All Yesterdays' Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print, 1966-1971

(Paperback)

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Description

The Velvet Underground, among the most influential bands of all time, are credited with creating a streetwise, pre-punk sensibility that has become inseparable from the popular image of downtown New York. "Discovered" by Andy Warhol in 1966, the VU - with their original line-up of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker - would soon become the house band of the avantgarde, composing songs simultaneously furious in their abrasiveness and beautiful in their pathos, standing in striking contrast to the prevailing flower power of the era. All Yesterdays' Parties gathers for the first time almost all of the published writings contemporary with the band's existence-from sources as mainstream as the New York Times to vanished voices of the counterculture like Oz, Fusion, and Crawdaddy! The book is a revealing snapshot of an era by trailblazing rock writers such as Lester Bangs, Robert Greenfield, and Paul Williams. With photographs, posters, and other visual evocations of the period throughout, All Yesterdays' Parties is an invaluable resource, a trove of lore for anyone interested in the VU, their roots, and legacy.

Reviews

"They make for fascinating reading, these dispatches from the front line... as a chronicle of the beginning, and continuing relevance of the Velvet Underground, Clinton Heylin marshals a thorough an diligent case for the defence." Record Collector Magazine"

Author Bio

Clinton Heylin is the author of Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios, Can You Feel the Silence: Van Morrison-A New Biography, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades, From the Velvets to the Voidoids, and many other books. He lives in Somerset, England.