IGNACIO, JULIA
"Only five thousand people ever bought a Velvet Underground album," Brian Eno once said, "but every single one of them started a band." Of course, well in excess of that oddly low number of copies of the VU's roiling, era-defining records have been sold in the more than 45 years since Lou Reed first swaggered up to a microphone in New York City in the mid-1960s. But the gist of Eno's observation rings true: it cannot be denied that the Velvet Underground--sardonic and loud, intense and cool, and legendarily influential--occupies a nonpareil status in the history of rock, art and art-rock. Ignacio Julia, the creator of "The Velvet Underground: Legend, Truth" first saw Lou Reed play in 1975 in Barcelona. The concert had a life-changing effect on him, but rather than start a band, Julia proceeded to follow the band's career, interviewing the members over the years, and publishing the first edition of this volume in 1986. This reissue of Julia's long-unavailable book has grown into this revised and expanded edition, packed with rare pictures and memorabilia, and including exclusive interviews with Lou Reed, John Cale, Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, Nico and the longest interview ever granted by Sterling Morrison.
