Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

Lou Reed is one of those artists whose sheer prolificness and contrarianism defies all of my attempts at digestion of his catalog, even with the benefit of internet cliffs' notes devices.

I do know that I pretty much always skip over songs from this album when they come up on random iTunes function, whereas "Bottoming Out" from Legendary Hearts rarely gets a pass from me.

i'm really curious to know if this is online anywhere or if there is a transcription or something because I would love to read it

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/11/lou_reed_minus_.html

"Betrayed"! "Home of the Brave"! "Don't Talk To Me About Work"! That album has so many great tunes.

"The Last Shot"!

career wise, it was damn near suicidal

Yes, especially after those multi-million sellers The Bells and Growing Up in Public.

haha--those were transitional records tho. come to think of it, were any of his Arista albums decent sellers?

No, but each eighties album outsold its predecessor until New York (which actually went gold!).

plus, I've read that, thanks to the publishing and songwriting royalties which finally started to trickle in, Lou did rather well in the eighties.

Blue Mask is the best of the Quine/Saunders/Maher albums by a vast margin, and one of my fave Lou solo albums. In fact, I'm a little surprised Quine hasn't gotten more dap in this thread for his contributions. I seem to remember reading in some magazine at the time that they had to send Quine home in a cab after he recorded his bit for "Waves of Fear," and I can totally believe that.

Oh, maybe Maher wasn't on that one. Well, Quine/Saunders then.

Don't like fretless bass, so that tends to mar this and other albums

Lou did rather well in the eighties

The motor scoooter commercial probably helped too. "Hey. Don't settle for walkin' "

I seem to remember reading in some magazine at the time that they had to send Quine home in a cab after he recorded his bit for "Waves of Fear," and I can totally believe that.

this is awesome.

I've never understood unconditionally disliking fretless bass. There are so many different tones and styles of playing out there. Yes, you have your typical cheesy jazz fusion, but you also have very simple lines like on PIL's "Rise." Fernando's tone and style is quite unique and funky and pleasing to me.

Have you guys seen the Lou Reed Live in New York DVD from 1983? Great stuff! Quine has a cig hanging from his mouth the whole time, and Fernando's in leather pants.

From a PSF interview with Quine (the whole thing is here):

"PSF: After that, what would you say about the time you played with Lou Reed?

Musically, the first week and a half was really great, out of the four years. We did The Blue Mask. It's a record that I'm really proud of. There was no rehearsing, no overdubs, no punch-in's for mistakes. The exact opposite of the Voidoids. I inspired and encouraged him to play guitar again. I didn't have a lot of fun with him but at least it's out there and I'm proud of that. With that record, Fernando Saunders and Doane Perry were taken aback by this primitive playing. There was an intensity there and we reacted to each other as musicians. It isn't a jazz record but there's that kind of sensitivity. He listened to some wild ideas I brought in like with 'Waves of Fear'- he had nothing to lose at that point as he'd just done Growing Up In Public.

It's just a shame- I'd still be with him now and put up with whatever personal problems I had with him. But he's not a nice guy. In one way, he respected me. If he yelled at me, I'd yell back. I'm outspoken and don't take crap from people. His problem is that he likes to be surrounded by 'yes' men that flatter him but he's smart enough to know what's going on and he hates them for it and he ends up with a lot of hack musicians.

The Blue Mask was a very big critical success but it didn't sell well. It built up his confidence though. By the time we did Legendary Hearts in late '82, he was much more of a control freak. He was rejecting ideas that I brought in. He was feeling pretty precious about his career. His biggest weakness is that he wants to be regarded as a poet. The more conscious he is of this, the worse songs he writes. It could have been a pretty good record. It wasn't going to be as good as the last one: the songs weren't as good. The atmosphere was really uptight- it's impossible to be friends with him. When I got the final mix, I was really freaked out. He pretty much mixed me off the record. I was in Ohio and took it out in the driveway and smashed the tape into pieces. I didn't talk to him for a month but he knew what he'd done. I have cassettes of the rough mix of the record and it was a really good record but he made it all muddy and murky.

He approached me about playing live and I said 'what the hell.' It was a pretty good band- Fred Maher was there. Lou was very erratic with his rhythm playing but I dug that. It was impossible for the drummer to follow it. Me and Fred had to play around him. Fernando was great but I prefer a Duck Dunn-type player who can hold down the bottom. If Fernando doesn't dig a drummer, he wouldn't play with him- he didn't dig Fred. He's a great player when he plays with someone he likes. We did some more touring. He just happened to record bad concerts like Live In Italy. The band was sensitive enough that we were capable of improvising, like on 'Sister Ray' and 'Heroin' which we only did once. He had to teach it to the others but I knew it already.

But there was more and more of a strain between us. About a day before New Sensations was going to be recorded, he fired me and did the guitar himself. I did do the tour with him afterwards- that was a long tour. I came to him and said 'forget whatever happened, I just want to play with you.' By this time, we had an awful band. The new drummer would only play well in rehearsals and the keyboard player (Peter Woods) worked with Al Stewart and Cyndi Lauper. There wasn't much room to improvise. At the end of 'Kill Your Sons,' I'd do a drone and Lou would do a guitar solo- we'd get pretty far out there. This keyboard player thought it was joke and play with his feet- Lou would have to come over and tell him to stop. Because I wasn't on New Sensations, I didn't have a lot to add live. I'd be doing a song, playing D and G for six minutes like 'Doing the Things that We Want To,' which I didn't really like, with no variation and the keyboard guy playing accordian. I thought, 'this is not why I got a guitar and wanted to play in a rock and roll band.' We hated each other's guts, me and the keyboard player. Lou got really abusive at the end- he'd hog all the guitar solos and made sure I got mixed out- even live. I got back from the tour and decided that was it. I assumed he knew it. He'd put me down to the rest of the band, knowing that they'd tell me about it later.

From the greedy professional angle, I've had three things that have made people interested in who I am. The Voidoids things, the Lou Reed thing and Matthew Sweet. On a personal level, Reed was a guy who really influenced me and I had a chance to give something back to him. Encouraging him to play guitar again was digging my own grave. But I would have done it again because I owed it to him. This guy changed my life. If I did something to put him back in the right direction... I wish that it would have gone on with the level of something like The Blue Mask. Everything else after is pretty lousy. He never found anyone else to replace me except the Velvet Underground and he had to ruin that. I hate him because if I had my way, we'd still be playing. It was good steady work. He didn't tour often. I hate his guts because he made it impossible to play with him. There was nothing in it for me. He was not going to give me any space for any creativity."

At the end of 'Kill Your Sons,' I'd do a drone and Lou would do a guitar solo- we'd get pretty far out there. This keyboard player thought it was joke and play with his feet

Yikes

off-topic - why is Sally Can't Dance Reed's biggest seller? There are no hits on it and apart from the last trio of songs it sounds fucking horrible.

I think Lou has asked himself the same question on many occasions

It's not his biggest seller – it's his highest charting album. His two biggest sellers are Rock and Roll Animal and New York.

and SCD peaked so high on the goodwill and sales built on Transformer and RARA.

It sold on the back of "Rock and Roll Animal", didn't it?

(xp)

I heard Transformer sold quite well too...

xpost me and my slow typing...

... in the UK it did, don't know how well it sold in the US. Also "Berlin" was in between it and "RnR Animal", and that bombed in the US (but did quite well in the UK)

NEW YORK???? Oh I hate that record! This one rules, tho. His goofy domestic stuff was cute and Waves of Fear is PERFECT. That shuddering but unresolving guitar/voice figure catches alcoholic wakeups way too well. What I don't get is how Lou doesn't realise he plays guitar better with SOMEONE ELSE. It doesn't make him look bad; it makes him play and sound a million times better.

Legendary Hearts is cute, not all that great. Mostly cos of ABOVE prob.

Eh. New Sensations had some of his best guitar playing, and he recorded alone.

LH is cute?!? It's even darker than TBM.

No it's not, it's got Rooftop Garden on it!

And I don't recall his guitar. I do recall Quine was on it but got mixed off.

Martial Law is, errrrrrrrrr, somewhat less dark than The Gun... for instance

But then you have the title track, "Betrayed," "Home of the Brave," "Bottoming Out."

Quine wasn't mixed off – he was mixed down. You can plainly hear his kind of solo on "Bottoming Out" and "Make Up."

from "LH":

Romeo, oh Romeo

Wherefore art thou Romeo?

He's in a car or at a bar

Or churning his blood with an impure drug

He's in the past and seems to be lost forever

yup still pretty much the best album ever

i'll put a hole in your face if you even breathe a word
tell the lady to lie down, i want you to be sure to see this, i wouldnt you miss a SA-cund
watch your wife
carrying a gun, shooting with a gun
dirty animal

going out on a limb here BUT:

Side A is the best side of any Lou solo album.

love this album.. quine's guitar solo on 'women' givs me chills

We could have used some of this enthusiasm for the 80s poll a couple weeks back. It didn't even make the top 100.

the gtr playing is awesome on this album but the songwriting is too earnest/obvious. it's like lou made his big comeback as a musician (yay!) at the same time that he kinda jumped the shark in terms of lyric writing. on the whole I prefer his trashy inconsistent 70s >>>>>> his "mature" work in the 80s and beyond. I mean lyrics like these are sheer genius:

She was the first girl in the neighbourhood
To wear tied-dyed pants, ah, like she should
She was the first girl that I ever seen
That had flowers painted on her jeans
She was the first girl in her neighbourhood
that got raped on Tompkins Square real good
Now she wears a sword, like Napoleon
And she kills the boys and acts like a son
Sally can't dance no more, Sally can't dance no more
She can't get herself off the floor, Sally, she can't dance no more
Sally became a big model, she moved up to eighties and park
She had a studio appartment and that's where she used to ball
folk singers, and that's where she used to ball folk singers
Sally can't dance no more, Sally can't get off of the floor

especially when compared to banality like "I love my motorcycle and my wife" etc etc

Lots of great lyrics on "The Blue Mask", some silly ones too, but it is Lou Reed after all

New Sensations > The Blue Mask

m. coleman basically on the money but I'll rep for Legendary Hearts as the last good one, the last hurrah, where the mature motorcycle man songwriting was, um, firing on all cylinders, hadn't yet crystallized into schtick and the Fernando Saunders whale sounds didn't overshadow the guitar playing.

never been able to get into this record. imho the best thing about it is the cover

New Sensations > The Blue Mask

I just checked, this opinion is still 100% batty

Heard it was originally supposed to be called Lou Sensations.

(You guys should listen to that NYPL VU interview, btw)

I love Lou, I think he's great

(You guys should listen to that NYPL VU interview, btw)

Downloading it

revisited this the other day - still lol'ing at Average Guy (my temperature is NINETY-EIGHT point TWO)

m coleman is one of my favorite ILM posters -- I look forward to them! -- but he's wrong about Reed's lyrics. "Our House" is a terrific piece of sustained writing, on every level (including musical).

I'm kinda of two minds about that one - its SO direct and literal, there's something kinda clumsy about it

But then the music churns and weaves itself around the verses and Lou's voice. My god, the intro -- how the guitars and bass create a very quiet ruckus, then settle....I can write reams about it.

I'm going to make one point abundantly clear: I cannot think of any belief system that can support the New Sensations > Blue Mask paradox. I'm just glad he didn't type Mistrial > Blue Mask, as that may have caused disruptions in the fabric of reality.

Wait a minute...

...Ooops.

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.

Xpost though according to wiki Transformer sold 475k in the UK which is a lot

Carolyn Says Sees

Welp since we were talking writing, feedback, colleagues, accomplices:

Delmore's Delicatessen of Dreams Responsibilities World Weddings Movies open all night

(Although I don't have the edition w Lou intro)

I do, now, since my paper copy is gone and I bought the ebook. I don’t like the Lou intro that much, surprise.

Puts me in a bit of a sour mood or deepens it, when I think of an annoying figure who once tried to permanently borrow some of my Delmore Schwartz books in order to enhance his already pretension persona before he really went off the deep end.

Actually I was a pole vaulter he appears in the Anthony DeCurtis bio where he runs afoul of Lou for flirting with Laurie which my (yet another) neighbor’s at the time (rock) journalist girlfriend didn’t believe until they asked the offending party himself who confirmed.

Reed’s own way of handling such situations was typically more blunt and frontal. At a birthday dinner for the novelist A. M. Homes at the Greenwich Village restaurant Il Cantinori, Reed noticed Anderson, seated across the table from him, enjoying a conversation with writer Lee Smith. Reed leaned across the table, glared at Smith, and challenged Anderson. “Who the fuck is this guy?” he asked. A devoted fan of Reed’s, Smith defused Reed’s anger by asking him about Delmore Schwartz.

Who could resist flirting w Laurie?

Good thing I know to ask about Delmore

proud and regal name!

Your Bialystock to his Bloom was such a perfect wit.

I’m trying to remember what Garland Jeffreys said about this whilst wearing t-shirt I bought from his wife at his apartment (He was doing a free concert on the grounds). Seem to recall he was unimpressed by Delmore at the time Lou introduced him. But man, I sure loved the James Atlas bio, along with the Delmore portrait in When Kafka Was the Rage, but took no little offense at his portrayal in Humboldt’s Gift.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/16/garland-jeffreys-hung-out-with-lou-reed-brush-with-greatness
The ending of this almost made me want to cry, really, although probably not nearly as hard as Lou cried at the end of Terms of Endearment.

A proud and regal name!
He told various stories about why his Mom named him that. As I mentioned on the xpost Delmore thread:
...Cynthia Ozick concludes, in her intro to Screeno: Stories and Poems, though some may think of the fancy poems as Delmore, the urban raincoat stories as Schwartz, "they're really from the same DNA." By the time GJ met him, may have already been consistently on the skids, although seems to have always been quite variable. Have held off on reading the Atlas bio because JA dismisses the stories after first collection, or more of them than I do, also, having read so much of him, don't really want to read that much more about him, as w Proust etc., but more so. Prob will someday, though.

Haven’t reread in years, but whatever beefs Atlas may have with some of the work, his portrayal of DS is extremely sympathetic.

I found Schwartz a lucid critic and pretty good short story writer and a clotted, obscurantic poet.

This indigestible hybrid of (Hart) Crane and Roethke.

You forgot top tier raconteur!

His most famous poems and a selected few others are good but yeah.

I know I seem to stand alone as his sole stan on ILB/X, but I feel something similar about Gilbert Sorrentino: indifferent to his poetry, jaw drops at everything else he does.

Coterie Writers Of Minimum Distinction Memorial Thread

The most recently, frequently revived Lou thread, so I'll paste this here, from ilxor tylerw's invaluable tumblr, doomandgloomfromthetomb:

Lou Reed - Tinley Park, Chicago, Illinois, September 12, 1992*

Last week, we heard Lou debut some spoken word renditions of a few Magic & Loss lyrics. Today, we get to hear them in a more traditional setting: you can’t beat two guitars, bass and drums. I’ve picked this particular show not only because it’s a very nice FM broadcast, but also because it features a very unique, very cool, very short-lived band: the awesome Marc Ribot on lead guitar and bassist Greg Cohen, along with drummer Michael Blair.

Ribot and Cohen at this point were probably best known for their work in the John Zorn and Tom Waits universes, and it’s interesting to hear their styles added to Lou’s early 1990s period. Ribot in particular is probably the most distinctive guitarist this side of Quine that Lou has worked with — and he sounds great here, going for broke in a way that Mike Rathke doesn’t. Check out his smoky solo on “Magician” or his driving, his shimmery sound on “Tell It To Your Heart” or his dramatic playing on “Sword of Damocles.” That latter tune is a highlight; towards the end, Lou quotes “Save The Last Dance For Me,” making its connection to Doc Pomus explicit. A really powerful moment!

I like the other Magic & Loss numbers, too — they’re a little more revved up and energetic, for sure. It’s also impressive that Lou tries to perform “Harry’s Circumcision” in front of a somewhat rowdy outdoor audience. He really believed in his new material — in fact, the set is dominated by late-period material, aside from a few obligatory walks on the wild side. Onwards!

Lou Says (1992): You’re confused because you’re thinking about pop music and pop records, or rock ‘n’ roll. Think about Brecht and Weill, “Seven Deadly Sins.” Boy, now I wish I had come up with that one first. If you think of it as Lou Reed music, not pop or rock, those expectations (of what kind of songs belong on a pop record) disappear, because they don’t exist for an artist… All the way back to “Heroin,” the idea was to tell stories from different points of view, with conflicting opinions. Some of it can seem very personal, or at least it comes across that way, because you’re acting. And then you can write something equally personal that’s completely at odds with what the first person said. Any great novel has lots of “personal things” floating through it, whatever the character you’re writing about.
*link is at top of tyler's page:
https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/search/Lou%20Reed%20Marc%20Ribot