Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

You're reminding me of Jason Isbell's "It Gets Easier," and what I said about it on last year's Nashville Scene ballot:
(re songs on Reunions) I get some of 'em right away, esp the one about sober life incl. dreams about drinking, a couple nights a week now, like, "I had one glass of wine, woke up feelin' fine,and that's how I knew it was a dream," but some are rougher, like the even realer-seeming dream of calling in sick to treat yourself down town--you deserve it, self, you been real good for so long---"It gets easier, but never easy, " why have I never heard a song about this must-be-fairly-common experience before?

Is “Underneath the Bottle” about recovery, though? The narrator has definitely hit rock bottom, but it doesn’t sound like he’s headed to any meetings…

I think Underneath the Bottle looks back on using in the same clear-eyed way that Heroin looks forward to using.

Thought Lou kicked with Tai Chi and philosophy and didn’t need any meetings.

I like the irony of how it plays/sounds (on the surface) like a “party song”… like it could almost be a tune in a beer commercial.

Such great lines, too:

Things are never good, things go from bad to weird

Seven days make a week, on two of them I sleep

Yeah, the riff/melody are great, almost joyful, but that's why I think it's a recovery song. It's joyful about having come through the other side of that stuff.

XPS and he grew a mullet.

On “Heavenly Arms,” why does Lou sing, Only a woman can love a man?

I’ve always wondered about the intent behind that line. Like, obviously Lou knew that not to be true…

Thought Lou...didn’t need any meetings

Lester Bangs wrote about seeing him at AA meetings.

why does Lou sing, Only a woman can love a man?

According to Victor Bockris, in the 80s Lou would flatly deny having even been other than heterosexual.

^^When his lyrics were collected, "Sister Ray" was retooled so it was clear the singer was receiving and not giving the fellatio, which was performed by a woman.

God Reed seems like such a fucking jerky weirdo asshole. I wonder what he and Laurie Anderson did together? what did they talk about?

Underneath the Bottle is so good. Sort of like the Heroin of recovery.

"The Last Shot" is more of a recovery song.

I like all of his drikning songs though.

"You have to be real careful where you sit down in a bawr these days"

_Thought Lou...didn’t need any meetings_


Lester Bangs wrote about seeing him at AA meetings.

Lou became a wine connoisseur in his last decade, according to the DeCurtis bio.

I heard a story recently, don’t even want to type it here.

But it seemed to confirm Lou’s latter day drinking.

God Reed seems like such a fucking jerky weirdo asshole. I wonder what he and Laurie Anderson did together? what did they talk about?

― akm, Sunday, October 17, 2021 2:56 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

You can hear it from her

Lou and I played music together, became best friends and then soul mates, traveled, listened to and criticized each other’s work, studied things together (butterfly hunting, meditation, kayaking). We made up ridiculous jokes; stopped smoking 20 times; fought; learned to hold our breath underwater; went to Africa; sang opera in elevators; made friends with unlikely people; followed each other on tour when we could; got a sweet piano-playing dog; shared a house that was separate from our own places; protected and loved each other. We were always seeing a lot of art and music and plays and shows, and I watched as he loved and appreciated other artists and musicians. He was always so generous. He knew how hard it was to do. We loved our life in the West Village and our friends; and in all, we did the best we could do.

https://www-rollingstone-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/laurie-andersons-farewell-to-lou-reed-a-rolling-stone-exclusive-243792/amp/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16344793685874&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fmusic%2Fmusic-news%2Flaurie-andersons-farewell-to-lou-reed-a-rolling-stone-exclusive-243792%2F

According to Victor Bockris, in the 80s Lou would flatly deny having even been other than heterosexual.

― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, October 16, 2021 11:37 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think he wanted to sell out, and have big huge hits like Bowie around '83-'84 (not that Bowie "sold out"). The production got glossier in '84, he had a slick -- in the pejorative sense -- backing band, he made inoffensive MTV-ready videos (one of which I saw on the ABC Saturday Morning aimed-at-kids video show), he did the Honda scooter ad, showed up on a couple of big movie soundtracks (White Nights was one, can't remember if there were others), and was starting to play -- though not necessarily fill -- 10,000+ capacity arenas in the US. Claiming he was only ever heterosexual was for him just something else from his past to sweep under the rug lest it impede his mainstream momentum.

I was gonna ask: how visible was Lou Reed b/w New Sensations and New York. It looks like starting with "I Love You, Suzanne" his MTV and general cultural profile enlarged.

pejorative
Did you learn this word from Lou?

how visible was Lou Reed

I know I saw the videos for "No Money Down", "Dirty Blvd" and "What's Good" on MuchMusic. Both the local classic rock station and the alternative station played songs from New York when it came out.

It looks like starting with "I Love You, Suzanne" his MTV and general cultural profile enlarged.

If it wasn't hearing "Walk On The Wild Side" on the radio, then my first exposure to Lou was definitely "I Love You Suzanne."

And hey, Lou had some moves (at 3:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc-bwzN6IVk

My recollection is that one thing that helped Lou start building a more mainstream audience was Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.

XP Ha, saw that recently for the first time and Dancin' Lou was a <revelation>.

There's a loose narrative about the neighborhood running through all the New Sensations vids.

My recollection is that one thing that helped Lou start building a more mainstream audience was Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.

― Double Chocula (James Redd and the Blecchs)

sure -- then he torpedoed the profile for the next decade

speaking as someone who was "there" as the time (albeit maybe 18-19), yes New Sensations felt like a much more mainstream album with a higher profile, "Suzanne" was actually on the radio

This is true. But anecdotally I knew quite of few of those RnRA fans, I feel like maybe they helped keep him alive during the lean years.

listened to and criticized each other’s work, Maybe this had something to do with his albums very eventually getting to be fairly consistently good/better? Was struck by hearing an interview yesterday with comedian-writer-editor-etc. Phoebe Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: EssaysRobinson, incl. the things "no one will tell you," when you aren't doing good work anymore---this incl. agents and producers as well as friends---and and this morning an interview w Toni Morrison on editing and teaching and writing: "Writers don't know what to trust in their writing...they'll do something more elaborate, not trusting what's already there," which reminded me of xgau's Lou review comments thinking that sometimes he tried too hard, even that throwaways might be his best stuff---well *some* of his best stuff, when he gets that hooky bad behavior going, flowing, I'd say---but anyway, making a record is necessarily more of a collaborative process, on some level, no matter how you treat your colleagues, while writing the lyrics, even in the studio, is more a singleton (so a lot of "singer-songwriter" records seem better to me musically than lyrically)--unless maybe just that one person---evah--gets through, which may (possibly) be the case w Laurie.

Though of course this is her story (incl. possible push-back, even if unconscious, vs. his bad reputation)

shared a house that was separate from our own places; Sounds good!

Speaking of collaboration in the studio, when I first started buying VU LPs, in the 70s, I noticed that at least some of thee classicks had the whole line-up listed as writers---then, when the same titles showed up on RnRA, the solo artist got solo credit--was wondering if maybe he bought out the others, and/or could afford better lawyers by then (at least ones provided by suits backing his new career of evil solo genius)

RnRA and some others.

I feel like Laurie was sufficiently famous and high up on the food chain to be able to call Lou’s bluff on his BS, and no doubt they did all those things together and yet, what I am trying to say, I would personally prefer to gaze upon Lou through Billy Name’s fisheye lens rather than having to deal with him directly. Although he was nice enough when he signed my copy of New Sensations.

O hell yeah, like Marcus saying he'd go out of the room to avoid meeting Bowie, despite loving some of his music
re collab(Also thinking of Dylan's long and winding The Cutting Edge, but sessioneers prob had to sign some kind of prenup? But there has eventually been litigation, like Johnnie Johnson vs. Chuck Berry)

Speaking of lawyers, Eugene Pallette to thread! And also, one of the reasons Andy flourished whereas, say, Terry Southern didn’t, aside from the Polish-American Catholic work ethic, is that Andy had some kind of army of lawyers in tow to fight back against harassment from the Feds, iirc.

Warhol, you mean? Wasn't he Czech? They've long had a Our Boy Done Good museum over there. Reminds me of reading in a review of his Diaries that he kept them per tax advice.

Son of Czech-Americans, I mean, although maybe one was Polish?

Oops, sorry, Slovakia. Maybe I can find something else interesting I read about him once to post here.

As I told Sund4r elsewhere, Ben Monder told me he loved hanging out with Bowie - and Tony Visconti too!- whilst making Blackstar, because he was really smart and well-read and remembered most of what he had read.

Cool, well, Marcus wrote that back in the original heyday, when Bowie was a workacokaholic, or just starting to get past that.

i think.

On the other hand, a neighbor of mine (no, not that one!) told me a slightly crepey story of a Diamond Horndog Dave asking a female friend to accompany him to the Empire State Building (DO U SEE?) to be his wing whilst he picked up chicks. I guess you are only young once.

Son of Czech-Americans, I mean, although maybe one was Polish

I think they were Ruthenians, one those difficult to define ethnic groups that were all over the Austro Hungarian Empire: a bit Czech, a bit Polish, a bit Ukrainian.

Back in Pittsburgh, Tom had grown up with a puny cousin, Andy Warhola. Andy had been raised by a crazy mother who couldn’t afford milk for the little kid and raised him on black bread and strong coffee—“Coffee-Nerves Warhola,” the neighborhood kids would cruelly call him. When his mother went on errands, Tom’s teenaged aunts—those rowdy girls who slept toe-to-head-to-toe in double beds—would baby-sit Coffee Nerves. They’d tie him to the bed with scarfs, where he’d scream until he couldn’t scream anymore. The girls would put up their hair and leaf through movie magazines, all the while watching out the window to see if the old lady was coming home. When they saw her, they’d untie the kid, collect their money, and go home, while the scrawny little victim screamed. It made a good story and they told it a lot, and went on telling it even when “Coffee Nerves,” who was Tom’s age, grew up to be Andy Warhol, trying for the rest of his short life to forget his squalid beginnings. So when my unevolved father-in-law—who would address twenty sentences to me during the ten years I’d be married to his son—opined to me that watering the lawn was simply force-feeding it, I’d feel curiously at home. Tom and I had been through a lot, and though some of it was different, a lot of it was the same. We felt the same light-headed relief when we drove home—from his father’s, or my mother’s. We’d place hypothetical bets: if we matched them in a boxing ring, who would win, his father or my mother? We both agreed it would be my mother, going away

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/world/europe/andy-warhol-slovakia-mikova-medzilaborce.html

And, to confirm Tom D’s excellent contribution:
https://europebetweeneastandwest.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/i-am-from-nowhere-andy-julia-warhol-from-carpathian-ruthenia-with-love/

Carolyn Says

"Dirty Blvd" got significant play on MTV

Wow this is interesting, Chris Molanphy on Lou's chart success/sales

Rock n Roll Animal and New York are his only gold albums in America! Even Transformer isn't gold

"Dirty Blvd" and "What's Good" are his only number ones (Billboard Modern Rock singles)

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/123-embrace-and-repel-lou-reeds-chart-history/

There’s a pretty charming story in the recent NYTimes profile of Laurie Anderson about her and Lou keeping separate apartments:

They each had a view of the Hudson River, and Reed would call her sometimes during the day to point out an interesting cloud. Then they would stay on the phone together, looking at it for a while.