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(Credits: Far Out \/ Polydor)<\/p>\n
Fri 27 March 2026 21:45, UK <\/p>\n
The promising beginnings of The Velvet Underground<\/a> started to come together in 1964. Lou Reed had already played in a handful of small bands by the time he met John Cale, and they quickly discovered they shared the same strange interest in different, more innovative and maddening sounds.<\/p>\n At the time, Reed had been hired at Pickwick Records<\/a>, and Cale had already worked with a few experimental musicians, including La Monte Young, whose use of drone sounds was something he felt equally as passionate about. One of the first things he bonded with Reed over was his shared love for the same types of sounds, much of which he applied while \u201cchurning out\u201d songs at Pickwick.<\/p>\n Reed was mainly only interested in having fun at this point, once admitting that all he was doing was putting out \u201cthese rip-off albums\u201d. One of the songs, for instance, saw Reed copying someone else\u2019s idea and tuning all his guitar strings to the same note, resulting in a droning effect that incidentally became a defining feature of The Velvet Underground\u2019s early sound.<\/p>\n When he\u2019d heard someone else achieve the same thing, he\u2019d thought it sounded so \u201cfantastic\u201d that he \u201cappropriated\u201d it for himself. \u201cI was kidding around, and I wrote a song doing that,\u201d he previously explained to Mojo. The song he worked on was \u2018The Ostrich\u2019, released with his first band alongside Cale, The Primitives. <\/p>\n Reed also ripped off popular 1960s dance moves like The Twist for the song, resulting in a strangely upbeat, almost playful dance atmosphere, with Cale\u2019s bass elevating the energetic groove in a way that places you right there in the room, wherever that room may be. Cale was still with Young\u2019s Theatre of Eternal Music at the time, but the way Reed\u2019s drone effect created an irresistibly hypnotic feel intrigued him. <\/p>\n This effect \u2013 which eventually morphed into \u201cthe Ostrich tuning\u201d<\/a> \u2013 carried into The Velvet Underground, appearing on their first record, The Velvet Underground & Nico. On songs like \u2018Venus in Furs\u2019 and \u2018All Tomorrow\u2019s Parties\u2019, Reed\u2019s innovative Ostrich tuning channels a trance-like state, establishing a sound that captured both viscera and deeper, provocative themes.<\/p>\n All of this was intentional, with the pair taking Reed\u2019s previous \u201crip-off\u201d antics and making them an integral part of their artistic expression. As Cale explained in the liner notes of the record\u2019s 50th anniversary edition, \u201cWe focused on trying to inject psychological techniques of hypnosis, drone and repetition into music about topics that we thought were incendiary but within a literary tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, the band combined additional elements to create their trademark haunting sound, including Reed and Nico\u2019s monotonous vocal delivery, Cale\u2019s bass and keyboards, Sterling Morrison\u2019s guitar, and Moe Tucker\u2019s repetitive rhythms. At the time, no one had ever heard something quite so alternative or displeasing before, but there was an undeniable charm to it, almost like counterculture\u2019s ugly cousin<\/a> that you couldn\u2019t help but gawk at.<\/p>\n Thus, the moment that they truly formed \u2013 even though they had yet to be officially called The Velvet Underground \u2013 undeniably began with Reed\u2019s casual antics at Pickwick with \u2018The Ostrich\u2019, when all he had in mind was recreating something he heard everywhere else, but with an edge that poked fun at it, rather than joining in for more serious purposes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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