Up Tight - The Velvet Underground Story is a book by Victor Bockris & Gerald Malanga published by William Morrow & Co 1985
Softcover, ?pg. B&W
10" x 7.9"
1st edition
"Few groups in the history of popular music have broken down as many barricades as the Velvet Underground did in its all-too-brief existence. The Velvets; foresight into the directions that electric music was taking (dissonance, feedback, extended improvisation) and their forays into taboo lyrical subject matter (the decadence of the idle rich, the horrors and joys of drugs, the realities of life on the street) were so out of step with what was going on in the music world around them in the late Sixties and early Seventies that they never gathered more than a very small cult following. Yet the Velvets' influence hovers over all present music seeking to do more than merely entertain. Leader Lou Reed's almost cinema verite songwriting style rang with an honest and compassion that few songwriters ever reach, and the band's uncompromising, committed playing is arguably the source of most post-punk/new-wave music."
Through photos, interviews, and story telling this book relates the story of this incredibly influential rock band.