any academic historians on the board?
 

So I'm working on my senior thesis project for my history major at school. I really don't want to be stuck researching and writing a 30-page report for six months on something I really have no interest in. I'd rather do it on something I'm really interested in. I really want to base it around the Velvet Underground in some way. I'm having no problem finding secondary sources on the subject but finding primary sources on it is proving to be difficult. Anyone know any primary sources or know where i can find some on the VU? Of course I already know of the records themselves but anything else would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, dudes

i'm not a historian but im no stranger to research

here a few ideas i can quickly pull out of my ass:

call mo tucker & interview her. i'm sure she's easier to reach than lou reed. not sure about john cale. try him anyway.

also, kontakt the andy warhol museum in pittsburgh. they might be able to refer you to someone. they might have an archive. who knows.

also, niko/ikon might be a good lead--- find the writer/producer/director of the movie and see if they can tell you where they found out their shit

finally, look in the ass of all the secondary sources where all the primary sources are listed. call the bookwriters. say "hey motherfucker..."

if things get desperate, a séance with the ghosts of nico & warhol might be worth a try.

As above - also, contact the Andy Warhol museum.

I think part of the problem is that there's minimal in the way of 'canonical' history to VU. The secondary sources are kind of hagiographical, so the problem is that the actual original sources are fragmentary; in itself, it's well worth making the point that VU's legacy lies as much in how they were received after the fact, and the careers that followed, as when they were a 'live' band.

Maybe try to talk to people who were involved but not as famous. Like whoever engineered their records or managed their tours, shit like that.

I can't think of much that hasn't already been mentioned. You might want to contact the Filmmakers CoOp in NY, though. That's sure to have some stuff. And Jonas Mekas will know them personally.

Hey thanks guys. All of that was extremely helpful, especially !@#$%!'s post. The companion site to the forum Genteel Death posted looks like it has a lot of great resources.

http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/index.html

hey, my pleasure. i accept paypal.

undergrad right? I would assume so with only a 30 page project.. should be cake, I wrote a 25 page research project analyzing Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey monomyth in light of the music and culture of the grateful dead even back in community college,by senior year I was up to 50-60 pages easy, I did 6 or 8 30 page projects a semester ( i turned in approx 100 pages of work each class)..

for undergrad work the suggestions above are WAAYY to much work, that is graduate level history work, no one expects you to conduct interviews for your senior's thesis, not that you can't, but that is a bit over the top, especially considering you wanna write about VU where interviews are rather out of your easy access..

good primary sources for music/band related history projects include published interviews, lyrics, contemporary newspaper/magazine articles, contemporary biographies, live recordings, documentary/news footage etc etc.. this is undergrad level research expectations, probably that you include a few of each.

To narrow it down what is the particular topic of this senior seminar/thesis you are taking? I had to take mine on genocide in the 20th century, quite a drag actually, but it was the only seminar that would let me research Ethiopian History which was my specific major, and so my six months were full of nightmares and horror stories about the Italian acts of genocide against Ethiopia 1935-1941, and of course standard genocide studies like Rwanda, Cambodia, the American Indians and the Holocaust. I still am quite haunted by the experience... the draft came out to be 60 pages, but the project I enjoyed more was a 70 page study on the Cold War between Ethiopia and Colonial Europe, 1860s-1920s...

to get specific,
for VU look into interviews with fans, producers, contemporary artists/bands/, promoters, record execs, family members, biographers, magazine articles/writers of the period of your research.

Of my head, a good topic with VU would be to analyze the historical impact of the Velvet Underground on American music, and then you can lay a foundation of research on the Velvet Underground themselves, but also use primary source material for other bands/artists/music communities over the past few years..

Primary sources= any material/sources which are contemporary to the time you are researching, they do not necessarily have to be "from the horses mouth" so to speak..
By the way, if you find a primary source within a secondary source, as quotation you can easily quote it yourself as a primary source of your own, as it remains a primary source, so a good place to start hunting down primary sources for a band/music is in monographs and biographies which are literally filled to the brim with such material, usually in chronological order even!

For my dead paper I relied just on such material for primary sources, on interviews, on lyrics, on footage/documentaries, on biographies, on magazine articles, etc etc..

good luck, it should be a lot of fun, after all, it is your last history paper, make it your best, and make it practice for your Master's Thesis one day, which will be your first, peer-reviewed, profession level and fully published monograph ;)

Good advice from suchfriends. you don't want to drown yourself in research to the point where you're left with nothing to really say. One way of approaching it is to set up your thesis as a question. That way you're always building towards an attempt to answer it in your conclusion - even if by the end you have to acknowledge that no true answer is available. It gives your writing focus, making it easier to write and easier for your examiner to read, giving both of you a clear indication of what the thesis is about. My suggestion would be to avoid titles that can veer off into various cul de sacs. It's better (and more fulfilling) to build on a simple premise or question than to have to simplify a more complex one.

Hey, how is this thing going? I would like to read it when its done.

i wanna know if moe tucker agrees with johnny ramone that punk was right wing

I'm still researching. I got my topic and my argument so I just need to research for now. The class is two quarters long so I still have quite a bit of time. Won't be done for a few months. I'll gladly send it to you when its done.

it was definitely a "pop music" phenomena.