Search And Destroy: Lou Reed

Destroy: The Bells. Not only is his voice incredibly wavery and flatulent on this one. I dare anyone to truly "get down" to "Disco Mystic". Unless they meant suffer immediate depression.

Oh, and if you really wanna Search, just get the box set. A listenable survey of a chap I'm too young and too unworshipping of NYC to appreciate beyond those sweet, sweet Velvets.

Tripple destroy: Metal Machine Music.

$25 at the Django's in Portland, Oregon a few weeks ago.

You, of course, need the 4 VU studio albums and Live: 1969.

All of his live albums that I've heard are pretty desolate.

horrible album art i'm afraid

Basically any albums with fretless bassist Fernando Saunders are great. His '80s and '90s work is overlooked.

I discovered Lou through "New York," so that will probably always be my favorite solo album. After that, probably Berlin, Transformer, and this "Master Class" bootleg (with Little Jimmy Scott) that I really need to Torrent one of these days.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/06/lou_reed_talks_his_new_radio_s.html

what a dumbass

dude are you nuts, "What are you, a fucking asshole?" is one of the all-time great interview answers

classic

classic asshole

lou reed, a real classhole

but seriously, J0hn D, you should def. try to work "What are you, a fucking asshole?" into any future interviews you do.

I think I'm gonna go with "what are you fucking, an asshole?" just to put my own special spin on it

I'm not really sure why the song "Coney Island Baby" had never made an impression on me until now, but I sure dig it.

still creepy after all these years

Holy shit, this is amazing, Paris 1974. He's got the whole new wave thing down and punk hasn't even happened yet.
&

Fopp are selling a box of 5 Lou Reed CDs for £15. I am playing the first record now. It sounds good, my hi-fi seems wired for rock! Transformer, Berlin, Sally Can't Dance, Coney Island Baby to come.

Bizarre: Mark S in summer 2001 was talking about digging through ancient threads

Those threads Egyptians to Mark S's Romans.

Does that make current ILX the Dark Ages or the Renaissance?

i think 'transformer' is a really wonderful, consistent record.

'berlin' i like, except for those plodding slow numbers at the end. lou's concept just isn't developed enough for me to buy into the tragedy of those tracks

I downloaded Hudson River Wind Meditations from emusic last month. Listening to it is like doing tai-chi without moving.

Berlin was a bit of a dissapointed i thought (when i heard it in 2005) I am still rooting for New York. Dirty Blvd is awesome :)

Rooting? Have you heard it? Don't believe the doubters, it's terrific!

Ever noticed how awesome Jack Bruce's bass parts are on Berlin?

'berlin' i like, except for those plodding slow numbers at the end.

!!! the last third with the slow numbers is the good part. I like the album in general but chunks of it are really dire - production/arrangements seem a bit wrong in places.

but if we paid attention to bad arrangements and dire production we'd never listen to Lou!

don't forget the occasionally god-awful singing!

speaking of which:
yeesh.

wow

What Would An Elvis Costello/Lou Reed Collabo Sound Like?

The sound of that collabo just made a child wake up and cry.

hmm. i have a sleeping child handy, let's see if i can duplicate the result...

nope. sleeping soundly. further study required.

(i actually like that clip, but it makes me want to hear just an elvis version of it.)

I've got one light sleeper that woke up and one sound sleeper that didn't so maybe I skewed the results a little bit.

Yeah, EC makes a lot of annoying pretentious career moves, but one has to admit the guy can sing.

But that EC / Lou performance seems a mess cos Lou's chorus talking is totally out of any rhythm - even with an old pro like EC I kept wondering how he could stay in time with that noise going on.

I think I'd rather hear them both play a full rock version of 'Wild Child'. Come on! I was talking to Chuck in his Ghengiz Khan suit and his wizard's hat ...

Still trying to get the measure of the first Lou Reed solo LP, but I like it; good stereo seems to help with this 1970s material.

Kind of worth it just for the very start of the solo career: the four bashes on the drum that start 'I Can't Stand It'

Listening to New York again for first time in years. It sounds terrific! The sound clear, clean, dynamic; the voice up-front and authoritative; all the material so good before they even started. I think it's often been said - even back in 1989 - that this LP's topical lyrical references would come to seem very dated - but that doesn't feel like a problem: a lot of it just isn't dated, and what is seems historically interesting. Maybe this really is the best solo LP.

I've just heard Transformer in full for the first time, and boy yes it IS strong!!

Seconded.

yes!

yessss especially now

I’m in.

please

Yep.

what does it say about _him_, if he loves women, if he marries women?

to me? nothing. precisely nothing. marrying a woman doesn't have to make you straight. you can love whoever, be whoever, and be queer. it wasn't like that then. he had to _prove_ it. over and over again.

The conclusion Hermes reaches too.

im skittish but maybe

I will get sad at the mean things people will say about “high in the city” but yes go ahead

I will laugh at the mean things people will say about "Animal Language" because Lou would have wanted it that way.

Ooohhh-wow, bow-wow
Ooohhh-wow, bow-wow

xposts to kate

hermes’ critical distance is a bit disconcerting at times, esp wrt Rachel and the way she is tuned in and out of the story like a low-frequency radio station… but i think, me personally, that his choice to avoid speculation is maybe more uh, respectful somehow.
like i do want the color added but not by hermes, someone better equipped to read between those lines idk someone queer etc etc

though it def does feel cold, when she drops from the story because lou stops talking abt her. it is very much that thing of her only existing when lou chooses to See her which sucks when you stare down the weight of that (and obv a crappy under-acknowledged reality for a lot of queer/trans ppl)

(but also i think the book is better than that new yorker review allows but that is just me lol)

There's a "more disturbing" version of "The Gun" that's been talked about over many years

have never heard about this -- have you got a link to something about it?

From the liner notes for the Between Thought and Expression box set:

On "The Gun" Lou once again takes on the persona of the criminally insane. The effect is chilling. "We had a version of 'The Gun' that was even worse than the one on the album but we all agreed that it went way too far, that none of us would ever listen to it. It just went too far, it went over the line. There was no reason to do that."
The band's performance on the version Lou is referring to is not all that different from what eventually appeared on record. What did go "too far" was Lou's character playing as a couple of improvised lyric lines are so violent as to make the stomach recoil.

in other news the Jokermen podcast 2-parter on Songs For Drella is so gooood, exactly the nerdy indepth exegesis i needed

Ooooh they're takin' her kids away!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVcHLZ4B1mY

new ROIO just uncovered/discovered, Oct '72 UK show w/The Tots, it's on Dime

"Lou Reed 1972-10-13 Cambridge, England (w. 1972-10-31) (2024 RM) UNCIRCULATED MASTER"

NICE
Those Tots shows are cool — good to see it's got a solo Lou section as well ... he stopped doing that pretty early on.

I ve started to listen to his 2011 shows. Really fun set lists. He was doing All through the night, The Bells, Waves of Fear, and Temporary Thing at a lot of the shows. This one be has a 15 minute version of All through the night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPjDhhZ3gRU

do people know that this exists?

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=0004

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-stone-issue-three-lou-reed-tzadik-review-by-george-kanzler

I did not!

Enjoyed this one, especially the last two minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P7FiErPDfk

Anyone listened to this? I have been meaning to…

https://lightintheattic.net/products/why-dont-you-smile-now-lou-reed-at-pickwick-records-1964-65

Did they just do a tiny print run of that on CD? It's constantly out of stock on the LITA site and there's a handful on Discogs etc. that are pricey. Seems like they dropped a ball there.