The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was a seminal New York City-based rock 'n' roll group featuring songwriter Lou Reed.

About the Velvet Underground

 * The Velvet Underground never sold many records, but, as many have said, it seems like every one of the group's fans went out and started a band.
 * The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Third Edition (2001), p. 1034
 * The Velvets straddled the categories. They were nothing if not eclectic: their music and sensibility suggested influences as diverse as Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, Peter Townshend and John Cage; they experimented with demented feedback and isolated, pure notes and noise for noise's sake; they were partial to sweet, almost folky melodies; they played the electric viola on Desolation Row.
 * Ellen Willis, in Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island (1979), edited by Greil Marcus; pp. 73–74