Lou Reed RIP

full disclosure: I haven't listened to The Blue Mask in at least 20 years, so ymmv. (and the only lyrics i recall well are "The Day John Kennedy Died," wtf with that one)

Just listened to it this morning for the first time in (counts on fingers, counts again to make sure, fuck, that's a long time) 23 years. It more than holds up, but yeah, the Kennedy song is kind of goofy.

Goofy Lou is almost my favourite Lou

Yessssss

btw, brilliant piece, Alfred.

Aw guys

Yeah, 2nded, 3rded, 4thed -- terrific piece. I think you're right on about what made him great and what didn't. (Also right on that I gave Berlin the dutiful couple of listens when I dutifully bought it years ago, and have rarely returned to it.)

Coley

mine second was 'the doors' movie

ha. me too. first was REM covering "Pale Blue Eyes" on Dead Letter Office although I guess I had probably heard Walk on the Wild Side by that point too.

so funny talking to christgau last week at harvard about byron. they have never met in person. i don't know why i thought that was strange. always feel like everyone must know each other. but byron always proud of his lone wolf status. xgau still kinda peeved about byron and the sonic youth song-title thing. which i admit i kinda thought was funny. that he was still a little mad. in my old age i get along really well with byron AND the dean.

Alfred's piece is good, but I dunno, it doesn't mention Wussy at all, what's up with that?

I had probably read about the Velvet Underground in CREEM or RS, and I found a cheapo compilation LP used, maybe 1982? It had "I Heard Her Call My Name" on it, which hooked me right away - could not believe that solo. I somehow convinced my mom to buy me the $18 copy of WL/WH that was on the wall of a local record store - this was an unheard-of sum for an album in 1983/84, but the records were all out of print and hard to find until the '86 reissues. I found a French pressing of the 3rd album used somewhere later that year and then I think I found VU and Nico last. Lou's solo work was pretty much a given then, lots of people had copies of Transformer and/or R&R Animal. New Sensations was also big then.

This was my gateway record:

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/25300000/Velvet-Underground-the-velvet-underground-25381527-399-400.jpg

Blue Mask is great though "Women" isn't a strong track. The way into the album is the slow-burn raveup that leads out of "My House" imo

So Byron's writing for Arthur mag these days. Hadn't read him much in ages, but used to read he and the Dean both.

The Legs Mcneil obit of Lou was much more about Legs than about Lou, and not very insightful about either.

Byron's been writing for Arthur since it began

haha that times piece on the warhol/shrink party from '66 doesn't even mention reed, calls cale the VU's "leader"

My wife is very bummed. Lou Reed was her one big idol who lived a long time, but she never had a chance to catch live. She's turned me on to some of his later albums like Set The Twilight Reeling and Songs For Drella, which I didn't catch when they first came out. Lotta good stuff there that's maybe not as well appreciated as the classics.

Alfred's piece is good, but I dunno, it doesn't mention Wussy at all, what's up with that?

― some dude

wussied out

His article was the ycleption in that regard.

haha that times piece on the warhol/shrink party from '66 doesn't even mention reed, calls cale the VU's "leader"

I know right? Found that article via the Times' Sam Sifton on Twitter btw.

first was REM covering "Pale Blue Eyes" on Dead Letter Office although I guess I had probably heard Walk on the Wild Side by that point too.

I am trying to remember how/when I encountered Lou beyond "Walk on the Wild Side," which was in regular rotation on my local rock station in the early '80s. I'm pretty sure my dad picked up a copy of The Blue Mask used, out of curiosity, but I don't think he liked it because I don't remember ever hearing it. I just remember the cover. Dead Letter Office was almost certainly the first place I heard "Pale Blue Eyes," and Sister Lovers was where I first heard "Femme Fatale." Then suddenly in 1985 they were being talked about everywhere, because of VU and also because of Psychocandy. JAMC is the first (of many) bands that I remember being tagged as Velvet acolytes. Anyway, at some point in there I bought the whole run from Nico to Loaded and figured out what the fuss was about. But it's funny to think that there was nearly a 20-year period when they really didn't get talked about very much outside a fairly small critical circle.

1993 was my year: three different Velvets covers, peaking with Bryan Ferry's "All Tomorrow's Eyes," then downhill with Duran Duran ("Femme Fatale") and Billy Idol ("Heroin"). Intrigued, I bought Words and Music of Lou Reed, which for many of us was the only way to hear the big VU songs before the mid nineties remasters.

The hard one to track down in the mid-late '80s was Loaded, which iirc was not reissued when VU came out. (The first three were, I think.) After months of trawling I finally turned it up in a used bin.

Weird, because I remember Loaded being the only one in print in the US when I bought it, which would have been summer of 1980.

Loaded was on a different label than the others

Oh, Cowboy Junkies doing "Sweet Jane" (on MTV no less) was another profile-boosting moment. At a time that Cowboy Junkies had a higher profile than VU.

Sister Lovers was where I first heard "Femme Fatale."

huh, that's interesting. I didn't hear Big Star until several years after I had first heard VU. Sister Lovers in particular was hard to find for a while iirc.

Yes, Loaded was after they got signed to the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion. The others were on Verve.

xpost Yeah, that was a fluke purchase for me. I'd heard Big Star touted as this power-pop legend and went looking for their records. The only thing I could find in print at my local store was a copy of Sister Lovers, in one of its forms (don't remember the label). It was not at all what I was expecting, but I totally fell in love with it. I didn't hear #1 Record and Radio City until several years later, when they came out on a combined CD.

Was Lou Reed the first out rock star?

I bought Loaded new in 1985; wasn't particularly hard to find, and I don't know if it ever went out of print between 1970-1985.

First memories of Lou Reed was "I Love You, Suzanne" and him holding the Atari joystick.

That Honda commercial was on all the time and even today when I see a photo of him -- even that door one upthread -- I hear his voice in my head say, "Don't settle for walkin'."

There was this brief period where I was discovering that all these 80s rock stars were also big in the 70s. Oh wow, Robert Plant used to have really long hair. Freddie Mercury's in a leotard!

And somewhere along the line, I saw the cover of The Velvet Underground and thought, Whoa, so that's what Lou Reed's eyes look like.

I had a hell of a time finding Loaded in 1989. Ended up ordering it on CD and receiving vinyl instead.

I found 1969 Live and The VU & Nico (still sealed) at Vinyl Solution in Tuscaloosa in 1982, and Loaded not long after that. 2nd & 3rd albums didn't happen until the 1986 reissues, but some songs from those two were available on the 1980 comp Rock and Roll Diary 1967-1980.

how available were the RCA solo albums in the mid eighties?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm8n0vhVJcg this is how i'll remember him

Alfred - used LPs were cheap and plentiful back then, but I never saw the 1st one for some reason.

I'd guess the RCA albums were generally in print? You'd have to order them, of course, in most stores. A store like Tower might have kept certain titles in stock.

Only RCA title I saw new in the 80s was Transformer. The other RCA titles were used (and insanely expensive, particularly at a notorious suburban Chicago record store), except for Rock 'n' Roll Animal, but that had gotten the RCA "Best Buy" half-assed pseudo-reissue treatment.

Yup. Some of us bought a few of those RCAs on eight-track, a format we might have otherwise shunned.

Yeah, I remember seeing Transformer a lot, that's pretty much it for that era.

The Lou Reed album I remember seeing most at record stores was Mistrial, because by 1987 it was in every remainder bin everywhere.

Now that I think about it, that definitely sounds right. When I bought a used copy of the first album, I remember thinking, "You never see this."

I'm thinking he got higher promo budgets b/w New Sensations and Magic and Loss.

when he did the amex magazine ad my local record store taped it to the plastic divider in the vinyl bins and wrote SELLOUT on it in sharpie

that was raven records in knoxville, tennessee, fact fans

https://twitter.com/GaizkaMendieta6/status/394837463531012096/photo/1

Alfred - used LPs were cheap and plentiful back then, but I never saw the 1st one for some reason.

I bought Coney Island Baby in the late 80s. Transformer was definitely around. NEVER saw the 1st one either, still don't really. Rock n Roll Animal also really common.

The Lou Reed album I remember seeing most at record stores was Mistrial, because by 1987 it was in every remainder bin everywhere.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, October 28, 2013 2:34 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bought the cassette on release day. First song: "Neat!" Every song thereafter: "uh...oh..."

"Metal Machine Music" was pretty hard to find (paid $40 for the first copy I saw, in '89)

yeah was gonna mention that, I never saw a copy of that until a few years ago.