. First and foremost the Velvets are the great poets of the metropolis. Their poetry is a continuous reference to the degradation of modern life, to the alienation of the city, to the existential desperation of chronic loneliness, to the moral and physical violence shared by an entire population of modern 'losers. Their lyrics are anthems to sexual deviance and drug addiction, experienced more like miraculous and cathartic rituals than hedonistic behavior. Their music embodies that sense of squalor. But because it's also great poetry, it turns the squalor into 'weltanschaung' a world view , transforms life in the Lower East Side into Dantesque visions where heaven and hell are one and the same. The Velvet Underground sing both the triumphant apology and the funereal lament of this terrible and seducing world. Although they are a part of 60's and 70's culture, the Velvet Underground personify the opposite of all that those years represent. The band snubbed the protest, the flower children, the typical behavior of the stars. Their songs are arranged in ways that had never been tried before, and sometimes are pure chaos. These songs have little in common with the rest of popular music because they are not really songs: they are cheerless reports from a war zone, a chilling soundtrack for an intolerable reality. At the semiotic level they constitute 'signs' through which reality comes codified in sounds, The metropolis is reduced to pulsing noise repeated to obsession, daily life is reduced to unconscious delirium, and all issues, whether public or private, end in pure Freudian libido. Overall their work is a huge sexual fetish. The vision of the Velvet Underground is urban hyper-realism filtered through a mind perennially dimmed by drug addiction and perverse fantasies. Their music is an alarming and disquieting deaf noise that has the same function as the ritualistic music of primitive cultures: each individual first recognizes the ambiance, then becomes a participant, and in the end becomes the protagonist. Yet, at the same time, that sound is a visualization of chaos, a fog from which the mirage of a better world emerges, tied to a philosophy that borders on Hindu and Zen. Their music has a majestic sense, even when reduced to the most abject sounds. At Syracuse University, with his friend Jim Tucker, they moved in the intellectual circles, and stumbled across the path of one rebel student, Lewis 'Lou' Reed. Lou Reed was the child prodigy of a Jewish family from Brooklyn. At fourteen he had already played in a band of high school kids,The Shades, that managed to record a 45, So Blue At the university he studied English literature with the poet Delmore Schwartz, but he spent most of his time playing music, with a passion for free jazz. At twenty he dropped out of college to join the songwriters of Pickwick International, who produced records for sale at supermarkets. During that period he wrote The Ostrich for his own band, the Primitives. They were joined by the drummer Angus MacLise, also from Young's circle. If anything, they seemed a profoundly serious extension of Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man and the satire of the Fugs. On the suggestion of avant garde musician Tony Conrad, who was reading a book on sadomasochism entitled The Velvet Underground, the band changed its name and began to play at the openings of experimental movies. They debuted November 11, , on a college campus at the edge of town. Soon after that they become the main attraction of the Cafe Bizarre. It was Cale who added a novel quality to their sound, transforming the urban folk that was in vogue at the time into an unclassifiable new kind of acid-electric folk. One of first to be impressed was pop art guru Andy Warhol, who pulled them from the underground by giving them a place of prominence in his own features. One of the earlier films in which they appeared is 'Venus In Furs'. German actress and singer Nico Christa Paffgen , a pale and cold chanteuse with the languid air of a faded Middle- European noblewoman, having arrived in America as Brian Jones' companion, was part of Warhol's 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable' entourage. Nico injected an atmosphere of expressionist cabaret into the show, tracing an striking parallel between Berlin in the 30s and New York in the 60s. The Velvets were entrusted with the soundtrack for those shocking choreographies and light shows. In such fashion the Velvet Underground learned to produce their original style. Warhol surrounded himself with hooligans, prostitutes, homosexuals, drag queens and drug addicts - the dispossessed of New York City's underworld - for the Velvet Underground to sing about. In May the caravan of actors, movie-makers, dancers and musicians was set in motion for a tour that carried their exhibition of perversion and depravity all the way to the West Coast. On stage, the music converged in a fusion of personalities. Nico became a member of the Velvet Underground and their sound became an amalgam of the musical backgrounds of each one the five members: Reed's metropolitan existentialism, Cale's avant garde, Tucker's primitivism, Nico's 'verfremdung', and Morrison's rock and roll. Obviously they all took their cues from Andy Warhol's hyper-realism. But the Velvet Underground had little regard for tradition and absolutely no fear of experiment. From the very beginning their sound included distortion, feedback, Oriental drone, Middle Eastern scales, mantras, raga, free-jazz improvisation, and the tribal rhythms of American Indian pow-wows and African folk. Cale was the avant garde expert. Morrison was the rocker. Never before had existed a more unconventional band. The Velvet Underground were among the first bands to conceive rock music as creative art, not as a commercial product to sell in this or that format. As a consequence, they were also among the first bands to show total disregard for the charts. The aim of their music was to transmit emotions, to express uneasiness, to communicate within their environment. The early albums are first and foremost examples of creative freedom: the band wrote what it felt like, arranged it as it pleased, and played it how it wanted. The only rule was not to play blues, because too many bands were already doing it. The Velvet Underground are the chroniclers of vandalism, of alienation, of perverted eroticism, of aristocratic decadence, of all the obscene rituals concealed by the metropolis. They dig into the intricacies of vice, reconnecting it with the great French tradition of De Sade and Baudelaire. They undress the desolation of modern life, the frustration of the denizens of the technological ruins, the tenebrous ambiguities of 'la dolce vita' of the middle class. So much sickly inspection into the degradation of customs yields morbid songs and prolonged delirium, altered by a sound pushed to the limit of tolerance. In these incurable abscesses of sound the Velvet Underground revealed themselves as first radical prophets of improvisation, of dissonance and of 'deafening' rock. On their first album, The Velvet Underground And Nico Verve, , recorded in during the Californian tour under Tom Wilson's aegis, and released in January of the following year, the protagonists of those legendary comic-theatrical musical phantasmagories first appear. Andy Warhol produced the album and created one of his banana designs for the jacket, the phallic symbol that in time became his trademark. Nico, naughty brat and tenebrous angel, elegant and sinister, fatal and elusive, emits tone-deaf Teutonic laments in a neutral and wordly-wise tone. Reed, composer of the melodies and the lyrics, inflicts atrocious gashes of anguish in the slums, an infernal comedy on the moral misery of the nocturnal masses: ruin and desolation, solitude and paranoia, the beauty and the salvation of evil. Cale arranges the sound and the atmosphere with an infinity of strategies, from raw noise to the thinly perverse and seducing, exotic sound of the viola, leaning repeatedly on the most grinding notes, delving into electronic avant garde and repetition. Maureen Tucker beats on the drums with frenzied hysteria, desperate and obsessive,but also subtly exotic, martial, imitating African drums and Oriental gongs, supplying, along with the keyboards and Cale's viola, a constantly pulsating base that is perhaps the most revolutionary innovation of the album. On one side there are the spectral melodies for feminine voice, the chamber lieds that Nico sings in ambiguous tones with minimal accompaniment: the autumnal paradise, the cold lunar landscape of Sunday Morning, a tenuous fairy tale told by a cursed fairy with infinite nostalgia, with a refrain suspended in emptiness that wraps itself around endlessly in a thick jingling of metal; the smoky vision of Femme Fatale, set in a depraved Parisian bistro, soaked in delicate melancholy whispered by Nico, part angel of evil and part mournful damned; the funereal All Tomorrow' s Parties, a ceremony of ghosts and vampires elected to collective sacrifice, a debauched apotheosis of an orgy sung with emphatic detachment by the hostess Nico; and the sudden, candid folk simplicity of I' ll Be Your Mirror, where the treacherous witch Nico disguises herself as a princess. On the other side are the repellent groans of male confessions: the dissolute effrontery, the throbbing addiction of Waiting For My Man, the first 'Reedian' street poem, the supersonic boogie that for the first time experiments with the technique of pure percussion by all the instruments; the sadomasochist incubus in the Oriental gardens of Venus In Furs, one of the masterpieces of rock music, a lascivious madrigal that swings frightfully between life and death, the epic fatalism of Bob Dylan married to the moral decadence of film noir, both liberating cry and brutal physical abuse, a dark fresco of tormented libido sung by Reed in a desperate tone, accompanied by Cale's stiff viola longing to imitate the sound of bagpipes, set to the rhythm of Buddhist tom-toms in religious procession; the demonic chaos of Black Angel' s Death Song, an heretical litany declaimed by Reed in the style of the beatniks. High above any other desolation are two long electric opuses. The psychedelic delirium Heroin, is a wild evocation of the cathartic trip, with percussive crescendo that borders on vertigo and orgasm, a music stripped of every harmonic code, employing tribal tom tom, scraped viola, and ringing guitars. In the noisy carnival European Son, dedicated to the poet Schwartz and influenced by Ornette Coleman's free-jazz, Cale and Tucker set out to produce the highest commotion possible within eight maniacal minutes of distortion and percussion. The album, completed by two alienating ditties, Run Run Run and There She Goes, is perfect from all viewpoints, and ought to be placed among the masterpieces of expressionist musical theater, alongside, if not above, Weill and the 'Pierrot Lunaire. The tension manifests in sexual fetishes and cathartic sadism, in latent orgasms and unnerving noises; and in the living contrast between the urban ways of Reed and the patrician ways of Nico, between Berlin in the 30s and New York in the 60s, between the subculture of crisis and that of the apocalypse. The seduction of the album is derived not only from the quantity of ideas in it, but from the fusion of so many strong artistic personalities, all directed by Lou Reed, who functions as catalyst. The impact on the external world was traumatic: the innovative strength of their words and music created a mixed response of astonishment and hostility, even from the intellectual fringe, who became aware of their dangerous and decadent temptations. The second album, White Light White Heat Verve, , was realized without Nico, who had parted ways to follow Warhol, after a series of failed concerts in empty theaters. The absence of Nico's tormented tone and the hazy atmosphere it helped create, left more space for Reed's delirious discourse and Cale's radical experiments. The cuts grew excessively long, overshadowed by a common monotone darkness, a sense of impotence and claustrophobia, torn by guitar distortions and abused by foul language. There are free-form feedback jams, hyper-disintegrating holocausts that collapse into the lowest level of emotionality. The sense of solitude amidst the clamor of the city offers the emotional cue for the Velvet's macabre fantasies. Metropolitan chaos and mental chaos, desperation, paranoia, obsession with death, turbulence of the subconscious: the Velvet Underground were determined to pierce the most painful layers of psychedelia and psychoanalysis. The opening title track of White Light White Heat, with its powerful intro and its rhythmic pace, is the piece that brings to perfection their hypnotic percussive boogie, the kind of frenzied bacchanal already experimented with in European Son. It's also the only cut on the album, except for the mantra Here She Comes Now, that's even reminiscent of formal song structure. In contrast, the devastating tribal dance I Heard Her Call My Name, an epileptic saraband, the claustrophobic The Gift, a colloquial discourse backed by amorphous improvised guitar distortions, and the mangled Indian-sounding Lady Godiva's Operation, are wild rides with neither head nor tail, broken up by Cale's monumental dissonance, their gloomy lullaby sustained by Tucker's maniacal beat. All these prelude to Sister Ray, a deafening black mass, an incantation of voices and instruments in a trance, perhaps the greatest masterpiece in all of rock music. This epic snake slithers for seventeen minutes without a moment's pause, with a throbbing beat Maureen Tucker has every the right to list herself among the best drummers in rock history , with distorted and hissing guitar phrasing comprised of vehement assaults and soft whispers in counterpoint, with the continuous electric martyrdom of Cale, and with the acutely spirited voice of a stuttering Reed, epileptic and possessed. The tremendous accelerating beat and the spasms of emotional neurosis that shatter it from top to bottom reach sound levels and emotional intensity never before accomplished in music. The snake unfolds like a long sabbath, a ritualistic dance, a happening of collective self-destruction in a continuous eruption of gasps, psychopathic spasms, perverse violence, and obsessive delirium - a pulsating heap of sounds that explode in every direction, a dissonant hurricane of such violence as to uproot the entire civilization of music, a dramatic jubilation of enraged anguish, a mystical anarchic liberation of primordial instincts, a psychoanalytic session of automatic writing, an expansion of consciousness, an ode to the chaos of the metropolis, an anthem to universal insanity. The success of the album was inversely proportional to its greatness. The reason is not attributable to Reed's vulgar lyrics - as such taboos had long been broken - but to Cale's heavy experimentation. As a consequence, in Reed asked Cale to leave the group. The third album, Velvet Underground Verve, , is a disappointment. Their sound lacks the sourness, purposely removed by Reed, and Cale's dissonant adventures. Moe Tucker's cyclonic fieriness also seems restrained. With these elements removed, not much remains of the Velvet Underground. At least Reed should have had the decency to change the name of the band. This doesn't mean that the songs in this album are unsophisticated or insignificant: Pale Blue Eyes, the most tender of the lot, displays the counterpoint of church organ and classical guitar touches. In the slow ballad, Candy Says, new bass player Doug Yule imitates Nico's storytelling and complete detachment. The sweeping What Goes On swings between guitar and organ crescendos, bidding farewell to the acid era. Some Kinda Love is a meager and unpretentious blues ballad built on the languid intonation of Reed's voice. But this is not the Velvet Underground, this is Lou Reed, the founding father of glam-rock and decadent rock, with backup band. Only Beginning To See The Light is somewhat reminiscent of the neurotic tribalism of the original Velvet's masterpieces. Lou Reed always maintained that remixing destroyed the album's original sound. The double album, Live Mercury, shows a much more determined band, that continues the experiment of Sister Ray pushing to the limits of what would eventually be known as 'industrial music'. The mile-long versions of What Goes On and Ocean, featuring Moe Tucker's hallucinogenic drumming in full glory, and the unadulterated rock and roll of Sweet Bonnie Brown restores dignity to this period, proving that Lou Reed's cynicism had not yet sterilized all the passions of the group. Several other live recordings testify to the demonic, funeral-like atmosphere in which their perverse sonic ceremonies were still carried out, with Reed playing the part of the depraved shaman who seduces and corrupts, with his the insistent libidinous voice, with the band's obsessive rhythm, and the overwhelming sense of paranoia and claustrophobia. VU collects songs that were recorded up until September for their fourth album, which was never released. If I Can't Stand It if their typical pseudo-boogie drumming and bass pattern with a typical Cale solo on electric viola, and the acoustic Renaissance-style Stephanie Says has a melody reminiscent of Sunday Morning , the rest marks a further transformation: She's My Best Friend sits halfway between the folk-rock of the Byrds and the bubblegum-pop of the Monkees; Lisa Says is a bluesy, Dylan-ian dirge; Ocean is an anemic, loose, lysergic litany; and Tucker sings the musichall singalong I'm Sticking with You with a final choral refrain reminiscent of the Everly Brothers. Lou Reed is the only original member on Loaded , which can be considered his first solo album. Reed's desire for fame and fortune yielded the shallowest songs of his entire career, particularly Sweet Jane and Rock And Roll. They are songs that can make easy-listening pros like David Bowie rave, but in fact they are banal and mediocre to the point of embarrassment by the standards of the Velvet Underground. As if to compensate for the shortcomings of the album, their popularity continued to soar, so much so that they played at the grand opening of Max's Kansas City - a gig that lasted two months. Max's Kansas City later became the headquarters of the New Wave. Maureen Tucker, by now useless in the new context, left the group or was dispensed with and vanished. Squeeze Polydor, , although recorded by a band by the same name, is an album that has nothing to do with the Velvet Underground. In the 70s, Nico, the legendary sphinx of rock music, Lou Reed, the forefather of glam-rock and decadent rock, and John Cale, the godfather of New Wave, each became great singer-songwriters. Sterling Morrison took advantage of the dissolution of the band to resume his studies toward a college degree in Medieval Literature at the University of Texas, Austin, but ended up earning a living as a tug-boat captain along the Houston Canal. Morrison played shortly with the Texan band Bizarros. Tucker got married, had five children and followed her husband first to California and then to Arizona. After her divorce she moved to Georgia where she worked as a cashier in a supermarket. She came back in the 80s with the single Will You Love Me Tomorrow and Playing Possum Trash, , an album of mostly covers recorded in her living room. With the help of Lou Reed her career was revived. She released Life In Exile After Abdication 50 Skidillion Watts, , finally an album of originals with several songs dedicated to her friends of the golden era. I Spent A Week There Rough Trade, and Dogs Under Strees Sky, , Tucker's 'songwriter' albums, played by the usual cast of veterans, bridge the old world the six-minute acid jam I'm Not on the former features a reunion of the Velvet Underground line-up and the new one Lazy on the latter. The enormous post-dissolution popularity of the group, especially in the 90s, would bring to surface previously unreleased material. Also in the 90s, the band reunited for a European tour. It contains one hour of previously unreleased songs in addition to all the original mixes of the first and fourth albums. Sterling Morrison died of cancer in August , the day after his 53rd birthday. The first drummer for the Velvet Underground, Angus MacLise, the freakish genius of the 60s NY underground, had perhaps the most turbulent and creative life of all. In , in a ceremony officiated by Timothy Leary, he married a hippie journalist from San Francisco. He was the leader of New York's Tribal Orchestra. He died in in Katmandu, where he had become a poet and a painter. His entire work is collected on The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda Siltbreeze, , which includes the soundtrack of the avant garde movie by the same title , as well as other pieces for small ensemble in the raga-psychedelic-minimalist style. Cloud Doctrine Sub Rosa, is a double-cd of unreleased tapes. Con loro nacque soprattutto uno spirito di far musica indipendente, eversiva, nichilista che un giorno sarebbe stato battezzato 'punk'. I Velvet Underground furono innanzitutto grandi poeti della metropoli. Quell'atmosfera faceva continuo riferimento alla degradazione della vita moderna, all'alienazione urbana, alla disperazione esistenziale. La musica dei Velvet Underground era claustrofobicamente immersa in ambienti opprimenti. La musica dei Velvet Underground era una medicina per sopravvivere in quegli ambienti. La loro musica 'era' quel senso di squallore. Ma era anche grande poesia, che trasformava lo squallore in 'weltanschaung', che trascendeva il milieu del Lower East Side per visioni dantesche in cui inferno e paradiso si confondevano. I Velvet Underground intonarono sia l'apologia trionfale sia il lamento funebre di questo mondo terribile e seducente. Il complesso fu estraneo alla canzone di protesta, fu estraneo ai 'flower children', fu estraneo al divismo dei Beatles. Le loro canzoni erano arrangiate in un modo che non era mai stato tentato prima, e talvolta erano puro caos sonoro. Quelle canzoni avevano poco in comune con il resto della musica popolare perche', alla fin fine, non erano canzoni: costituivano i reperti angoscianti di un'agghiacciante colonna sonora. Quello dei Velvet Underground era iper-realismo urbano, ma filtrato attraverso una mente perennemente offuscata dalle droghe e malata di fantasie perverse. Due scuole storiche della cultura Europea, espressionismo e decadentismo, si compenetravano, usando come veicoli la pop art di Andy Warhol e il minimalismo appena inventato da LaMonte Young. La loro musica era un rumore sordo e inquietante che aveva la stessa funzione della musica ritualistica delle popolazioni primitive: l'individuo vi riconosce il proprio ambiente, ne diventa partecipe, ne diventa protagonista. E al tempo stesso quel suono era una forma di caos visionario, dalle cui nebbie emergeva il miraggio di un mondo migliore, secondo una prassi che era vicina a filosofia hindu e zen. Lou Reed era l'enfant prodige di una famiglia ebrea di Brooklyn. Nel Morrison e Reed si incontrarono a New York e formarono i Warlocks con il gallese John Cale, che aveva studiato musica d'avanguardia a Londra ed era arrivato a New York nel per perfezionarsi alla corte del guru minimalista LaMonte Young, e il batterista Angus MacLise, anch'egli dell'entourage di Young. L'influenza di LaMonte Young sul gruppo fu principalmente quella dei droni della musica Indiana, che divennero un marchio di fabbrica nelle esibizioni dal vivo. Poco prima del natale MacLise venne sostituito alla batteria dalla sorella di Jim, Maureen 'Moe' Tucker un fatto insolito per quei tempi. Uno dei primi film in cui comparvero s'intitolava 'Venus In Furs'. Dell'entourage del suo 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable' faceva anche parte l'attrice e cantante tedesca Nico Christa Paffgen , chanteuse pallida e fredda, dall'aria di una languida nobildonna mitteleuropea decaduta giunta in America come compagna di Brian Jones. Nico inietta in quegli show un'atmosfera da cabaret espressionista, tracciando in tal modo un'inquietante parallelo fra la Berlino anni '30 e la New York anni ' Warhol si circondava di un popolo di diseredati, estratto dai bassifondi di New York, un popolo di teppisti, prostitute, omosessuali, drag queen e drogati che diventa il protagonista delle canzoni dei Velvet Underground. L'esordio dei Velvet Underground con Nico avvenne nel febbraio del al 'Cinematheque', ma la prima esibizione ufficiale dello show multimediale di Andy Warhol si ebbe in primavera al 'DOM Theatre'. Ovviamente l'iper-realismo di Andy Warhol impresse una direzione preferenziale ai loro spunti. Ma i Velvet Underground avevano poca o nulla soggezione nei confronti della tradizione e poca o nulla paura di sperimentare. Nel loro repertorio entrarono subito la distorsione, il feedback, i droni della musica orientale, le scale mediorientali, il mantra, il raga, l'improvvisazione del free-jazz, i ritmi tribali dei pow-wow pellerossa e del folk africano. Cale era l'esperto di musica d'avanguardia. Sterling era il rocker. I Velvet Underground furono fra i primi complessi che concepirono la musica rock come arte creativa, e non come prodotto commerciale da vendere nel formato del disco a 45 giri. I Velvet Underground furono fra i primi complessi che mostrarono totale disinteresse per le classifiche di vendita. Il fine della loro musica era di trasmettere emozioni, esprimere disagio, comunicare all'interno del proprio ambiente. L'unica regola del gruppo era di non suonare blues, perche' c'erano troppi complessi influenzati dal blues. I Velvet Underground inventarono dal nulla una morbosa poesia del teppismo, dell'alienazione, dell'erotismo perverso, del decadentismo alto-borghese, dei turpi riti nascosti nella metropoli. Andy Warhol produce l'album e disegna sulla copertina una delle sue banane, il simbolo fallico assurto col tempo a suo marchio di fabbrica. Nico, monella perversa, angelo tenebroso, emette sordi lamenti teutoni, elegante e sinistra, fatale ed elusiva, in tono neutro e vissuto. Il viaggio nei bassifondi della decadenza si apre con il paradiso autunnale, il freddo paesaggio lunare di Sunday Morning che doveva essere cantanta da Nico ma all'ultimo momento venne registrata da Reed con voce effeminata , tenue fiaba raccontata da una fata maledetta con infinita accorata nostalgia con un ritornello sospeso nel vuoto che si avvolge su se stesso all'infinito in un fitto tintinnio metallico. E sovrastano ogni altra desolazione le due lunghe elucubrazioni elettriche, il delirio psichedelico di Heroin , evocazione allucinata di un trip catartico, crescendo percussivo con punte di vertigine, sballo orgasmico al di fuori di ogni codice armonico tam tam tribali, viola scorticata, chitarre jingle-jangle ; in fondo a tutto il carnevale rumoristico di European Son dedicata al poeta Schwarz e influenzata dal free-jazz di Ornette Coleman , con Cale e la Tucker scatenati nel produrre il massimo frastuono possibile, otto minuti di distorsioni e percussioni maniacali. Feticci sessuali e sadismi catartici, orgasmi latenti e rumori snervanti; il vivo contrasto fra i modi suburbani di Reed e quelli patrizi di Nico, la Berlino anni '30 e gli slum anni '60, la sottocultura della crisi e quella dell'apocalisse. Il secondo album, White Light White Heat Verve, , venne realizzato dai soli Velvet Underground, dato che Nico e Warhol avevano deciso di proseguire per le loro strade, e in un solo giorno, dopo una serie di concerti fallimentari a teatri vuoti. Il disco accentua il lato sperimentale del primo album, in particolare concentrandosi in minimalismo e cacofonia a discapito della melodia. I brani si allungano a dismisura, sovrastati da una comune cupa monotonia senso di impotenza e claustrofobia , lacerati dalle distorsioni chitarristiche e seviziati dai turpiloqui demenziali. Sono jam free-form di feedback, olocausti iper-disgreganti che collassano ad un livello bassissimo di emotivita'. La solitudine nel clamore della grande metropoli offre lo spunto emotivo per fantasie macabre. Sono le premesse a Sister Ray , assordante messa nera sillabata da voci e strumenti in trance, forse il massimo capolavoro dell'intera musica rock. L'epico serpente si snoda per diciassette minuti senza un attimo di pausa, con un lavoro martellante di batteria e Maureen Tucker ha tutto il diritto di proporsi quale miglior batterista della storia del rock , un fraseggio distorto e sibilante di chitarra fatto di assalti veementi e di mormorii sommessi in contrappunto, con il continuo martirio elettrico di Cale, con la voce spiritata lancinante e balbuziente di Reed, epilettico ed indemoniato. Il successo di pubblico era inversamente proporzionale alla grandezza artistica del disco. La colpa non era tanto dei testi volgari di Reed, visto che ormai certi tabu' erano stati infranti un po' da tutti, quanto dell'accanita sperimentazione di Cale. Sweet Sister Ray documents four live performances of their masterpiece from , and Reed elimina del tutto le asprezze del loro sound e viene a mancare lo sperimentalismo di Cale. Frenata anche la foga ciclonica di Moe Tucker, non rimane molto dei Velvet Underground. Reed avrebbe dovuto avere la decenza di cambiare nome al complesso. Ma questi non sono i Velvet Underground, sono il complesso di accompagnamento di Lou Reed, padre fondatore del glam-rock e del rock decadente. Al tribalismo nevrotico dei capolavori rimanda soltanto Beginning To See The Light , e un po' di suspense la regala soltanto la lunga The Murder Mystery. E altri nastri di registrazioni dal vivo testimoniano dell'atmosfera raccolta, funerea e demoniaca in cui si svolgevano tuttora i loro perversi cerimoniali sonori, con Reed nei panni dello sciamano depravato che gode e corrompe, la voce libidinosa che incalza, la ritmica ossessiva, un senso opprimente di paranoia e claustrofobia. Maureen Tucker, ormai inutile nel nuovo contesto, lascia il complesso o viene estromessa e scompare per anni nel nulla. Squeeze Polydor, venne registrato da un gruppo che non aveva nulla a che spartire con i Velvet Underground. Negli anni '70 Nico , Lou Reed e John Cale diventeranno grandi cantautori, l'una leggendaria sfinge del rock, il secondo anticipatore del glam-rock e del rock decadente, il terzo padrino persino della new wave. What is unique about this music database.

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