Read Online Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga - Free Book Online Page A

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 ofAllen 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?”
    MORRISSEY: “Maybe once or twice.”
    MALANGA: “What were your impressions about what went down at the studio?”
    MORRISSEY: “I thought what they were doing was good. All I remember is suddenly Nico had no material to sing. Lou didn’t want her on the album. Lou was always jealous of Nico and he only let her sing little songs on the album and then he wrote a song for her called ‘Sunday Morning’ and wouldn’t let her sing it. You see Lou and John were such ‘brothers’. They loved each other so much. Nico wasn’t pure rock’n’roll or something.”
    As Andy was more involved with The Velvets than anything else, it was natural that he produce the album and continue to lend his name to their productions. People often ask exactly what did Andy do in the studio? He mainly contributed by having the vision to see how good The Velvets were and consequently encouraging them, he gave them confidence to follow their intuition and go to extremes to recognize and get their unique sound. He also suggested some ideas for songs (e.g. make ‘Sunday Morning’ about paranoia), encouraged Lou to write others (‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’) and discussed the merits of different tracks, commenting on the way he liked the sound best. During this first recording session in a small studio on Broadway they only had time to do ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, ‘There She Goes Again’, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and ‘I’m Waiting For My Man’. The major conflicts during the sessions revolved around Nico.
    MORRISON: “Nico had two voices. One was a full-register, Germanic,
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voice that I never cared for, and the other was her wispy voice which I liked. She kept