Koren Shadmi continues his series of biographical comics, this time focusing on the 1960s avant-garde rock band The Velvet Underground. It covers the Lou Reed-era of the group - there were other lineups and albums that followed after he left, but this is the most famous and notable era of the band so it’s a good choice by Shadmi to only highlight these years.
They were Andy Warhol’s house band at his Factory studio. Warhol “produced” their first album (Reed famously dismissed Warhol’s contributions to the record saying he was present while it was being recorded but that was it for his “production”) and designed the banana cover. It’s an odd record for the cover alone which has Warhol’s name and the banana - and nothing else, not even the band’s name!
The Velvet Underground were never popular - then or now, really. Their contributions to the history of rock are acknowledged today but I feel like even most serious music fans would be hard-pressed to name any of their songs. And I think that’s fair - some stand out, like Heroin, but for the most part the songs are just ok and not that amazing (even the track this book is named after is meh). It’s said that while the band only had a few hundred fans, every one of those fans went on to start a more famous band - that’s how influential they were. The only band considered more influential from the ‘60s were The Beatles!
The book’s focus is mainly on founding members Lou Reed and John Cale, both of whom had sad, lonely childhoods. Reed’s parents sent him off for electroshock therapy because he displayed homosexual tendencies - the ‘50s were great, eh? (Reed was probably bi - he had several girlfriends and married multiple women later in life). Cale left the Welsh valleys and headed to New York where he and Reed met. Cale was the more avant-garde artist while Reed had more pop sensibilities, and the two styles meshed into what became the Velvet Underground’s sound.
It’s not the most compelling of stories. Lou Reed was a drug-addicted egomaniac whose shitty behaviour led to numerous conflicts within the band over its short lifetime. I was going to say it follows the cliched rock band story but this was a time before those things became cliches so they were trailblazers in that regard too! Regardless, they are well-worn cliches now so contemporary readers may well find the story underwhelming as a result.
All Tomorrow’s Parties is a decent overview of this still esoteric band - I knew almost nothing about the band before reading this comic and came away from it sufficiently informed - though it’s not the most memorable or exciting of stories. It’s worth a look if you’re curious about the band but there are other sources out there that are just as good, like Todd Haynes’ recent documentary on the band that’s available on Apple TV - that might be better actually because you can hear the band’s music and experience for yourselves the sounds that made audiences from the time so ambivalent!
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