The Velvet Underground: Letting it rip
The godfathers of alternative rock, the Velvet Underground exert an influence on Paul McLoone that refuses to wane. And if you needed a reminder of their enduring power and fierce originality, check out Todd Haynes’s deftly handled documentary arriving this Friday, and the tribute album I’ll Be Your Mirror
In the early summer of 1986, while wilfully neglecting my studies at Queen’s University, Belfast, I heard a record that changed me. Everything I thought I knew about rock and roll and how it should be done was forever altered, turned on its head and made suddenly, laughably naive by 48 minutes of music that to this day remains some of the most powerful ever created.
The Velvet Underground & Nico was a thing of ...