Desperately Seeking The Velvet Underground

As a break from our Soho stories, Mike reflects on the thrill of discovering music in the 1970s, where the quest for new sounds shaped identity, friendship, and still shapes his creative journey.

Back then, it felt like you were always on a quest. Chasing the next great record, the next band that would change everything, introduce you to a new musical landscape. In a way, that quest hasn’t really stopped. The objects of the search have changed many times over the years, but the act of seeking remains. What began with music is now a broader journey, a constant pursuit of meaning through creation, discovery, and connection.

Today, I write. My quest is for the perfect story—a sequence of words that invites the reader in, takes them on a fantastic voyage, and leaves them illuminated. I know I’ll never write the perfect story. There’s always something just out of reach, some gap between the vision and the execution. The voyage will always be less than fantastic. But there’s a joy in the quest, the same joy I felt when it was all about the music. That feeling of curiosity and persistence, of searching for something that might never be fully found but is worth pursuing anyway.

This is a story about one of those early quests. I didn’t realise it at the time, but the search for music was about more than the sound. It was a way of defining ourselves, of shaping our identities, and of creating bonds with others. Through music, we discovered the world, and in the process, we discovered parts of ourselves.

Let us go back to December 1972. Our exploration of the moon came to an end as the final Apollo flight returned to earth, the UK was at war with Iceland over cod and Chuck Berry was at number one with My Ding-a-Ling. On the upside, the legendary Velvet Underground was to play at St Albans City Hall on the second of the month, and me and my pals were going to see them.

We knew they were legendary because David Bowie had mentioned them on the back of Hunky Dory, and the NME told us they were, running grainy photos that suggested they’d invented sunglasses. The only problem? We hadn’t actually heard a note of their music.

Listening to music in the early ‘70s was a challenging task. Radio offered little beyond the hits of the day, and if you wanted to hear something truly interesting, your best bet was John Peel’s Top Gear show—on late at night—or catching The Old Grey Whistle Test on TV. Even then, those were rare opportunities. Most of the time, if you wanted to hear something, you had to buy it or borrow it. There was a third option: the listening booth.

Mark Greene’s Record Room on Chequer Street in St Albans was reckoned to be the best record shop outside London. Its owner had a passion for and encyclopaedic knowledge of music, offering the discerning record buyer two small listening booths each a little larger than a telephone kiosk with stereo speakers inside and an ashtray. You’d ask Mark to put a particular disc on, go into the booth with a couple of pals, all spark up and listen to it. Generally you’d get two or three tracks in before you risked asphyxiation.

But when we asked Mark for anything by Velvet Underground he rubbed his chin, looked wistfully into the middle distance, and after a pause said “sorry boys - sold my last copy of the banana album about a year ago.” They may well have been legendary, but they certainly weren’t popular. In the five years since their debut album had been released it had only sold 50,000 copies worldwide. So our mission was set: to track down the one copy of The Velvet Underground & Nico that by the law of averages must exist somewhere in Hertfordshire.

In those days, building a record collection was a collaborative effort. We couldn’t each afford to buy everything, so we specialised. I was the ELP, Procol Harum and the early Bowie person (don’t ask; it’s complicated), while Alan would focus on more mainstream Bowie and Roxy Music, Steve handled King Crimson, Kitty had Genesis, Bruce was our source for west coast rock, Glynis did all things soul and Andy was the completist for Elton John. Generally people didn’t borrow very much from Andy.

We weren’t just building our music collections. We were building ourselves. Music wasn’t just something to listen to but the soundtrack to the shaping of our identities, part of the central quest of finding ourselves. It gave each of us unique expertise, a specialised domain of music over which we had deep intimate knowledge, which we could express in various ways. Steve, for example, was able to whistle note-perfect Robert Fripp guitar solos, a rare and in today’s world a sadly undervalued skill. 

Back to our mission: we gathered around a table in our FE college canteen to figure out a game plan. Steve lived in Hatfield so would see if the town’s Rag Records had anything by them. They didn’t have a booth, but you could listen to records on headphones. Bruce’s dad ran a small business in Camden Town, so he’d ask him to try record stores there. Then Charlie Dickson hoved into view.

Charlie wasn’t part of our social circle. He wasn’t really part of anyone’s, but his record collection was something of legend. Charlie benefitted from having two older brothers who still lived at home, all three of whom were voracious record collectors. So the one music conversation I’d had with Charlie up to that point had gone along the lines of: 

“Charlie, you got anything by the Grateful Dead?” 

“Well, we’re more or less complete with official releases including a very interesting Australian pressing of American Beauty, but I’ve always felt our bootleg collection is a bit patchy.”

Charlie’s father was a vicar in a nearby town that was a half hour bus ride away. We invited him over to our table, then quickly got down to business.

“Charlie, you got any Velvet Underground?”

“White Light/White Heat, Loaded, and the banana one,” he replied casually.

“Great. OK if we borrow them all?”

“We don’t actually lend out. Sorry.”

“For fuck’s sake Charlie that’s not very Christian of you.”

“If it was up to me it would be different, but my brothers set the rules.” There was a bit of a pause while we all mulled over our next move. But then he says:

“But you’d all be welcome to come over one evening to listen to them.”

And that’s how four of us found ourselves on a bus, heading out of town one dark and rainy Friday evening to Charlie’s house. Mrs Dickson opened the front door when we all arrived.

“Hello boys. You must be here to see Charles. Let me take you through to the music room.”

We all looked at each other. Music rooms didn’t feature in any of our respective domestic arrangements. Indeed, for one of us an indoor bathroom was something to aspire to. But we all followed Mrs Dickson across the hall and through a door.

On the opposite side of the room was a roaring open fire. Either side of the chimney breast, two wide alcoves were filled floor to ceiling with records. On a console was a Technics system and by each alcove was a floor standing Celestion speaker. There may also have been a grand piano in there somewhere.

Charlie sat us down, put on The Velvet Underground & Nico, and we listened. As Heroin played, Mrs. Dickson came in with a tray of hot chocolates and crumpets and I found myself having a conversation with her during one of Lou Reed’s more explicit lyrics:

“Crumpet and jam Michael?”

“When I put a spike into my vein.”

“Yes please. That’s very kind of you Mrs Dickson.”

“And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same.” 

“Raspberry or quince jelly?”

“When I'm rushing on my run.”

“Raspberry please Mrs Dickson.”

“And I feel just like Jesus' son.”

The music was unlike anything we’d ever heard before. Nico’s voice, John Cale’s viola, Lou Reed’s lyrics—raw, strange, electric. And of course the drumming. The early seventies was certainly a time for women drummers - VU’s Mo Tucker and Karen Carpenter - two very brilliant and very different talents.

And so it was one week later that we were standing in St Albans City Hall waiting for the legendary Velvet Underground to stride out onto the stage in front of us. We were fully prepared. We may not have possessed a fully comprehensive knowledge of their back catalogue, but we had at least a familiarity with their greatest hits. Not that they’d had any hits, mind you. Or ever would. But we had a broad idea what to expect. The lights went down. The band walked on.

“Hi. We’re from New York City.”

That was the first expectation fully realised. Sadly the last one too. As they tore into Waiting for the Man, Charlie sidled up to me. “You see the bloke on the drums?”

The Welshman might have left some time ago, as had Lou Reed, but we had assumed that Mo Tucker remained behind the drum kit. At that moment we realised that not one of the band members were originals. We were more or less watching a tribute band, not that tribute bands had been invented then. As tribute bands go, they weren’t bad, but that wasn’t the point. It was a bit disappointing.

I don’t do football and never have, but I know a few people who do, and through them understand some crucial differences between the beautiful game and music. Unlike football fans, music fans don’t really do disappointment; it’s not an integral part of the dopamine experience. Watching your team lose match after match sinks you deep into a slough of despond that can last for weeks. Sometimes a whole season. Music fans don’t do that thing of booing their favourite band off stage after a less than sparkling performance, calling the drummer rude names, making hand gestures at the bass player and demanding that their manager is sacked. Not often anyway. But when a goal eventually comes, which at some point it must, a tidal wave of dopamine courses through the veins, igniting that joyous euphoric rush. Without all those days and weeks of frustration, angst and bitter disappointment - no goal moment.

Our dopamine experience doesn’t require that bitter disappointment, but is no less euphoric. Bryan Ferry was spot on in his lyric “Every time I hear the latest sound, It’s pure whisky reeling round and round my brain”. For us it was the quest that laid the ground for the dopamine hit of actually hearing the band, and that hit was had in a home counties vicarage, not in St Albans City Hall. 

Tracking down a record felt like a mission, a challenge, and there was an elated sense of triumph when we finally got to hear it. But it wasn’t just about the music—it was about following our curiosity, the thrill of discovery. And I’ve come to realise that’s something I’ve never lost. That same curiosity still drives me today, whether it’s in music, books, travel, politics, writing or just learning something new. 

But in providing an instant source of just about every piece of music ever recorded, does today’s music culture and technology eliminate the magic of music - has it made it all too easy? My son tells me that today’s digital world doesn’t kill that magic, just changes it. The quest is different now, but the curiosity remains, and the network of friends to share it with still matters. The arrangements might have changed, but the song remains the same.

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Author’s note

My thanks to Margaret Bennett, Wendy Varley and Penny Kiley - fellow Substack writers - whose inspiring writings and sporadic chats online persuaded me to try a bit of ‘memoir’.