Remembering Lou Reed: The Cale-era Velvet Underground

I'm starting this series with a fudge. This video really isn't the Velvet Underground, technically, and it didn't come from the era under discussion here.

This is Lou Reed and John Cale as a duo performing "Heroin" during a one-off acoustic performance in Paris in 1972, about four years after Cale left the VU and a couple of years after Reed's departure. Nico also was part of this show, though she doesn't participate in this song.

I chose it because it is the best watchable video representation I could find of the first version of the band. You can go to YouTube to find some early performance videos of the Velvet Underground. But they are tough for even the most dedicated of fans to watch for more than a few seconds, so I didn't want to bore you with them.

I'm not going to talk much about the history of the Velvet Underground here. Hundreds of biographers, historians and journalists have covered that pretty well over the decades.

Instead, I put together this playlist with some noteworthy tracks that can serve as touch points for this part of Reed's history.

First up is "Prominent Men," one of several demos Reed, Cale and Sterling Morrison recorded in 1965 that turned up on the 1995 VU box set Peel Slowly and See. This song never turned up anywhere else as far as I know. The track is a fascinating relic -- Reed doing a spot-on impersonation of Bob Dylan as he strives to find his own voice.

It was tough paring down The Velvet Underground and Nico, a miserable commercial failure upon its release in March 1967 that now is regarded as one of the most influential rock albums ever.

"Sunday Morning," the lead track, actually was an afterthought. It was recorded months after the rest of the album was finished, a last-minute attempt to include a hit single after the band's first one bombed. Reed wrote the song for Nico but at the last minute decided to sing the song himself. It became the band's second non-hit single in December 1966.

"I'm Waiting for the Man" is one of the two iconic tracks on this album. "I'm Waiting for the Man" is the first notice that Lou Reed is the guy who's going to tell you what's happening on the other side of town.

Reed takes us to even darker corners with "Venus in Furs," which gives us our first taste of Cale's trademark screeching violin. Cale sang lead on this song in live performances, but Reed took the vocals during the recording process.

"All Tomorrow's Parties" is one of three tracks featuring Nico on lead vocals. Reed has said this was Andy Warhol's favorite Velvet Underground song. It was released as a single in July 1966, months before the album finally appeared.

"Heroin" is the signature song of the Cale-era Velvets. It has everything -- one of Reed's best vocal performances ever, Cale's explosive screeches, tight guitar work by Morrison and Reed and Moe Tucker's signature tribal drumming holding it all together. It remains horribly misunderstood by the unitiated.

"Heroin" is not an endorsement, though Reed played on that misconception a few years later during his early solo career. As in most Reed compositions, his role is journalist, not commentator.

There's nothing profound about "There She Goes Again." Its purpose is to remind us that the Velvets really were at heart a rock-and-roll band.

"Guess I'm Falling in Love" is a non-album live track from 1967 that appeared on the Peel Slowly and See set. Again, it's not much more than the Velvet Underground showing their rock-and-roll chops.

The Velvets ditched Nico and separated from Warhol after the first album failed. They recorded their second album, White Light/White Heat, in two days in late 1967 and released it in January 1968.

It was a rush job, and it was noisy. And it spawned a new genre of rock-and-roll. White Light/White Heat immediately beget bands like the Stooges and eventually acts like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

"The Gift" has Cale reciting a short story Reed wrote a few years earlier as a college assignment. Cale's deadpan narration appears in the left stereo channel while the band churns out a mono instrumental track in the right channel.

Some biographers have said the recording of "I Heard Her Call My Name" was the final straw in a souring Cale-Reed relationship. The basic track is a churning rocker driven by Tucker's pounding drumming. Reed later recorded his filthy, distorted lead guitar, the story goes, and secretly mixed it front and center on what had been a completed track. Cale became furious when he found out, they argued and Reed fired him.

"Sister Ray" is the album's centerpiece, a Reed composition about a transvestite hooker on top of an extended band improvisation with the amplifiers cranked up to 11.

The final two songs on the playlist were outtakes recorded with Cale in 1968 when the band attempted a reconciliation. The tracks eventually surfaced on the 1985 compilation VU.

Next: The Velvets continue with Doug Yule