My first encounter with the Velvet Underground was at a friend’s house – and I was put off. Can’t remember why. I might have thought they were an invention of Andy Warhol, and maybe a put-on. Heroin was ‘too much for my mirror’ – to borrow Beefheart’s line. That Cale viola was seriously grating. Most likely the exceptionally dark and New York Noire of it didn’t fit my dharma then – there were innumerable records to listen to in 1967. From: The Doors, The Fish, The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, the Who, the Kinks, Love, Procul Harum, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. Other records I was listening to in that time frame: Canned Heat’s First, Jimi Hendrix Are you Experienced, Electric Flag. Now we get to 1968. Eden was receding. The hippie had been buried. It was the second record, White Light White Heat – that really got me. I am in high school and always doomed to be out the door at 7:30 am. The clock radio with the flipping digits would go off at 6:30 am – at this point the ...
