The Velvet Underground
TV Appearances
December 31, 1965 Part (about 55 seconds) of this CBS News report The Making of an Underground Film is about Piero Heliczer shooting his film Venus In Furs, with the Velvet Underground performing Heroin, with Heliczer joining in on saxophone. The report also includes interviews with Jonas Mekas, Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol. Excerpts are available in :
This report which includes the earliest known footage of the Velvet Underground was released in its entirety (6:04) on DVD in February 2014 with pre-ordered copies of Boo-Hooray's Piero Heliczer & The Dead Language Press. January 30, 1966 Members of the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol's Factory appear on David Susskind's TV show. John Wilcock reports this event in detail, in Other Scenes, in The East Village Other, February 15 – March 1, 1966, Vol. I No. 6 (p. 4). At the bottom of the accompanying photograph, in which Cale and Malanga are clearly visible, the caption identifes the event as "Barbara Rubin, The Uptight Series." "Another, lesser-known, activity within the Up-Tight series reveals the group’s interest in intervening in the mass media as one of the exemplary sites of bourgeois ideology. Instead of a concert this involved a disruptive and chaotic appearance by Warhol, Rubin, and members of the Velvet Underground and the East Village band The Fugs on David Susskind’s television program. During the course of the show, Rubin and Danny Williams’s filming, Ed Sanders's political advocacy of oral-genital relations, and Cale's languid caressing of Malanga with a cattle whip, caused the TV host to angrily lose his cool. Halfway through the taping, as Wilcock reported, "Susskind is getting rattled. The roving cameramen, the disorderly group, the smell of pot, the occasional clicks, shrieks and catcalls from Barbara are apparently so much more than he expected." Halfway through the taping Susskind and his staff abruptly decided to cancel the second hour of the program." Also listen to a recording of Callie Angell's introduction to the Andy Warhol film Uptight #3 -- David Susskind, before its screening at The 7th Orphan Film Symposium: Moving Pictures Around the World on April 9, 2010. March 8, 1966 "Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein" was episode number 2 of a eleven-part series USA: Artists made for NET (National Educational Television, the precursor to PBS), produced and directed by Lane Slate. Narrator of this epîsode is Alan Solomon. Andy Warhol introduces the Velvet Underground, and the band plays Venus In Furs and Heroin. The Warhol segment of the show was likely filmed on the eve of Up-tight at the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in New York City. The Paley Center for Media mentions a 8 p.m. broadcast on March 8, 1966. This date is also confirmed in the Television Archive of the Arts (dated January 18, 1967). American Archive of Public Broadcasting lists a March 6, 1966 The program was officially available as a video stream at video thirteen, but seems to be no longer available. Andy Warhol's band introduction is officially available on the Australian What Goes On three-CD box set, and both songs appear on various bootlegs. The Lou Reed | Rock And Roll Heart video/DVD also offers some of the WNET material. Television Archive of the Arts, Checklist, January 19,1967 – The Museum of Modern Art April 1, 1967 Listed in "The 7th Orphan Film Symposium: Moving
Pictures Around the World" program. According to a contact at Oddball Film, "it's not EPI, it's a very short clip of (Andy) Warhol and (Gerard) Malanga being interviewed about EPI. There is no music or anything else on the clip, it's about 2-3 minutes long." July 8, 1967 The Velvet Underground made an appearance and performed Guess I'm Falling In Love. Upbeat was a syndicated musical variety show hosted by Don Webster and produced in Cleveland OH at ABC affiliate WEWS-TV. Announced in:
The show is also listed in NYC (NY Metro TV Guide), July 15, 1967; LA edition TV Guide, July 15, 1967; Cumberland, Maryland newspaper, July 15, 1967; Detroit area TV Guide, July 22, 1967 (WKBD-50, Sat. 9:30am) "The Velvet Underground (!) were on twice. Jamie Klimek (of the group Mirrors) saw them play many times. "In the period April 67 to March 69, The Velvets played Cleveland 7 times. After an appearance with the EPI at the Public Hall, they returned 5 times to play at La Cave. In early 67 they did Guess I'm Falling in Love (not on LP) on Upbeat! with Cale. On Oct 2 1968 [ed. note: actually Oct 4], the VU came in for another 3 day stand. This marked Doug Yule's first public appearance with the band. They played 'Run Run Run' (from the first LP) with different lyric - live on Upbeat!" Tony Conrad: "Well, I do have a recording of that show—but it's on a reel-to-reel AUDIO tape; and I'm away from my collection right now, so I don't have access to it. I haven't listened to the tape, so I don't even know if the VU played any music or just talked." A previously unknown version of “Guess I'm Falling In Love” was posted on YouTube on October 26, 2014, by Lund Peterson. The description states that it is an audio clip from the old 1960s show “Upbeat.” The audience can be heard cheering at the beginning and end of the recording. This recording has been hotly debated by Velvet Underground fans in forums. John (Lund) Peterson: "As a teen I recorded off the radio and TV, and Upbeat had songs I never heard anywhere else so I recorded the audio. That's how I got that song back then, a little gritty for the screaming teen girls on the show." circa May 4, 1968 Velvet Underground appearance with Run Run Run performance. The show is announced In Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1968, where Robb Baker says: "Channel 32's Upbeat show tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. features The Yardbirds, Bobby Goldsboro, Mary Wells, The Outsiders, Harumi, The McCoys, The Short Kuts, Kim Weston, Bob Francis, and The Velvet Underground." The show is also listed in NYC (NY Metro TV Guide), May 11, 1968; LA edition TV Guide, May 12, 1968; NY Times, May 11, 1968.
Tony Conrad: "On May 11 [1968], I tape the Velvet Underground actually appearing on TV--at noon on local Ch 5's "Upbeat" with the McCoys, Yarbirds, the Outsiders, and--Harami." Tom Cramer: "The Velvets performed live on the Upbeat TV show in June 1968 (not June 1967). Moreover, contrary to Sterling Morrison's recollection, they performed a blistering, buzzsaw version of Run Run Run. Their rendition of Run Run Run went beyond their alloted time: thus, Upbeat cut away to a commercial while the Velvets were engaged in feedback frenzy with Lou's back to the camera." January 16, 1970 In the Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1970: "The Velvet Underground. rock group performs, on channel 7". June 10, 1972 39 minutes, black and white Patrice Blanc Francard presents the show, which features reports on Robert Wyatt's Matching Mole and Lewis Caroll. The program devotes 23 minutes to the Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico concert at Le Bataclan in Paris, on January 29, 1972. The show features five songs filmed by Claude Ventura: Berlin, I'm Waiting For The Man, Heroin, Ghost Story, Femme Fatale. These songs are interspersed with discussions by French journalists. The Pop 2 show aired again on Canal Jimmy cable TV on October 29, 1999. Matching Mole, Velvet Underground 1972 : découverte de Nico, Lou Reed et John Cale au Bataclan April 27, 1986 53 minutes The Velvet Underground documentary produced and directed by Kim Evans. May 19, 1986 40 minutes "Feed Back – La Leyenda De Los Velvet Underground" documentary. August 26, 1990 Nothing Special documentary The broadcast of this exclusive documentary on Andy Warhol was followed by a shortened version of Ronald Nameth's film “Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable”. June 1993, 8 PM News, TF1, France Brief report (2:04) broadcasted during the 1993 reunion tour, before Paris concerts. It included brief history of the group, Factory era photographs, live excerpts from 1993 concert and interview with John Cale and Sterling Morrison. August 8, 1993, 120 Minutes, MTV 9 minutes report at the Glastonbury Festival on June 25, 1993. It includes 3-min excerpts of Sweet Jane and Some Kinda Love filmed live in Glastonbury intersected with an interview with Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison. December 1993, Peel Slowly And See..., Channel 4, UK 8 hours TV show about the Velvet Underground. 1996, The Week In Rock, MTV, USA Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame induction report with a brief bit of Last Night I Said Goodbye To My Friend, the song dedicated to the late Sterling Morrison (actually just the title and some music). Home Thanks: Tom Cramer, Marck Skobac. by Olivier Landemaine ©1996-2026 The Velvet Underground Web Page |
