Music Reissues Weekly: Why Don’t You Smile Now - Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65

The Velvet Underground first played before an audience on 11 December 1965. A year earlier, their two founder members Lou Reed and John Cale were beginning a period of schlepping around New York and New Jersey as supposed members of an equally dubious band called The Primitives. The job was to promote a single titled “The Ostrich,” just issued under that name.

There wasn’t really a band called The Primitives. “The Ostrich” was a studio creation, fashioned by Reed and his fellow employees of the budget Pickwick label. But it was decided that the Reed-penned and sung single might have legs, so an ad hoc band was assembled. Cale became an alleged Primitive after the label’s Terry Philips encountered him at New York party the preceding November. Cale was there with Tony Conrad. They both had long hair and looked as if they could or should be in a pop group. Philips said he needed people to promote a record he was involved with. They went for it. Their friend, the sculptor Walter De Maria, came in as the fourth stage-bound Primitive.

Thus a trend-chasing hack New Jersey label unwittingly brought New York’s avant garde – in the form of experimental musicians Cale and Conrad, and as-such musical primitive De Maria – into its fold. Reed and Cale met for the first time. The debut appearance of the so-called Primitives was 3 December 1964, and there were periodic outings over January and February 1965. Although “The Ostrich” was a full-bore stiff, Reed and Cale continued their partnership which, after a while, led to the emergence of The Velvet Underground.

An aspect of that gestation was thrillingly documented in 2022 by the Lou Reed - Words & Music, May 1965 album, the first-ever airing of an early tape of Reed and Cale working together. There they were: nascent versions of Velvet Underground staples “Heroin” and “I'm Waiting for the Man.” The mind-blowing new double LP Why Don’t You Smile Now - Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65 takes it back a little further, excavating the surviving aural evidence from the period which generated “The Ostrich.” For the first time, a record fully explores Reed’s September 1964 to c March 1965 spell as a Pickwick employee.

The episode has been previously looked at, but not to the degree represented by Why Don’t You Smile Now. “The Ostrich” and its B-side “Sneaky Pete” were first resurrected on the 1974 VU bootleg Evil Mothers. Then, in 1976, an EP with those two cuts plus two further fantastic Pickwick-era Reed-sung-written-and-played nuggets emerged: “Cycle Annie,” credited to The Beachnuts, and “You're Driving me Insane,” credited to The Roughnecks. A year on, in 1977, “You’re Driving me Insane” and “Cycle Annie” appeared on a smartly packaged French single. Lou Reed’s pre-Velvets past had rematerialised.

Reed himself wasn’t shy about his period as play-to-order, write-to-order music business salary man. If asked, he talked about it. In 1972, as “Walk on the Wild Side” was making waves, he discussed it with Melody Maker’s Richard Williams. The main scholars digging into this are M.C. Kostek, The Velvet Underground Appreciation Society’s Phil Milstein (whose 2022 piece on Reed at Pickwick for Ugly Things magazine is pivotal) and author/journalist Richie Unterberger. Between them, their dogged digging has revealed the twists, turns and detail of Reed’s tenure at Pickwick, whose subsidiary labels in included Bridgeview, Design and Showcase. Pickwick used joint songwriting credits, so even if Reed’s name does not appear it’s highly likely he was one of co-writers.

Why Don’t You Smile Now culminates the investigations into this aspect of the future Velvet Underground man with 25 tracks from the Pickwick episode. The astute introductory essay is by Lenny Kaye. The main, analytical and insightful text is by Unterberger. “The Ostrich,” “Sneaky Pete,” “Cycle Annie” and “You’re Driving me Insane” are here – the four core cuts are heard in far superior fidelity to any previous outing. The remainder of what's included is either known about but barely heard, or previously unknown. It goes so deep that The Beachnuts’ “Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy” is previously unissued. This is an important release.

It opens with “The Ostrich” and “Cycle Annie.” The former is a nutso dance-craze track built around a “Louie Louie”-style riff with a vague Motown feel (specifically, Marvin Gaye’s "Hitch Hike" from 1962, which later informed the Velvets’ “There She Goes Again”). “Cycle Annie,” originally issued on the two cheapo comp LPs Out Of Sight! and Soundsville!, is a form of Hondells-ish surf/biker music. In both cases, Reed’s lyrics are crackers, and his voice is clearly recognisable. Barely anyone must have heard these in 1964 and 1965. As to what was thought at the time by the few people who listened – who knows?

Like “The Ostrich” and “Cycle Annie,” “Sneaky Pete” and “You’re Driving me Insane” are familiar territory. As are the Reed (and Cale) co-penned “Why Don’t You Smile” – recorded by a real band, The All Night Workers, and thence improbably covered by the UK’s Downliners Sect – and “I’ve Got a Tiger in my Tank,” a surf-a-like track also credited to The Beachnuts. The bulk of Why Don’t You Smile Now collects material which Reed co-wrote, on which he may or may not have played. There are also versions of “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Surfin’,” from an utterly awful album titled The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook. It sounds like Reed is singing on these. Unterberger persuasively argues that because the album includes a version of “California Girls,” issued as a single in July 1965, Reed “might have still picked up freelance work at Pickwick after he stopped commuting to the office.” While creating the Velvets with Cale, Reed was simultaneously trashing The Beach Boys.

The remainder of Why Don’t You Smile Now mostly cleaves fairly straightforwardly to then-current styles. This was what Reed was paid to do. Unterberger quotes him in 1968 as saying “they [Pickwick] would put us [the writers] in a room and say, ‘Write ten California songs, ten Detroit songs.’” In 1989, Reed told Dave Fricke “they’d come in and give us a subject, and we’d write. Which I still kind of like to this day. I really love it if someone comes in and says they want a song, they give me a subject. And it’s even better if they tell me what kind of attitude they want.”

From what’s heard here, it’s clear Pickwick were telling their songwriters what was wanted. “I’m Gonna Fight,” credited to The Hi-Lifes, is a fine analogue of uptown New York soul into which a Phil Spector riff is chucked. “Oh no Don’t do it,” by Ronnie Dickerson, is similar to The Chiffons. Spongy and the Dolls’ “Really - Really - Really - Really - Really - Really Love” and “Can Make You Cry” by Ronnie Dickerson are very like The Ronettes. Beverley Ann’s “We Got Trouble” – great teen angst lyrics – is firmly in Lesley Gore territory. The histrionic “This Rose,” by Pickwick manager Terry Philips, is a Gene Pitney knock-off. The Hollywoods’ “Teardrop in the Sand” overtly nods to The Four Seasons and has some stupid/inspired surf-related lyrics.

Surprisingly, apart from the soul-infused beat-groupism of “Why Don’t You Smile,” nothing is a response to the British invasion or the US success of The Beatles. Setting aside the unclassifiable oddball duo “The Ostrich” and “Sneaky Pete,” Reed was writing songs conforming to the surf-and-related styles, and girl group and soul templates. This is especially surprising considering Pickwick did issue albums cashing-in on The British Invasion.

Which brings into play the question of whether any of this material would have had an afterlife if there was no involvement from Reed? “The Ostrich,” “Sneaky Pete” and “You're Driving me Insane” would probably have been rescued from oblivion for inclusion on albums like the Wavy Gravy series of Sixties curios. The best of the girl group and soul-slanted tracks would also have been found by genre collectors. But without the Lou Reed credit, nothing would have become well known.

There’s also the question of whether any of this can be heard as beginning a through-line to The Velvet Underground? “The Ostrich” and “Sneaky Pete” are as weird as aspects of the second VU LP White Light/White Heat. “Cycle Annie” has a little “Sister Ray” in it. Some of the Pickwick-era’s lyrical outlandishness can be seen as a pre-Velvets testing of the water for what was acceptable in a popular music context. The answer is a qualified yes.

Furthermore, in 1970, The Velvet Underground's "Rock & Roll" told the story of Ginny whose “life was saved by rock 'n' roll” after she heard a New York radio station. Perhaps, then, Lou Reed never lost the empathy for the straight pop he so clearly revelled in while working for Pickwick.

• Next week: Three CDs of The Devil Rides In - Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The Rockult 1967-1974
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• Kieron Tyler’s website

@MrKieronTyler