White Light / White Heat (1968)

Of all the major Velvet Underground releases—The Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light / White Heat, The Velvet Underground, 1969, Loaded, and VU—everyone has to have a least favorite. This one is mine—yes, and "Sister Ray" notwithstanding. It's not that I don't like the album in a general sort of way, their second ("sophomore effort," as we say) and the first after sidelining Andy Warhol and Nico. In fact, when I came back to White Light / White Heat recently I thought it was better than I remembered, even "The Gift," which has always been my primary article of evidence for not listening to the album more. That track lasts more than eight minutes, with John Cale reading a Lou Reed short story that is trying hard to be bizarre. If you want to stretch a point it might even be a kind of very dry marker for splatterpunk horror. Tensions between Cale and Reed were coming to a head generally during the recording of this album. I can hear it—or think I can—specifically in the production of "Lady Godiva's Operation," based on another Reed short story, this one apparently about trans surgery. Reed has a backing vocal where he comes in for a part of a line at a time, but he's mixed unusually high. It feels like a personality conflict, Reed asserting himself for the sake of his ego not the song. It adds an interesting tension, but it's also an uncomfortable tension. As for the 17-minute "Sister Ray" (or the "White Whale"), yeah sure, stone rock rave-up classic. The raw groove bludgeons. Distortion and fuzz dominate. Pounding monotony is a good thing in this case. Now Reed is mixed way down, as if the vocal can barely keep up, riding the current, under the assault of the band. Halfway in it is hypnotic like a factory machine. Heavy drug references and loopy sexual references abound. At 16:00 it's a horse race with the avant-garde rock equivalent of a photo finish. "Sister Ray" is much revered and perhaps deservedly so. But it has long verged on homework for me, and I've never fully connected with it. Thinking the length of it might be the appeal, I turned to the 38-minute version from the Quine Tapes box set, recorded in San Francisco. It's more slow-paced and methodical and in the style of the 1969 double-live (not surprising as both were drawn from some of the same shows in 1969). Moe Tucker hits and hits. The rhythm guitar strums and strums. Someone's noodling on a guitar. It goes through some changes, which sound at least semi-rehearsed. At one point, from about 8:30 to 15:00, it sounds a little like they're attempting to emulate "Dark Star." Where is Jerry Garcia when you need him? They were right there in San Francisco. The White Light / White Heat version altogether comes off better, much closer to the controlled chaos they appeared to be going for, the formal and conscious antithesis of West Coast side-long tracks like "Dark Star." Someone somewhere once observed that all of the Velvet Underground starts and ends with "Sister Ray," and anyone who claims to be a fan but is indifferent to "Sister Ray" is ... something judgmental. Guilty. But like I say, we all have to have a least favorite, even among the most loved sets of things. You probably already know exactly what you think of White Light / White Heat. But I will still say: Approach with caution.