Nico (3) – The Velvet Underground & Nico

I have this version (sticker gatefold) but have the "torso" versions vinyl (first variant with "15" stamped on side 1, "12" stamped on side 2). Is this significant, should these runouts be updated?

Just in of numbers, which do you think is more rare: the original mono copy of the album with full Eric Emerson photo on back cover, or the mono copy with the black lawsuit sticker? I would think there are fewer copies with lawsuit stickers….

Why that Eric Emerson that junkie ... He ruined the back cover ... I'm going to find him and scream at him ....................... at his grave.

Does anyone know how many of the original were pressed?

Hey. Hope someone can help. My Cover and labels have stereo catalogue numbers the etching on the run out are Mono.I have seen various releases on Discogs which have this mispress but I can't find one that has a label that says "Manufactured and Marketed by Polygram Classics " All the other mis presses seem to have - Sleeve states "Manufactured and Marketed by PolyGram Records, Inc."
Labels state "Manufactured and Marketed by Polydor Incorporated"

I’ve seen the Velvet Underground about twelve times, they’d always come to Philadelphia, playing at a small club on South Street called The Second Fret [yep, the same place Skip James recorded his live blues album]. It was a tiny club, held maybe a hundred people at best with a spiral staircase on the side that went upstairs to the bands staging area. The thing you have to understand about Philadelphia is [and it applies to this day] most shows are on week days, as groups play Washington and New York on the weekends for the bigger draw, so many of the shows here were very laid back and intimate as far as the audience was concerned. I climbed that staircase each time and was welcomed by the band for chatter, laughs, and musical discussions, all in a stuffy closed sweet smoke filled room.

If you weren’t there during those days you can’t imagine the freedom and access we had to the performers, and coming from Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory, the Velvet Underground were used to being just people who played music, they didn’t see themselves as stars like musicians do today, they were very touchable. The hardest part for me, being a woman, was that as time went on people though we were groupies, I was just into the music, and longed to understand form those who created. So I was lucky in the early days.

Nico knew my name and I’ve spoken with John Cale at length. The last time being at a show at the Chestnut Cabaret, the same night as Live Aid, and shortly after the death of Nico. I went backstage had him sign my LP [I still own the Banana Album unpeeled] and talked with him till it was time for his set.

Now, I have to discuss ‘Happenings.’ Happenings were things that just sort of happened within a loosely defined context. And that is how the group The Velvet Underground came to be, they sort of just happened, though John and Lou knew each other as they had been in a band together. They were basically brought together as a musical backdrop for Andy’s films, happenings and impromptu shows. Each of the were into the art of the time and the spirit of ‘what will happen will happen.’ There were also an awful lot of drugs involved, mostly LSD and Speed, though heroin crept in along with many other substances. The name Velvet Underground comes from a book by Michael Leigh on sadomasochism. It was left in the apartment Lou Reed moved into. It was left their, either accidently or perhaps on purpose by Tony Conrad [you can search on him for other details].

Andy wanted to capture honesty. Hence his soup can art, his now famous portraits and such. When one takes Acid, one tends to see things for what they “are”, or should I say “could be”, or should I say, “what they become while on LSD”, and it truly lets the see like they’ve never seen before.

But to the music. "I’m Waiting For My Man," has the chug chug of the overhead trains and subways of the city. It’s the honest adventure of a kid on smack, in over his head, where he doesn’t belong, in awe of the dealer ... but the underlying need is for his fix. He’s got time for nothing else, but he’s looking over his shoulder, taking it all in. I’ve been to the spot on Lexington Avenue, I'm not sure why, maybe it was like crossing Abby Road, treading where The Beatles had been, it was special to me, though I'm sure the thousands who ed me standing there had no idea about the song.

"Femme Fatale" opens with Nico singing the song. And she’s not singing about the girl her boyfriend is leaving her for, she’s singing about herself and the fact that she’ll break HIS heart. It’s so cleaver how they made the song seem to be about someone else, when Nico should actually be saying ... "Here I come, I’m a femme fatale ..." This was quite paradoxical too, because Nico actually WAS full of self loathing and hatred for herself. I couldn’t help but see her as a man trapped in a women’s body. Her drinking and drugging were relentless and way over the top. She just couldn’t see herself the way others saw her, hence the song was almost a joke, getting Nico to sing about what a bitch she was and do it within a short, simple, beautiful elegant song.

On a later album, a live album, even after she has so physically ravaged her body, the audience responds to her so positively, and all she can say is, "Why do you give me such adulation?"

"Run Run Run" is about getting high. That guitar, that so many refer to as noise, represents the drugs moving through the body till it’s just splendidly out of control.

"All Tomorrow’s Parties" is dancing with fear, the fear of being totally open and venerable. Her lines about "What costume shall a poor girl wear ..." is about putting on a mask, dreams of yesterday, of youth lost, that can never be regained, only longed for.

"Heroin" is about the joys, pleasue, sadness, the longings and finally the "I don't care ... because heroin is all that matters." Heroin is all consumimg and the band was able to bring that feeling to life through the lyrics and the music. They managed to take the listener from the initial point of injection, follow the intense feeling, the rush, increase the tempo [heartbeat], and convay the self satisfaction, until the is feeling just like he was the son of Jesus, on top of the cross, [but the spike is in his vein]. Yet there is an underlying current that's not mentioned, but rather suggested through the music and droning of John Cale, that there is a dark side, a coming down that will have to be reconciled, or at least postponed ... until the next fix takes the right back into the light of clarity.

"I’ll Be Your Mirror," is totally haunting and the closest thing to a pop song to come from the early offerings by this group. It’s just a silly love song about two people ing each other in this crazy world. Again I think that this is really a song about Nico, a woman who wasn’t able to see the beauty, both inner and outer that she was. A song that should have been sung by one of the other to her, but as things happen she sings to herself.

"Black Angel’s Death Song" is a funeral dirge if ever there was one. And "European Son" is pure adventure into a dark world of death, drugs and ecstasy, culminating in nothing less then guitar driven pornographic sex.

The listener needs to that this music came out of the city and the excess that lays around every corner and in every alley. One needs to have lived in New York for some time to appreciate the texture John Cale felt and was able to bring out in this album. It wasn’t an easy fit, this group of people pulled together from various musical disciplines. There was the straight forward steady rock drumming of Maureen Tucker, the advent guard influence of John Cale and his penchant for the droning as expressed with his viola, the rocking R&B of Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed’s voice and vision, and the lonely Nico, so self aware that she was just there because she was so beautiful.

Andy Warhol once said to Lou, “How many songs did you write today?” Lou lied and said, “Six.” Andy looked at him and said, “You should have written twelve."

This is truly a legendary album, that blew the doors off everything anyone thought they ever knew about rock and roll. If they had never done anything eles it would still remain as mysterious and enigmatic as it is today. It was as influential at its time as was the work of Miles Davis. The last thing I'd like to bring to light is that the Velvet Underground where the only living entity of Andy Warhol's creations and their mystic legicy will forever be linked to his, thus, even more insuring their place in the scope and history of the time. I must stress that this is not a Punk album and did nothing to foreshadow the coming of punk some fifteen years later. This is a very complex piece of music, which is why it is so easily demised and misunderstood. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it, it was a time, it was a space, you needed to be there. But give it a listen, see how much of rock and roll is tethered to this record. It’s not a pretty album to look at musically to most, but you CAN feel that it’s probably the most real thing you will ever come across ... EVER.

And dig this, the Velvet Underground were also know as VU as in the VU or Volume Meter. And for further reading on the times, a book that is nothing less than essential for a complete understanding of the people, the music, and the attitudes, grab "Popism," by Andy Warhol, it will fill in a ton of small details for you.

Thanks for listening to all of this ...

Review by Jenell Kesler

I’ve seen the Velvet Underground about twelve times, they’d always come to Philadelphia, playing at a small club on South Street called The Second Fret [yep, the same place Skip James recorded his live blues album]. It was a tiny club, held maybe a hundred people at best with a spiral staircase on the side that went upstairs to the bands staging area. The thing you have to understand about Philadelphia is [and it applies to this day] most shows are on week days, as groups play Washington and New York on the weekends for the bigger draw, so many of the shows here were very laid back and intimate as far as the audience was concerned. I climbed that staircase each time and was welcomed by the band for chatter, laughs, and musical discussions, all in a stuffy closed sweet smoke filled room.

If you weren’t there during those days you can’t imagine the freedom and access we had to the performers, and coming from Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory, the Velvet Underground were used to being just people who played music, they didn’t see themselves as stars like musicians do today, they were very touchable. The hardest part for me, being a woman, was that as time went on people though we were groupies, I was just into the music, and longed to understand form those who created. So I was lucky in the early days.

Nico knew my name and I’ve spoken with John Cale at length. The last time being at a show at the Chestnut Cabaret, the same night as Live Aid, and shortly after the death of Nico. I went backstage had him sign my LP [I still own the Banana Album unpeeled] and talked with him till it was time for his set.

Now, I have to discuss ‘Happenings.’ Happenings were things that just sort of happened within a loosely defined context. And that is how the group The Velvet Underground came to be, they sort of just happened, though John and Lou knew each other as they had been in a band together. They were basically brought together as a musical backdrop for Andy’s films, happenings and impromptu shows. Each of the were into the art of the time and the spirit of ‘what will happen will happen.’ There were also an awful lot of drugs involved, mostly LSD and Speed, though heroin crept in along with many other substances. The name Velvet Underground comes from a book by Michael Leigh on sadomasochism. It was left in the apartment Lou Reed moved into. It was left their, either accidently or perhaps on purpose by Tony Conrad [you can search on him for other details].

Andy wanted to capture honesty. Hence his soup can art, his now famous portraits and such. When one takes Acid, one tends to see things for what they “are”, or should I say “could be”, or should I say, “what they become while on LSD”, and it truly lets the see like they’ve never seen before.

But to the music. "I’m Waiting For My Man," has the chug chug of the overhead trains and subways of the city. It’s the honest adventure of a kid on smack, in over his head, where he doesn’t belong, in awe of the dealer ... but the underlying need is for his fix. He’s got time for nothing else, but he’s looking over his shoulder, taking it all in. I’ve been to the spot on Lexington Avenue, I'm not sure why, maybe it was like crossing Abby Road, treading where The Beatles had been, it was special to me, though I'm sure the thousands who ed me standing there had no idea about the song.

"Femme Fatale" opens with Nico singing the song. And she’s not singing about the girl her boyfriend is leaving her for, she’s singing about herself and the fact that she’ll break HIS heart. It’s so cleaver how they made the song seem to be about someone else, when Nico should actually be saying ... "Here I come, I’m a femme fatale ..." This was quite paradoxical too, because Nico actually WAS full of self loathing and hatred for herself. I couldn’t help but see her as a man trapped in a women’s body. Her drinking and drugging were relentless and way over the top. She just couldn’t see herself the way others saw her, hence the song was almost a joke, getting Nico to sing about what a bitch she was and do it within a short, simple, beautiful elegant song.

On a later album, a live album, even after she has so physically ravaged her body, the audience responds to her so positively, and all she can say is, "Why do you give me such adulation?"

"Run Run Run" is about getting high. That guitar, that so many refer to as noise, represents the drugs moving through the body till it’s just splendidly out of control.

"All Tomorrow’s Parties" is dances with fear, the fear of being totally open and venerable. Her lines about "What costume shall a poor girl wear ..." is about putting on a mask, dreams of yesterday, of youth lost, that can never be regained, only longed for.

"Heroin" is about the joys, pleasue, sadness, the longings and finally the "I don't care ... because heroin is all that matters." Heroin is all consumimg and the band was able to bring that feeling to life through the lyrics and the music. They managed to take the listener from the initial point of injection, follow the intense feeling, the rush, increase the tempo [heartbeat], and convay the self satisfaction, until the is feeling just like he was the son of Jesus, on top of the cross, [but the spike is in his vein]. Yet there is an underlying current that's not mentioned, but rather suggested through the music and droning of John Cale, that there is a dark side, a coming down that will have to be reconciled, or at least postponed ... until the next fix takes the right back into the light of clarity.

"I’ll Be Your Mirror," is totally haunting and the closest thing to a pop song to come from the early offerings by this group. It’s just a silly love song about two people ing each other in this crazy world. Again I think that this is really a song about Nico, a woman who wasn’t able to see the beauty, both inner and outer that she was. A song that should have been sung by one of the other to her, but as things happen she sings to herself.

"Black Angel’s Death Song" is a funeral dirge if ever there was one. And "European Son" is pure adventure into a dark world of death, drugs and ecstasy, culminating in nothing less then guitar driven pornographic sex.

The listener needs to that this music came out of the city and the excess that lays around every corner and in every alley. One needs to have lived in New York for some time to appreciate the texture John Cale felt and was able to bring out in this album. It wasn’t an easy fit, this group of people pulled together from various musical disciplines. There was the straight forward steady rock drumming of Maureen Tucker, the advent guard influence of John Cale and his penchant for the droning as expressed with his viola, the rocking R&B of Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed’s voice and vision, and the lonely Nico, so self aware that she was just there because she was so beautiful.

Andy Warhol once said to Lou, “How many songs did you write today?” Lou lied and said, “Six.” Andy looked at him and said, “You should have written twelve."

This is truly a legendary album, that blew the doors off everything anyone thought they ever knew about rock and roll. If they had never done anything eles it would still remain as mysterious and enigmatic as it is today. It was as influential at its time as was the work of Miles Davis. The last thing I'd like to bring to light is that the Velvet Underground where the only living entity of Andy Warhol's creations and their mystic legicy will forever be linked to his, thus, even more insuring their place in the scope and history of the time. I must stress that this is not a Punk album and did nothing to foreshadow the coming of punk some fifteen years later. This is a very complex piece of music, which is why it is so easily demised and misunderstood. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it, it was a time, it was a space, you needed to be there. But give it a listen, see how much of rock and roll is tethered to this record. It’s not a pretty album to look at musically to most, but you CAN feel that it’s probably the most real thing you will ever come across ... EVER.

And dig this, the Velvet Underground were also know as VU as in the VU or Volume Meter. And for further reading on the times, a book that is nothing less than essential for a complete understanding of the people, the music, and the attitudes, grab "Popism," by Andy Warhol, it will fill in a ton of small details for you.

Thanks for listening to all of this ... let the music, any music roll inside of you, Jenell ...