Here’s a wonderful blast of 1960s NYC cool, in the form of a 1986 episode of The South Bank Show dedicated to the Velvet Underground. It’s slightly jarring to hear host Melvyn Bragg in the opening credit VU as being a precursor to punk rock and a major influence on artists “as diverse as David Bowie, Talking Heads, and the young Jesus and Mary Chain.” (It’s difficult to imagine Bragg putting on Psychocandy as he reads the morning paper, isn’t it?)

The show features ample interviews with all of the members of the band, including Nico, as well as personages like Gerard Malanga, Victor Bockris, Henry Geldzahler, and Robert Christgau. Naturally Warhol pops up in the archive footage. There’s a bunch of so-called “underground” footage, including some clips filmed by Jonas Mekas of the band’s “first appearance” (according to a helpful title card) at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City on January 14, 1966.

There’s nothing truly earth-shaking here, but it’s still quite interesting to see the whole band willing to be interviewed, and at a moment when their reputation was not quite as towering as it has since become. (Today, the premise that they were one of the very most influential bands of the 1960s is a no-brainer. In 1986 they were still seen more as the forefathers of punk, with their back catalog only coming fully back into print in the US around that time.)
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Moe Gets Tied Up,’ Andy Warhol’s ultra-rare 1966 movie starring the Velvet Underground
Amazing ‘Mod Wedding’ with Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground & Nico, 1966