Velvet Underground Nico MONO Torso w/ Warhol Banana

$

156

1967/USA/Verve V-5008..........Velvet Underground were New York's answer to the California rock renaissance. Their main inspiration came from Lou Reed and John Cale. Reed, born on 12 March 1943 in Freeport, Long Island, New York was an accountant's son, the eldest of two children from a middle class Jewish family. He had dropped out of Syracuse University to write songs. Cale had been born on 5 December 1940 in Crynant, South Wales. He'd studied contemporary music in London prior to winning a scholarship to New York's Eastman Conservatory. The remaining members were Maureen Tucker. who'd been born in New Jersey in 1945; Nico, who entered the world in Cologne, Germany in 1938 (her parents were Polish and later died in a Nazi death camp); and Sterling Morrison, who was born in the same year as Reed in New York and later attended high school with him. Reed and Cale first met each other in New York in 1964, but Cale did not play with Reed until the latter had gone on to assemble his own bands, The Warlocks and later The Primitives, which included Morrison and Tucker. Reed and Cale, also wrote a 45 for The All Night Workers. When Cale joined in 1966, they changed their name to The Velvet Underground and played in various clubs around Greenwich Village. They soon came to the attention of Andy Warhol, who added the beautiful German model and actress, Nico, to their line-up and featured them in his Exploding Plastic Inevitable Media Show, which was a multi-media psychedelic show, staged in New York in 1966. The debut album, produced by Andy Warhol, was one of the most innovative and influential in the history of rock. The songs largely concentrated on the decadence of American City life, thereby countering the peace and love trip emanating from America's West Coast. I'm Waiting For The Man and Heroin dealt with the rising phenomena of heroin addiction, while Venus In Furs explored the dark world of sado-masochism. Nico's sexy but death-like voice was a big plus on tracks like Sunday Moming, Femme Fatale and I'll Be Your Mirror. The music on this album was effectively an assault on the listener's senses - comprised of throbbing, often discordant rhythms, riddled with electronic feed-back. Most of it was written by Reed, although Nico's vocals were also important to its appeal. Commercially, however, it was a non-starter as the subject-matter of many of its tracks prevented any radio airplay and it also spawned no hit singles. It peaked atjust No. 171 in the National Album Charts and Reed and Cale were both upset by the indifferent reception it received, feeling it to be rather special. RE: FUZZ, ACID & FLOWERS.....this original Mono pressing is in fair condition, as you can see from the pictures, the banana is partially peeled away, there is soiling/wear on the front and back, there is a black stamp top left corner and label 2, there was a 4" piece of clear tape on the top seam on the back at opening, as you can see from the pictures it's gone and left a light yellow stain, there is a 2" split at the edge where the tape is gone, there is a clean 1" bottom center seam split and some minor wear on the seam too, the top seam is also split on the spine side for 4", no further damage there, there are a couple of wrinkles on the back from the factory, the spine is fully legible and solid, no delete hole, the vinyl still retains a nice gloss but has numerous small scuffs/scratches, there are a couple of short feelers that don't cause a problem, there is surface noise but nothing too loud or distracting, the main problem is 2 skips on "I'm Waiting For the Man", I could possibly get them out if I was keeping it for my own collection but you can take care of that, despite the skips on my tables at 1.75 and 1.5 grams this is an ok copy for sure, the labels are clean with some spindle marks, includes original Verve inner sleeve, pleae check my other auctions for more psych and rock lp's, good luck and thanks for looking!