BOCKRIS: “MGM switched you from Verve onto MGM for this record.”
SESNICK: “Correct. That was my doing. Why we did that was very complicated, and eventually led to getting us to Columbia or Atlantic. It was a movement out of the company.”
BOCKRIS: “So you were already moving in that direction?”
SESNICK: “Oh hell, we were getting bigger and bigger and they were getting more chaotic with the loss of presidents. I was dealing with a different president every month. They went through presidents constantly, which was good for us at the time because I could call an enormous number of shots and get us the bookings and the support that we needed without having to draw up new contracts. So we were on our way pretty much at that point. Either they were going to really do it for us, and they’d be the company that we would be with, or we would be with another company.”
BOCKRIS: “Were they actually giving you more support than they had on the first two records?”
SESNICK: “In reality, yes, they were. They were picking up advertising, hotels and limousines. I managed to get a lot of coverage from MGM because we weren’t making much money, we had no money, and if we had had to cover everything we’d have been in serious debt. We’d have been finished, so I had to really work around that.”
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
The Velvet Underground LP was markedly different in both its sound and mood. The music was almost folk-like in its simplicity. It is also a realization of Reed’s view of a rock record as a unified whole.
REED: “This song would follow this song because this has to do with this and this has to do with that, and this will answer that and then you’ve got this character who matches this character or offsets this character. The third album was really the quintessence of that idea, because it started out with ‘Candy Says’ where this girl asks all these questions. And then the next song is ‘What Goes On’ where this guy says, ‘Wow, you’re asking me all these questions, you’re driving me crazy, you’re making me feel like I’m upside-down.’ And the third thing they’ve decided that they’re talking about is love, so he’s going to give her an example of ‘Some Kinds Of Love’ and he talks about all kinds of love being the same as long as it’s love, and that’s what he says to her over and over and gives different examples of it. He’s trying to reach her and she’s like saying, ‘I don’t understand,’ you know, but that’s stated at the beginning. Then he gets into ‘Pale Blue Eyes’, where he talks about another kind of love which is like adultery. Then you get to ‘Jesus’, which brings in a whole different kind of love, which is like religious love. Then they start thinking, ‘Wow, I’m beginning to see the light.’ At the end of ‘Beginning To See The Light’ it says ‘how does it feel to be loved’ which means the person doesn’t know, and it also says a number of other strange things, such as, ‘here we go again, I thought that you were my friend,’ you know, which is such a sad thing, especially if you’re going through it with a person twice, I mean that means it happened more than once. Then he says, ‘Wow, I’m set free, everything’s fine!’ Then he says, ‘That’s the story’; see ‘That’s The Story Of My Life’. No difference between the words good and bad, wrong and right are dead, no categories, everything is just fine. So what happens, he runs into ‘The Murder Mystery’. All this unintelligible stuff. You know, but the intent was really noble. I just meant finally after seeing the light, explaining everything and getting things right, and finally saying now I got it right BAM, what happens. A whole new series of problems, y’know new level, new problems. ‘Afterhours’ was like a sum-up, like it was kind of the cap, the frosting on the cake as far as I was concerned. I mean it’s a terribly sad song and I didn’t sing it because I figured people wouldn’t believe me if I sang it. But I knew Maureen, for instance, had a very innocent voice.”
SIDE ONE:
‘Candy Says’ is a song about the late transvestite Candy Darling who would appear in Reed’s classic ‘Walk On The Wild Side’.
‘Some Kinda Love’ is one of the songs with which Lou Reed makes rock lyrics function as literature.
‘Pale Blue Eyes’
MORRISON: “Cale’s departure allowed Lou Reed’s sensitive, meaningful side to hold sway. Why do you think ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ happened on the third album, with Cale out of there? That’s a song about Lou’s old girlfriend in Syracuse. I said, ‘Lou, if I wrote a song like that I wouldn’t make you play it.’ My position on that album was one of acquiescence.”
‘Jesus’: (figure it out for yourself)
SIDE TWO:
‘Beginning To See The Light’: Reed discovers, once again, some kind of reaffirmation in the distinction of being loved.
‘I’m Set Free’: Reed’s statement is undercut by his assertion that he has been set free only to find a new illusion.
‘That’s The Story Of My Life’: Even though he accepts Billy Linich’s dictum that the words wrong and right are dead, the difference between right and wrong is the story of his life.
‘The Murder Mystery’: No attempt at explication. Eight-minutes and 35-seconds. A mystery to all for all time (the lyrics were published in the winter 1972 issue of The Paris Review #53, as a poem).
‘Afterhours’ is a celebration of afterhours clubs.
MORRISON: “We did the third album deliberately as anti-production. It sounds like it was done in a closet – it’s flat, and that’s the way we wanted it. The songs are all very quiet and it’s kind of insane. I like the album.”
RADIO INTERVIEWER (1969): “Any plans for the future?”
REED: “Not really. Just to play around. We really enjoy playing. I think it’s fantastic that we can play this stuff in public and that people like it. It turns me on that it turns them on. We don’t have any point to prove or any axe to grind. It’s just nice that people show up and that we can play for them. We have fun.”
BOCKRIS: “Was the reaction to the third record markedly different than the reaction to the second?”
SESNICK: “Not that I can remember. The mystique of the group was such that no matter what they did it was accepted. We had set that in motion from the outset. We organized the management and the playing, we knew exactly what we were doing, and we got the response and reaction that we felt were positive without having things on charts or airplay. We had to measure ourselves completely differently to most acts, and look at our progress in a different way. As long as we were continually being recorded and were in demand around the country we were making progress.”
BOCKRIS: “The third album is a very different record. Was the reaction any different?”
TUCKER: “Ah, Jesus, I never saw any reviews. I was pleased with the direction we were going and with the new calmness in the group, and thinking about a good future, hoping people would smarten up and some record company would take us on and do us justice.”
Record World, June 28, 1969
“Underground by virtue of their name, the Velvet Underground sound as if they’re about to break through to a large audience. The four man group have a passel of intriguing thoughts to give out with. Good work.”
Cashbox, June 28, 1969
“The Velvet Underground takes a journey through musical psychedelia, low-keyed in the main, but a trip that should be interesting to a good number of listeners. The Velvet Underground composed, arranged and conducted all selections on the album. Vocally and instrumentally, the group creates an evocative, sensuous sound, and the LP could pick up considerable sales.”
BOCKRIS: “MGM had switched you from Verve to their larger label. Were they treating you better?”
TUCKER: “Not that I knew of.”
BOCKRIS: “It would seem to be the album with which they could have made the attempt to present you in a more commercial way.”
TUCKER: “Yeah, but still they just didn’t bother putting anything behind it.”
BOCKRIS: “Well, why were they putting your records out at this point, then?”
TUCKER: “I don’t know. I used to thin
k they just signed us to keep us away from other people. Which is stupid, but …”
BOCKRIS: “Were you still living out on Long Island with your parents?”
TUCKER: “Yeah. I had had an apartment in the city for a little while, and then I moved back because I had no money.”
BOCKRIS: “What was the financial situation?”
TUCKER: “Grim.”
BOCKRIS: “Were you living on $200 a month?”
TUCKER: “Probably less. I used to go, when I’d be home, and get a temporary job for a week, to make some money. I didn’t need money as much as Sterling, Lou and Doug, because they had their apartments and I lived at home rent free, so that didn’t really bother me. If they got more than me, they needed it. We never got any royalty cheques, that’s for damn sure. Maybe one or two little ones that I can recall.”
BOCKRIS: “But when you went into the studio to make an album would you get some kind of minimal advance?”
TUCKER: “Advance! Oh Gee, I don’t think we ever got any kind of an advance.”
BOCKRIS: “Well, wait a minute, you must have made some money.”
TUCKER: “We made some but it went pretty fast. I didn’t see shit. We bought new equipment now and then too and we had to use it to travel because MGM didn’t pay for any of that, then we had living expenses. It wasn’t a hell of a lot. We went out playing because that’s where we made money.”
BOCKRIS: “Was Sesnick in there strongly pushing this album?”
TUCKER: “Oh, yeah. He was right up there in the gung ho area.”
BOCKRIS: “It would seem that here was a product easy to push and you would think it would make some impact, but actually it seems like nothing happened when this record came out.”
TUCKER: “Yeah, as far as I can remember, they just didn’t distribute it. I remember specifically we played in St. Louis long enough after the third album came out that it should have been in the stores, especially if we were going to play there. We had never played there before and expected thirty people to show up and we really packed the place. It was one of those open ballrooms and a couple of thousand people showed up. The guy who owned the club was ecstatic. He said, ‘Oh shit, I’ve never had a night like this bla bla,’ and the next day we went out poking around and we couldn’t find our record anywhere, and one guy who owned a record store, who had come backstage to talk to us, said, ‘Gee, you know, I can’t get your record. I called,’ and shit like that.”
BOCKRIS: “That’s a horrible horrible story.”
TUCKER: “I don’t understand it, I just don’t get it. And now Polydor’s releasing them like crazy.”
BOCKRIS: “What sort of relations, if any, did you have with MGM?”
TUCKER: “I didn’t bother with anyone there, of course. Steve used to go down there every day. He’d lay around and make phone calls from their phones.”
BOCKRIS: “So Steve was really full-time pushing for you and going to the office, but he obviously wasn’t very successful.”
TUCKER: “No, he wasn’t, and I don’t know the reason. I don’t know if it was like I said before, because his schemes were too grandiose, or if they just didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
M.C. Kostek, writing in What Goes On (No. 1), remembers the first time he ever saw The Velvet Underground in March 1969. He was sixteen: “This next song’s called ‘Heroin’. The thin figure dressed in black on stage looks nervously around. ‘It’s not, uh, for or against it. It’s just about it.’ The two South Deerfield, Mass., cops at the side entrances are momentarily distracted from their evening’s boredom (the only relief provided by teen drunks and gate-sneakers). Now this weirdo with black leather jacket and sunglasses is talking to them about heroin.
“‘This song’s been banned in San Francisco. Hope you like it.’ That small guy in the shades and leather turned out to be Lou Reed, and he didn’t say much all night. Half of what he did say was about this or that song being banned (such as that one up there for White Light/White Heat) or maimed. The whole bizarre situation has been highlighted by some dumb local band opening with lame-o versions of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ (V. Fudge style), and then these strange figures walked through the crowd to the stage, to unleash this … roar. So imagine you’re a kid, and you’re at your second concert ever, and you’re sitting in 1969 with whatever there is of the small farming town area hippie slick of kids. These people with nasty clothes get on stage and BANNNGGO! Such noise! This guy who sings funny is waving a guitar, another’s hunched over the keyboards unearthing some mighty odd sounds, another’s hunched over the bass, and the drummer, who looks like a woman, is playing with big mallets (the kind that kick the bass drum on regular kits), the better to bang her bass drum, turned on its side as a snare, with.”
“From the first screech, I’m transfixed. The songs, about waiting, love, call my name, all fly by in a vicious torrent. During the break, we dare each other to go chat with them. It’s tempting, but they’re too forbidding, and we try to relax.
“A few buzzheads dance near the front of the stage, but the rest of the few hundred hipsters sit immobile on the floor, trying to deal with this howl. It gets late, and the ‘leader’ says they’re going to do this story-song. He kicks out this riff, and while things before were intense, they are now erupting, they slowly build, and begin to fly. The singer’s yelling something about ‘she’s sucking on my ding dong’, and they kick into a harder, faster wail. The singer’s hand is a blur, stroking and making this twelve-string shudder and scream, the bass player’s got another guitar and is ripping up on that, the organist is leaning, slapping the keys. And the drummer – not only has she stood all night, but she’s pounded steadily with those big mallets all the while, raising one up over her head for the big BAMP-BAMP-BAMP. Steady. I’m not quite sure how long this went on. It seemed a half-hour – but time, space, driver’s-ed meant nothing. I was gone. No drink or drugs, I was flattened by the raw power. It rocked but it was so twisted. Pete Townshend says rock’n’roll is when you stand up and forget where you are – okay, these strange people were playing the loudest crudest music I’d ever heard. They were making lots of ‘mistakes’, but they were obviously much more interested in getting up there and ripping it out. The roar increased, then built until I could hardly stand it.”
1969 VELVET UNDERGROUND LIVE
Which brings us to 1969 Velvet Underground Live, considered by many to be among the very best live rock albums. For the next six months they were playing regularly every weekend, coming home during the week, or else touring the south, west, California, Oregon, Canada. They sometimes stayed on the road for weeks at a time.
When they weren’t on the road they were rehearsing and recording. They played small clubs, like the one owned by a rich kid who just asked bands he liked to play there called The End of Cole Avenue in Dallas where some of the tapes that make up the album were recorded, or the Matrix in San Francisco from which other tapes are taken. They also made tapes at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin, Texas, but these were lost when the club owner committed suicide. They were covering their expenses, paying the rent and making a little pocket money, but nobody in the band was getting anything like rich.
MORRISON: “We never cared that much about touring. We did it once in a while by invitation, but we never solicited one. Why play Toledo, Ohio, where no one knows you and where people are not likely to be the least bit receptive? Deep down you do want to be accepted by the audience. I don’t care how much you steel yourself with drugs or whatever. The record companies were always bewildered by our attitude. They were dealing with something they’d never seen before – if you weren’t interested in making money there was no way they could even talk to you. The one big mistake we made was not playing Europe, where we might have found a more receptive audience. But actually the Texas audience sounded pretty enthusiastic.”
REED: “Good evening. We’re The Velvet Underground. Glad you could all make it. This is our last night here, I’m glad to s
ee that you all showed up. Um, do you people have a curfew or anything like that? Does it matter what time you go home tonight? I mean, do you have school tomorrow?”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “No!”
REED: “Nobody here has school tomorrow?”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Yeah!”
REED: “Yeah, see. ’Cos we could do either one long set or we could do two sets, you know, whatever makes it easier for you.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “One long one!”
REED: “One long one? Okay. Okay, then this is going to go on for a while so we should get used to each other. Settle back. Pull up your cushions. Whatever else you have with you that makes life palatable in Texas …”
It is the consensus of opinion that these recordings reveal the band at one of the peaks of their power. On a good night they were always ten times better live than in the studio. 1969 Velvet Underground Live is also an especially important document for fans as it not only really captures them live on the road, but also delivers ‘Sweet Jane’ the way Reed originally composed it. He says the recording on this album was done the day he wrote the song. Morrison remembers it was originally written in Lou’s New York loft and later pulled out of his bag of tricks and worked up for the performance. According to Reed the “official” version on ‘Loaded’ was edited after he left the band in 1970. Ditto ‘New Age’. The record also contains never before or since released Velvet Underground productions like ‘Lisa Says’, ‘We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together’ and ‘Ocean’, which later appeared on Lou Reed solo albums. On top of that you get ‘Over You’, ‘Sweet Bonnie Brown’ and ‘It’s Just Too Much’, (which it is).
Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story Page 18