Lou Reed Solo

Oh I'm not really criticising him, I like those seventies albums, it just hadn't occurred to me before how he'd really squeezed VU for every last bit of juice. I mean, Berlin is immense but I'm a bit bowled over now that I realise out of the nine tracks only four were original to the album! Obviously Berlin is all about the production anyway, love it or loathe it.

Is there a parallel with Bowie? Starts madly doing songs he cowrote with Iggy when his creative juices run dry - to considerably less good effect of course!

Remember reading a rather sneery interview with Sterling Morrison where he pointed out how many of Lou's solo albums were reliant on Velvets' retreads

yeah, it's true -- I think even "Kill Your Sons" from Sally Can't Dance even stretches back to the Velvets days. Still, those were Lou's songs -- no harm in reworking them. Some people just have really strong bursts of creativity, and 1965-70 was Lou's. I loooooove that VU "Sad Song" ... Same with "Satellite of Love." Always thought it was surprising the songs Lou didn't return to in the 70s -- "Foggy Notion," in particular.

"Over You"!

yeah! was just listening to that on Live 69. beautiful song! always liked "move right in" too -- the bootleg versions have lyrics. just a cool groove. though that may have been why he didn't go back to it - it may have just been a cool groove to him.

honestly I prefer most of VU's original versions to Lou's solo ones (with a few exceptions - the Transformer stuff is all improved, and She's My Best Friend on Coney Island Baby is about on par with the original)

listening to a bootleg now from 1976 -- what a funny band, must've been on the Rock n Roll Heart tour. So little guitar, mostly sax and keyboards. Really cheesy synths!

http://dummidumbwit.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lou_reed_hat_std.jpg

I didn't think I had any interest in solo Lou but I heard Street Hassle and Take No Prisoners for the first time this year and they absolutely knocked me out.

doesn't Lou call X'gau some name on TNP?
still vouching for Ecstasy as one of Lou's best solo records; and one of the best records of this decade.

think he calls xgau a "toefucker"
i'll have to listen to Ecstasy again -- I really like parts of it, but am not nuts about others ...

some of the actual music on TNP is atrocious (some of it is great) but oh man it is Lou at his comedy finest

let's talk about the Bells

weird that anyone would characterize anything on here as "jazz" (Don Cherry's presence notwithstanding) - was kinda surprised at how dense and harsh the wall o' synths is on here. Disco Mystic is amazing, almost Spector-esque.

also gotta say when Lou tries to lay on his "I am SINGING, with VIBRATO" schtick it sounds terrible. he's good at singing gently and at doing his speak-singing thing, but when he tries to over-emote it's just urgggh dude you don't have the pipes for this, you can barely stay in tune...

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

it's not even really disco...? the tempo is way too slow

I Want to Boogie With You is similarly ironically titled - kinda impossible to boogie to anything so sluggish. but it's a great song, wonderful combination of doo wop, typical Lou Reed venom, and a dense sludge of synths and horns

"With You" is kinda fun – doesn't he use "capricious"?

rhymes with "death wish"!

Lou must've been pissed the first time he saw the album cover of The Stranger, knowing he could've done that.

I don't see the connection

need to hear the bells again, but i think sally can't dance is my fave studio Lou from the 1970's. it may be considered a throwaway but it seems more consistent to me than CIB and St. Hassle

"Ennui"!

I'd have to go back to it but I think I deleted like 2/3rds of Sally Can't Dance... the tracks that are good on it are REALLY good though. "Billy" (rhyming "foliage" with "college"!), the line about alimony in "Ennui", the title track

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXZ2C5Uil-0

All of the things that your old lover said
Look at them, they jump out of windows
And now they're just dead
It's the truth, don't you realize
Faded without any talent or fun
Running out in the streets, balling everyone
It's the truth, It's the truth
Pick up the pieces that make up your life
Maybe some day you'll have a wife and them alimony
Oh, can't you see

Lou was great at writing songs that capture that morning hangover feeling

Good Taste is the other good one on Sally Can't Dance. I think what bugged me about the rest of the album was the sorta nonsensical/inappropriate arrangements, backing band didn't work well with Lou in general imho

miss ya Bimble
:(

"Billy" holds up better in the memory. When I reheard it last month the inapposite guitar strums and clumsy rhymes bothered me this time.

"Animal Language" is kinda fun.

*"Serenade" rather.

I thought Ecstasy was the best thing Lou had done in a long time. Like, a LONG time (since Songs For Drella at least, probably since New York). I also enjoyed The Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn. Those two stand up to anything Mr. Reed has done, IMHO.

he Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn.

curious what Lou contributed to this, exactly

Set the Twilight Reeling is leaner and monochromatic, so I prefer it to the excellent Ecstacy -- and, yes, they're his best albums since the early eighties trilogy.

having listened a few times now I gotta say I kinda really love the sound of "The Bells". Sorta reminds me of the Dion/Spector album. Oddly, the consistently worst thing about it is Lou's vocals, sounds like he's straining way too much most of the time. Even so, plenty of killer lines, particularly in "Families", a couple others

i love The Bells; i think it's the density of the production/mix--cf, the overall thinness of GUIP just a year later--that makes all the difference between these relatively "ok" songs and those on other, comparably more or less hacked-out Reed records. probably my second fave '70s Lou disc really (Street Hassle will always come out tops for me).

yeah it took me by surprise - everything I'd read about it on the internet had led me to expect a much thinner/limp-sounding record. Were the stacked, overdriven synths an attempt to cop some movies from Bowie's Berlin-trilogy...? I think they come out sounding closer to La Dusseldorf or something.

well it was considered to be his art rock (a la Bowie, Eno, Heads, Gabriel) move at the time. so yeah, i suppose.

that's strange, it doesn't seem any art-ier than any of his other albums to me - its the usual mishmash of songs colliding with an inexplicably bizarre production aesthetic, which was pretty much his MO for the entire 70s

it wasn't as "street" as previous efforts, tho, and a helluva lot jazzier (sonically speaking), too. jazz + rock = art + rock. ^_^

the title track alone would probably be enough for people to say "art rock" at the time.

yeah I dunno I don't hear the "jazz", to be honest.

there's nothing on here as capital "J" JAZZY (or hilarious) as "Sheltered Life" off of Rock n Roll Heart, for example

Don Cherry plays on it -- what more do you want?

(but yeah, aside from that, not terribly jazzy)

I know and I love him but his presence alone doth not a jazz record make. I mean even some of Cherry's own stuff can only be classified as jazz in the broadest sense of the term. Brown Rice doesn't really swing, y'know?

Lou loved his Herbie Hancock records, that's for sure.

also this has to be some of the saddest lyrics Lou's ever written (Street Hassle comes close)

Mama, you tell me how's the family
And papa, tell me how thing's going by you
And little baby sister, I heard that you got married
And I heard that you had yourself a little baby girl, too
And here's some uncles and some cousins I know vaguely
And would you believe my old dog Chelsea's here, too
And would you believe nobody in this family
wanted to keep her
And now that dog's more of a part of this family
then I am, too
I don't come home much anymore
No-no-no I don't come home much anymore
Mama

And mama, I know how disappointed you are
And papa, I know that you feel the same way, too
And no-no-no-no-no I still haven't got married
And no-no-no there's no grandson planned here for you
And by the way, daddy tell me how's the business
I understand that your stock she's growing very high
No, daddy, you're not a poor man anymore
And I hope you'll realize that before you die
Because I don't come home much anymore
No-no-no-no-no I don't come home much no more
But daddy

And please-please-please-please-please
come on let's not start this business again
I know how much you resent the life that I have
But one more time, I don't want the family business
Don't want to inherit it upon the day that you die
Really, daddy should have given it to my sister
You know Elisabeth, you know Elisabeth
she has a better head for those things than I
She lives practically around the corner
That's really the kind of child you could be proud of
But papa, I know that this visit's a mistake
There's nothing here we have in common, except our name
And families that live out in the suburbs
Often make each other cry
And I don't think that I'll come home much anymore
No-no, I don't think I'll come home much again
Mama
Papa
Families
Often make each other cry
No, I don't think that I'll come home much anymore
(How's the families)

no, not "jazz record," '70s jazz-inspired sonics. dig?

xp

luv "Families."