Episode #140 | 8.8.23
The Velvet Underground: Heroin, S&M, and the Attempted Assassination of Andy Warhol
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In this episode
The Velvet Underground put a spike in the status quo. They sang candidly about heroin, speed, and S&M. Their members included drug dealers and junkies. Their stage show was so perverted that it offended even the most liberal of peacenik hippies. Their benefactor and so-called manager, Andy Warhol, was nearly killed in an assassination attempt that shocked the country. But their songwriter, Lou Reed, wanted more than shocking headlines and offensive stage shows. He wanted to be a rock ‘n roll star. He wanted to have big hits. And he’d do anything to get what he wanted – even if it meant pushing everyone else out of the way.
Sources
Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story, by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga
The Velvet Underground (2021, dr. Todd Haynes)
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
Lou Reed: A Life, by Anthony DeCurtis
Inside Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ (Rolling Stone)
Overlooked No More: Valerie Solanas, Radical Feminist Who Shot Andy Warhol (NY Times)
The Velvet Underground in California (The New Yorker)
Boston Tea Party (New England Music Scrapbook)
Warhol’s death certificate (recordart)
The Downtown Pop Underground, by Kembrew McLeod
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Credits
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Zeth Lundy.
Copy editing by James Sullivan.
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