The Dom — Exploding Plastic Inevitable

On April 1, 1966, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey launched the Exploding Plastic Inevitable at a Polish community hall called The Dom at 23 St Marks Place in the East Village — multimedia performance events in which the Velvet Underground played beneath projected films, strobe lights, and spotlights while dancers including Edie Sedgwick and Mary Woronov performed alongside the music. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable ran for a month at the Dom and then toured to Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, taking the Velvets' music to audiences who had not encountered anything like it.

The concept was an extension of Warhol's interest in total environments: the idea that art could surround the audience rather than simply being presented to them, that a rock concert could be something more overwhelming and less comfortable than it conventionally was. Lou Reed's songwriting — its descriptions of heroin, street life, and sexual transgression — combined with the band's volume and drone and Nico's detached voice to produce an experience that was simultaneously exciting and threatening. The performances were designed to be too much.

The Dom subsequently became the Electric Circus, operating as a psychedelic dance club from 1967 to 1971 and hosting performers including Sly and the Family Stone before closing after a bombing. The building at 23 St Marks Place remains standing in the East Village — a neighbourhood that has changed enormously since 1966 but retains the street-level character that made it the natural home for the Velvet Underground's world.