White Light/White Heat

Tue., Aug. 4, 7 p.m., free, Moonstone Arts Center, 110 S. 13th St., 215-735-9600, robinsbookstore.com.

by A.D. Amorosi

reading/signing

With a Rizzoli art book due in November and a box set of singles (really?) out next month, it's a Velvet morning for Lou Reed, John Cale and co. Yet none of these works capture what Richie Unterberger could with White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day (Jawbone Press) — the dirt that made the squeal, thump and monotone ooze that was the 1960s' most innovative avant-act. Unterberger's 368 pages quake with what the band was thinking when they wrote the songs, what they were on when they were thinking of them, and what their associates, enemies and Andy Warhol hoped to get out of the deal.