Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground had a very unique image. It was their producer, "Andy Warhol," who played a major part in creating their very distinguished look. The group started off as just two guys who had a passion for music. These founding member are Lou Reed and John Cale. The two met in year of 1964 and decided to form a rock band and later came Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, and then Nico (Olsen, 2002, The Velvet Underground- It Began Here). Cale began playing the piano and violin at very young age and became so good at it that he landed a spot on BBC (Howard, 2004, p. 180). After attending two musical colleges, John Cale met La Monte Young and began playing in the band called, "Dream Syndicates." He then later met Lou Reed, a skilled musician of many talents. At the time Reed was working as a songwriter for Pickwick Records (Howard, 2004, p.182). He was also a singer and a guitarist as well. The group's producer, Andy Warhol, promoted and produced the album. Warhol had an idea to bring all three forms of art together and that's exactly what he did with the band. He was known for a fashion designer, but created the great circle of talent by incorporating fashion plus film and music. This all took place at The Factory. The band's sound was a raw, but unique one in it's own amateur way that set it apart from popular music of their time. The sound quality was really poor and even piercing to the ears at some points. Song topics like "Heroin" were considered abnormal and unaccepted, but they brought about real life elements to their music. As a listener, they had a sound that was almost unbearable to the ears at time because of loud screeches and distortion that created who they were artistically. As an industry professional, I saw that they dared to be different and stand out from the rest by experimenting with their instruments and playing them in an unusual manner to make a weird, but interesting sound.