Lou Reed RIP

Reed said something like, "Fuck that place; they didn't want us then, so they don't get to see us now."

Too bad the pricks didn't know half the haters had died in the interim. Still I would've traveled to see em, maybe.

I don't understand the whole "asshole or not" thing when a star dies. I'm a big fan of many jerks, and a friend of mine has been in two of the worst movies I've ever seen.

my friend matt krefting is THE number one lou fan i know and this is really good and sweet:

http://kreftingmoondawn.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/how-do-you-think-it-feels-and-when-do-you-think-it-stops/

That Krefting-piece is beautiful. The Letterman-performance he mentions was incredible!

yeah, i esp enjoyed the pizza place coda. never read so many obits for the same person.

from the electrical audio boards:

"In the mid- and late-Nineties, my wife worked at a place owned by a guy named Tony. Tony is a famous artist, and is/was good friends with Lou Reed (as well as a wide variety of other personalities). Aside from being his master printer, my wife's responsibilities included answering the phone when Tony wasn't around. She was always terrified that it might be Lou Reed calling, as even Tony would say that Lou was a difficult person and hard to talk to.

So the phone rings and my wife answers. Long pause. "Is Tony there?"

"Sorry, he's not here. Can I take a message for him?"

Long pause.

"Yeah. This is Lou. Say, I just got my wife these doves. I dunno what to feed these fucking things. Does Tony know what I'm supposed to feed these fucking doves?"

"Hi Lou, I don't know, I'll ask Tony to call you when he gets in."

"Do you think they want some steak? I've got some meat. I'll see if they want some meat. Have Tony call me."

Lou bought Laurie some doves and then fed them meat.

Resquiat, sir."

I wanna talk to that Reed, man, he threw a dove at his Laurie.

Herbie Flowers on composing the "wild side" bass line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBXUP5GqYJs

^ blew my mind. I always assumed it was two overdubbed acoustic basses, not an acoustic and a Fender Jazz.

thats great.

I wonder what Herbie Flowers makes of Can I Kick It

So, older people, did "I Love You, Suzanne" and "No Money Down" get daytime MTV play?

MTV staged/taped for later airing a series of concert shows in '84-85 called "Rock Influences," and Reed headlined the show I saw on the New Sensations tour. NYC theme; openers included Jim Carroll, and Run-D.M.C., who got booed off the stage in about 10 minutes. (Passaic NJ, def not by the ppl who lived there)

Lou Bega insists that Lou Reed died, not Lou Bega

i do think there's a huge swath of people who think of lou reed as some guy who had one memorable ditty (walk on the wild side) once upon a time, like he was david essex or something.

listening to new york, remembering that WXRT played the shit out of this, deep cuts included, not just when it came out but for a few years after. in 93 I had a English professor who insisted upon playing songs from this and discussing them like poetry and the experience was so embarrassing that I never thought I'd come back to the album. it's not bad really.

there's this whole thing about lou being a prick to journalists but if you read his Invisible Jukebox in the wire he comes across as like this affable excitable nerd "omg this miles record!!" and it made me lose all sympathy for any interviewer that he ever treated like shit cause like, all he wanted to do was talk about records! And surely this was plain! and if you can't do that, you don't deserve the job.

yeah, he only got pissed off when people would ask questions about his public image, or how he felt about how certain of records were "perceived" by different sorts of audiences, etc. after forty-odd years journalists should have gotten the gist.

Also bristled at questions about his personal life. Presumably because he was smart enough to know that shit didnt matter.

i do think there's a huge swath of people who think of lou reed as some guy who had one memorable ditty (walk on the wild side) once upon a time, like he was david essex or something.

heh in the UK we used to have this carcrash called "the culture show" and I remember the host flirting w reed and basically asking tough questions like "why are you so great" and "why do your toes taste so nice" and at the end of the interview lou said "just so you know, there is now one english journalist I like". The scoundrel!

From earlier this year, and worth noting:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/rachel_lou_reeds_transsexual_muse

but Redd, we're in New York.

I was just about to ask why is Rachel such a big unknown this far on.

thanks for that Ned

"why do your toes taste so nice"

pretty sure Lou would have answered this

At least I knew the name Rachel if not much else but Bettye Kronstadt I never heard about at all until I read the Luc Sante thing.

xp I'm paraphrasing I guess

Thread reminds me that I once played in band with fourth-rate Lou Reed imitator and when he gave me a tape to learn tunes off it was recorded over cassette version of Michael Franks album with "Popsicle Toes."

bum bum bum popsicle toes
bum bum bum popsicle toes

I guess result of my poll was that older people at the very least knew the big songs off Loaded and the first Velvet albums as well as some of the solo stuff whereas the discerning youth of today know all the Velvet Underground albums as well as some Factory anecdotes and other biographical material. But yeah, after all it is New York City which is the place where.

Reed answered questions about his appearance in the commercial, telling the students that Honda was supporting him more then he was supporting the brand, and Bob Dylan, saying that everyone was lucky to be alive on earth with Dylan, among others, recalled Gass.

my straw poll, first Velvets album

I knew Walk on the Wild Side and that was about it, and then in college I read a book that mentioned the song Venus in Furs, so I went out and found a used copy of Velvet Underground & Nico, my first Lou/Velvets purchase. And then I read the Venus in Furs book and came to the realization that I would have been more content just knowing the song but it was an educational excursion. And I fell in love with Nico for a good while as a result so I owe Lou quite a lot.

Anyone dip into his photography at all? I have his New York book of photos, I dig it.

The final interview, apparently: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/29/lou-reed-last-interview

i do think there's a huge swath of people who think of lou reed as some guy who had one memorable ditty (walk on the wild side) once upon a time, like he was david essex or something.

This is me, pretty much. I've never cared for classic rock or punk rock, so I couldn't really name any other song by the dude than "Walk on the Wild Side" (which I prefer as the Finnish-language cover version done by the great jazz/pop singer Lasse Mårtenson) and "Perfect Day" (which I wouldn't know if it wasn't for Trainspotting). I'm not trying to be willfully ignorant, and I recognize that a lot of people were influenced by Reed, but IMO in the year 2013 his legacy is so far in the past, and/or heard in such marginal genres, that even someone quite knowledgable in pop music might not know him for anything else than those two hits, unless he was specifically into the specific subgenres of rock where he might still be valued highly.

That said, I've nothing against the dude, just wanted to point out that people who know him for only one or two tunes aren't necessarily ignorant. RIP.

p

wow tell us more about not liking rock music tuomas never heard that before what a fascinating posting style keep up
the good work

Haha, from that interview story:

"Don't mention David Bowie's album," his publicist warned, half-jokingly, as the interviewer before me left. "The last guy who did that got the wrong side of Lou."

When I was kid all I knew about Lou Reed was this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2JXy1Z9ovs

Does Perfect Day ever get performed on X Factor or similar shows?

Tuomas only mourns true musical visionaries and legends:

Scatman John: C/D?

well lotsa ppl just like horrible contemporary pop

Tuomas only mourns true musical visionaries and legends:

Scatman John: C/D?

I had no idea the amount you mourn a musician should be proportionate to his historical importance. It's sad that both of them died, but Scatman John's dead made me sadder than Lou Reed's, because his music meant more to me personally, and because he was only in his 50s when he died.

Thread taking inevitable turn here

wow tell us more about not liking rock music tuomas never heard that before what a fascinating posting style keep up
the good work

― buzza, Wednesday, October 30, 2013 4:08 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the Fresh Air retrospective began with Gross saying that she once tried to interview Reed, but he walked off after several minutes, annoyed by her questions.

"Don't mention INSERT_RANDOM_TOPIC_HERE," his publicist warned, half-jokingly, as the interviewer before me left. "The last guy who did that got the wrong side of Lou."

Also, feel like Lou might have been won over by Tuomas's charming naivetee- he wouldn't know enough to ask the kind of questions that bug Lou. They could have bonded over free jazz.

It's not all that charming to continually trumpet one's well-manicured ignorance as a kind of virtue

Also, feel like Lou might have been won over by Tuomas's charming naivetee-

Tuomas, a Doug Yule for the new millennium

first velvets album was the whole peel slowly and see boxset. got it from the BMG music club for something like 15$.

after that, first lou album was a compilation, then set the twilight reeling (both used).

after that, a taped c90 with transformer and berlin. i used to play the shit out of that.

then i was given a collection of classic records by someone who outgrew their record player including MMM.

after that, pretty much everything else.

How are you all ignoring the elephant that just got released into the room?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC3108hKNZA