The Velvet Underground: New York 1965-66

In 1965 I was a photographer living on the Lower East Side in New York. A film-maker friend, Barbara Rubin, phoned me one day and said she was playing a nun in a Piero Heliczer underground film called “Venus in Furs”. There was this fantastic unknown band in it. “We are filming now. You’ve got to come right away and hear this band,” she said. I was there in fifteen minutes.

The band was the Velvet Underground in their earliest days. There was Piero in the dingy apartment roaming around with his 8mm camera filming the body-painted Velvet Underground along with Barbara as a nun, Margaret Boyce Cam as a nurse and Chas Stanley as Death. A CBS News film cameraman was there filming the whole thing, after 15 seconds of the clip, that is me in the background sitting behind Piero, loading film into my camera.

Lou Reed sang and played well but was very remote on drugs. I talked mostly with John Cale who was Welsh. We were both Brits in another country. Mo (Maureen) Tucker, VU percussionist, in a wedding dress didn’t say a word, nor did bassist Sterling Morrison. Angus MacLise, the former Velvet drummer and Julie Garfield were also there.

Barbara was right, the music was spellbinding. They were playing “Heroin”. (3–12, 14 top)

As soon as I heard of Velvet Underground’s next gig I was there. This was just before Christmas 1965 in a small basement club in Greenwich Village with an owner who didn’t much like them. I went with Barbara, who was filming the group and Jonas Mekas, now an underground film legend. (13, 15, 16, 17)

Delmonico’s Hotel January 13th 1966 Annual Dinner of the New York Society Clinical Psychiatry. The psychiatrists invited Andy Warhol to entertain them. He brought along The Velvet Underground plus Nico whose first appearance with VU it was, Gerard Malanga, Edie Sedgewick, Barbara Rubin, Jonas Mekas and Candy Darling. I think the psychiatrists decided to invite Andy in order to gain a better understanding of the underground culture of their clients who were often the alienated children of the rich. The Velvet played. Nico sang with VU for the first time in her lugubrious . Gerard and Edie did their bull whip dancing. Barbara went round with glaring bright lights and film camera asking about their sex lives and interests. Some of the psychiatrists escaped the room. (14 bottom, 18–31, back cover)

New York Film-makers’ Cinematheque February 1966. Velvet Underground had a few gigs at the Cinematheque. Barbara Rubin had got Andy Warhol interested in the band and Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgewick from Andy’s Factory came and danced. For me, just another chance to hear Velvet Underground. I have no recollection of the audience. (32)

Exploding Plastic Inevitable April 1966. This was at the Open Stage above the Dom. Along with Velvet Underground, Mary Woronov danced with Gerard Malanga, Nico sang and huge photos of Nico were projected on giant screens behind them. (Cover, 34)