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Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground

Author Talk with Richie Unterberger

Besides reading from and discussing the book, the author will show some film clips of the band, as well as play some of their rarest recordings.

Richie Unterberger's book Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground is the definitive work on this great and massively influential group.

This 800-page volume draws on more than a hundred first-hand interviews and recent research at the Lou Reed Archive and Andy Warhol Archive.

Besides reading from and discussing the book, he'll show some film clips of the band, as well as play some of their rarest recordings.

 "Of all the books I've read on the Velvet Underground I think this is the best. Richie Unterberger explores some of the different personalities of characters who usually go underreported in this story. His writing is entertaining and I liked his way of reviewing all the material he reviewed. Yours truly, Jonathan Richman." (Longtime alternative rock icon Jonathan Richman saw and interacted with the Velvet Underground many times as a teenager going to their shows at the Boston Tea Party, and is among the people associated with the Velvet Underground interviewed for the book)

Richie Unterberger is the author of numerous rock music history books, including volumes on the Who, Bob Marley, and 1960s folk-rock. His book The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film won a 2007 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. His coffee table book San Francisco: Portrait of a City, published by Taschen in 2022, presents and describes 500 pages of photos of the city from 1850 to 2020. His latest book, Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground, was published by Omnibus Press in spring 2026. He teaches non-credit adult education courses on rock music history at several Bay Area colleges, including the College of Marin and Dominican University.

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