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50.
THE VILLAGE VOICE Vol. XI, No. 25 (NY: April 7, 1966).
Tabloid newspaper format. 40pp. Ed. Daniel Wolf.
Front cover photograph by Fred McDarrah shows the Velvet Underground performing at the Dom (23 St. Mark’s Place), a residency that began on April 1. Inside, a full-page headlined “Andy, Edie, & the Velvet Underground”, prints five photographs, the first of which shows Andy Warhol at the Leo Castelli Gallery with his new Cow wallpaper installed on the wall behind him. Page 29 prints a half-page ad. announcing ‘The Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ (newly renamed from ‘The Expanding Plastic Inevitable’): “Do You Want To Dance and Blow Your Mind”.
As well as Warhol, the Velvets and Nico, the ad. mentions “Superstars Gerard Malanga And Mary Woronov On Film On Stage On Vinyl”, and includes a list of films to be screened (these included “Vinyl”, “Sleep”, “Eat” and “Kiss”, the projectors for which were sometimes worked by Warhol, who added colourful psychedelic effects to the b/w films).
The paper’s front cover also carries a lengthy article by Vivian Gornick under the headline “Pop Goes Homosexual: It’s a Queer Hand Stoking the Campfire”, in which she argues that “popular culture is now in the hands of the homosexuals” (Warhol is named among them), a provocative view printed in a liberal publication from a radical feminist who later contributed a foreword to the “SCUM Manifesto” by Valerie Solanas, Warhol’s would-be assassin.
Also: “Electronic Generation Goes Totally Kinetic”, a 2pp. feature on Gerd Stern and USCO by Sally Kempton; Jill Johnston on Trisha Brown and Deborah Hay at the Judson Memorial Church; Michael Zwerin on Eric Dolphy; La Mama Experimental Theatre Club; “What’s On” back page listings for Meredith Monk at the Judson Church, and Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg and others in a benefit reading for the New York Workshop in Non-Violence at St. Mark’s Church. Numerous ads. include The Fugs at the Astor Playhouse (“The Fugs Sounds Are peace-mantras body-poetry & dope rock transfusions”); the Free University of New York; a series of lectures by Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Marshall McLuhan and others at The Poetry Center; Nina Simone at Square East; Miles Davis at the Village Vanguard; Max Roach at the Five Spot Café; Dave Van Ronk at the Gaslight; John Lee Hooker, The Blues Project at Café Au Go Go; “My Hustler” at the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque; “Underground Film at The Bridge” (Aldo Tambellini, Ben Morea, Mario Montez, Piero Heliczer, and others).
Old central horizontal fold; newsprint lightly age-toned; slight paper loss along lower edge of p.9/10 (probably a production fault); o/w Very Good plus.
A superb issue of the weekly alternative paper that started it all, and one of the models for International Times (Miles began selling The Voice at Better Books in 1965).
