Perhaps the unlikeliest cover of all, Glen Campbell's version of the Velvet Underground's "Jesus."

dcba, I get your point regarding the 1984 shows. But even that touring band had Robert Quine in it. A problem with the 1984 song arrangements was the inclusion in the touring band of keyboardist Peter Wood (who played in Pink Floyd's Wall touring band). Those synths were awful. The drummer (Lenny Ferrante?) wasn't much either. On the other hand, A Night with Lou Reed from 1983 is quite good.





Also, in the mid-80's Lou was trying for, and getting, mainstream respectability. His onstage demeanor was almost nice, not even a throwaway "shut the f-ck up," and totally straight. He was a few years into his marriage to Sylvia, fresh off the Honda commercial, and New Sensations sold a few copies. Wedded bliss took the edge away for a while.

New Sensations and Mistrial show that Lou wasn't always this contrarian who followed his own path without regard for commercial success. Sometimes, he'd play ball with RCA and try for a hit. But he gave that up after Mistrial tanked. Then, he became Professor Lou for New York, Drella, and Magic and Loss.

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Beast
By Patti Smith

[www.newyorker.com]

thanks for posting. I was wondering what Patti was feeling, and I probably wouldn't have seen this otherwise. a beautiful tribute

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ab
Sometimes, he'd play ball with RCA and try for a hit. But he gave that up after Mistrial tanked. Then, he became Professor Lou for New York, Drella, and Magic and Loss.

True, but what's Ecstasy then? Thats not quite professor, but its also not crap thats bland. Thats just a perfect representation of older studio Lou. Some guitar feedback, but solid solid songs that are mature, yet still have the VU feel.

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ab
On the other hand, A Night with Lou Reed from 1983 is quite good.

Hey you're right!!! I just remember I had a version of WOTWSide from a 1983 NYC club gig and I've worn the vhs to death. Quine delivered a stunning solo on that one.

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RollingFreak

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ab
Sometimes, he'd play ball with RCA and try for a hit. But he gave that up after Mistrial tanked. Then, he became Professor Lou for New York, Drella, and Magic and Loss.

True, but what's Ecstasy then? Thats not quite professor, but its also not crap thats bland. Thats just a perfect representation of older studio Lou. Some guitar feedback, but solid solid songs that are mature, yet still have the VU feel.

I think Ecstasy is one of the best albums he ever did. I love that one.

BECK: Sunday Morning

The more I read, the more I realize how much his music as always been a part of my life. Less than a week before Lou left us, a friend I have not seen in more than a decade posted a link to a recording of WOTWS on my Facebook page, noting that every time she heard it she was reminded of times we had shared. It made me smile.

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Wild Slivovitz

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hbwriter
i wrote a short lou thing with a photo i took- [www.therockrag.com]

That's a great read, Chris!

thanks a lot

Earliest recordings of Lou released !!

[blogs.villagevoice.com]

Lou Reed's first recording:

More early Lou Reed:

And even more early Lou Reed:

While I'm at it...one more early Lou Reed:

Here's some early Lou Reed and John Cale--the song where his band mates in The Primitives named his "ostrich tuning" on guitar, where he would tune all his guitar strings to one note, creating his trademark drone effect.

Another early Lou Reed track from 1964, recording as The Roughnecks for a song called You're Driving Me Insane.

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seitan

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RollingFreak

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ab
Sometimes, he'd play ball with RCA and try for a hit. But he gave that up after Mistrial tanked. Then, he became Professor Lou for New York, Drella, and Magic and Loss.

True, but what's Ecstasy then? Thats not quite professor, but its also not crap thats bland. Thats just a perfect representation of older studio Lou. Some guitar feedback, but solid solid songs that are mature, yet still have the VU feel.

I think Ecstasy is one of the best albums he ever did. I love that one.

Agreed. It's the last really good album he made. It could have used some pruning, but lots of well-written, mature songs.

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ab

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seitan

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RollingFreak

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ab
Sometimes, he'd play ball with RCA and try for a hit. But he gave that up after Mistrial tanked. Then, he became Professor Lou for New York, Drella, and Magic and Loss.

True, but what's Ecstasy then? Thats not quite professor, but its also not crap thats bland. Thats just a perfect representation of older studio Lou. Some guitar feedback, but solid solid songs that are mature, yet still have the VU feel.

I think Ecstasy is one of the best albums he ever did. I love that one.

Agreed. It's the last really good album he made. It could have used some pruning, but lots of well-written, mature songs.

Its arguably his last album. While The Raven is The Raven, and I don't not like it, its more of a hybrid for him. I wouldn't consider it a regular Lou release. Animal Serenade is brilliant, but its live so thats a little different. The Wind Meditations thing, while also maybe good (I haven't heard it) is also not a real Lou release. For all intents and purposes, Ecstasy is his last album (at least studio wise) and a damn fine one to end a career on. Like a @#$%& Possum Lou!

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RollingFreak
Its still so unbelievable how sad I am. Its been a week, and I wasn't near the Lou Reed I am of people like the Stones or others yet I'm still so upset. I still don't think its actually sunk in that Lou Reed won't be making new music anymore or continually pissing people off. It sounds overly dramatic, but I genuinely haven't figured out how to live in a world accepting that fact yet.

This sums up how I am feeling - I was not interested in music whatsoever until I heard the Velvets when I was 16. 2 songs grabbed me - "What Goes On" and "I Can't Stand It". Changed my life - from the Velvets I got Lou's solo albums then got into Stones/Clapton/Led Zep etc etc etc then looked further into the past and discovered fantasic blues. I always had a soft spot for Lou Reed as his music opened my eyes and ears. So when I heard the news it surprised me how upsetting it was. It was a shock because he always seemed so strong. Seventy One is too short. The world won't be the same without him. Loved his music, rest in peace Lou..can't believe he's not around anymore, life is precious.

Way back when ... I bought this french vinyl single

[www.45cat.com],

it was marked Velours Souterrain, and the B-side was this little ditty :





pre-VU Lou Reed

Patti Smith remembers Lou Reed: [nyr.kr]

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RollingFreak
Wow, that Wagon Wheel is excellent! Yeah, the Tots are underrated. I believe they are on the American Poet bootleg concert from late 72 I think. Basically the group he went to most during his early solo years, and they definitely had a good feel for his early solo and VU stuff. They played great setlists back then. Some stuff he'd never do again. Walk It Talk It, I'm So Free, etc. Great great stuff.

That is a very odd list, in that Wild Child is such an out there choice! Amazing song, as that whole first album is. I guess its mostly VU outtakes, although I never knew that so I know them as Lou Reed solo songs. But Wild Child, Going Down, I Can't Stand It, Berlin are all really great tracks. Whole album kicks front to back and its sad that its so criminally underrated. I don't think Lou ever really took it seriously because of that, which is sad because its a really good album. He didn't do that early straight rock stuff very long so I cherish that stuff. Albums like New York and Ecstasy are great, but my holy grail is that old rock stuff he did.

"Always back to Lorraine..." lol! Killer track.

I agree...love the lyrics in that track, such a great rock and roll song.

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Koen
Patti Smith remembers Lou Reed: [nyr.kr]

Lovely, thanks Koen...I've posted it below for convenience:


On Sunday morning, I rose early. I had decided the night before to go to the ocean, so I slipped a book and a bottle of water into a sack and caught a ride to Rockaway Beach. It felt like a significant date, but I failed to conjure anything specific. The beach was empty, and, with the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy looming, the quiet sea seemed to embody the contradictory truth of nature. I stood there for a while, tracing the path of a low-flying plane, when I received a text message from my daughter, Jesse. Lou Reed was dead. I flinched and took a deep breath. I had seen him with his wife, Laurie, in the city recently, and I’d sensed that he was ill. A weariness shadowed her customary brightness. When Lou said goodbye, his dark eyes seemed to contain an infinite and benevolent sadness.

I met Lou at Max’s Kansas City in 1970. The Velvet Underground played two sets a night for several weeks that summer. The critic and scholar Donald Lyons was shocked that I had never seen them, and he escorted me upstairs for the second set of their first night. I loved to dance, and you could dance for hours to the music of the Velvet Underground. A dissonant surf doo-wop drone allowing you to move very fast or very slow. It was my late and revelatory introduction to “Sister Ray.”

Within a few years, in that same room upstairs at Max’s, Lenny Kaye, Richard Sohl, and I presented our own land of a thousand dances. Lou would often stop by to see what we were up to. A complicated man, he encouraged our efforts, then turned and provoked me like a Machiavellian schoolboy. I would try to steer clear of him, but, catlike, he would suddenly reappear, and disarm me with some Delmore Schwartz line about love or courage. I didn’t understand his erratic behavior or the intensity of his moods, which shifted, like his speech patterns, from speedy to laconic. But I understood his devotion to poetry and the transporting quality of his performances. He had black eyes, black T-shirt, pale skin. He was curious, sometimes suspicious, a voracious reader, and a sonic explorer. An obscure guitar pedal was for him another kind of poem. He was our connection to the infamous air of the Factory. He had made Edie Sedgwick dance. Andy Warhol whispered in his ear. Lou brought the sensibilities of art and literature into his music. He was our generation’s New York poet, championing its misfits as Whitman had championed its workingman and Lorca its persecuted.

As my band evolved and covered his songs, Lou bestowed his blessings. Toward the end of the seventies, I was preparing to leave the city for Detroit when I bumped into him by the elevator in the old Gramercy Park Hotel. I was carrying a book of poems by Rupert Brooke. He took the book out of my hand and we looked at the poet’s photograph together. So beautiful, he said, so sad. It was a moment of complete peace.

As news of Lou’s death spread, a rippling sensation mounted, then burst, filling the atmosphere with hyperkinetic energy. Scores of messages found their way to me. A call from Sam Shepard, driving a truck through Kentucky. A modest Japanese photographer sending a text from Tokyo—“I am crying.”

As I mourned by the sea, two images came to mind, watermarking the paper- colored sky. The first was the face of his wife, Laurie. She was his mirror; in her eyes you can see his kindness, sincerity, and empathy. The second was the “great big clipper ship” that he longed to board, from the lyrics of his masterpiece, “Heroin.” I envisioned it waiting for him beneath the constellation formed by the souls of the poets he so wished to join. Before I slept, I searched for the significance of the date—October 27th—and found it to be the birthday of both Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath. Lou had chosen the perfect day to set sail—the day of poets, on Sunday morning, the world behind him.

This was posted today on Lou's Facebook page ....

[anearful.blogspot.co.uk]

Thanks to the ongoing slow-motion train wreck tragedy that is classic rock radio, it is all too possible that a majority of the people in this country associate Lou Reed with one song, the canny concoction known as Walk On The Wild Side. This is not an entirely bad thing as it is a brilliant song, and one that that managed to get both "head" and "colored girls" - i.e. transgression - on radios across the land. However, it is also shameful when you consider the gratitude we owe Lou Reed, both for his music specifically and for his ambitions for rock music in general. In countless interviews, Reed made it plain that his "life was saved by rock and roll," and that he wanted to return the favor by creating music that would align what was seen as teenage fare with the literary and artistic movements of the day, i.e. the great American novel in song.

For this reason, The Velvet Underground and Nico, the first album by his seminal band, is at least as important as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in affecting the transformation of rock music into an art form on the same level as books, movies, paintings, etc. What's more remarkable, he was able to accomplish this without losing sight of the blues and soul that made the music great to begin with. And why should we thank him for this? Simply because it meant that he made the rock and roll that saved the lives of a new, more sophisticated audience while inspiring some of the finest music of the seventies and beyond.

Even if he had burnt out and faded away after Loaded and being forced out of his own band, the songs he wrote for the four Velvet Underground albums (not to mention others released later) would have established him as one of the finest songwriters of the century. His novelistic eye for detail, ability to deal with multiple viewpoints and the compassion he almost always had for the characters he created and often portrayed in his songs enlarged the parameters of what a song could do. While he was sometimes accused of misogyny, it's remarkable how many songs he wrote from the point of view of women, from Nico's songs on the first album to Candy Says, Lisa Says and Caroline Says. That's not to mention She's My Best Friend and the tongue-half-in-cheek rebuttal of Women (I love women, I think they're great) from 1982's The Blue Mask.

I'm not going to spend any more time defending him - as a man he was more complex than most, which fed into his complexity as an artist. I will say that the one time I encountered him face-to-face, at a Tower Records autograph event, he was friendly and patient with the long line of fans. Funnily enough, while people love to attack him for being a bit of a bastard, there are few figures outside of hip hop whose street cred depends on them being the hard man. Concerns about him going soft are ridiculous, in any case, when you consider that the first track on VU's debut was the achingly beautiful Sunday Morning. By the time that record ended, Lou (and his cohort of John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker) had cleared so much artistic space for himself that to try to put a simple box around his talent was a fool's errand.

Defying expectations was a big part of his m.o., driven partly by the joy of taking on new creative challenges and the satisfaction of keeping people guessing. But to those of us who followed along closely, there was the excitement of being shown new perspectives on truth and beauty on a fairly regular basis. Here are a couple of snapshots of my own personal thrills of being a Lou Reed fan.

1983: I can distinctly remember the night air on Central Park West as I walked down to catch what was then the CC train for an important errand: a trip to the Bottom Line on West 4th Street to acquire Lou Reed tickets for me and my friend, Leo. This was a crucial concert and I was not leaving anything to chance. I was especially happy that Leo could join me as he was a bit of a project of mine where music was concerned. Just a few years earlier, he had called The Beatles "just a lot of loud guitar," so the fact that I had been able to move him off that and then get him into the Velvets and Lou Reed (not to mention a lot of punk, post-punk and new wave) was quite gratifying. Once the tickets were purchased, all we had to do was wait a few weeks, which time we spent listening to The Blue Mask, his complete return to form that had been released about a year earlier, as well as as much of the back catalog as we could get our hands on.

Anticipation was high by the time the night rolled around, and even a little anxiety. Which Lou would we get? The one capable of putting on a devastatingly effective rock show or the rapier-witted and sometimes downright nasty stand up comedian who appeared on Take No Prisoners, a live album recorded at the Bottom Line just five years earlier. In short, would he mug us on the way out, as he threatened to do on that album, or would he move us to tears with fragile and carefully observed songs like The Day John Kennedy Died?

We lined up outside the legendary club, our excitement immunizing us from the frigid February air. What passed for conversation was Leo saying, "Lou Reed, Lou REED," and me saying, "I know, I know!" Finally we we were let in and grabbed a couple of spots at one of the long tables that abutted the stage. Since the drinking age had recently been changed to 19 I ordered a screwdriver by using the fake ID I bought in the back of a Times Square arcade. This was Lou Reed's New York, and we did dangerous stuff like that.

There was little fanfare before the man himself and his crack band appeared before the sold out house and launched into Sweet Jane. A shiver went through me as I took in every detail of the performance. The way his eyes would almost shyly rake the crowd, as if he was taking it all in. The precision of his guitar playing, locked tight with Robert Quine (the other genius on stage that night). The glances to Quine, bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Fred Maher - communicating what looked like satisfaction and pride.

Before Sweet Jane had even ended, it was clear that Lou was in full command of his powers, excited and in total control all at once. The rest of the concert, a concise hour, did nothing to disabuse us of this first impression. The set list was well chosen between Velvet Underground classics and more recent material, with everything sounding homogenous due to the distinctive sound world of the quartet. There was Lou's guitar, dark and powerful, and Quine's trebly jangle, which could go into full on skronk at a moment's notice. Underneath was Saunders's very distinctive bass patterns, all swoops and glides, and Maher's drumming, which was both flawless and explosive.

Leo and I were hypnotized for the whole show, bobbing our heads like most of the crowd (maybe not Andy Warhol, whose table was not visible to us), in a perpetual state of joy and wishing it would never end. One moment that stood out was Lou's solo during Women; prefaced by some careful adjustments to his amp and axe, Lou uncoiled long, gorgeous notes, masterfully matched with overtones, the result sounding more like a viola than a guitar. It was jaw-dropping and I tried to hold it in my mind for as long as possible.

I made a tape of the concert, which was unnecessary as they were filming the whole thing. It was later issued as a video called A Night With Lou Reed and it is well worth watching. At the end of the video, we get to follow Lou backstage, where he greets well wishers (including his then-wife, Sylvia Morales, who deserves a lot of credit for his resurgence at that time), and makes a few telling comments about the show. "That was short and delicious," he says, and then "I hit one note that actually caused me to levitate about half a foot. I'm not sure if it was pain or pleasure that did it." Watching this a few days ago, I simply thought: I can relate.

I was lucky enough to see Lou four other times, and except for one over amped sonic travesty at The Ritz, they were all great shows, especially the pioneering concerts where he played New York and Magic and Loss in their entirety.

1983, part 2: In September 1982 I became a believer in love at first sight when I met the woman who later became my wife. About a year after that, I transferred to her college and, after dealing with the end of her previous relationship, we became an item. When November was on the horizon, all I wanted was that we could be together over Thanksgiving break. However, it was not to be: I was laid low by a bad case of mono and was not able (or allowed) to travel to Syracuse (Lou's college town) to be with my love. I was lonely, wiped out and miserable. I did not want to listen to any music, which is very unusual for me, when a half-remembered sound came to me, a sound that might be the only thing to fit my mood.

A couple of years earlier, I had paid a pretty penny for a copy of Metal Machine Music, Lou Reed's fifth solo album. I had done my reading so I had some idea what to expect but bought it anyway, partly as a completist act and partly out of curiosity. At the time, I dropped the needle down on a few spots on the album's four sides and thought it was both a noble experiment and a brilliantly conceived @#$%& you. I loved the liner notes (My week beats your year) and appreciated the irony of seeing RCA's Red Seal label - normally reserved for classical releases - applied to Lou's evil slabs of wax.

Now, however, my black mood called those little snippets back to my mind and I knew that no other record would do. I played all four sides and it fit my psyche like a glove. While I can't say I listen to Metal Machine Music frequently, I have always been grateful to Lou for helping me through that tough time. And fortunately, I didn't ruin everything when I played Berlin for my girlfriend some time later, even though she was actually angry at me for exposing her to such a depth of sadness. In the fullness of time, both albums, denigrated upon release, have become classics. That was Lou's final reward for staying true to his vision.

In the end, that is one of the central messages of Lou Reed's career: don't believe what you read, don't believe what people say about you, hone your internal compass and let it guide you. The same can be said for the artists who inspired him, from Hubert Selby, Jr. and William S. Burroughs, to Doc Pomus and Dylan. As a thought to end this, I urge you to follow Lou's example and find your own points of reference in his remarkable body of work. Don't believe the obituaries with their lazy shibboleths and bits of received wisdom. Transformer is not perfect (in fact, it's quite uneven), The Bells is not the great lost album (that might be Rock And Roll Heart), Take No Prisoners is not just a comedy album (stunning versions of Berlin and Pale Blue Eyes put the lie to that view), Lulu, his collaboration with Metallica, does not suck (it's a brave and bloody album, worth it for Iced Honey and Junior Dad alone). Listen for yourself. Do it for Lou.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-06 01:29 by tatters.

I had not listened to Lou for a while so this week I've been listening. Sweet Jane is one of my favorite songs. I'm Waiting For the Man!! I forgot how good that song is and even Walk On the Wild Side I love the little sax outro at the end. I'd been burnt on that song but it really is a great tune.

I was surprised to learn that his Mom is still living.

[ultimateclassicrock.com]

LOU REED WILLED HIS ESTATE TO HIS WIFE AND SISTER
by Jeff Giles November 5, 2013 9:46 AM

Lou Reed is gone, but his legacy lives on — and the wealth his music generated during his lifetime will now be used to care for the loved ones he left behind.

Billboard reports that Reed’s last will and testament has been filed in a New York court, and its terms are as elegantly simple as his best songs: He left the bulk of his estate to his wife Laurie Anderson, including a pair of homes owned by the couple in Manhattan and East Hampton, N.Y. Reed also made provisions for his sister, setting aside “about a quarter” of his holdings, on top of which he added $500,000 for the care and comfort of their mother.

It’s a suitably straightforward settlement for Reed, who, by most accounts, lived a fairly simple life during his last few decades. While he enjoyed his fair share of the trappings of rock stardom earlier in his career, Reed settled into something approaching normal domesticity during the ’80s and ’90s. While he wasn’t averse to the periodic high-profile project (including ‘Lulu,’ the record he cut with Metallica in 2011), he became increasingly engaged in less-mainstream pursuits like ‘Hudson River Wind Meditations,’ his album of instrumental music designed for aiding tai chi meditation.

Reed, who was 71 at the time of his passing last week, had no known children. As NME points out, his death leaves John Cale and Moe Tucker the only surviving members of their hugely influential former band the Velvet Underground.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-06 01:59 by tatters.

Tatters, the post from Lou's facebook page brought me to tears. Thanks so much for posting. As someone that just listened to the Blue Mask this morning, I could totally get into them seeing him around that time. Its yet another lost Lou Reed album, although I guess nearly all of them are. I still have never heard Metal Machine Music, and I don't know if I want to now, but this has given me more of an appreciation for it. The only thing I disagree with is his saying Transformer isn't perfect (it is, and its not his only perfect album, but it is). Otherwise, THAT was maybe the best read I've had about Reed since his passing. I wonder who wrote it. Those are the types of feelings that make me wish he was still here.

I too was surprised his mother is still alive. What is she, 90?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-06 03:15 by RollingFreak.

Saw Lou Reed live in 1980 at the Roxy in West Hollywood. Sat front row. Amazing show with a lot of Velvet Underground oldies.

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RollingFreak

I still have never heard Metal Machine Music, and I don't know if I want to now

How about a brief sample?






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-06 03:45 by tatters.