流行艺术&艺术流行：有关安迪·沃霍尔【1980】/ Pop Art/Art Pop: The Andy Warhol Connection

玛丽•哈伦（Mary Harron） 流行艺术/艺术流行：有关安迪•沃霍尔 （Pop Art/Art Pop: The Andy Warhol Connection） 1980年2月16日，《节奏制造机》（Melody Maker） 我在纽约采访了安迪•沃霍尔，而这篇文章是在加拿大完成的。《节奏制造机》的编辑理查德•威廉姆斯（Richard Williams）为它预留了封面故事的版面，而由于当时没有传真机，随着邮寄交稿日期的临近，我着实有些不知所措。我几乎已经决定亲自飞到伦敦去交稿了。最终我来到多伦多机场，将稿子和理查德•威廉姆斯的电话号码放在信封里，递给了一个乘下一班飞机去伦敦的陌生人，恳求他一定要在到达伦敦后与理查德联系。幸运的是，这个人遵守了自己的承诺，理查德收到了稿子，并成功完成了那一期的封面故事。 在二十年后重读这篇文章，我觉得自己并没有将沃霍尔作品的精髓充分展示出来。他不仅仅是一个优秀的设计师，还是一个伟大的艺术家，在电影上也颇有成就。我现在对自己当时的自以为是感到自惭形秽，但写这篇文章时所经历的一切在今天看来都像是一场刺激的冒险——除了在音乐媒体上，这样的文章还能在哪里发表呢？ 玛丽•哈伦（MH） 想成为一座画廊， 将你放进我的展览。 ——选自大卫•鲍伊的《安迪•沃霍尔》（David Bowie,‘Andy Warhol’） “因为有了安迪•沃霍尔，你无法再整天按照自己的方式做事，他做事的方式改变了人们对成名的看法。正因为如此，人们似乎一夜之间都有了自我意识，对媒体的利用也越来越活跃。你实际做了什么并不重要，而你说了什么，你做事的方式和你的交际圈才是人们所关心的，你的生活成了以上这些元素的缩影。从某种程度上来讲，很多‘垃圾’因此被生产了出来，这也正是沃霍尔带给这个社会的一部分。” ——史蒂夫•皮卡洛，寄生虫乐队的贝司手（Steve Piccolo of The Lounge Lizards） 安迪•沃霍尔在流行音乐界一直是被埋没的，因为他的影响体现在很多不容易被察觉的细节上，比如说对地下丝绒乐队（Velvet Underground）的打造。除此之外，这种影响还散播到我们生活的各个角落，但却非常难给出准确的定义——因为事关造型和态度这样模糊的概念。他不仅在罗克西乐队（Roxy Music），大卫•鲍伊，雷蒙斯乐队（The Ramones），“说话的脑袋”乐队（Talking Heads）以及众多纽约摇滚乐队身上留下了印记，还使他们最终的成功成为可能。 沃霍尔对流行音乐的影响开始于流行艺术（Pop Art）【1】在美国的传播。实际上，他并不是流行艺术的发起人，但人们似乎都习惯性地把他看作这种艺术形式的鼻祖。其实早在1959年的时候，贾斯泊•约翰斯（Jasper Johns）就展览了两个铜制的啤酒罐；而直到三年后，沃霍尔的那32个坎贝尔番茄汤罐（32 Campbell's Soup Cans）【2】才与公众见面。但不可否认的是，沃霍尔依然是流行艺术的象征，并将它表现到了极致。 沃霍尔的番茄汤罐代表了美国生活方式中一切可循环的，大批量生产的“垃圾”。通过将超市商品带进艺术展览馆，流行艺术颠覆了传统意义上对好坏和美丑的价值判断，艺术和非艺术的界限也因此变得模糊起来。 流行艺术前所未有的解放了公众。说到底，它不仅仅代表了现代生活方式中的各种“垃圾”，更拥有属于自己的生命和魅力。在美国，大量的生命力和想象力都被用在了生产“垃圾”上。对艺术家们来说，美国文化中的很多领地都是他们未曾涉足的：泡泡糖音乐（Bubblegum music）【3】，漫画，连环画，流行音乐，低成本商业电影（B-movie）……孩子们会不知不觉地喜欢上这些东西，但艺术家们却从一开始就被告知要拒绝这些，因为它们是“不具长久价值的”。流行艺术打破了这种禁忌，现在艺术家们可以大胆地承认他们其实在私下里很喜欢这些“垃圾”。但因为他们都是些老于世故的成年人，所以只能用讽刺的语气和自以为是的方式来迎接泡泡糖文化的繁荣。 流行艺术时代的到来，标志着流行音乐已经失去了纯真。在此之前，你可以毫无杂念和烦恼地欣赏罗赛特（The Ronettes）或沙里拉（The Shagri-las）这样的流行组合，并从来不会想着去严肃认真地解读她们。但当艺术界开始对流行音乐感兴趣时，流行音乐界对自己的看法也会有很大改变。两个世界被紧锁在了一起，流行音乐也需要被历史承认。 纯商业的流行音乐依然在不停的上市，当然，纯“艺术”的也是。在这两大阵营互相交错后，我们得到了“艺术流行”。只有在流行音乐有了自我意识后，才会出现像雷蒙斯这样的乐队。这支乐队对自我保持着极度的冷静，在歌唱美国青少年文化的同时，又对其进行客观的评论和解析，也许这也正是他们从来没有被美国青少年歌迷完全接受的原因。但与此同时，流行艺术也并不像人们想象的那么流行：在美国中部家庭的起居室墙壁上，你根本看不到沃霍尔的那些平面作品。 然而，美国人越不接受沃霍尔，他反而会变得越来越有名。在维氏自传词典（Webster's Biographical Dictionary）中，他的词条这样写道：“作为一个长期处在争议中心的人，沃霍尔在20世纪90年代获得了神坛式的地位，而这一切恰恰是因为他思想的隐晦与模糊。” 人们对沃霍尔的魅力产生了两点疑问：他为什么要做这些？他又是怎样成功脱身的？ 在公众眼里，他是个精明的骗子，从某种程度上来说确实是这样。他对媒体的操控十分娴熟，让你不得不怀疑像马尔科姆•麦克拉伦【4】这样的经纪人也是从他这里学到了各种行销手段——他们都最大化地利用了媒体的影响力。但和麦克拉伦不同的是，沃霍尔从来没有想过颠覆什么，他对金钱，名誉和权力都十分尊敬。 正因为如此，人们对安迪•沃霍尔更加迷惑了，因为他看上去好像什么都没做就迈入了拥有权势的名流圈——他的作品被纽约现代艺术博物馆（The Museum of Modern Art）收藏，他本人也被尼尔森•洛克菲勒（Nelson Rockefeller）【5】邀请参加私人晚宴。当然，这其中最简单的原因还是他的才华。沃霍尔是一个优秀的设计师，即使看起来他只是在复制最普通的美国文化标志——从美元纸币到杰茜•肯尼迪（Jackie Kennedy）【6】，从猫王到电动椅——他复制得完美无缺。 另一个原因是因为他的才华和社会生活的结合处在了最合适的时间——一个艺术已经变成时尚的年代。汤姆•沃尔夫（Tom Wolfe）在他为艺术收藏家罗伯特•史高（Robert Scull）写的简介中这样写道：“抽象表现主义是如此的神秘，它几乎容纳百川，却唯独拒绝了媒体的探寻。虽说如此，大众传媒依然欣然接受了流行艺术。艺术变成了纽约社会的兴奋剂。各种艺术展览的开幕式逐渐取代了电影首映式，因为这些展览通常在时髦，宏大并挤满摩登人士的场所举行。” 最后，沃霍尔的态度也是他的魅力之一。他偶尔会像个小孩子一样摆出神哲的架式，对公众发表这样的言论：“在未来，每个人都会成名15分钟左右。”“商业是最好的艺术。”“我喜欢好莱坞，它像塑料玩具一样。我喜欢这样，我也要变成塑料玩具。”“我们就像工厂里的商品，无比空洞，我觉得这样棒极了。” 颇为讽刺和巧合的是，他位于西大街47号（West 47th Street）工作室的名字就叫“厂房”（The Factory）。这座建筑曾经就是个厂房，沃霍尔正在这里创作“工厂艺术”（Factory Art）。虽然还是平面作品，但大部分工作都由他的助理们完成。 沃霍尔的“厂房”对传统定义上的艺术创作提出了挑战。人们普遍认为，艺术创作是对个人原创和辛勤努力的表达，而沃霍尔在这一点上和他同时代的艺术家们大相径庭。对他来说，流行艺术是轻松的。像克里斯•奥登博格（Claes Oldenburg）【7】这样的艺术家会用巨大的石膏汉堡来表达自己对美式生活的嘲讽，沃霍尔不会这样，他不但将超级市场看作一个完全成立的艺术主题，还从未想过对它做出任何改变。他也许冒犯了中产阶级，但他对消费主义和现代工业生活是来者不拒的，即使是IBM公司的总裁也很难坦率地承认自己有这样的想法。 沃霍尔对周围的一切无条件接受，并从未进行任何价值观上的评判。他这样做虽然很危险，但却充满了自由精神。大多数人对现代生活都有恐惧感，他们甚至不敢直视自己身边的事物。而沃霍尔似乎和常人的反应不太一样——他对隔离，孤独和顺从这些社会学名词没有任何恐惧。 他的很多言论都充满了智慧：他从来不会太诚恳或太不诚恳。最好的例证就是一本叫《安迪•沃霍尔哲学（从A 到B又周而复始）》（The Philosophy of Andy Warhol ：From A To B And Back Again）的书，这本书不是他自己写的，而是他的助理在与他谈话时的录音笔记：“我喜欢自己吃饭。我想为那些和我一样的人开一家连锁餐馆，就叫‘安迪连锁’（Andy Mart），专门为喜欢独自吃饭的人服务。你可以在点完餐后端着托盘坐在桌前，边看电视边吃。” 有时，沃霍尔对这个世界的天真与好奇让人感觉他是来自另外一个星球。我能想起来的唯一在这点上与他相似的人是“说话的脑袋”乐队的主唱大卫•伯恩（David Byrne）。比如说他们有首歌叫《再唱点跟建筑和食品沾边的歌》（More Songs About Buildings and Food），其中有句歌词是“天堂是一家无所事事的酒吧”，另外还有《别为政府担心》（Don’t Worry About The Government）的歌词，都很有沃霍尔的感觉。但伯恩和沃霍尔比起来更脆弱，从他的歌词中，你可以感觉到他好像是在上一堂现代生活的函授课，一步一步地学着怎么去适应。 伯恩和沃霍尔对努力工作，商业运作和成功的法则都深信不疑，并无条件的接受现状。但他们之间有一个很大的区别：伯恩担心的是人类的情感；而沃霍尔不是，或者说他曾经是，不过在发现电视和录音机的魅力之后，他就对感情不怎么关心了。 “在整个六十年代，大多数人都忘记了感情到底应该是什么样的。其实我觉得他们压根就没记住过。我想当你从一个特殊角度去看待感情的时候，你就不会觉得它那么真实了。我自己或多或少就有些这样。”（摘自《安迪•沃霍尔哲学》）人们在60年代并没有忘记如何感知世界，这只是沃霍尔的个人感受和他对生活问题的解决方式。他的问题在于极度的胆怯，近乎病态地害羞使他很难与别人直接互动。但与此同时，他很喜欢也很需要众星捧月的感觉。所以，他的解决方式就是通过磁带和胶片与别人产生联系。而由于他的盛名和招揽声誉的能力，这套解决方案变得很公开，也很有影响力。 “我用录音机录制的材料囊括了我所有可能拥有的情感，但我还是非常希望看到这些材料离我而去。这样的话，就没有什么问题了，因为一个问题就是一盘好的磁带，而当这个问题变好的时候就不再是问题了。一个有趣的问题就是一盘有趣的磁带。每个人都为了磁带而理解和表演。你根本分不清什么样的问题是真的问题，什么样的问题是为录磁带而表演的。最好是这样——那些向你诉说问题的人自己也无法确定自己到底是真的有问题还是在为录磁带表演。” 上面这段话只有在沃霍尔社交圈里的人才能听懂，在那里人们将自己的问题录在磁带上。当然，并不是说他所有的朋友都是富家子弟，沃霍尔那时还没有达到像今天这样高的社会地位，他身边的随从们都是些被社会抛弃的人——罪犯和异性装扮癖。但是他们都有着共同的风格，那就是将他们臆想症状通过舞台剧的方式表达出来——那的确都是些精美绝伦的表演！ 沃霍尔的追随者们都非常脆弱和自恋。沃霍尔这样定义胶片和磁带：它们是发送给自恋者们的请帖——你可以在自我表演后回放自己的行为。 当然，他们也并不是非要这么做——大多数自制电影并不是那么自恋。后来，沃霍尔开始制作一些内容复杂的电影：他让他的朋友们在里面演自己，然后放给公众看。对有些朋友来说，这是他们一生中最光荣的事情，而对另外一些人来说却是毁灭性的。 1963年，沃霍尔和他的助手开始在“厂房”工作室制作电影，这是一幢L形的阁楼，墙壁上贴满了银色的壁纸。他们早期的作品都是黑白无声电影，并起了一些稀奇古怪的名字：吃，吻，睡觉，口交，剪头发。他会对着一个单调的动作一动不动地拍好几个小时的长镜头。最极端的例子是1964年出品的《帝国》（Empire）——这部长达八小时的电影一直在对着纽约帝国大厦拍，整个片子里只有一个动作：关灯。 汤姆•沃尔夫在《有色的词藻》（The Painted Word）一书中对现代艺术的评价同样适用于先锋电影：“越简单的东西越容易激发文艺评论界的激情，直到这些解读变得比作品本身还重要。人们已经写了成千篇文章试图解读这些电影，我可不想再写了。也许沃霍尔只是对电影本身感兴趣，并用他纯粹的好奇心去试了一把，仅此而已。” 所以，没有故事，没有表演，没有艺术加工，只是告诉你：“看见了吗，摄影机在这儿摆着，这就是它的功能。”这些电影相当无聊（虽然构图上还都挺不错），而且很明显，沃霍尔是故意这样做的。当别人问他的时候，他只是说他喜欢无聊的感觉，无聊的感觉棒极了。 渐渐的，他的电影开始变得复杂起来，有了原声和剧本。演员们是沃霍尔从他的随从中挑选出来的，都是些“疯子圈”的圈内人，他们每天不分白昼的呆在“厂房”里。 在《安迪•沃霍尔哲学》中这样写道：“在六十年代，每个人都对别人感兴趣。毒品在这里起到了一定的作用……”在“厂房”里，有各种艺术组织的成员，有像简•霍泽“宝贝儿”和艾迪•萨齐维克（Baby Jane Holzer和Edie Sedgwick）【8】这样刚刚进入社交界的富家女，他们与处在社会性取向边缘的异性装扮男艺人和时代广场交易者们【9】相聚一堂。当然，毒品在这种地下聚会中是少不了的——苯内胺【10】在“厂房”聚会中扮演着不可或缺的角色。 这些“地下”电影总能持续不断地吸引公众眼球，当时沃霍尔做的任何事情都可以成为新闻。不仅如此，他还可以利用自己的名气，为那些因无法适应主流社会而来到“厂房”的人提供避护场所。在现代美国，作为一个明星，你有名气就足够了，你在哪里，在干什么都不重要，重要的是你有名。 电影，广播和电视改变了名气的本质。在这些东西被发明之前，名气只是声誉的象征。而一旦它依靠嘴或铅字传播时，吸引公众注意力就变得异常重要。你要么很有才，要么很有钱，要么很漂亮，要么很有权，要么是个魔鬼，要么是个圣人……总之你得占上一样。 电子媒体的从天而降意味着任何一个人的声音或形象都有可能被发送到千家万户中去。（电影在这方面还是有优势的，它可以把千家万户发送到电影院里去）。 与此同时，跟踪名人成了很多人的全职工作，因为你现在可以足不出户，通过电视屏幕就能“认识”任何一个名人。实际上，你根本不认识他们，或者仅仅了解到他们呈现给公众的形象，但总而言之——你在起居室里就可以看到他们。 这种由媒体营造出的亲密感使人们对别人的个性极度着迷——从别人的所作所为到个人喜好。而在电视时代诞生的摇滚乐，正是人们对个性过份沉迷的真实写照。 在六十年代，很少有人愿意承认名气已经和成就没什么关系了。沃霍尔却十分乐意承认并享乐其中。他将一群无名鼠辈打造成了“超级巨星”。 “超级巨星”这个词是沃霍尔的朋友英格里德（Ingrid）发明的，她来自新泽西（New Jersey），是个非常闹腾的金发女郎，自称为“超级巨星英格里德”。她每次和安迪去聚会都会上报纸，就这样，超级巨星英格里德成名了。最终，沃霍尔电影中的所有人物都变成了“超级巨星”。《安迪•沃霍尔哲学》中这样定义他们：“这些人都很有才华，但他们的才华很难被界定，更难以放在市场上运作。” 沃霍尔是个天才伯乐，他打造的“超级巨星”们个个聪明过人，并撒发着诡秘的魅力。（那个在旧货店里身着华丽服装的异性装扮癖形象对后来的华丽摇滚（Glitter Rock）有很深的影响，从“纽约娃娃”乐队（New York Dolls）的造型上就可以很明显地看到这种影响的存在）有些人是绝世美女，像艾迪•萨齐维克和“国际丝绒”（International Velvet）【11】；有些人是谈话高手，像昂顿（Ondine）和泰勒•米德（Taylor Mead），还有人二者兼备，像维瓦（Viva）和“甜心宝贝儿”（Candy Darling）【12】。 在他早期的电影里，沃霍尔和他的同事们在拍摄前有的只是一个概念，比如“坐在那里吃香蕉”。即使后来他们有了剧本，很多情节也是在现场即兴创作的。“超级巨星”们在现场走来走去，互相聊着自己遇到的问题或回忆过去的事情，有的人就坐在那儿，将自己的存在通过荧屏传达出去。 摄影机不会做出任何判断：无论有趣无趣，它只能记录下所有的东西。所以，为了忠实于摄影机作为媒介的功能，沃霍尔和他的助手们用摄影机录下了一切：他们早期的电影几乎不做任何后期编辑。虽然这样做使这些电影变得很无聊，但却与生活诡异地相似。沃霍尔曾经把这种电影叫做“纪录片”。即使是那些身着异性装扮的男艺人们，在摄影机前也不见了往日舞台上的活跃，而只是重复同一场表演，就像他们在真实生活中那样。不过，我们应该意识到，摄影机依然激发了他们表演的意识。 阿伦•米哲特（Alan Midgette）也许是沃霍尔早期电影中唯一的专业演员。他说他记得有一次女模特艾维•尼克尔森（Ivy Nicholson）在“厂房”参加拍摄，她站在摄影机前，试图割破自己的手腕。 “一旦他们这帮人开始拍电影，必定是疯狂的，因为他们并不清楚自己有多大的力量，”他说。“他们并不是在表演，很多行为都是被客观激发出来的。他们并没有真正的角色，所以只能从内心深处挖出那些奇怪的东西，然后用歇斯底里的方式在摄影机前表现出来。” 沃霍尔唯一让米哲特表演的部分就是模仿沃霍尔自己。1966年，一家大学邀请沃霍尔去做演讲。由于沃霍尔太怕生，他的助理保罗•莫里西（Paul Morrissey）让米哲特代替他。阿伦除了更年轻更英俊以外，在外形上和沃霍尔之间的确有些相似之处。于是他将头发喷成银白色，在脸上化了点妆，看起来就像安迪一样苍白，还借来了安迪的黑色皮夹克。 米哲特以安迪的身份参加了演讲，与学者们开了讨论会，甚至还接受了采访。“我知道，作为安迪，你可以用任何一种方式回答问题，最含糊不清的回答方式最接近安迪的风格。”最终，这场骗局被发现了，演讲所得的收入不得不退回给了校方。但这一切却给沃霍尔带来了无法用金钱衡量的公众曝光率。 当一家报纸就此事询问安迪时，他说：“嗯……是这样……我们就那么做了……那个……我吧……因为……那个……我真没什么可说的。米哲特去的，他应该更有发言权。人们期待的应该是他才对。” 米哲特觉得，从沃霍尔看到自己的复制品在讲台上被人们所接受的那一刻起，他就拥有了在公众面前露面的信心。作为一个喜欢将一切授权出去的人，沃霍尔这次成功的将“做自己”的责任授权了出去。 此时的沃霍尔也许是世界上挣钱最多的艺术家。与此同时，他的“超级巨星”们也都成名了，都变成了实实在在的媒体名人。从某种程度上来讲，沃霍尔的所作所为是很恶心的。他让别人在摄影机前曝光，他证明了不仅是这些人享受被曝光的感觉，而且其他人也喜欢看他们曝光。他将窥淫癖变成了一种时尚。 其中的一些“超级巨星”们把自己给毁了：艾迪•萨齐维克因染上了毒瘾，在27岁的时候因用量过大而去世。但他们也传达了一些好的信息，那就是一种态度——一种强悍，风趣，锐智的态度。这种态度被很多“超级巨星”们保留了下来，即使是在恐惧的时候，他们也能保持这种自信。他们从“厂房”中走出来飞扬跋扈，脱离了主流价值，他们将自己“厂房”中的形象原封不动地复制到了公众面前，这一切都是勇气的表现——相信我，如果你在1966年想做一个穿女装的男艺人，肯定是需要足够勇气的。 直到今天，你还可以在纽约摇滚界看到这种态度的影子，比如说莉迪亚•朗奇（Lydia Lunch）。从她身上，你还可以看到同样的恶心和做作。 因为“厂房”里聚集着来自不同世界的人们，所以沃霍尔很清楚，他与地下丝绒乐队的相遇是必然的。 他和勒芒•杨（La Monte Young）与玛丽安•扎齐拉（Marian Zazeela）两位先锋音乐家的关系很好，约翰•卡尔（John Cale）【13】在刚到纽约时加入了他们的“永恒音乐剧院”（Theatre of Eternal Music）试验乐团。沃霍尔还认识一个叫沃特尔•蒂马里亚（Walter DeMaria）的概念艺术家，他曾在约翰•卡尔和洛•里德（Lou Reed）【14】的乐队中担任过鼓手，这支乐队叫“原始人”（The Primitives），正是地下丝绒的前身。 根据杰拉德•马兰加（Gerard Malanga）的说法，沃霍尔曾经想和杨，扎齐拉，蒂马里亚和克里斯•奥登博格的妻子帕蒂•奥登博格（Patty Oldenburg）一起组建自己的乐队。一支由沃霍尔担任主唱的摇滚乐队当然是令人难以拒绝的，但最终这支乐队还是未能成形。虽说如此，这还是证明了沃霍尔的确想着摇滚乐这回事。另外，他还计划于1965年在纽约组织一场混合媒体演出，包括现场音乐，舞蹈和电影。 杰拉德•马兰加是真正将沃霍尔介绍给地下丝绒乐队的人。马兰加是沃霍尔在六十年代中期的助理，他还是一个诗人，一个“超级巨星”。他与沃霍尔的性格恰好相反：英俊，在城市中游刃有余，经常爱出风头，还是个坚定的异性恋者。沃霍尔在几年前解雇了马兰加，原因至今没有公开，那是1968年末，当时“厂房”搬到了联合广场（Union Square），整个风格也完全改变了。 找到马兰加并不难，他住在第14大道的3号街上。这个区域有很多减价商店，当铺和酒屋，而马兰加的住处依然保留着老“厂房”的感觉，与周围的景致非常搭配。就像时代广场一样，这里是纽约最危险的街道之一。每个人，甚至包括卖报纸的，都感觉像是参与了什么非法勾当。这同时也是一条毒品交易横行的街道，随时可以看到不同毒品的需求者们聚集在一起，有人来回摇晃，有人不停地抽泣，有人疯了一样地朗诵着大段的独白。 每当有人讲起街头生活的浪漫故事时，我总会想到第14大道的3号街，似乎这才是那些生活在体制之外的街头情侣们应该来的地方。可是，从“垮掉的一代”（The Beats）到“厂房”，再到今天纽约的众多摇滚乐队，我总觉得他们只有在融入这个世界的时候才是最有生命力的。也许这条街是一种提醒：当你将自己放在“社会之外”的时候，这就是你将面对的状况。当然，从“厂房”拒绝搬迁到时代广场的那一刻起，他们就已经不再是冒险家了。 当我见到马兰加时，立刻想起了十年前聚会上的照片：他当时穿着被当作时尚标志的黑色皮裤，而现在的他似乎也没怎么改变。马兰加解释说，那是他在几年来唯一一次穿皮制的衣服，因为那天晚上他计划提前离开去阿姆斯特丹参加一个诗歌节。 他去“古怪”咖啡厅（Café Bizarre）约见地下丝绒乐队时也是这身打扮。那是1965年，他当时还带着一根很长的鞭子。这倒不是因为他有性虐待倾向，而是因为他觉得那是一件不错的饰品。当地下丝绒们开始演奏时，马兰加也跟着跳“鞭子舞”，后来洛•里德走过来问他是不是可以每晚都来跳舞。 沃霍尔的混合媒体秀“不可避免的塑料爆炸”（The Exploding Plastic Inevitable）于1966年初在“老爷”剧院（The Dom Theatre）上演。其中有段时间，五部电影同时放映，屏幕覆盖了整个墙壁和天花板，观众中的任何人都可以上来操作放映机。有时，地下丝绒们会穿着全白的服装，站在舞台上和影片中的人物形象与动作重合起来，让人们根本无法感觉到他们的存在。有时，整个“舞台剧院”试验剧团（The Living Theater）【15】的成员们会在演出结束后上台，并开始在屋内跳来跳去。 那时，整个“厂房”的成员喜欢在一家叫“马柯斯的堪萨斯城”（Max’s Kansas City）的餐馆用餐。据称沃霍尔一个人在那里的花费就达到了每月三千美元。当时在餐馆里做女招待的戴布拉•哈里（Deborah Harry）回忆说，沃霍尔一帮人不仅是她见过的最粗鲁的家伙，而且他们从来不给小费。 地下丝绒乐队在“厂房”排练了近两年的时间。总有人打电话邀请沃霍尔和他的随从们去演出。那时的人喜欢在阁楼和艺术馆里大搞奢华宴会，从迪斯科舞厅到自由女神像下，到处都有人在搞聚会。正如地下丝绒在他们的《明日晚宴》（All Tomorrow’s Parties）中唱的那样：“可怜的女孩，她该穿什么呢？为了所有明日的晚宴。” 马兰加说，“地下丝绒们经常收到邀请，通常他们都会欣然接受。但他们大多数时间都在幕后表演，所以很少有人注意到他们的存在。不过尼可是个例外（Nico）【16】，因为她的社会关系挺多。” 尼可当时是一个成功的模特，出演了费德里科•费里尼（Federico Fellini）的电影《甜蜜的生活》（La Dolce Vita），还在伦敦与安德鲁•奥德姆（Andrew Oldham）合作了一首单曲。马拉加说：“让尼可加入地下丝绒是沃霍尔的主意，他觉得尼可能为乐队带来更多的吸引力。” 在所有地下丝绒的成员中，洛•里德与沃霍尔呆的时间最长，关系也最近。 从某种程度上来讲，他们俩的态度是相近的。沃霍尔经常会在磁带上录下自己对性的看法，他认为性已经变成了一件很麻烦的事情。但与此同时，他对性话题又是很着迷的，他在很多电影里都用隐晦和讽刺的方式表现了色情主题。里德也是这样，他在“厂房”的一个朋友对我说：“应该说洛是个窥淫癖。在我的印象中，他从来没对一种性别保持过长久的兴趣。性行为本身好像无法满足他。”但像沃霍尔一样，里德对性话题也很感兴趣，他特别喜欢在性行为中扮演女性，也很喜欢性虐待。 里德将他在“厂房”的生活经验运用到了音乐创作中——《切尔西女孩》（The Chelsea Girls）是关于所有像沃霍尔这样的人，《甜心说》（Candy Says）是关于“甜心宝贝儿”的，《来撒点儿野》（Walk On The Wild Side）则描绘了一系列“超级巨星”的肖像。但与沃霍尔的冷漠与客观不同，《甜心说》是一首感人至深的歌曲。洛•里德很明显被这些人感动了，他觉得他们与自己很近。 地下丝绒一些很重要的歌曲，包括《海洛因》（Heroin），《穿皮毛的维纳斯》（Venus In Furs）和《等待我的男人》（I’m Waiting for My Man）在他们见到沃霍尔之前就完成了。所以，与其说沃霍尔在精神上影响了地下丝绒，不如说他更多是在经济和道义上支持了他们。 地下丝绒的吉他手斯特林•莫里森（Sterling Morrison）认为，如果不是沃霍尔，他们可能在六个月内就解散了。莫里森说：“他是个反对限制和传统的人。”约翰•卡尔说：“安迪是一针来劲的催化剂。”沃霍尔之所以得到如此广泛的认可，是因为他在“厂房”创造了一种自由开放的精神，打破了一切禁忌，让人们觉得一切皆有可能。他最常说的话就是“为什么不呢？”或者在面临问题的时候说：“那又怎么样？” 沃特尔•蒂马里亚说：“在那里，你可以听到严肃的音乐，看到严肃的电影，遇到严肃的人。这种严肃与疯狂交织在一起，使人能感觉到生存的绝望，并能体会到处在边缘的状态。” 当我问他“厂房”的人是否想过将来时，他说：“没有，我觉得今天已是激情燃烧，每天都是如此的令人惊异。你知道，在现实中，每天不都是这样的。” 1966年对“厂房”是非常重要的一年。除了地下丝绒在“不可避免的塑料爆炸”上的表演获得成功以外，他们与沃霍尔的关系也日渐融洽。1968年，一个叫维莱莉•索拉纳斯（Valerie Solanas）的女同性恋出现在了沃霍尔的团队中，她还是个女权主义者，并在《我，一个男人》（I, A Man）中出演了一个小角色。 索拉纳斯是个有幽默感的人，但同时她的头脑也十分混乱。她当时创办了一个女权组织，名字叫“人渣——将男人切成碎片协会”（SCUM – The Society for Cutting Up Men）。当沃霍尔拒绝出品她写的剧本时，她对沃霍尔十分忿恨。1968年6月5日，她乘电梯来到“厂房”顶层，当时沃霍尔正在打电话，她走上前去冲着沃霍尔的胸前连开了三枪。 在《安迪•沃霍尔哲学》中这样写道：“在我被枪击中之前，我总觉得自己已经半死了。我老觉得与其说自己是在活着，不如说是在电视上看自己的生活。”在遭枪击后，他说他果然是在看电视：“虽然换了个频道，但电视还是电视。” 虽说这样，这件事还是影响了他。“厂房”招天下客的迎宾方式被取消了，工作室也搬迁到了联合广场上，成为了一个十分职业的社会组织。保罗•莫里西已经成为了沃霍尔的首席助理（他曾经是尼可的经纪人），并接管了电影制作部门。这样的结果使“厂房”与商业和娱乐更紧密的接轨了，他们也相继制作了一些娱乐电影，像《骨肉》（Flesh），《垃圾》（Trash）和《热度》（Heat）。 位于联合广场的新“厂房”现在是《访问》（Interview）杂志的办公楼。曾担任这本杂志主编，现任音乐专栏撰稿人的格伦•奥布莱恩（Glenn O’Brien）说，新“厂房”也给了杰拉德•马兰加新的机会。 《访问》起初是一本电影杂志，后来变成了一本专访杂志。他们的采访素材都是以录音笔记的方式保留下来的，就像早期的电影剧本一样。这些素材十分有趣，因为其中有很多职业编辑会删除掉的内容。读这些访问就好像是在对话，虽然有时过于平庸和琐碎，但却带给人窃听的快感。 《访问》杂志对朋克同人们影响很深，1975年在纽约创办的《朋克》（Punk Magazine）杂志就很有早期《访问》里那种随意和超现实的感觉。马克•佩里（Mark Perry）在1976年的夏天告诉我，虽然他觉得《朋克》的风格有点像漫画册，但却为他后来创办的《吸食强力膠》（Sniffin’Glue）杂志提供了很多灵感。剩下的一切都成了历史。也许还没有吧，我也不知道。 《访问》的选题政策是“选择有趣的人”，但实际上他们却一直在关注那些已经腰缠万贯或名誉满堂的人。比如说现在主编鲍勃•科拉塞罗（Bob Colacello），他的每月专栏几乎全都是关于如何依附权贵的文章。他们在报道沃霍尔的个人社交活动时做的非常棒，因为沃霍尔几乎出席过所有重要的上流晚宴。虽说如此，沃霍尔的身世却不是这样的：他出生于52年前，原名安德鲁•沃霍拉（Andrew Warhola），父母都是捷克移民，他的父亲在匹兹堡（Pittsburgh）的一家炼钢厂工作。沃霍尔的童年在贫困中度过，这也许是他后来对权贵疯狂迷恋的原因。 新“厂房”的前台很安静，屋里铺满了光滑的木地板，桌面也都经过了静心打磨，每当你走进去的时候，总会有一个年轻小伙子礼貌的问你有何贵干。 像这样的小伙子在新“厂房”里有很多，看上去长得都差不多。他们形象健康，穿着得体，打扮得十分整洁，笑容甜美，没有一丝孱弱的样子。这样的脸庞在《访问》上经常可以看到——他们在照片上看起来非常完美，但在现实中却让人有些失望。 我坐下来等着。名牌上标着“《访问》杂志主管人”的弗雷德•辛吉斯（Fred Hughes）走了进来。他个子不高，收拾得很整洁，衣着完美，但看上去性子很急。我想这也许是他最招人喜欢的个性之一吧。 辛吉斯坐在电话机旁，警惕地对着我笑了笑。我预约了吗？感谢上天我预约了。因为在这个新“厂房”里，如果你没有预约，他们会非常直白地告诉你：你既不漂亮，也没有钱，更没幽默感，甚至压根就没资格到这里来。 沃霍尔走了进来，我们互相做了自我介绍，当然对他来说只是走走形式而已。不过我还是对他的苍老程度感到吃惊——我总觉得沃霍尔会一直停留在三十岁。我对他的第一印象就好像是在看一个外星人。他的皮肤根本不像人类的皮肤，他的脸在银白色的头发覆盖下显得十分苍白，好像是用油灰喷过似的，上面还有几条裂纹，简直像是青春期痤疮留下的伤痕。他说话的声调很柔软，孩子般的魅力也随之散发了出来。 沃霍尔说他现在还有点事，让我等一会儿。我无所事事地坐在那里，注意到天花板上的墙皮有点裂开了。沃霍尔回来后，我们向这间屋子的另一段走去，首先经过了一根巨大的彩虹色棱柱，周围布满了黑色大屏幕和盆栽植物，然后又经过了一张大理石桌子，上面放着一个绒毛企鹅。我们坐了下来，被成堆的黑色扶椅包围着。我把录音机拿了出来。 “你录音机上的广播是不是还开着？”沃霍尔问道。他走过去将广播关上，要不然可能会影响录音的质量——沃霍尔对录音机当然很在行。 我想和他谈谈前几天他在“泥巴”俱乐部拍摄的“摇滚葬礼聚会”（Rock and Roll Funeral Party）。这场聚会在俱乐部顶楼持续了两个晚上，俱乐部里有很多间由不同艺术家设计的圣坛。其中一个完全复制了一间杂乱的旅馆房间，并用“迷幻月光”（Psychedelic Moon）的色调进行了装饰。另一间圣坛墙上贴了一张迷幻摇滚的海报，在台灯上盖了一块同样风格的披巾，在地板上放了一个木偶，全身布满了珠子和羽毛，胳膊上扎着针头——显然，这个木偶是詹尼斯•乔普琳（Janis Joplin）。 “我们有一套有线电视节目即将播出了，名字叫《时尚》，”沃霍尔说。“我们现在还在拍，就在这儿。” 在“摇滚葬礼聚会”上，你最喜欢的是什么？ “我喜欢它……嗯……是这样，我喜欢这个聚会，因为它持续了整整两天，我觉得那个蜡烛前面的火腿三明治装置挺有意思。” 沃霍尔所说那座圣坛叫“卡斯妈妈”（Mama Cass）。他还提到自己很喜欢那些小伙子们穿的衣服。于是，我问他是否觉得时尚潮流最近已经改变了。 “嗯，我觉得是的，嗯，只是……是这样，感觉他们穿的还是六十年代的服装，我不知道，可能少了点嬉皮的感觉吧。” 英国的年轻人现在都穿“现代派”（mod）的衣服了。 “是吗？又来了？你确定？挺好的，我挺喜欢那些东西，小孩们……朋克那一套看起来还不过时。” 一切都在良好，礼貌的氛围中进行着，但却有些冷场。部分是因为沃霍尔的害羞，另一方面是因为我总感觉他随时都会拍屁股走人。 在你的刚出版的那本书里（《曝光Exposures》），那支乐队你最……等等……你书里写有关乐队的事情了吗？（看来我被他犹犹豫豫的说话方式给感染了） “写了吧，写了。”（后来，格伦•奥布莱恩非常肯定地告诉我安迪记错了。）“‘说话的脑袋’，嗯，还有沃特•史迪汀（Walter Steding），他就在这儿工作。还有洛•里德。就是那些经常来这里的乐队和歌手。” 你是怎么给……你是不是给“说话的脑袋”做了一个广告？ “是的，已经很久了。那会儿我面试了他们，觉得挺不错的。” 我们聊了帕拉蒂昂乐队（Palladium），沃霍尔认为他们也很棒。然后我问他第一次见到地下丝绒乐队时是什么情况。他们当时演奏的什么？ “忘了，反正声音很大。” 他们那会儿是什么样的？ “嗯，他们都穿着黑衣服。莫林（Maureen）演奏了一个音符，约翰穿着黑衣服，他们都穿着黑衣服。他们很棒。可不知为什么他们喜欢纽约的那种音乐，最后加利福尼亚用嬉皮式的音乐征服了他们。” 你不是带他们去加利福尼亚了吗？ “是的，我们去找比尔•格雷汉姆（Bill Graham）……那地方叫什么来着？” 菲尔默礼堂（The Fillmore）？ “对，菲尔默礼堂。吉姆•莫里森（Jim Morrison）当时也在，我感觉那天的演出对他后来的风格有一些影响——他开始穿皮衣，就像杰拉德•马兰加似的。实际上，当时芭芭拉•鲁宾（Barbara Rubin）还想带我们去伦敦的皇家阿尔伯特音乐厅（Royal Albert Hall）演出，假如能成行的话，我们肯定会更成功。可惜了。” 沃霍尔已经记不清他和地下丝绒的合作是怎么终结的了。 “我不知道。我真的很喜欢他们，我们有可能签约的，不过后来……他们只是想另找一个经纪人。到处跑来跑去实在太麻烦了，几个月还行，时间长了实在受不了。我们可以去另一家夜总会唱歌，一直玩到第二天早晨七点，整天为这些担心实在是太没必要了。现在乐队解散了……洛•里德自己还在继续工作。他现在很好，也改变了不少。” 你去过他的个人演唱会吗？ “去过的，非常棒。” 地下丝绒是历史上第一支艺术摇滚乐队吗？ “嗯……我觉得‘说话的脑袋’做的更好一些。他们更敏感，也很会利用这一点。他们都是些喜欢艺术的孩子。他们在罗德岛州设计学院（Rhode Island School of Design）上的学。” 你为什么说他们“更敏感”？ “嗯，不像地下丝绒那么疯狂吧。当时那个时代就很疯狂。现在他们更像是在做一份工作，一份他们很擅长的工作。” 你在《安迪•沃霍尔哲学》中提到六十年代很凌乱，七十年代很空洞…… “那八十年代呢？” 你接着说。 “我只知道现在的纽约和以前一样好玩，甚至比那会儿更好玩。不过，那时候有嬉皮士，还是挺值得怀念的。” 我很惊讶他会这么说——在六十年代，沃霍尔和他的“厂房”一直是作为城市化，玩世不恭和奢侈堕落的象征出现的，这些都是嬉皮士们反对的东西。而且，阿伦•米哲特和斯特林•莫里森都曾告诉过我，他们在“厂房”里经常拿嬉皮士开玩笑。但是，现在回过头一想，也许沃霍尔真觉得嬉皮士是值得怀念的，因为他喜欢变化动荡的社会。 你觉得现在纽约是不是有些太平静了？ “没错，真的是这样。不过我更不喜欢那些整天抱怨现在纽约治安有多差多差的人，以前不也是这样吗？同样的人，同样的街道，同样的犯罪率。” 你去过伦敦吗？ “去过，我们在那里和玛莎•格雷汉姆（Martha Graham），莉莎•明纳利（Liza Minelli），赫尔斯顿（Halston），史蒂夫•鲁伯（Steve Rubell）一起，真是太棒了。” 那现在的改变让你震惊吗？ “嗯，真的很棒，很棒。” 我问了沃霍尔一个关于他那些“超级巨星”的问题：他们和其他名人有什么不同吗？ “嗯……我觉得，那是这些孩子们最好的时光。演一部电影就能成名，而且他们根本不用上表演学校。一切都太容易了。” 也许他们没有意识到这种名声不会持续太久吧？ “我一直都认为学校提供的课程是有用的。你必须学会一些基本的技巧。” 也有人上过吗？ “乔•达里桑德罗（Joe Dallesandro）上过，他现在在罗马，他后来拍了很多电影。其他人都没有。” 但你不觉得快速成名的吸引力更大一些吗？ “可以这么说吧，但大家总不能老躺在功劳簿上。他们后来都有过机会，但只是不知道如何把握而已。” 有点像那些玩摇滚出名的人。 “是的。就像有个乐队的主唱，后来就七零八落的解散了，其中一个成员还死了。” 纽约娃娃？ “不不不，是个英国乐队。” 哦，性手枪。 “他们名震一时，都很有才。我猜那个后来自杀的小伙子就像六十年代的那些名人一样……你因为做一件事出名了，然后就得一直做下去，因为你就那点儿货。不过好像还有一个，就那个发觉一切都太疯狂的时候退出乐队的小伙子，他现在干嘛呢？” 约翰•里顿（John Lydon）？他现在组了一个新乐队。 “肯定是这样的……与性手枪的理念不同对吧？所以你可以改变自己，可以做任何事。” 我向沃霍尔询问了尼可的现状。 “尼可现在很胖。她就在纽约。你采访过她吗？” 你觉得她对成名在乎吗？ “是这样，尼可大约有八种职业，每当她在一个领域出名时，她就会跳到另外一个领域中去。她起初是个法国电影明星，就在她刚成功的时候，她和地下丝绒来了美国。然后就在她在这个乐队如鱼得水的时候，她买了一架风琴，又开始唱圣歌了。每次她刚要成功就将自己的风格完全改变。我不知道是为什么。” 我们谈到了约翰•卡尔，沃霍尔认为他是地下丝绒中最有才华的成员。就在这时，一个年轻人从我们身边走了过去。 “你见过沃特•史迪汀了吗？他很棒的。（对那个年轻人）沃特，你想做个采访吗？（对我）你一定得采访他，他是拉小提琴的……” 他示意史迪汀过来，指着我对他说：“为什么你不告诉她你是干什么的呢？坐下，让她采访采访你。”然后又对我说，“沃特现在刚出道，所以……”原来是这样。 沃特•史迪汀是个和善害羞的年轻人，他坐在录音机旁，开始与我谈论他第一次上台表演的经历：在那场表演中，他边演奏小提琴，边用自己的脑电波带动音效合成器。此时沃霍尔不知道去哪儿了——他又一次成功的将接受采访的责任授权给了别人。 沃霍尔在1960至1968年这段时间内所做的一切都是十分重要的，而当他不再拒绝对事物进行价值评判时，他就已经不再激进，并毫无疑问的成为了主流权贵的一员。但他的影响却一直伴随着我们。从他将地下丝绒乐队带进我们视野的那一刻起，这种影响就开始伴随着他建立的纽约地下摇滚界日益壮大，一直延续到了今天。 安迪•沃霍尔最大的成就，无疑是他对周围事物的好奇，他开放的思想和他的敏锐观察力与神经质。他采取的任何一种态度都可能看起来很酷。 他是一个成功的转化者。他对泡泡糖音乐的转化能力可以把沙里拉变成布朗蒂（Blondie），或把海滩聚会音乐（beach party music）变成B-52s乐队。他可以将激进先锋和天真无邪同时变成美国的主流文化，正因为如此，乔纳森•里奇曼（Jonathan Richman）可以写一首关于购物中心的欢快歌曲，大卫•伯恩也可以写一首关于自己公寓生活的情歌，没人会因此笑话他们，因为这些都被安迪•沃霍尔转化得合理了。 他同时还将自己的随从们也打造成了明星，他们用异性装扮和性虐待来等极端的行为来吸引公众注意。从此之后，堕落与假装堕落成为了摇滚乐中一个不变的主题。 沃霍尔用自己的生活证明了这样一个事实：无论你多倒霉，只要你不怕丢人，都可以通过自己的“风格”来获得重生。具体到沃霍尔个人身上，他用对情感的恐惧使得没有情感也变成了一件很酷的事情。 他对媒体十分了解，他用自己静心打造的形象，向人们展示了如何在媒体利用你之前先下手为强。他的成功使人们意识到拥有自己独特的形象是多么重要。从某种程度上来讲，大卫•鲍伊是他创造的，给人感觉鲍伊是唯一有资格写一首有关沃霍尔的歌的摇滚歌手。在鲍伊最辉煌的时候，他展示出了一种与沃霍尔相近的坚强，他们的这种坚强都建立在“非人类”形象的基础上。鲍伊拥有巨星的性格，也就是说他没有性格，只是不停地变换形象就已经足够了。 在鲍伊之后，沃霍尔在英格兰的影响力似乎减弱了。性手枪也许是这种结果的罪魁祸首吧。英国乐队对道德立场非常在乎，而纽约的乐队对这点却满不在乎，这是因为沃霍尔的虚无思想对纽约的影响更深。道德标准这种东西和沃霍尔的风格是相悖的。这样做的好处是你从来不会带着一副正义代言人的口气，而坏处是你从来不会真诚或在乎。 往好了说，沃霍尔风格让纽约乐队们可以用他们的俏皮，锐利和良好的洞察力去表达那些人们不敢面对的真相；往坏了说，他们将用本性来歌唱，对造成的后果并不关心，因为对他们来说，生活只不过是场电影。 在采访完沃霍尔的几天后，我见到了格伦•奥布莱恩。他刚刚录完了一个叫“电视聚会”（TV Party）的脱口秀。格伦每个星期都和一些朋友聚会，这其中包括戴布拉•哈里。我们是在一个电视节目上相见的（也许这种形式的会面只会在纽约发生），我问他为什么沃霍尔老是说“一切都棒极了”，他真的这样认为吗？ “安迪的确什么都喜欢，”格伦回答道。“他唯一不喜欢的就是那些无聊的，或被别人强加给他的东西。但这同时又是一种智慧，一种狡猾而彬彬有礼的态度。如果你说一切都棒极了，有人会觉得你真觉得一切都很棒，有些人会觉得你在说反话。所以，那些相信你的人会认为你的确在说一切都很棒，而那些认为你在说反话的人也会觉得你讽刺得很到位。如此说来，你永远不会说错话。” 用沃霍尔的话说：“没什么可说的了，就这样吧！”摩登时代到来了——一切都棒极了。 【1】 Pop Art，流行艺术，又被翻译成波普艺术。 【2】 32 Campbell's Soup Cans，沃霍尔为坎贝尔牌番茄汤罐头设计广告招贴画。 【3】 Bubblegum music，即儿童音乐。 【4】 Malcolm McLaren，英国朋克乐队“性手枪”乐队（The Sex Pistol）的经纪人。 【5】 Nelson Rockefeller，曾担任美国第41任总统，美国石油大亨。 【6】 Jackie Kennedy，美国总统肯尼迪的妻子。 【7】 Claes Oldenburg，瑞典装置艺术家。 【8】 Baby Jane Holzer和Edie Sedgwick，两人都曾多次担任沃霍尔先锋电影和摄影作品的女主角。 【9】 The Times Square Hustler，这里指纽约的男妓。 【10】 冰毒的主要化学成分。 【11】 International Velvet，原名Susan Bottomly，沃霍尔打造的女明星之一。 【12】 Candy Darling，原名James Lawrence Slattery，是沃霍尔打造的一名变性男艺人。 【13】 John Cale，地下丝绒乐队的成员。 【14】 Lou Reed，地下丝绒乐队的主唱。 【15】 The Living Theater，成立于1947年，是美国最早的试验话剧演出公司。 【16】 Nico，原名Christa Paffgen，与地下丝绒在合作了一张叫《The Velvet Underground and Nico》的LP。 原文地址： http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/andy/warhol/articles/harron.html 原文 POPART/ART POP The Warhol Connection "Because of Andy Warhol, it's no longer possible to just do what you do and not have to act it out 24 hours a day. His style of doing things changed everybody's idea of what the values were that could make you a star. And as a result there's this self-consciousness going on everywhere, this use of the media. It's not just what you do now, it's what you say about it, the way you behave, who your friends are. Your life has to reflect it. And in a way a lot of trash has been produced because of that. Which was also part of his idea..." (Steve Piccolo of the Lounge Lizards) Andy Warhol is one of the great unacknowledged influences on pop music. He influenced it in a very specific way, by fostering the Velvet Underground. But his influence spreads beyond that - you see it everywhere, but it's hard to define. It's a matter of style and attitude. Not only did Warhol leave his mark on Roxy Music, David Bowie, the Ramones, Talking heads and every other new York art rock group, but he helped make them possible. Warhol's influence on pop music started with pop art and what it did to America. He did not, in fact, originate pop art, but it's very typical of Warhol that most people now think he did. It was already news in 1959 when Jasper Johns exhibited two bronzed beer cans - a good three years before Warhol showed his silkscreens of Campbell soup cans to the world. But it was Warhol who became the symbol of pop art, and who took it to its farthest edge. Warhol's soup cans stood for everything that was trashy, disposable and mass-produced in American life. By bringing the supermarket into the art gallery, pop art discarded all prevailing values about what was good or bad, beautiful or ugly, art or non-art. Pop art provided an exhilarating liberation. After all, not only was trash part of the modern landscape, but it had a life and beauty of its own. In America a lot of vitality, care and imagination has gone into producing trash. For artists, that whole bubblegum/comic strip/pop music/ B-movie side of America had the excitement of forbidden territory. Children and teenagers could love it unselfconsciously, but artists had been taught to reject it as having no permanence or value. Pop art kicked down barriers; now artists could admit to their secret love of trash. But because these artists were sophisticated adults, they celebrated bubblegum culture in an ironic, self conscious way. The age of pop art was also the age in which pop music lost its innocence. You can hear that innocence in the Ronettes and the Shangri-las and all those Twist songs, cheerfully fizzing away, never dreaming that anyone would take them seriously. But when the art world began to take an interest in pop, pop began to look at itself very differently. The two worlds locked; pop music acquired a history and influences. Purely commercial pop continues to be produced, of course, as does purely "art" music, but it was only after the two worlds interlocked that you had arty pop. Only after pop music had become self conscious could you have a group like the Ramones, with their amazing ironic dumbness. The Ramones eternally stand back from themselves. They are both an expression of American teenagehood and a comment on it, and perhaps for that reason they have never been embraced by the mass of American teenagers. But then pop art was never truly popular either: reproductions of Warhol silkscreens never found their way onto the living room walls of Middle America. But if most Americans didn't approve of Warhol, and still don't approve of him, everyone heard about him. The entry for him in Webster's Biographical Dictionary says: "Perennially controversial, Warhol reached mythic proportions in the 1960s largely because his motives were almost totally obscure..." Public fascination with Warhol revolved around two questions: Why is he doing this? and How is he getting away with it? To the public he was a hustler, and in a way they were right. The way that he manipulated the media was part of his statement - which makes you wonder whether Malcolm McLaren isn't one of his spiritual heirs. Both used the media - but, unlike McLaren, Warhol never had any subversive aims. Warhol has always had the greatest respect for money and fame and power. The public must have been bewildered to see Andy Warhol, who seemed to be doing nothing, embraced by the Establishment - welcomed by the Museum of Modern Art, courted by Nelson Rockefeller. One reason was, quite simply, his talent. Warhol is a designer of great brilliance, and even when he seemed to be doing nothing but reproducing common American images - from dollar bills to Jackie Kennedy, from Elvis Presley to the electric chair - he did it with unmistakable flair. Another reason was his talent for making the right social connections - at a time when art had become very fashionable. Tom Wolfe wrote in his profile of art collector Robert Scull: "Abstract Expressionism was so esoteric it had all but defied exploitation by the press. But all the media embraced Pop Art with an outraged, scandalized, priapic delight. Art generally became the focus of social excitement in New York. Art openings began to take over from theatre openings as the place where the chic, the ambitious and the beautiful congregated." Finally, there was the fascination of Warhol's attitude, as seen in his occasional childlike, oracular public statements: "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." "Business is the best art." "I love Hollywood. It's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." "We're a vacuum here at the Factory. I think it's great." The Factory was his studio on West 47th Street. The name was both ironic and candid. The building had, in fact, once been a factory; now, by silkscreen paintings and having most of his work done by assistants, Warhol was trying to produce factory art. Warhol's Factory threatened the whole idea of art as individual painstaking self-expression, and in this he went beyond his contemporaries. On the whole, pop art was fun. The work of someone like Claes Oldenburg - he of the enormous plaster hamburgers - could be seen as an affectionately satirical look at American life. Warhol himself was not satirical. He not only accepted the supermarket as valid subject-matter, he accepted it for what it was. He may have outraged the bourgeoisie but he approved of consumerism, of modern industrial life, in a way that the president of IBM in his most secret thoughts would not have dared to admit. Warhol's blank acceptance, his refusal to make value judgments, had dangerous implications, but it was also liberating. Most people had become so frightened by the modern world that they couldn't even look at it straight. Warhol seemed to have none of the normal human reactions - no fear of alienation, loneliness, conformity. Many of his pronouncements were witty: he was never totally sincere or insincere. The best source of these is The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A To B And Back Again) - a book which, characteristically, he did not write. His assistants wrote it up from taped conversations with Warhol: "I like eating alone. I want to start a chain of restaurants for other people who are like me called ANDYMATS - The Restaurant for the Lonely Person. You get your food and then you take your tray into a booth and watch television." At times Warhol seemed to be looking at the world with the naive curiosity of a creature from another planet. The only person I can think of now who shares this vision is David Byrne of Talking Heads. The title More Songs About Buildings And Food, the line "Heaven is a bar where nothing ever happens" and the lyrics to Don't Worry About The Government are all very Warhol. But Byrne seems more vulnerable. Throughout his songs, it's as if he's taking a correspondence course in modern life, learning step by step how to fit in. Both Byrne and Warhol believe in the virtues of hard work, business and success, and accept the status quo. But there's one big difference between them. Byrne worries about human emotions; Warhol doesn't, or at least claims he used to but stopped when he discovered the television set and the tape-recorder: "During the Sixties, I think, most people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me." (The Philosophy of Andy Warhol). People did not forget how to feel during the Sixties; this statement is about Warhol himself, and the solution he found to his problem in living. His problem seems to have been an extreme timidity, an almost pathological shyness which made it impossible for him to relate to people directly. He also loved and needed to be surrounded by people. His solution was to relate to them through tape and films. and because he was so famous and could attract fame, his solution was a very public and influential one: "The acquisition of my tape-recorder really finished whatever emotional life I might have had, but I was glad to see it go. Nothing was ever a problem again, because a problem just meant a good tape, and when a problem transforms itself into a good it's not a problem any more. An interesting problem was an interesting tape. Everybody knew that and performed for the tape. You couldn't tell which problems were real and which problems were performed for the tape. Better yet, the people telling you the problems couldn't decide any more if they were really having the problems or just performing." This only makes sense in the context of Warhol's social circle, where people wanted to sit around and put their problems on tape. This doesn't mean all his friends were rich and spoiled. Warhol hadn't yet become the full-time socialite he is today, and some of his entourage were social outcasts - hustlers and transvestites. But they all had a certain New York style of dealing with their neuroses by turning them into theatre - by developing an attitude and then acting it out full-time in an amazing performance. Living theatre. Warhol's entourage was also vulnerable and narcissistic. Warhol had spotted something about film and tape: they were an invitation to narcissism. You could act yourself out and record yourself and then play yourself back. They don't necessarily function that way, of course - most home movies are not narcissistic. But Warhol began to make a very sophisticated kind of home movie, in which his friends acted out themselves, and which were then shown to the public. And for some of his friends it was the most glorious thing that had ever happened to them, and for some it was ultimately destructive. In 1963 Warhol and his assistants began making films at the Factory, which was a very large L-shaped loft with the walls covered in silver paper. The early films were silent, black and white, and had titles like Eat, Kiss, Sleep, Blowjob, Haircut: single camera shots, concentrating on a single activity, sometimes for many hours. The culmination of this was Empire in 1964, the eight-hour film of the Empire State Building which contained one action: a light being switched off. What Tom Wolfe said about modern art in The Painted Word is also true of avant-garde filmmaking: the simpler something is, the more elaborate the criticism it inspires, until the explanation becomes more important than the work itself. Thousands of pages have been written trying to explain these films, and I don't want to add to them. Perhaps Warhol just became interested in the idea of film and approached it with his usual blank curiosity, as if he had never seen anything like this before. So there was no story, no acting, no artistic touch. Just - "Here is a camera. See? This is what it does." The films were stunningly boring (although they make beautiful still photographs) and were obviously meant to be. When questioned, Warhol said that he liked boredom. Boredom was great. Gradually, the films became more elaborate, with soundtracks and scripts. The performers were drawn form Warhol's entourage, the inner circle of the madhouse of people who filled the Factory day and night. As Warhol's Philosophy says: "In the Sixties everyone got interested in everybody else. Drugs helped a little there..." At the Factory members of the art Establishment and rich debutantes like Baby Jane Holzer and Edie Sedgwick met the sexual underground of drag queens and Times Square hustlers. And the drug underground, too - amphetamines played a big part in the life of the Factory. These "underground" movies were made in a steady glare of publicity. Everything Warhol did at this time was news, and he could bestow the protection of his fame on the misfits who came off the streets to shelter at the Factory. In modern America, celebrity was becoming an end in itself; it no longer mattered what you were, as long as you were famous. Movies, radio and TV changed the nature of fame. Until they were invented, fame had always been a matter of reputation: as long as it depended on word of mouth or on print, it was necessary to be or do something extraordinary to attract attention. You had to be very talented or very rich or beautiful or powerful or evil or saintly. The advent of the electronic media meant that anyone's voice or image could be sent into a million homes (an advance of sorts on the movies, which could only send them into movie theatres). At the same time, celebrity-watching became a full-time occupation for many people, because you could now "get to know" anyone by seeing him or her on television, all by yourself in your own home. Actually, you wouldn't get to know them at all, or at least nothing beyond their public image, but still - there they were in your living room. The teasing sense of intimacy made the public fascinated by personalities; the emphasis shifted from what people did to what they were like. Rock music, which came of age with television, is totally obsessed by personality. In the Sixties very few people were willing to admit that fame no longer depended on achievement. Warhol was quite happy to admit it, and to play with it. What he did was to take a group of unknown people and turn them into "superstars". The word itself was invented by Warhol's friend Ingrid, a raucous blonde from New Jersey who began calling herself"Ingrid Superstar". The more she went to parties with Andy, the more her name was printed in the papers, and Ingrid Superstar became famous. Eventually, all the personalities in Warhol's films became known as superstars. Warhol's Philosophy defined them as "all the people who are very talented, but whose talents are hard to define and almost impossible to market." Warhol was a great talent-spotter, and most of his superstars had wit and a kind of freaky glamour. (The transvestite's outrageous thrift-shop finery was an influence on glitter rock, at least the American variety, in the shape of the New York Dolls.) Some were great beauties, like Edie Sedgwick and International Velvet, some were great talkers, like Ondine and Taylor Mead - and some were both, like Viva and the drag queen Candy Darling. In the early films they would just start with an idea - "sit over there and eat a banana" - but even when they had scripts most of the action was improvised. The superstars would camp around or discuss their problems or reminisce, or just sit there, transmitting their presence onto the screen. Cameras don't make judgments: they record everything, whether it's interesting or not. So, true to the nature of the medium, Warhol and his assistants let their cameras record everything: the early films were almost never edited. This made them boring, but life-like in a bizarre way. Warhol once called them "documentaries". It's true that even the most theatrical performers, the drag queens, were just repeating a performance they carried on in life; however, the camera was also inspiring them to perform. Alan Midgette, who was probably the only professional actor to appear in Warhol's early films, says he remembers that once the fashion model Ivy Nicholson stood in front of the camera at the Factory and tried to slit her wrists. "Those kind of people get demented when they become involved with movies, because they don't understand how powerful they can be," he says. "Something gets triggered off because they're not really acting. They haven't been given a part to play, so they start pulling these weird things out or their psyche and throwing them at the camera." Appropriately enough, the only real acting Warhol asked Midgette to do was to impersonate Warhol himself. In 1966 the artist was invited to go on a university lecture tour, and since Warhol was too shy, his assistant Paul Morrissey, asked Midgette to go instead; there was a certain resemblance between the two, although Allen was younger and better looking. so he sprayed his hair silver, like Andy's, rubbed the lightest shade of makeup on his fact to imitate Andy's pallor, and borrowed Andy's black leather jacket. Midgette impersonated Warhol at lectures, meetings with academics, and in interviews."I knew as Andy you could answer a question anyway, and that the most ambiguous answer was the closest to being like Andy." Eventually, the hoax was discovered, and the fees for the lectures had to be returned - but it also won Warhol thousands of dollars' worth of free publicity. When questioned Warhol told a newspaper: "Oh, well, we just did it, well, I uh, because, uh, I really don't have that much to say. The person who went had so much more to say. He was what the people expected." Midgette thinks that it was seeing his replica accepted on the lecture tour that gave Warhol the confidence to appear in public. Warhol, who always delegated everything , had succeeded in delegating the responsibility for being himself. Warhol was, at this point, probably the most famous and highest-paid artist in the world. And, ironically, his superstars became famous, too - real media celebrities. In a way, what Warhol had done was sick. He had let people expose themselves to the camera, and he had shown that not only did they want to expose themselves but that other people wanted to watch. He had made voyeurism chic. Some of the superstars destroyed themselves, like Edie Sedgwick, who became a drug addict and died of an overdose at 27. But something good came out of those films, too. It was an attitude - tough, funny, sharp-witted - sustained by many of the superstars even when they were showing their scars. It was the attitude of people who had been through the mill and come out flaunting. Their detachment, the way they paodied themselves, was a form of courage - and if you were a drag queen in 1966, you needed all the courage you could get. You can find the same attitude among certain personalities on the New York rock music scene today, like Lydia Lunch. You can also find the same sickness and affectation. So many worlds converged at the Factory and Warhol knew so many people that it was probably inevitable that he should meet the Velvet Underground. He was friendly with the avant-garde musicians La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, in whose Theatre of Eternal Music John Cale played when he first came to New York. Warhol also knew a conceptual artist named Walter DeMaria, who played drums for John Cale and Lou Reed in an early incarnation of the Velvets called the Primitives. According to Gerard Malanga, at one point Warhol was planning to start his own rock band along with Young, Zazeela, De Maria and Patty Oldenburg, the wife of Claes Oldenburg. The idea of Warhol fronting a rock band is irrestible but it never came to anything. However, it does show that rock was on his mind. By 1965 he had plans to open the first mixed-media show in New York, involving live music, dancers and film. It was Gerard Malanga who actually led Warhol to the Velvet Underground. Malanga was Warhol's personal assistant during the mid-Sixties, a poet and superstar, and Warhol's opposite in every way: good-looking, street-smart, an unabashed exhibitionist and extravagantly heterosexual. Warhol fired Malanga years ago, for some undisclosed transgression; this was after 1968, when the Factory had moved premises to Union Square and its whole style had changed. It was easy to track Malanga down to his home on 14th Street at 3rd Avenue. It seemed appropriate to find this symbol of the old Factory still living here, on a a block lined with cut-price stores, pawnshops and liquor stores. It is not one of the most dangerous streets in New York, just one of the sleaziest, like Times Square. Everyone, even the newsagents, looks like they are involved in something vaguely illegal and unsuccessful. It is also a drug street, where addicts of various kinds huddle in little groups rocking back and forth, whimpering long, frenetic monologues. Whenever anyone talks of the romance of streetlife I always think of 14th Street at 3rd Avenue and wonder if that's where they really want to be. But I also suspect that all the New York art undergrounds, from the Beats to the Factory to the rock scene, have been most alive when they connected with this world, maybe because it acts as a constant reminder of what you face when you put yourself "outside of society." Certainly, the Factory stopped taking risks after it closed its doors to Times Square. When I met Malanga he still looked very much the way he does in photographs from ten years ago, down to the black leather trousers that he made into a fashion. Malanga explained that it was the first time in years that he had worn leather: he was leaving that night to appear at a poetry festival in Amsterdam and though he should dress for the part. It was the way he dressed when he went to see the Velvet Underground at the Cafe Bizarre at the tend of 1965. He was also carrying a large whip at the time. Not because he was into S & M, but as an accessory - it went with the leather. As the Velvets played Malanga began to do an extravagant whip dance, and afterwards Lou Reed came over and asked him if he'd come and dance every night. Warhol's mixed media show, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, opened upstairs at the Dom Theatre in early 1966. Sometimes five films would be projected at once, running all over the walls and ceiling, and anyone from the audience could come up and run the projector. Sometimes the Velvets would all wear white so that they simply reflected the film images and became invisible onstage, and sometimes the entire cast of the Living Theatre would come by after a performance and start leaping around the room. This was the time when the whole Factory entourage hung out in the backroom restaurant at Max's Kansas City. Warhol's bill there was said to be 3,000 dollars a month. Deborah Harry, who was a waitress there at the time, has said in interviews that not only were the Warhol crowd the rudest people she ever met, but they never left any tips. The Velvets began to rehearse at the Factory, and did so nearly every day for almost two years. The phone was always ringing with invitations for Warhol and his entourage. This was an age of lavish parties, in lofts and art galleries, parties everywhere from discotheques to the Statue of Liberty. And so the Velvets wrote All Tomorrow's Parties: "What costumes shall the poor girl wear/To all tomorrow's parties?" Malanga says, "The Velvets were always invited to things, and usually they would show up. But they were very much in the background, and no one really paid any attention to them. Except for Nico, because she had a lot of social connections." Nico was then a successful fashion model who had appeared in La Dolce Vita and cut a single in London with Andrew Oldham. Malanga: "It was Warhol's idea to bring Nico into the group; he wanted her in because he felt the Velvets on their own 'lacked charisma'." Of all the Velvets, Lou Reed spent the most time at the Factory and was closest to Warhol. In some way their attitudes were close. Warhol has often gone on record as saying that sex is too much trouble, but he is fascinated by the idea of sex, and many of his films were semi-pornographic in a distanced, ironic way. A friend of Reed's in the Factory days said to me: "Lou is mostly a voyeur. In my experience he never had any sustained interest in either sex. You see, sex just doesn't offer Lou enough - he's just really bored by it." But like Warhol, Reed was interested in the idea of sex, in the sexual role-playing of transvestitism and S&M. Reed drew on the Factory for his subject matter - the Chelsea Girls are all Warhol people, Candy Says is about Candy Darling and Walk On The Wild Side is a series of vivid superstar portraits - but he didn't share Warhol's passive, objective eye. Candy Says is a very moving song, and Lou Reed had obviously been touched by this people; he identified with them. Some of the Velvets' most important songs,, like Heroin, Venus In Furs and I'm Waiting for My Man, were already written by the time they met Warhol. He functioned less as an inspiration than as a source of financial and moral support. Sterling Morrison, the Velvets' guitarist, thinks they might have broken up in six months if it wasn't for Warhol. Morrison says: "He argued against restraint." John Cale says: "Andy's a good catalyst." One reason why Warhol had such a powerful effect was that he created an atmosphere at the Factory where it seemed that all the old rules and forms had been broken and anything could be tried. His attitude was "Why not?" Or, when faced with a problem, "So what?" Walter De Maria says, "There was a serious tone to the music and the movies and the people, as well as all the craziness and the speed. There was also the feeling of desperate living, of being on the edge." When I asked him if the people at the Factory ever thought about the future he said, "No, I think the present was blazing and every day was incredible, and you knew every day wasn't always going to be that way." 1966 is said to have been the great year at the Factory. By 1968 the Velvet Underground, after touring with the Plastic Inevitable, had come to an amicable parting of the ways with Warhol. That same year a lesbian feminist named Valerie Solanas appeared on the outer fringes of the Warhol entourage, and played a small part in one film, I, A Man. Solanas, who seems to have had a certain sense of humour as well as a badly deranged mind, formed a group called SCUM - The Society for Cutting Up Men. When Warhol refused to produce a film script she had written, she became resentful. On June 5, 1968, she took the elevator up to the Factory, walked over to Andy Warhol, who was talking on the telephone and shot him three times in the chest. In his Philosophy, Warhol wrote: "Before I was shot, I always thought I was more half-there than all there - I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life." After being shot, he says, he knew that he was watching television: "The channels switch, but it's all TV." Be that as it may, it affected him enough to cause a revolution in the Factory. The open-door policy was stopped and the Factory moved premises to Union Square and became an increasingly professional organisation. Paul Morrissey, who had become Warhol's chief assistant (and who once managed NIco), too over the filming. The result was more commercial, and admittedly more entertaining, films like Flesh, Trash and Heat. The new Factory, in Union Square, houses the offices of Interview magazine. Glenn O'Brien who edited it for three years and now writes its music column, says it was started to give Gerard Malanga something to do. It began as a film magazine, but eventually concentrated almost entirely on interviews. They were all transcripts from tape recordings and, like the early films, were interesting because they left in all sorts of things that a professional editor would have cut out. The interviews read just like conversations, sometimes boring and trivial, but with the fascination of eavesdropping. Interview seems to have influenced the punk fanzines. Punk magazine, which started in New York in 1975, picked up the random, slightly surreal style of the early Interview. Mark P. told me in the summer of 1976 that, although he thought Punk was too much of a comic book, it had given him the inspiration to start Sniffin' Glue. And the rest is history. Or not, as the case may be. The editorial policy of Interview is avowedly to cover people who are doing interesting things, but it has concentrated increasingly on those who are rich or already famous. It's now edited by Bob Colacello, who contributes a rather arch monthly column about his social-climbing. Interview has done a great deal for Warhol's own social connections, and he seems to appear at every important party. But then Andy Warhol - who was born Andrew Warhola 52 years ago, the child of Czech immigrants, whose father worked in the Pittsburgh steel mills, and who grew up in poverty - has always been infatuated with the rich. The reception area of the new Factory is very quiet. There is a lot of polished wood floor, and polished tables, and the minute you walk in a young man politely asks you what your business is. There are several of those young men wandering around the Factory, all remarkably alike. They are fair, well-dressed and very well groomed, rather sweet, but enervated. They have the kind of faces that appear in Interview magazine, and like all those faces they are faintly disappointing in the flesh - they only achieve perfection in photographs. I sat down to wait. Fred Hughes, who is listed as the "President" of Interview, walked in. He is small, neat, impeccably dressed, but brash. I suspect that brashness is his most likeable characteristic. Hughes sat down at the telephone and smiled at me suspiciously. Did I have an appointment? I was glad that I did, because there is a potential for nastiness at the Factory. If you did not have an appointment they could make it very clear to you that you were not beautiful, rich, amusing, or in any way fabulous enough to have walked in there at all. Warhol came in and we were introduced, not that I had any trouble recognising him. there was a slight shock at first when I realised how old he was - I had always thought of Warhol as permanently 30. At first sight he is unearthly. His skin is like nothing I've ever seen on a human being. His face, beneath the dyed silver hair, is so pale that it seems to have been modeled out of putty, ridged with little crevices that are, in fact, nothing more sinister than adolescent acne scars. He speaks very softly, and with a shy boyish charm that immediately begins to take effect. Warhol explained that he had some business to take care of, and I sat down to wait again. I noted, with some satisfaction, that the paint was peeling from the ceiling. Warhol returned and we retired to one end of the room, past a huge vertical prism filled with rainbows, surrounded by black screens and potted plants, past a stuffed penguin on top of a marble table, surrounded by black armchairs. I brought out my tape-recorder. "Is the radio on?" asked Warhol. He went over and switched it off, so that it wouldn't interfere with the recording. Warhol knows about tape recorders. I knew that a few days previously Warhol had been down at the Mudd Club filming a "Rock and Roll Funeral Party" in progress there. The party ran for two nights in the upstairs room. The room was filled with shrines, each designed by a different artist. One was a replica of a trashed hotel room with a psychedelic Moon. Another was a room with a psychedelic poster on the wall and a lamp covered with a fringed shawl; on the floor lay a dummy in beads and feathers with a hedge of hypodermic needles sticking out of her arm - Janis Joplin. "We have a show we're trying to do on cable television called Fashion," said Warhol. "So we were filming it down there." What did you think was the best exhibit? "I liked it... uh... well, I liked it because the party was for two days. I think the one I liked was the ham sandwiches in front of the candles." The shrine was to Mama Cass. Warhol said he thought the kids there wore great clothes. I asked if he thought the fashion had changed recently. "Well, I think they're, uh, just... well, it looks like they're wearing the Sixties. I don't know. Without being hippies." In England they're all wearing mod clothes now. "They are? Oh, again? Oh, really? Oh, great. I like all the things the kids... the punk thing still looks great." This was all very nice, and very polite, and curiously paralysing. Partly it was the effect of Warhol's shyness; partly it was because I knew that he might walk away at any moment. In your book, the one that's coming out now (Exposures), which groups have you...uh... have you got any groups in there? (Hesitation was catching.) "I think so, yeah." (Later, Glenn O'Brien would assure me that Andy really did have a bad memory.) "I think we have the Talking Heads and, uh, we have Walter Steding, who works here. We have Lou Reed. Just, uh, anybody who usually comes up here." How did you come to... didn't you do an ad for Talking Heads? "Oh well, I guess I met them a long time ago and I did an interview with them and I thought they were really terrific." We talked about the Palladium, which Warhol said was great, and then I asked him about the first time he saw the Velvet Underground. What were they playing? "They were just playing loud." What did they look like then? "Well, they always wore black. And Maureen played one note and John wore black. They all wore black. They were great. But somehow they were in the New York kind of music, and California kind of won out with all the hippy kind of music." Didn't you take the Velvets out to California? "Oh yes. we were there with Bill Graham at... what's the name of that place?" The Fillmore? "The Fillmore, yeah. Jim Morrison saw the show, and I think he picked up some of his style from that. He began to wear leather, like Gerard. Actually, Barbara Rubin wanted to bring us to London, so I guess if we'd really gone to London it might have been more successful. I'm sorry we didn't do that. She wanted to get the Albert Hall." Warhol couldn't remember how his involvement with the Velvets stopped. "I don't know. I like them so much, we might have had a contract but it didn't matter... they just decided to find some other manager. Well, it was just too hard going around. It was fun to go around for a few months. And then we could have gotten another night club, and it would have meant staying up till seven every morning and it was just too hard to worry about that. So then the group broke up or something like that... and then it took years and Lou just kept on working. He's very good now, he's changed a lot." Do you ever go to his concerts? "Oh yeah, I think they're terrific." The Velvets were really the first art rock band weren't they? "Well, I think the Talking Heads are doing it better. They seem to be more sensible and they work at it. They were art kids, too. They went to Rhode Island School of Design." What do you mean - more sensible? "Well, less crazy. It was a crazier time then, I guess. Now they're doing it more like a profession. And they're good at it." You said something in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol about how the Sixties were very cluttered, and the Seventies were very empty... "... What are the Eighties going to be like?" Right. "Oh, well, all I know is that New York is as fun now as it was then, but even more so. Well, the hippies were around then; that was sort of wonderful." I was stunned - in the Sixties, Warhol and the Factory stood as a symbol for everything that was urban and cynical and decadent - everything that the hippies were not. Also, Allen Midgette and Sterling Morrison had both told me that everyone at the Factory used to laugh at hippies. But, on second thought, I'm sure Warhol does think the hippies were wonderful. He likes to see a lot of activity. Do you think New York went dead for awhile? "Yeah, it did, it really did. Well, they kept pushing that New York was such a terrible place. There's just as much crime happening now as was happening then. There are the same people on the same streets." Do you ever go to London? "Oh yeah, we were just there with Martha Graham and Liza Minelli and Halston and Steve Rubell. Oh, it was wonderful." Does it strike you as having changed? "Well, it was really wonderful and, uh, great." I asked Warhol about his superstars. What was the difference between that kind of fame and other kinds? "Uh... well, it was really wonderful and, uh, great." I asked Warhol about his superstars. What was the difference between that kind of fame and other kinds? "Uh... well, it was just such a good time for the kids. You got famous in one movie, and they didn't know that you had to go on to acting school if that was your career. It just happened too easy." I guess they didn't realise that it wasn't going to last. "I always thought it was just sort of good training. And after you did it, you really had to go on to school to be an actor and really learn what technique was. Because it is technique." Did any of them try? "Well, Joe Dallesandro is in Rome. He makes a lot of movies. Not many of the others." But wasn't that part of it - that it was very easy fame? "Well, it was just all right then, because everybody was supposed to do something new. And they all had the chance, but they just didn't know what to do with it." It's a bit like how people get famous in rock music. "Yeah. like that group that was so great that just sort of fell apart and one of the boys died." The New York Dolls? "No, no, no, the English one." Oh, the Sex Pistols. "They were just so famous. But they were really talented. I guess the guy who killed himself was just the same kind of Sixties... you get famous with something, and then you have to keep doing it because it's what you know. But the other one, the one that seems to quit because he realised it had gone too crazy - what's he doing now?" John Lydon? He's got a new group. "It must be... a different theory, right? So you can change and do anything." I asked Warhol about Nico. "Nico is really fat now. She's in town. Have you interviewed her?" Do you think she ever cared about being famous? "Well, Nico had like eight careers going for her, and every time they happened she changed. She was a French movie star, and as soon as she became almost successful at that she left and came with the Velvets. And then as soon as she was singing the right kind of songs and she was getting more work, she'd buy an organ and do chanting. Every time it's almost successful, she changes her whole style. I don't know why she does that." We talked about John Cale, who Warhol said was the most talented of the Velvets. Just then a young man drifted past. "Have you met Walter Steding? Want to meet him? He's great. Walter, do you want to do a little interview? He's the person you ought to interview, he's the one who plays the violin..." He beckoned Steding over and said: "Why don't you tell her what you do, why don't you sit down and be interviewed." He turned to me and said simply, "Walter wants to make it, so..." So it made more sense for him to be interviewed. Walter Steding, a rather shy and sweet young man, sat down by the tape recorder and told me about his first stage performance, in which he used electrical impulses from his brain to activate a synthesizer while he played the violin. Meanwhile, Warhol had disappeared. He had succeeded in delegating the interview. Whatever Warhol did that was of real importance was probably between 1960 and 1968; once the shock of his refusal to make value judgments was over, he stopped being a radical force and became just an uncritical member of the Establishment. But we are left with his influence. It's particularly strong in the New York rock underground because he virtually created it, by taking the Velvet Undergound into his social world. Andy Warhol's great virtues were his immense curiosity about people and the world around him, his open mind, his astuteness and his nerve. He could take almost any attitude and make it look cool. This made him a great legitimiser. He legitimised the sophisticated use of bubblegum which would turn the Shangri-las into Blondie, and beach party music into the B-52s. He legitimised the ultra-naive-but-sophisticated celebration of America, and therefore made it possible for Jonathan Richman to write a happy song about a shoppping plaza, and David Byrne to write a touching song about his apartment building, without being laughed at. He made his entourage famous, and their outrageousness inspired the rock fashion for using transvestitism and S&M leather for shock effect. With this came the whole idea of using decadence or a parody of decadence as a subject for rock music. Warhol proved in his own life that no matter how fucked up you were you could survive through style - as long as you were never embarrassed. Wahol's particular style involved an emotional detachment that was based on a fear of emotion, and he helped make non-feeling cool. He understood the media brilliantly, and he showed how to use them before they used you, by consciously developing an image. His success also made it seem more important to have an image. He probably created David Bowie, and it seems right that Bowie, whose talent for celebrity rivals Warhol's own, should be the only rock star to write a song about him. And when Bowie was at his most famous he projected an invulnerability that, like Warhol's, was based on the sense that he wasn't quite human. He was a star personality who, in fact, had no personality, just a constantly changing image. After Bowie, Warhol's influence seemed to fade in England. The Sex Pistols, may have killed it. I think one reason why English groups are so concerned with taking moral stands and New York groups are positively hostile to them, is that Warhol's influence is much stronger in New York. Morality is contrary to the Warhol style. The advantage of this is that you are never self-righteous, and the disadvantage is that you are never sincere - or concerned. At its best, the influence of Warhol's style means that the New York groups are witty and sharp and clear-eyed enough to express unpleasant truths; at its worst it means they will play with evil and not care about the consequences because, well, life is just a movie. A few days after interviewing Warhol, I saw Glenn O'Brien. He'd just finished taping his cable television show, TV Party. Once a week Glenn and his friends, including Deborah Harry, get together and have a party. On television. (Probably this could only happen in New York.) I told Glenn about the interview, and I asked him whether Warhol meant it when he said everything was great. "Andy does like everything," Glenn replied. "The only thing he wouldn't like would be something that was boring or imposed on him. But it's also a very intelligent, Machiavellian politeness. If you say everything is great, some people will take you at your word and some people will think you're being ironic. The people who think it's great will think you're saying it's great, and the people who think it's awful will think you're really saying it's awful. So you're always saying the right thing." And that's where we have to leave it, because that's Warhol's message, that's what he's been saying all along: Here is the modern world - and it's great.