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White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day
By turns fiercely confrontational, literate, primitive and sweetly melodic, The Velvet Underground remain one of the most influential bands in the history of rock. The ultimate cult band and the ultimate art rock experience, the VU's music and style have served as a blueprint for everyone from David Bowie to The Jesus And Mary Chain. Yet for all their enduring importance, they were unsuccessful in their day, selling minute numbers of records, their monochrome look and photo-realist lyrics at odds with the garish colours and peace fantasies of the hippy era. It was only when David Bowie started to champion the band in the early 70s, after they had split up, that the VU's reputation started to spread. In White Light/White Heat, noted rock writer and historian Richie Unterberger analyses the band's career and influence in forensic detail, drawing on many new interviews with band members and associates, previously undiscovered archive sources and a vast knowledge of the music of the times. The result is a comprehensive, articulate, immensely detailed history, the most thorough work on the band yet published.
- GenresMusicNonfictionBiography
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
24 people are currently reading
421 people want to read
About the author
Richie Unterberger
29 books45 followersRichie Unterberger's book "The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film" details the incredible wealth of music the Beatles recorded that they did not release, as well as musical footage of the group that hasn't been made commercially available. His other books include "Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll," the two-volume 1960s folk-rock history "Turn! Turn! Turn!"/"Eight Miles High," and "The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience." He's also a frequent contributor to the All Music Guide and MOJO magazine, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area."
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 8, 2013
Even after Lou Reed’s parents sent him for a course of electro-convulsive therapy at the terribly young age of 13,
he was still determined to do no work, take lots of drugs, never do the washing up and become an avant garde musician and poet. But he needed money so he got a gig at New York’s worst recording company, churning out stupid ripoffs of current hits for non-acts to score non-hits with. For example, I Wanna Clean Your Teeth by the Long Haired English Boys (1964) is Lou playing all the instruments as well as composing, producing and sticking the labels on by hand.
Meanwhile John Cale who grew up speaking Swahili and didn’t speak a word of English until he was 22, had won a scholarship with Irving Berlin in New York. So at some point the inevitable happened - Lou bought a ten dollar bag from John one day and a firm friendship was formed, one which didn’t lurch into homicidal rivalry until 1983 when, as is well known, John Cale ran over Lou Reed in his Jensen Automatic on Avenue D.
(Cale’s next parole hearing is due in 2014).
After recruiting an English professor on bass guitar and a trans-gendered drummer who would only play her drums lying flat on her back with the drums suspended from the ceiling, the famous Velvet Underground was formed in 1965. It was perfect synchronicity – at that very moment Andy Warhol was asking Ingrid Superstar “where can I find a group who play noisy avant garde stuff and stand with their backs to the audience and who don’t have a record deal so I can extend my reign of terror as Puppetmaster of feeble-minded nobodies into yet another sphere?”
Of course, the inevitable happened, and that very evening Ingrid Superstar scored a 10 dollar bag from Lou Reed and John Cale and dragged them both back to the Factory where another beautiful friendship was formed which lasted for many years until, as is well known, John Cale ran over Andy in his Jensen Automatic on that fateful day in 1983, crying “So, Puppet-Master, I have cut my strings at last!” in flawless English.
Andy insisted that the band included one of his other proteges, the bizarre Nico. She was an angular German model and minor politician who stood six feet seven in her bare feet but only spoke in whispers.
Lou bitterly resented having Nico imposed as the lead singer and of course the world found out exactly how much he resented Nico on that fateful day in 1983 when he ran over Nico in John Cale’s Jensen Automatic as she was buying a 25 dollar bag from some pitiful bum on Avenue D.
Then Lou wrote some brilliant songs. The story goes that Lou wrote a letter to Billy Graham the famous Christian evangelist asking him what God hated the most, and Billy wrote back saying “sodomy, heroin, sado-masochism and promiscuity” and Lou immediately wrote three songs about everything on Billy’s list. It’s a nice story, but it isn’t true. So The Velvet Underground made the famous banana album in two versions, one with all the songs sung in German by Nico, and the other with all the songs sung in German by Lou. Of course the album raced up the charts and the single Alle Morgigen Parteien knocked the Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown off the Number One spot in the Billboard Top 100 in November 1966.
It looked like this brilliant success was going to be derailed immediately when Sterling Morrison, the group’s English professor and lead guitarist, was found murdered on East 6th Street. He’d been run over by a powerful car as he was buying a ten dollar bag from some grotesque degenerate. Suspicion fell immediately on Mo Tucker, the transgendered drummer. Tapes existed of studio arguments in which Sterling was heard abusing her drumming style. Mo Tucker was interviewed several times by the cops and charges were still pending at the time of her own tragic death, which happened in front of an audience of three thousand at the Filmore East on 7th July 1967 when the drum set suspended from the ceiling came crashing down on her in the middle of the band’s performance of Sister Ray.
Note : Maureen Tucker's sunglasses were missing presumed stolen at the time of this photo.
he was still determined to do no work, take lots of drugs, never do the washing up and become an avant garde musician and poet. But he needed money so he got a gig at New York’s worst recording company, churning out stupid ripoffs of current hits for non-acts to score non-hits with. For example, I Wanna Clean Your Teeth by the Long Haired English Boys (1964) is Lou playing all the instruments as well as composing, producing and sticking the labels on by hand.
Meanwhile John Cale who grew up speaking Swahili and didn’t speak a word of English until he was 22, had won a scholarship with Irving Berlin in New York. So at some point the inevitable happened - Lou bought a ten dollar bag from John one day and a firm friendship was formed, one which didn’t lurch into homicidal rivalry until 1983 when, as is well known, John Cale ran over Lou Reed in his Jensen Automatic on Avenue D.
(Cale’s next parole hearing is due in 2014).
After recruiting an English professor on bass guitar and a trans-gendered drummer who would only play her drums lying flat on her back with the drums suspended from the ceiling, the famous Velvet Underground was formed in 1965. It was perfect synchronicity – at that very moment Andy Warhol was asking Ingrid Superstar “where can I find a group who play noisy avant garde stuff and stand with their backs to the audience and who don’t have a record deal so I can extend my reign of terror as Puppetmaster of feeble-minded nobodies into yet another sphere?”
Of course, the inevitable happened, and that very evening Ingrid Superstar scored a 10 dollar bag from Lou Reed and John Cale and dragged them both back to the Factory where another beautiful friendship was formed which lasted for many years until, as is well known, John Cale ran over Andy in his Jensen Automatic on that fateful day in 1983, crying “So, Puppet-Master, I have cut my strings at last!” in flawless English.
Andy insisted that the band included one of his other proteges, the bizarre Nico. She was an angular German model and minor politician who stood six feet seven in her bare feet but only spoke in whispers.
Lou bitterly resented having Nico imposed as the lead singer and of course the world found out exactly how much he resented Nico on that fateful day in 1983 when he ran over Nico in John Cale’s Jensen Automatic as she was buying a 25 dollar bag from some pitiful bum on Avenue D.
Then Lou wrote some brilliant songs. The story goes that Lou wrote a letter to Billy Graham the famous Christian evangelist asking him what God hated the most, and Billy wrote back saying “sodomy, heroin, sado-masochism and promiscuity” and Lou immediately wrote three songs about everything on Billy’s list. It’s a nice story, but it isn’t true. So The Velvet Underground made the famous banana album in two versions, one with all the songs sung in German by Nico, and the other with all the songs sung in German by Lou. Of course the album raced up the charts and the single Alle Morgigen Parteien knocked the Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown off the Number One spot in the Billboard Top 100 in November 1966.
It looked like this brilliant success was going to be derailed immediately when Sterling Morrison, the group’s English professor and lead guitarist, was found murdered on East 6th Street. He’d been run over by a powerful car as he was buying a ten dollar bag from some grotesque degenerate. Suspicion fell immediately on Mo Tucker, the transgendered drummer. Tapes existed of studio arguments in which Sterling was heard abusing her drumming style. Mo Tucker was interviewed several times by the cops and charges were still pending at the time of her own tragic death, which happened in front of an audience of three thousand at the Filmore East on 7th July 1967 when the drum set suspended from the ceiling came crashing down on her in the middle of the band’s performance of Sister Ray.
Note : Maureen Tucker's sunglasses were missing presumed stolen at the time of this photo.
August 14, 2023
A truly insane amount of info on one of the world's greatest bands. This is one of those books that is really for obsessive fans only. I'm a fairly big Velvets junkie, but there were plenty of sections that I just skimmed through because they were getting way to far out into the weeds. However, if you want to know the story of how one of the weirdest, most experimental, and influential bands in history came to be, made its records, and disbanded, it's all here. Literally all of it.
August 18, 2009
I think what we have here is the ultimate book on the great Velvet Underground. Everyday is counted for in this often mysterious band. Now, normally, these books become totally obsessive and nerd like. But the author Unterberger is a very good writer, and he sees the Velvets on a bigger scale and their era on a grand scale.
I dipped in and out of this book for the past six weeks, and every read was like a nice swim in warm water. Fascinating info, and interesting images as well.
I dipped in and out of this book for the past six weeks, and every read was like a nice swim in warm water. Fascinating info, and interesting images as well.
May 17, 2015
I'd like this chronicle of the second greatest band in history better if Unterberger didn't dismiss otherworldly gems like "Hey Mr. Rain" and "Countess from Hong Kong," and if his publisher had designed something a little more user-friendly: I've seen tractor-supply catalogues that felt better in the hands, and the type is telephone-book tiny. (By which I mean it's the size of the type in a telephone book, not the size of a telephone book itself. Type the size of a telephone book would be enormous!)
The day-by-day format might be too granular for casual fans, but it allows the author great flexibility—he moves nicely from social history to critiques to the most dogged coverage of live work and contemporary reactions. It also drops you right into the daily life of the late '60s, a profoundly simpler world than the digitally hardened shell we now inhabit. In 1968, two and half bucks would have gotten you into most Velvets gigs, where you'd have been part of an, at best, half-full house and a crowd that knew only "Heroin," if even that much. If you wrote for your school paper you could probably even score an interview.
Unterberger is as definitive as one can be on all the lingering enigmas (the ouster of Cale, the existence of any lost recordings or footage, the break-up). The book also makes it clear that Lou Reed—bless his ego-maniacal, electro-shocked little heart—was a ferociously hard worker, driven by love. Had a calling, Lou did.
The day-by-day format might be too granular for casual fans, but it allows the author great flexibility—he moves nicely from social history to critiques to the most dogged coverage of live work and contemporary reactions. It also drops you right into the daily life of the late '60s, a profoundly simpler world than the digitally hardened shell we now inhabit. In 1968, two and half bucks would have gotten you into most Velvets gigs, where you'd have been part of an, at best, half-full house and a crowd that knew only "Heroin," if even that much. If you wrote for your school paper you could probably even score an interview.
Unterberger is as definitive as one can be on all the lingering enigmas (the ouster of Cale, the existence of any lost recordings or footage, the break-up). The book also makes it clear that Lou Reed—bless his ego-maniacal, electro-shocked little heart—was a ferociously hard worker, driven by love. Had a calling, Lou did.
June 14, 2010
This is a monster of a book that has more information than I initially wanted to know; however, it is also impeccably researched and well-written, for a book of such breadth. It's a bit slow at first, but is very enjoyable overall.
July 20, 2009
This one is staying near the stereo with all the other Unterberger books, where I can peruse it at leisure and at length.
March 24, 2017
absolutely six-star stellar, even with a typo every other page or so. the last word, and a damned good piece of work by any standards.
January 24, 2018
Essential Velvet Underground reference book.
Spoiler Alert:
The end is frustrating, and depressing.
Spoiler Alert:
The end is frustrating, and depressing.
December 26, 2021
incredibly thorough - pretty much only complaint is the small type
May 13, 2025
A fascinating look at this seminal band. It contains way more information than most people will ever want to know. But fascinating none-the-less. Too bad it was written in 2009, because there is a lot that took place after that too.
July 13, 2009
Every day with the Velvet Underground. *Sigh.*
July 23, 2009
I just read a review of this in the Shep. I can't wait to read it.
October 23, 2015
An amazing insight into one of the greatest bands to come out of the era...
November 6, 2012
THE best and most detailed book on the VU I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews