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Even the most diehard muso would think twice before suggesting that popular music is art, but with the Velvet Underground it came pretty close... Next month Rizzoli publishes a lush (and mostly previously unseen) visual archive, The Velvet Underground: A New York Art (£35), giving this most influential of bands the artist's monograph treatment. --The Daily Telegraph magazine, Saturday 31 October
...compellingly comprehensive treasure trove
--Mojo, December 2009
Pic of the week: The Velvets! Art! Warhol! Er, Johan Kugelberg's lovingly compiled The Velvet Underground...collates concert posters, live photos, handbills...Most of it is unseen and all of it is exploding plastic inevitably cool.
--The Guardian, 9 November 2009
...compellingly comprehensive treasure trove
--Mojo, December 2009
Pic of the week: The Velvets! Art! Warhol! Er, Johan Kugelberg's lovingly compiled The Velvet Underground...collates concert posters, live photos, handbills...Most of it is unseen and all of it is exploding plastic inevitably cool.
--The Guardian, 9 November 2009
Product Description
The Velvet Underground is an astonishing assembly of rare objects and artworks and the first book of its scale to document the formative years of the band Time Out magazine named the greatest New York musicians of all time. From never-before-seen photographs of the band’s first live show in New York to Andy Warhol’s cover and poster designs, Lou Reed’s handwritten music and lyrics, underground press clippings and controversial reviews, flyers, handbills, and posters, the materials here comprise a uniquely comprehensive survey of the first rock group ever to transcend the genre and embrace underground popular culture. Including a conversation recorded especially for the book between founding members Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker, this beautifully illustrated book is the first to present a definitive picture of the band’s genesis and development in the extraordinary New York scene of the mid- to late-1960s.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the ultimate coffee table book for VU fans - it's sitting on my coffee table now, wearing dark glasses. Not a history of the band, or even a complete archive, it's a lovingly curated collection of memorabilia from the 1960s. If you were at school or university in the days of hand-drawn psychedelic posters, this will bring memories flooding back.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jim De Rogatis, The Velvet Underground An Illustrated History and Johan Kugelberg, Velvet Underground: A New York Art, were published almost simultaneously (indeed I received my copies together).
If you simply put them side by side without opening them you might think that they are different kind of books (especially if you know the excellent Lester Bangs bio by De Rogatis), but once opened, browsed and compared you may ask yourself whether or not it was a single project which collapsed along the way and gave birth to two different tomes.
De Rogatis work looses in terms of illustrations (sometimes it is simple a matter of how many pictures from the same sessions appear in one book and how many in the other) and as both books boast that as the main feature, the final winner is Kugelberg, although pricier.
I give therefore - in terms of illustrated contents five stars to Kugelberg and three stars to DeRogatis.
You may want to buy the latter if you are short of money. As I wrote elsewere, the Kugelberg book is the result of a previous one on the same subject: mainly a catalogue of some 100 pages which was issued a couple of years ago in the US.
For a proper history of VU, maybe with less frills, you have to look somewhere else: either start with (classic) Bockris-Malanga, Uptight, or the so called "reader" put together by Clinton Heylin, All Yestredays' Parties; not forgetting the recent White Light/White Heath The Velvet Underground Day by Day by Richie Unterberger.
If you simply put them side by side without opening them you might think that they are different kind of books (especially if you know the excellent Lester Bangs bio by De Rogatis), but once opened, browsed and compared you may ask yourself whether or not it was a single project which collapsed along the way and gave birth to two different tomes.
De Rogatis work looses in terms of illustrations (sometimes it is simple a matter of how many pictures from the same sessions appear in one book and how many in the other) and as both books boast that as the main feature, the final winner is Kugelberg, although pricier.
I give therefore - in terms of illustrated contents five stars to Kugelberg and three stars to DeRogatis.
You may want to buy the latter if you are short of money. As I wrote elsewere, the Kugelberg book is the result of a previous one on the same subject: mainly a catalogue of some 100 pages which was issued a couple of years ago in the US.
For a proper history of VU, maybe with less frills, you have to look somewhere else: either start with (classic) Bockris-Malanga, Uptight, or the so called "reader" put together by Clinton Heylin, All Yestredays' Parties; not forgetting the recent White Light/White Heath The Velvet Underground Day by Day by Richie Unterberger.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Exceptional Book of Photos & Interviews
20 April 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wonderful book full of rare & well-reproduced photos, on heavy high quality pages. How about Lou Reed performing at Syracuse University for rare? How about the Falling Spikes (with Lou, Sterling, Sterling, & Angus, before Mo) on the streets of New York City, for rare? The photos are of every imaginable aspect of the group's history (including a contract with MGM Records, July 1966, signed by Christa Paffgen & the others). Probably more than a casual fan of the group would want, but a real goldmine for the most velvet of Underground fans. Includes several interviews with Velvet Underground members that are interspersed throughout the photos. A chronology, compositional music sheets (including "Heroin"), publicity photos, record labels/covers, are among the photos. My only complaint is the lack of an index.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Best photographic book on The Velvet Underground, the end, amen
13 Mar 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just wrote a 1-star review for the so-called "deluxe" version. It's selling points are point-blank lies. The 7" vinyl and CDR are not exceptionally rare as these tracks were previously "released" albeit as downloads or on bootleg recordings. But the biggest complaint has to be it is unnumbered and unsigned as promised. There's a place for these (___/400), but nobody could be bothered to fill in the blank. I returned that crap and got the meat of the matter: this regular edition.
That said, the "regular" edition, and the one to get, is a huge coffee table book and it needs to be. There are more photographs and reproductions of original concert posters, potential album covers, the band in action, etc. between the covers compared to any other book about The Velvet Underground. For followers of this band, you can spend hours and hours just looking at these (in many cases, never before seen) photographs. The interviews with the participants is a nice touch too, but John Cale's absence is a sore thumb. That said, it does not detract from its otherwise perfection for what it is: again, the best visual document of this band ever. I cannot see how it will ever be superseded by any future books.
I highly recommend this "regular" edition, while at the same time, warn those thinking they are getting a collectable with the "deluxe" edition to avoid it. I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend the best written word document of all time regarding this band: White Light/White Heat The Velvet Underground Day By Day (Genuine Jawbone Books) by Richie Unterberger. The detail contained there is far beyond what has gone before. That title is the ultimate chronological resource. Simply amazing for someone who has followed The Velvet Underground for 45 years to find more information in the time it takes to read it than I knew over the course of the past 4 decades. Together with this presently reviewed volume (the "regular" edition), they make for the ultimate Velvet Underground library.
That said, the "regular" edition, and the one to get, is a huge coffee table book and it needs to be. There are more photographs and reproductions of original concert posters, potential album covers, the band in action, etc. between the covers compared to any other book about The Velvet Underground. For followers of this band, you can spend hours and hours just looking at these (in many cases, never before seen) photographs. The interviews with the participants is a nice touch too, but John Cale's absence is a sore thumb. That said, it does not detract from its otherwise perfection for what it is: again, the best visual document of this band ever. I cannot see how it will ever be superseded by any future books.
I highly recommend this "regular" edition, while at the same time, warn those thinking they are getting a collectable with the "deluxe" edition to avoid it. I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend the best written word document of all time regarding this band: White Light/White Heat The Velvet Underground Day By Day (Genuine Jawbone Books) by Richie Unterberger. The detail contained there is far beyond what has gone before. That title is the ultimate chronological resource. Simply amazing for someone who has followed The Velvet Underground for 45 years to find more information in the time it takes to read it than I knew over the course of the past 4 decades. Together with this presently reviewed volume (the "regular" edition), they make for the ultimate Velvet Underground library.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
The Velvet Underground - New York Art
8 April 2010
Format:Hardcover
When people speak of the work of New York's first underground art-rock band, the word that usually comes to mind is 'seminal' - after all this is the group that later influenced an entire NY rock scene from Television to Sonic Youth and many others (their influence extended well beyond these shores to most of Europe as well.)
In this new book, edited by Johan Kugelberg, the word that most comes to mind, is `art.' Kugelberg, in his love and devotion to this early NY rock ensemble, has assembled the first and only monograph of the band's formative years. This unique, coffee-table format art book compiles an impressive collection of rare photographs, handbills, press clippings, flyers, posters and handwritten lyrics from the beginning and early days of the Velvets journey.
Known in the beginning as `Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground,' (the book begins with a classified ad that Warhol placed offering to associate his name with products, bands, etc, in the New York area), the band made their name largely by playing `events' rather than mere concerts, that revolved around places like Warhol's loft parties and Steve Paul's NY club, The Scene.
While this volume's focus is primarily on the early days of the band, there is also an updated interview with the VU's Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker (the band's Sterling Morrison has since passed away while Reed and John Cale remain somewhat distant) as well as an extensive band chronology which adds the perspective of time to the mix. Several of the other reprinted articles and interviews (from Lester Bangs and others) provide a window into many of the thoughts of the band at the time of their ascent (Beatles, good - Zappa, bad.)
Kugelberg's research and rendering give way to a feeling that given the highly visual nature of rock'n'roll - and the notion of rock music as art, that there are many groups who would benefit from the almost catalog raisonne nature of this book. Hopefully, this will be a harbinger of things to come.
In this new book, edited by Johan Kugelberg, the word that most comes to mind, is `art.' Kugelberg, in his love and devotion to this early NY rock ensemble, has assembled the first and only monograph of the band's formative years. This unique, coffee-table format art book compiles an impressive collection of rare photographs, handbills, press clippings, flyers, posters and handwritten lyrics from the beginning and early days of the Velvets journey.
Known in the beginning as `Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground,' (the book begins with a classified ad that Warhol placed offering to associate his name with products, bands, etc, in the New York area), the band made their name largely by playing `events' rather than mere concerts, that revolved around places like Warhol's loft parties and Steve Paul's NY club, The Scene.
While this volume's focus is primarily on the early days of the band, there is also an updated interview with the VU's Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker (the band's Sterling Morrison has since passed away while Reed and John Cale remain somewhat distant) as well as an extensive band chronology which adds the perspective of time to the mix. Several of the other reprinted articles and interviews (from Lester Bangs and others) provide a window into many of the thoughts of the band at the time of their ascent (Beatles, good - Zappa, bad.)
Kugelberg's research and rendering give way to a feeling that given the highly visual nature of rock'n'roll - and the notion of rock music as art, that there are many groups who would benefit from the almost catalog raisonne nature of this book. Hopefully, this will be a harbinger of things to come.
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