Swag Bag: Soup for 'Drella (featuring Andy Warhol, John Cale, and Lou Reed)

This week, we introduce the first installment of Swag Bag, highlighting unusual ephemera from the BAM Hamm Archives. First up: soup, both powdered and canned, created for the Andy Warhol-inspired Songs for 'Drella: A Fiction.

That's Andy Warhol on the label.

In 1989, two years after Warhol's death, John Cale and Lou Reed, founding members of the 60's band the Velvet Underground, were co-comissioned by BAM to create Songs for 'Drella, a requiem for Andy Warhol. The title, Songs for 'Drella, comes from a Factory-era nickname for Warhol, who produced the band's first album. Warhol had also engaged the Velvet Underground to perform at screenings of his movies, and as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the psychedelic multimedia touring show he designed.



Here's John Cale and Lou Reed performing "Style It Takes" from Songs for 'Drella:

The soup cans and packets were given out to audience members on opening night. Yes, it's real soup.

Well, it was real soup. It's 22 years old, presenting challenges for preservation.

I would love to know if anyone actually ate it. See how much one of these soup cans sold for on ebay.

Here's Andy Warhol at a 1986 BAM Gala. Is that Peter Bogdanovich in the middle? We think so but aren't 100% sure...