The band David Bowie called “The Velvets without Lou”
Few bands are more respected or revered in the alternative sphere than The Velvet Underground. Spawning out of 1960s New York, the Lou Reed-led avant-garde aficionados blended controversial lyrics with art rock instrumentation. Though they had little success during their existence, too ahead of their time, they have since accrued countless admirers, one of whom was David Bowie.
A boundary-pushing artist, David Bowie was immediately taken by a demo of the Velvets’ first record and admired Reed’s lyricism. He even produced Reed’s sophomore solo effort, Transformer, in 1972 alongside Mick Ronson. But the glam rock artist’s admiration for Reed and The Velvet Underground didn’t stop him from using their name to insult another band.
During a conversation with Musician in 1987, Bowie compared Scottish noisy shoegazers The Jesus and Mary Chain to The Velvet Underground, declaring them “like the Velvets without Lou”. His comment could, at first, seem like a compliment. Few alternative bands would dispute comparisons to The Velvet Underground, in fact, most would revel in them, and The Jesus and Mary Chain are no exception.
Brian Eno once stated that, although the first Velvet Underground record only sold 30,000 copies, everyone who purchased one went on to start a band. It’s a slight exaggeration, but it demonstrates the mammoth impact Reed and his bandmates would have on the alternative sphere for decades, including The Jesus and Mary Chain.
Surrounded by a burgeoning interest in electronic music, the Scottish shoegazers took early influence from their guitar predecessors, the Velvet Underground. They likely would have loved to hear Bowie compare them to the alternative icons. But Bowie didn’t mean it as a compliment, as he also called the band “awful” and “sophomoric”.
The suggestion that The Jesus and Mary Chain were comparable to the Velvet Underground without Lou Reed seems like a thinly veiled insult in itself. Reed was the driving force behind the band, the bold voice behind their lyrics, and the face of the band. It’s hard to imagine a version of the band without him in it. Coupled with his declaration that they were “awful”, it seems that Bowie was suggesting The Jesus and Mary Chain lacked direction.
Although Bowie might not have been their biggest fan, The Jesus and Mary Chain did go on to forge their own permanent place within the alternative sphere, in turn becoming a reference point for budding guitar bands. They proved themselves to be worth far more than a reductive comparison to “the Velvets without Lou.”
