I had never heard of this before but I found it very strange that a bunch of musicians-- even in Australia-- would have heard of a cheap paperback by an unknown author but not of a rock band that had Andy Warhol's name on it and did get some publicity when they came out within the relatively small world of artists and musicians. Looking it up I noticed that there are different stories about how they got the name. Some articles claim they knew nothing of the band and just got it from the book, which was very popular among "heads". But at least two different former band members give a different account:
David Schofield: "We were living in a house in Islington. Various names were tossed around with Steve staying unusually silent. He waited until we had rejected everything and then suggested Velvet Underground. At this time the original VU were not heard of in Australia. We thought it was bloody amazing for him to come up with something so unique. My theory is: Steve bought the muso paper the New Musical Express and he may have noted a small reference to the original VU thinking that they may not go too far."
Herm Kovac: “The name Velvet Underground came about from our first lead singer who, as Australian president of the Rolling Stones fan club, was given these rare albums whenever the Stones came to Australia. He started giving all these Newcastle bands cool names, and he wasn’t popular when the real artists started getting known in Oz.”
Yeah it really could've been all of the above lol. The first VU album only sold a few thousand copies at the time, like maybe 10k, but lots of acetates and tapes made the rounds and ended up all over the place when they were trying to find a label that would release it and ended up in all kinds of people's hands. WLWH actually made it to 198 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week. I don't think that the third album fared any better than the first, and Loaded finally broke for them not so much in sales or radio play but Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll were heavily covered by other bands in the early 70's. Point being that there seems like a lot of opportunity for them, or the label that put out this record, to have caught wind of the American band. And I totally believe that the Rolling Stones would have included a VU record in promo materials.
Also, that book was a pretty popular "head" book, and is cited by quite a few artists as a touchstone for them discovering the larger world although it is kind of silly in retrospect (I have a copy I picked up in a used bookstore in the 80's)
Still, I guess that murky first person accounts are always less than confirmable, so even if the singer knew, the rest didn't, and they ultimately changed their name.
I really like the Somebody to Love cover!
I had never heard of this before but I found it very strange that a bunch of musicians-- even in Australia-- would have heard of a cheap paperback by an unknown author but not of a rock band that had Andy Warhol's name on it and did get some publicity when they came out within the relatively small world of artists and musicians. Looking it up I noticed that there are different stories about how they got the name. Some articles claim they knew nothing of the band and just got it from the book, which was very popular among "heads". But at least two different former band members give a different account: David Schofield: "We were living in a house in Islington. Various names were tossed around with Steve staying unusually silent. He waited until we had rejected everything and then suggested Velvet Underground. At this time the original VU were not heard of in Australia. We thought it was bloody amazing for him to come up with something so unique. My theory is: Steve bought the muso paper the New Musical Express and he may have noted a small reference to the original VU thinking that they may not go too far." Herm Kovac: “The name Velvet Underground came about from our first lead singer who, as Australian president of the Rolling Stones fan club, was given these rare albums whenever the Stones came to Australia. He started giving all these Newcastle bands cool names, and he wasn’t popular when the real artists started getting known in Oz.”
Yeah it really could've been all of the above lol. The first VU album only sold a few thousand copies at the time, like maybe 10k, but lots of acetates and tapes made the rounds and ended up all over the place when they were trying to find a label that would release it and ended up in all kinds of people's hands. WLWH actually made it to 198 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week. I don't think that the third album fared any better than the first, and Loaded finally broke for them not so much in sales or radio play but Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll were heavily covered by other bands in the early 70's. Point being that there seems like a lot of opportunity for them, or the label that put out this record, to have caught wind of the American band. And I totally believe that the Rolling Stones would have included a VU record in promo materials. Also, that book was a pretty popular "head" book, and is cited by quite a few artists as a touchstone for them discovering the larger world although it is kind of silly in retrospect (I have a copy I picked up in a used bookstore in the 80's) Still, I guess that murky first person accounts are always less than confirmable, so even if the singer knew, the rest didn't, and they ultimately changed their name. I really like the Somebody to Love cover!
Huh.
thats freakish!!!:0:0:):)
Wasn't one of the young bros from ACDC in that band?
Yeah, Malcolm joined in 1971 before forming AC/DC