Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story

by Victor Bockris

  REED: “Andy told me that what we were doing with music was the same thing he was doing with painting and movies and writing, i.e. not kidding around. To my mind nobody in music was doing anything that even approximated the real thing, with the exception of us. We were doing a specific thing that was very, very real. It wasn’t slick or a lie in any conceivable way, which was the only way we could work with him. Because the first thing I liked about Andy was that he was very real.”

  Andy arrived at Rutgers on the afternoon of March 9 with an entourage of thirteen people and went straight to the student cafeteria where the boys and girls flipped out gawking at Nico while Barbara Rubin filmed their reactions and Nat Finkelstein took photographs. When campus guards told him he couldn’t, Nat punched one of them in the nose and the next thing he knew sixteen cops arrived. They asked Andy for his cafeteria pass (which he never had). Gerard and Paul started screaming, and everyone got thrown out.

  MORRlSON: “Ondine, who played the Pope in Warhol’s Chelsea Girls, was part of the ensemble at Rutgers. He insists that Paul Morrissey forced him out of the show from then on, to his grief. He had always been our close friend, in or out of the show. We had no hand in, or knowledge of, the machinations that removed him.”

  The show, which hadn’t been selling too well prior to their arrival, sold out in the next two hours and 650 students packed the auditorium to see what would happen next. It was a perfect example of the effectiveness of making everyone uptight. Uptight meant interesting. Uptight meant something, as opposed to the perennial nothing, would happen.

  Apart from The Velvets, Nico, Andy, Gerard, Barbara and Paul, the other integral members of the team were Danny Williams, a friend of Chuck Wein who had come down from Cambridge and worked at the Factory as an expert electrician – if it could be done with wires, Danny would do it; Nat Finkelstein, a freelance photographer, connected with Black Star Photo Agency, who had come to the Factory in the Fall of ’65 to take pictures for a week and stayed for a year; Dave Faison, the Velvet’s trusted equipment manager, who stayed with them throughout the Warhol period, driving the van that carried their equipment which he single-handedly cared for and set up. Faison was very important to the show.

  MORRISON: “At Rutger’s we were all dressed entirely in white. The effect, with all the films and lights projected on us, was invisibility.”

  A few days later the same entourage, including Ingrid Superstar, the new girl at the Factory who had replaced Edie Sedgwick, jammed into a mobile van and headed out to Ann Arbor where another performance was booked at the University of Michigan Film Festival.

  MORRISON: “We rode to Ann Arbor in some kind of ‘recreational vehicle’. The thing was big! It had a 120 volt AC generator on the back that supplied power to the inside. We could play our amps as we rolled along.”

  Andy remembers the drive in POPism: “Nico drove, and that was an experience. I still don’t know if she had a licence. She’d only been in this country a little while and she’d keep forgetting and drive on the British side of the road.”

  NICO: “Oh my God! He was the only one who wasn’t scared. He just couldn’t care less. He figured that if I could take charge of 15 people on the bus I have to be a good driver not to land in a ditch.”

  WARHOL: “Nico’s driving really was insane when we hit Ann Arbor. She was shooting across sidewalks and over people’s lawns. We finally pulled up in front of a nice big comfortable-looking house and everyone started unloading the van.

  “Ann Arbor went crazy. At last The Velvets were a smash. We had a strobe light with us for the first time. The strobes were magical, they went perfectly with the chaos music The Velvets played. I’d sit on the steps in the lobby during intermission and people from the local papers and school papers would interview me, ask about my movies, what we were trying to do. ‘If they can take it for ten minutes, then play it for fifteen,’ I’d explain. ‘That’s our policy. Always leave them wanting less.’”

  INGRID SUPERSTAR: “I remember in Ann Arbor part of the audience went a little berserk, and there were a few hecklers. They’re all a bunch of immature punks. Like we have these problems with a very enthusiastic audience that yells and screams and throws fits and tantrums and rolls on the floor, usually at colleges and benefits like that for the younger people. So, anyway, the effect of the music on the audience is like the audience is just too stunned to think or say anything or give any kind of opinion. But then later I asked a few people in Ann Arbor, who had come to see the show a couple of nights in a row, what they thought, and they formed an opinion slowly. They said that they thought the music was very way out and supersonic and fast and intensified, and the effect of the sound it produced vibrated all through the audience, and when they walked out onto the street they still had these vibrations in their ears for about 15 minutes, especially from that last piece ‘Nothing Song’, which was just noise and feedback and screeches and groans from the amplifiers.”

  The overall effect created by this bombardment of images and sound, with The Velvets often turning their backs on the audience throughout the entire performance, was the opposite of the accepted rock mores of the time. This may have had something to do with the fact that a number of the people involved in the production were on amphetamine, a drug which, among other effects, influences consumers to respond to everything with its mirror, or exactly opposite, image.

  JOHN WILCOCK: “I was on the bus with Nico and everybody. What do you remember most about that?”

  MALANGA: “That we became a gypsy band.”

  WILCOCK: “The eleven member Warhol group (supplemented by accompanying cars) had rented a microbus for the 1, 500 mile round-trip to Ann Arbor ($50 per day plus 100 per mile) and although it offered some of the comforts of home – including a toilet that, like the one in the 47th Street Factory, didn’t work – it proved to be far from the most reliable mode of transportation. The most chaotic moments came on the way back when a stop was made in the parking lot of a pop art monstrosity called the White Hut Superking for everybody to order hamburgers. Even before Nico, blonde locks falling about the shoulders of her black leather jacket, had brought the bus to a halt, a police patrol car came snooping around to see what else it contained.”

  MORRISON: “The AC power came in handy, because we blew the alternator on the engine outside of Toledo on the way back to NY. The police so despised us that they insisted we get out of city limits at once. It was night, and we had no lights, but Danny cranked up the generator on the back, and ran extension cords from inside to photo floodlamps clamped to the bumper. The police followed us all the way to the line. I began to think that it was dangerous to cross the Hudson. I was a full-time student at City College at the time, but I was seldom seen, and ended up six credits shy of graduating. Good grades, in spite of all. I picked those up in the summer we played Max’s.”

  THE DOM

  Back in New York the group played at Paraphernalia, the ultra hip clothes store featuring the fashion designs of Betsey Johnson, who would later marry John Cale. The models could hardly gyrate through the mob which glutted both floors of the chic boutique. As Nico danced with Gerard, Andy’s films bounced off the walls and Brian Jones, among others, looked on. Actually the best view was from outside, as bopping spotlights illuminated the models on the platform in the huge second storey glass front. It drew a crowd and eventually the police. “Wow!” said Andy. “A policeman.”

  Paul Morrissey was trying to close the deal on Andy Warhol’s UP so The Velvets and Nico could have their own place to play every night and become famous.

  MORRISSEY: “I kept trying to press Myerberg, through our lawyer Sy Litvinoff, to sign an agreement that Andy’s group would open and be paid a certain amount of money. What happened is there was … let’s say an Italian influence in this club and I think they had their own plans for the opening. Somehow, even Myerberg lost control of it a little bit. About a week before they were scheduled to open, this lawyer said, ‘They’ve changed their minds,
they’re going to open this weekend with The Young Rascals,’ starring Felix Cavalieri of Syracuse managed by Sid Bernstein who promoted The Beatles in the US.”

  MORRISON: “Murray Kaufman (‘Murray The K’) was involved in this thing too – if not initially, then certainly at the end. The place was full of gangsters; one night we all went out there to look at the place and a limo full of them spilled out to challenge our right to enter. I’d seen enough already, and perhaps they had too. Inside, for an awkward moment, Lou and I ran into Felix Cavalieri, who must have known what mischief was afoot, but said nothing. The Rascals were a better band to open the place anyway, especially since it was closed down on opening night for liquor violations and never re-opened. Eventually the club, which had finally been called Murray The K’s World, burnt down under the usual mysterious circumstances. Still, the price offered us to play there and hang out was $40,000 for the first four weekends. That would have been good pay for one night if we had collected it in advance. I don’t know whether The Rascals got any money out of it.”

  MORRISSEY: “I remember going down to the Cafe Figaro in the Village where Gerard had taken Andy to see Allen Ginsberg, who was about to go to Europe. I said, ‘Andy, they’re not going to sign the agreement, we don’t have a club for The Velvets.’ Andy had already invested this money in their equipment. I think we even got a management contract out of them.”

  MALANGA: “What were the stipulations?”

  MORRISSEY: “For presenting them and financing their equipment and supporting them and making them famous we got 25 per cent of their earnings.”

  MORRISON: “Our agreement with Warvel, Inc., which we set up with Andy, called for our sharing in his many sources of revenue. After the initial purchase of a Vox Super Beatle and a Vox Westminster bass amp, we soon were able to make an endorsement deal with Vox and got all of their stuff free (even guitars). I’m playing a Vox Phantom in the movie that Andy made of us. We were the first American band on endorsement to Vox, and in England they only had The Beatles, Stones, and Hollies. I always liked Vox. Later we endorsed Acoustic, and finally Sunn (very good equipment). Paul, in other words, is not talking about major expenditures.”

  MORRISSEY: “The idea was that they could’ve become very famous from being presented in this night club. Now, suddenly, my plans for presenting them fell through. But, as I was telling Andy this at the Figaro, sitting at the table behind me was Jackie Cassen and Rudi Stern and they heard me talking. They said, ‘You’re looking for a dance hall to present a rock’n’roll group? We present dance concerts with light shows and we know a wonderful place.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding, where?’ They said, ‘On St. Mark’s Place.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding, I know that street. I never knew there was a place there.’ I went over with them and I saw the Dom and I came back and arranged a rental deal through Sy Litvinoff on Wednesday. It was only signed on Friday and that afternoon The Velvets and Faison moved their equipment in. They never saw the place before. We couldn’t go in until the lease was signed. It was very hard getting the lease signed. Andy paid the money for the lease for the month of April. We moved in on Friday. Gerard was up on the back painting the wall white. I had to put the ad in the Village Voice the previous Monday. It was put in on the deadline. It was some sort of miracle that with in that short space Andy Warhol presenting THE EXPLODING PLASTIC INEVITABLE was created. The term ‘Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ came from sitting around with Gerard and Barbara Rubin thinking of a name. I picked up a record album with Barbara on the back massaging Bob Dylan’s head(‘Bringing It All Back Home’). There were some amphetamine Bob Dylan gibberish liner notes. I looked without reading and saw these words appear: something was ‘exploding’, something was ‘plastic’, something was ‘inevitable’.

  “I said, ‘Why not call it “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” The Velvet Underground and Nico?’ We moved in on Friday afternoon at 3 o’clock and at 8 o’clock that night all these people showed up. It was packed. It was an enormous success from its very first night.”

  Gerard’s new dancing partners were Mary Woronov, a tall, beautiful art student he discovered at Cornell University and brought to the Factory, Ingrid Superstar, and Ronnie Cutrone, a 17-year-old super bopper, who hung out on the fast scene.

  RONNIE CUTRONE: “The great thing about the ‘Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ was that it left nothing to the imagination. We were on stage with bullwhips, giant flashlights, hypodermic needles, barbells, big wooden crosses. In a sense it controlled your imagination. That’s what you saw. Before that when you heard music you drifted off and you associated the music with what you thought about. This time make no mistake about it there was a clear image of what the group was conveying, and so it left nothing to the imagination. You were shocked because sometimes your imagination wasn’t strong enough to imagine people shooting up on stage, being crucified and licking boots.”

  WARHOL: “The Velvets played so loud and crazy I couldn’t even begin to guess the decibels, and there were images projected every where, one on top of the other. I’d usually watch from the balcony or take my turn at the projectors, slipping different coloured gelatin slides over the lenses and turning movies like Harlot, The Shoplifter, Couch, Banana, Blow Job, Sleep, Empire, Kiss, Whips, Face, Camp, Eat into all different colours.”

  WALTER DE MARIA: “There was a serious tone to the music and the movies and the people, as well as all the craziness and the speed. There was also the feeling of desperate living, of being on the edge. The present was blazing and every day was incredible, and you knew every day wasn’t always going to be that way.”

  RICHARD GOLDSTEIN: “The sound is a savage series of atonal thrusts and electronic feedback. The lyrics combine sado-masochistic frenzy with free association imagery. The whole sound seems to be the product of a secret marriage between Bob Dylan and the Marquis de Sade.”

  WARHOL: “We all knew something revolutionary was happening. We just felt it. Things couldn’t look this strange and new without some barrier being broken. ‘It’s like the Red Seeea,’ Nico said, standing next to me one night on the Dom balcony that looked out over all the action, ‘paaaaarting’.”

  DANNY FIELDS: “It was an audience event to me, but it was also a musical event, because I preferred many times to close my eyes rather than see this psychedelic light-show travesty flashing on the group. To me it was the music. The great credit due Andy is that he recognized it. He heard music when he first saw The Velvets. He thought that they were great. So, they were great before Andy. So, they were great during Andy, and afterwards, too. Andy may have created The EPI but he didn’t create the sound of the band. That was always there long before Andy found them. Lou’s song-concepts were avant-garde and his lyrics were avant-garde, but I don’t know if his melodies without John at that point would have been avant-garde. John really put a psychedelic air to it. I thought The Velvets were ahead of everybody. It’s the only thing that ever, ever, ever swept me off my feet as music since early Mahler. They were a revolution.”

  Ed Sanders, the lead singer for The Fugs, another New York band that thrived on the Lower East Side in the same period, and with whom Gerard Malanga had originally danced before he met The Velvets, was taken by Barbara Rubin to see them at the Bizarre and remembers going to the Dom.

  ED SANDERS: “I liked that tune that started out real slow -‘Heroin’. I liked the drummer. I always liked Lou Reed’s voice. The time was pretty good. Then it was more organic, yet within the organism it had certain time changes that were interesting. My wife Miriam seems to remember that the Dom gigs were crowded out by dopers. They had a kind of Allen Kaprow happening factor. I liked the show because it had a lot of energy. I liked the way everything was wrapped up in a goodtime-change. What The Fugs were doing wasn’t exclusive nor were we competitive. There was plenty of room in the whole world for both The Fugs and The Velvets. I didn’t feel competitive about anybody. I felt camaraderie towards The Velvets. We overlapped. So people would come to both shows
. Nico used to come to my bookstore, The Peace Eye.”

  MORRISON: “I agree with Ed completely. We often played together at shows and benefits, and liked and were liked by the same people. The Fugs, The Holy Modal Rounders and The Velvet Underground were the only authentic Lower East Side bands. We were real bands playing for real people in a real scene. We helped each other out if we could and generally hung out at the same places. I have a complete collection of Fugs albums and they bring me great joy.”

  MORRISSEY: “Even at the first weekend, this horrible Charlie Rothchild came down. He said he was no longer working for Albert Grossman but I think he was. He said, ‘You really have a great thing going here. You need somebody professional to manage it for you, and who’s going to book The Velvet Underground?’ He said, ‘I did the bookings for Grossman, I could run the box-office here with a friend.’ He had a kinda young blond partner who seemed rather on the up-and-up. I stupidly let them do it. They ran the box-office and collected the money.”

  MALANGA: “Did you feel at that point that Nico would make it rather than The Velvets?”

  MORRISSEY: “No, I thought they both would, really. I didn’t think one more than the other. But I thought they really belonged together. Right after we opened and we had that success I told Andy, ‘Now we have to make a record with them,’ and we went into a recording studio for three or four nights. It didn’t cost that much. It was like a couple of thousand dollars.

  MALANGA: “Andy didn’t go every night to the recording studio?”