The Velvet Underground record their first demos

July 1965: Number 2 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of indie musicThe most influential group in indie history – crucial to punks, goths, postpunks and indiepoppers – first set music to tape in a loft apartment on Ludlow Street, Manhattan. The spur to speed up came later that summer, when John Cale returned to Britain and saw chart bands such as the Small Faces and the Who experimenting with feedback. His message to Lou Reed on his return was stark: we're being overt...

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