Lou Reed was a person with a lot of defenses. “That's a complicated story in and of itself. How did John Cale and Lou Reed get along? And in that close proximity, stuff started to happen.” But I think the music isn't serving the content of a song that's basically about having tremendous ambivalence about living your life, and how heroin could be a way out.’ So this is what sort of bonded these two guys together. And Lou had written some songs as early as high school, and one of them was called ‘Heroin.’ And Cale is like, ‘This song is extraordinary. John Cale came to a party and a producer from Pickwick Records said, ‘Oh, I like your long hair and your kind of commercial look, could you meet up with this guy Lou Reed?’ And the two of them started to explore. When ‘The Ostrich’ started to get a little traction, they wanted to have a band perform it.
He wrote this song called ‘The Ostrich,’ that was kind of like an early garage rocks sound, all tuned to one note, with his very wild singing and guitar playing all playing to the single, minimalist drone, doing almost in rock and roll what John Cale was doing in his avant garde practices. Meanwhile, Lou Reed is moving from rock and roll, R&B ambitions as a teenager, and then went to Syracuse College for a brief stint, and then landed at a place called Pickwick Records, which was sort of producing these one-hit concept cheap records of dance songs, or sort of like the records you could buy at Kmart. The notion of just extending a single note in instrumentation is really about minimalism in the avant garde. He followed John Gage and he ultimately found his home in New York City working with La Monte Young, who was a follower of experimental, avant garde music, the whole idea of the drone, which goes back to very early Chinese music. he was really interested in modern music and the avant garde, and it propelled him out of Wales to Goldsmiths College in London, and then to a fellowship that ultimately landed him at Tanglewood in New York. Lou Reed is the temperamental rock and roller from Long Island, while John Cale is the intellectual. But the core two members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who are the focus of your documentary. They formed in 1965, and people went in and out. You kind of discover The Velvet Underground because you already were listening to David Bowie, or you were listening to punk rock, or you were listening to Patti Smith, or, as I was, all of those artists, and you realize, ‘Oh, okay, I get it now.’ This is kind of the root of all of that kind of music and music that was starting to explore something a little differently than even what was being explored in the 1960s, whence there was so much innovation and incredible music being made.” David reached out to me and Christine Vachon, my producer, and asked if I would be interested in doing a documentary and I said, ‘Yes, absolutely. Todd Haynes: “This project basically came to me through someone at Universal Music Group, David Blackman, where the masters of The Velvets’ music resides.
Why did you choose The Velvet Underground as the subject? The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Their story is captured in a new documentary on Apple TV+ by director Todd Haynes called “ The Velvet Underground.” Director Todd Haynes’ new documentary, “ The Velvet Underground,” looks at how the band influenced scores of artists and became one of the US’ most important music groups. Today, the Velvets are considered one of America’s most important and impactful bands. They also influenced other artists - from The Sex Pistols to The Strokes - despite releasing just four albums. With an experimental sound and transgressive lyrics, the Lou Reed-fronted band was managed by pop artist Andy Warhol, who embodied New York’s underground art scene at the time. The Velvet Underground symbolized cool during the 1960s.
0 kommentar(er)
