‘Sister Ray’: The Velvet Underground song that brought Buzzcocks together
“I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold 30,000 copies in the first five years,” Brian Eno once famously stated, “The sales have picked up in the past few years, but I mean, that record was such an important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!”
With hindsight, it’s safe to say that The Velvet Underground escaped contemporary commercial success because they were so ahead of their time. Rather than finding their impact in popular appeal, numbers and sales, the art rockers found it in their innovation and influence.
Almost six decades on from the inception of The Velvet Underground, their impact has transcended countless genres and generations, influencing everyone from David Byrne to David Bowie. They even inspired the formation of Buzzcocks.
Singer-songwriter Howard Devoto began Buzzcocks with a college call-out for fellow Velvet Underground fans. In an advertisement seeking bandmates, Devoto stated that he was looking for musicians to join him in a rendition of ‘Sister Ray’. Though it wasn’t a track from their famed debut record, The Velvet Underground & Nico, it still seemed to prove Eno’s hypothesis right.
Coming in at 17-and-a-half minutes long, ‘Sister Ray’ was an epic sonic story that featured on The Velvet Underground’s second record. To find another musician who could play the track seemed like an impossible feat, but the notice would lead Devoto to his future co-singer-songwriter, Pete Shelley.
Both students at the University of Bolton, they had previously met due to their shared interests in music, but the call-out for ‘Sister Ray’ fans solidified their collaborative relationship. “He first got in touch with me after I started an electronic music society at college,” Shelley recalled to Pitchfork, “He was doing a film and thought I had a synthesizer. I didn’t, but that was the first time we discussed music.”
Though that collaboration didn’t come to fruition, Shelley later stumbled upon Devoto’s ad, which informed him of their shared love for the Velvet Underground. “Then I saw he stuck up a notice looking for musicians looking to play a version of ‘Sister Ray’ by the Velvet Underground. I thought, hey, I know that,” he explained.
And the rest was history. Safe in the knowledge that they shared a love for the weirder and noisier sides of music, Shelley and Devoto would go on to experiment with their sound, eventually penning hits like ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)’ and becoming one of the most beloved British bands of all time.
