Sublime

darling of the avant-garde. Yoko Ono was always saying to me, “If only I could be as famous as you.” So I had an affair with Yoko and did a music series at her loft, and I put a warning on the very first flyer: THE PURPOSE OF THIS SERIES IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT. I was one of the first people to destroy an instrument onstage. I burned a violin at the Y

They took us with groans. They took us with shouts and long-drawn-out moans.

But de Appel was run by a woman named Wies Smals, and Wies was a kind of visionary. She was the first gallerist in Europe to invite artists like Vito Acconci, Gina Pane, Chris Burden, and James Lee Byars to give performances. And she was subsidized by the Dutch government (as was the television show), so money was not an issue.

Lou’s relationships rarely ran smoothly. By the time the Velvets came to record the Banana Album, he and Nico were finished. She dumped him, announcing the split to the band with the words: ‘I cannot make love to Jews any more.’29 As a result, Lou was not nice to her at Scepter Records, and the other musicians took their lead from Lou.