In Praise Of...Lou Reed "Take No Prisoners"

LR: But anyway, I was, I was, John, I was telling them about Rolling Stone and my great concern for good reviews, as I'm sure, like, they panned my latest album.
(door squeaks)
JC: What, again?

funny to read lester bangs' bells review a couple months later:
Lou Reed is a prick and a jerkoff who regularly commits the ultimate sin of treating his audience with contempt. He's also a person with deep compassion for a great many other people about whom almost nobody else gives a shit. I won't say who they are, because I don't want to get too schmaltzy, except to emphasize that there's always been more to this than drugs and fashionable kinks, and to point out that suffering, loneliness and psychic/spiritual exile are great levelers.

The Bells isn't merely Lou Reed's best solo LP, it's great art. Everybody made a fuss over Street Hassle, but too many reviewers overlooked the fact that it was basically a sound album: brilliant layers of live and studio work in a deep wash of bass-obsessive noise. Most of the songs were old, and not very good, with a lot of the same old cheap shots.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/the-bells-19790614#ixzz2Lk3RYMOY
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People always turn the volume up when they lack songs. Look at jamc, mbv, sonic youth and southoaw grammar (moz having learnt the lesson of KU). I like noise if done right.

Wow, Tyler, thanks. And here I thought nobody liked The Bells until ILX decided to rescue it. A heretofore underacknowledged moment in the Lou/Lester brouhaha.

i still sorta struggle with the bells -- i think the songs and sounds are good, but lou's vocals are so strange on there.

I haven't listened to it in forever but man even when I was a Lou fiend and loved even Sally Can't Dance I still thought The Bells was garbage.

See what you are saying Tyler, but at least he still trying to sing a recognizable tune and mostly succeeding, unlike some of the formless bellowing he might indulge in with later efforts.

god this WPIX set is so awesome, if this was on an LP I would buy it

the comic from whence the cover of take no prisoners came from
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOU-REED-AND-THE-VELVET-UNDERGROUND-ROCK-COMIX-SPANISH-ORIGINAL-1976-/171041743722?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27d2e1e36a

wtf

man 14-year-old me is spitting into the future toward present-day me's face for not immediately buying that but little dude I don't really need it ok

http://24.media.tumblr.com/6c6ce56933a530ce207508ef5d6cd1b0/tumblr_mmwr8g1jKM1qzy30io1_500.png
haha it is pretty freaky

kind of crazy that that was produced in Spain, which just a year prior was still under the boot of Franco

and then all of a sudden the people of Spain were under the shiny leather boot of Lou

mmhmm

Warhol's diary, 23 Sept '79

I went to church and then went home. I glued myself together and Curley picked me up and we went to 42nd Street to the WPIX radio station for The John Ogle Show. I’d invited Walter Steding to play his magic violin on the air, he was good and he sounded intelligent when he was interviewed. Then Lou Reed rushed in and said how glad he was to see us. Lou told me one of his dachshunds had had an operation on his back. I told him to come down to the Mudd Club with us later because they were having a Dead Rock Stars Night, and he said he would go as himself, but I told him he looks too good for that now.

the original little dog?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hQTZryl_3Rk/USTS5pu-emI/AAAAAAAABIg/5-RS26-ApMw/s400/Lou_Doggie2.jpg

awww

singing softly: "My small dog he want what I got / Wants to run his tongue over my hot spot."

"all the time he shows up late.."

"so do you, Lou!"

Listening to this the other day, I don't think I'd never noticed this little exchange before (first bit is a line Lou decides to sing in "Waiting for My Man" btw)

Just saw one of those pictures of Sigourney Weaver in which I could swear she looks exactly like Lou Reed.

i am writing about this album for my EMP presentation, so i look forward to reading over this thread for non-jokey insight.

I'm afraid that will have to be punched in retroactively.

Get bent yr doing the Lord's work

yeahhhh excited to read your EMP piece!
still waiting for the complete bottom line 1978 take no prisoners sessions box set. i want it all.

getting reissued as part of this: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lou-reeds-last-project-a-box-set-of-remastered-cds-due-this-fall-20160517

still waiting for the complete bottom line 1978 take no prisoners sessions box set. i want it all.

GIVE IT TO US!!!

was just informed that today is the anniversary of the first night of Take No Prisoner's recording at the Bottom Line in 1978. HAPPY TAKE NO PRISONERS DAY

http://ia601406.us.archive.org/25/items/LouReed1978-05-18BottomLineNYC/LouReed1978-05-18BottomLineNYC.mp3?cnt=0

Celebrate by insulting someone from Wyoming!

oh shit, here's that complete WPIX 1978 broadcast -- never heard it all before! GREAT LOU CONTENT. https://soundcloud.com/david-marin-7/lou-reed-w-joe-piasek-wpix-fm-interview-8-5-78

Wait with The Jeweler and all?

nah, this is a different, earlier WPIX broadcast. he plays sandy denny, of all thing!

alt version of "street hassle" he plays is a good argument for aforementioned Take No Prisoners: Radio Brooklyn Expanded Edition box set

Hello?
Yeah

classic.
with all the feeding back phones, they could've done an impromptu metal machine music.

ooh will have to listen to this later

pretty amazing german language cover of "walk on the wild side" included

Yes, and all binaurally recorded!
(xp)

i like how lou perks up when the caller starts talking about binaural stereo setups.

Right, exactly.

If one of the callers had really known some obscure doo wop trivia that would have been a distant second

That was the other radio show, some young kid said how much he likednthatvstuff..

Christmas has come early.

Yeh

So "Lou Reed: Live" (aka R&R Animal Pt.2) isn't in the set?

some have speculated that it is being folded into R&R Animal? which would make sense. no Live in Italy either, though that was always an import...

man Lou really liked "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin"

Me too. Guitar playing is pure Lou.

this radio recording sounds like it's ... kinda slow? Like the tape speed is not right? The Dion song and Gimme Gimme Good Lovin both sounded like they're slower/in a different key than they should be. (I'm just listening to this whole thing now).