About This Lesson
This lesson considers New York City and the cross currents that run between the worlds of music-making and the arts in a broad sense, particularly the visual and literary arts. The epigraphs above provide a launching point for a discussion about one example of such cross currents. Lou Reed, a member of the Velvet Underground, a group Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke described in 1989 as, “arguably the most influential band of rock’s last quarter century,” describes becoming multiples of himself so that he can tour frequently. While Reed associates that with the Drifters, a vocal group that purportedly performed in latter-day incarnations that included no original members, But the more obvious line of influence for Reed’s thinking goes back to Andy Warhol, the New York art world’s most celebrated figure and onetime producer of the Velvet Underground.
