Angus MacLise

Angus MacLise is best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, although he dropped out of the lineup before they had made any records. His brief stint in the Velvet Underground, however, was just one stop on a lengthy career in experimental music and films that was more diverse and extensive than most realize. As a percussionist, MacLise merged the avant-garde and world music, particularly Asian music, and was a significant collaborator with avant-garde musician La Monte Young and several experimental filmmakers. The nature of his contributions has been difficult to assess in light of the scarce availability of recordings in which he participated, a situation that changed with the release of a compilation of his work, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, in 1999. By the early '60s MacLise was on the beatnik (soon to become the hippie) trail, traveling overseas and writing poetry published by Dead Language Press, which he founded with poet and filmmaker Piero Heliczer. Dead Language Press also published MacLise's combination calendar/poem, Year, which gave names to each day of the year. In the first half of the 1960s, he played bongos in La Monte Young's the Theatre of Eternal Music ensemble, a group that combined contemporary composition with drones and percussive rhythms that had similarities to Indian music. It was via Young that MacLise met John Cale, who played viola in the Theatre of Eternal Music. It was via Cale that MacLise came into contact with Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison, becoming the first drummer of the Velvet Underground. MacLise's role in the early Velvets is, again, difficult to evaluate as there are no official recordings on which he is present, and barely any unofficial ones. (Even the 1965 demos that came out on the Velvet...