Seeing the Light: Inside the Velvet Underground

by Rob Jovanovic
St. Martin’s Press, 294 pp., $26.99

For an outfit with such a short initial existence, there sure are a lot of books about the Velvet Underground. Instead of forming a band, did every one of the relatively few people who saw the New Yorkers back in the Sixties sit down at the typewriter instead? It’s a testament to the band’s ongoing influence, of course, that leads to the publication of books like Seeing the Light: Inside the Velvet Underground – whose value dwells in the reader’s own perspective. For longtime fans this tome adds nothing new, although chapters on the group’s post-Loaded existence offer some glimmers, and there’s more commentary from Moe Tucker and Doug Yule than expected. Those new to the Velvets get a quick-and-dirty guide to the band, blazing through its initial career (1964-1973) and brief Nineties reunion with more facts than analysis.

This article appears in June 15 • 2012.

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Michael Toland started writing about music in 1988 on the Gulf Coast, moved to Austin in early 1991, and has inflicted bylines upon the corporeal and digital pages of Pop Culture Press, The Big Takeover, Blurt, Amplifier, Austin.citysearch, the Austin American Statesman, Goldmine, Sleazegrinder, Rock & Roll Globe, High Bias, FHT Music Notes, and, since 2011, The Austin Chronicle.