On the back of White Light/White Heat, the Velvets pose in front of their spiritual home turf, a ballroom called the Boston Tea Party. The Velvet Underground were far more popular there than in their native New York City, playing Boston 15 times in 1968 alone. Much of the book is devoted to Mel Lyman, forgotten today but a notorious guru in his time – a 1971 Rolling Stone cover story tagged him and his Fort Hill Community as an East Coast answer to the Manson family.Īnother charismatic figure on the scene: honorary local hero Lou Reed. So Van fled to Boston, and the city is the real star of Walsh’s tale – a town overflowing with students, music freaks, crackpot artists and aspiring messiahs. One of them, Carmine “Wassel” DeNoia, explains to Walsh why Van left New York: “I broke his guitar on his head.” His new bosses were not sensitive to his creative ambitions. Berns saw his protégé as “a rock & roll version of the Irish poet Brendan Behan.” But when Berns died, Morrison found himself owned by the mob. Morrison was reeling from his years on the rock scene, leading the tough Belfast band Them, who blew up with “Gloria.” Under the tutelage of manager Bert Berns (who also brought us Neil Diamond), he came to New York and scored the pop hit “Brown Eyed Girl,” which is probably playing right now at a mall somewhere in your town.

Walsh even catches up with Morrison’s long-lost flower-child bride Janet Planet, now selling her love beads on Etsy, who tells him, “Being a muse is a thankless job, and the pay is lousy.” Lou Reed was often hanging around town, sharing hippie tracts on ritual magic with friends like Jonathan Richman. Future rock legend Peter Wolf was a radio DJ spinning the blues on the graveyard shift. In this fantastic chronicle, Van falls into a Boston underground scene full of outlandish characters – like Mel Lyman, the folkie harmonica player turned cult leader with a tribe of acid-crazed worshippers. But no matter how well you know him or his music, Astral Weeks is a book full of discoveries. Morrison has always refused to explain the mysteries of Astral Weeks – as ornery as ever, the Celtic bard doesn’t give his secrets away. Walsh’s new book Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 unearths the time and place behind the music.

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