Myrtle Beach tribute to Velvet Underground is locked and Loaded

Punk forebearers, The Velvet Underground, featuring singer/songwriter guitarist Lou Reed, shook up the music scene of New York City, and ultimately the world audience, beginning in the late 1960s. Local guitarist Trey McManus (formerly of The Drag, King of Prussia), currently performing as the experimental soloist Treyverb, goes beyond just being a casual fan. McManus is one of two guitarists in a Velvet Underground tribute act named Loaded. McManus, 39, began listening to The Velvet Underground when he was just 12. The band still holds sway over him and scores of musicians and songwriters some 50 years after first shaking things up as an anti-band in the East Village of NYC.

Loaded, named for a 1970 Velvet Underground album, will perform three sets beginning at 9 p.m. Friday at the Pine Lakes Tavern in Myrtle Beach.

“I was listening to R.E.M. back when I was 12 or 13,” recalled McManus. “[Some of the members of R.E.M. were big Velvet Underground fans, and Michael Stipe was always dropping their name, so I started checking them out. I took guitar lessons from [former Coastal Carolina University instructor] Tom Yoder in the late 1980s, and he asked me who my influences were, and I told him The Velvet Underground. He looked at me and said, ‘That is such a weird thing for a 13-year-old kid to say,’ but that was the truth.”

Earlier this year McManus formed Loaded for a Pine Lakes Tavern Halloween party, and says the event was so well received that they all wanted to do it again. Joining McManus is veteran Grand Strand drummer Tommy Tipton, bassist A.J. Rownd, and Jason Duffield, lead vocalist/guitar. “Jason does a really remarkable job as Lou Reed,” said McManus.

Of all the bands in the world to offer tribute to, why The Velvet Underground?

The influence of this band goes far beyond its formative years and Reed’s later solo hits “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Sweet Jane” (originally recorded by Velvet Underground). The band’s initial album releases in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s sold poorly. Rock producer Brian Eno is often quoted as saying that while The Velvet Underground may have only sold 30,000 copies in its early years, “everyone who bought one of those copies started a band.”

Reed as the band’s front man was fully engaged in the East Village scene of NYC hanging around with pop artist Andy Warhol, who was briefly the band’s manager and tour promoter. “He was ahead of his time,” said McManus, “doing proto-punk. I really didn’t think Myrtle Beach was the right market for this, but it surprised us all how well received we were. We’ve got three sets worth of material; we do some Lou Reed [solo] songs off of “Transformer.” We touch on the whole catalog.”

In addition to Friday’s Pine Lakes Tavern show, Loaded will also play the first Friday of every month, beginning January, at the Pawleys Island Tavern.

“The scene here for original music is so different then when I left in 2002. Nobody really seems to want to hear original music, but I didn’t want to play ‘Wagon Wheel’ and do the same thing as everybody else, so we put this together. It’s different.”

This story was originally published December 23, 2014 at 2:15 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach tribute to Velvet Underground is locked and Loaded."