Lou Reed — Why Don't You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65 [2024; rock'n'roll / garage rock]: some more of Reed's pre-VU recordings, at times with Cole and presaging his trademark style

Youtube playlist here.

The most interesting songs are by The Primitives, The Beachnuts, and The Roughnecks. About The Primitives:

Reed moved to New York City in 1964 to work as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. He can be heard singing lead on two cuts on The Surfsiders Sing The Beach Boys Songbook. For Pickwick, Reed also wrote and recorded the single ‘The Ostrich’, a parody of popular dance songs of the time, which included lines such as "put your head on the floor and have somebody step on it". His employers felt that the song had hit potential, and assembled a supporting band to help promote the recording. The ad hoc band, called the Primitives, consisted of Reed; Welsh musician John Cale, who had recently moved to New York to study music and was playing viola in composer La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, on bass; Tony Conrad, violinist in the Theatre of Eternal Music, on guitar; and sculptor Walter De Maria on percussion. Cale and Conrad were surprised to find that for ‘The Ostrich’, Reed tuned each string of his guitar to the same note, which they began to call ‘ostrich guitar’ tuning. This technique created a drone effect similar to their experimentation in Young's avant-garde ensemble. Though disappointed with Reed's performance in the Primitives, Cale was nevertheless impressed by Reed's early repertoire (including ‘Heroin’), and a partnership began to evolve.