The Velvet Underground

[DudeAsInCool]

ALL YESTERDAYS' PARTIES. The Velvet Underground in Print: 1966-1971. Edited by Clinton Heylin. (Da Capo, $26.) At bare minimum, this book should finally dispel the adage that whoever saw the Velvet Underground perform live went on to start a band of his own. (Unless Bosley Crowther, the former Times film critic, founded an avant-garde rock combo I'm not familiar with.) To the extent that Heylin's meticulously curated collection of on-the-scene Velvets reportage and reviews forms a narrative, the tale it tells is of how a critical consensus formed -- and then re-formed -- around Lou Reed's group, and it's a story that contains a few surprises, though its ending is never in doubt. In their Warhol-associated days, the Velvets' music managed to alienate the mainstream and alternative presses alike (''What can you say?'' wondered one exasperated writer from Boston Broadside), but in rapid succession, John Cale left, Reed masterminded the albums ''The Velvet Underground'' and ''Loaded,'' and eventually everyone -- even The New York Times -- was compelled to acknowledge their latent greatness. Following a lucid and scholarly introduction, Heylin wisely lets these primary texts speak for themselves, and after Lester Bangs's bittersweet 1971 post-mortem on the recently broken-up band, it's arguable that another word never need be written about them.

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/03/books/review...ICIT.html?8hpib

[slum_goddess]

*singing* her-o-innnnnnn, will be the death of me... :P