The Velvet Underground

Book excerpt: Swingers and swappers, strippers and streetwalkers, sadists, masochists, and sexual mavericks of every persuasion; all are documented in this legendary expose of the diseased underbelly of '60s American society. The legendary sexology book that lent its name to the seminal New York rock'n'roll group THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, led by Lou Reed, whose songs were to mirror its themes of depravity and social malaise. Subjects range from mail-order pornography and prostitution to bondage and SM parties, orgies, and clandestine sex clubs. In 1966 the book was picked up on by Lou Reed, a young New York musician who had just formed a band, The Falling Spikes. Reed immediately changed the band's name to The Velvet Underground, became Andy Warhol's house band, wrote a raft of songs based on sleaze and the demi-monde, and the rest is history...