THE VELVET UNDERGROUND VU (Verve)

by Gregg Turner

Maybe one fundamental reality of life on Earth ca. nowadays allows for recognition of the Velvet Underground as the indivisible and enduring prime-number of rock for which it deserved acclaim a long, long time ago. That Lou Reed’s Bob Dylan by way of Chuck Berry and Duane Eddy was indeed something very, very hip. That rock ’n’ roll—stripped of moral pretense and any sophisticated or inordinately ornate sense of things—could attain an aesthetic sense of passion and life-asserious commentary w/out sacrificing the humor, playful silliness or menacing growl.

Further testimony to this effect [some 20 or so years after Lou’s Primitives did the “Ostrich” back in '65 and (not failing to mention) a decade behind the opening of Sister Ray records in Medford, Oregon—2nd generation owner and employees not having the foggiest notion why their store’s got “such a dumb name” (true fact)] comes to the light of vinyl by way of outtakes and a missing album of trax placed just behind the third MGM-labeled release (the one with “Candy Says,” “Murder Mystery” etc.).