Thanks humanriff re Quine. Will check it out. He played with Lou on Legendary Hearts and also on the New Sensation tour. But according to the bio Lou's ongoing insecurities forced him to fire Quine because he was too good and getting too much credit. The bios all paint an odd portrait of Lou, as very insecure and petty. Chuck hammer was peobably one of his fave session players becasue he was so young and so much inm awe of Lou. One thing about Lou is he alwasy surrounds himself with the ebst session guys. I love the Don Cherry/Lou coupling. Lou's phrasings have always been all his and one could clal them influenced by Jazz.
Like Lou I also go back and forth between the original Animal band from the 70's with the Hunter/Wagner guitar twin attack. R&R Animal is a truly great Rocklive album but I find myself wondering if this is a true Lou reed interpretation. Of course it is Lu himself so how could it not be? Still...hearing "Heroin" like that...it makes one want to hold yup your lighter. And that should just not happen on that tune. "Heroin" is another one of those songs with some of the most breathtaking poetry. "I wish I was born a 1000 years ago. I wish I had sailed the darkened seas on a great big clipper ship goin from this land to that; I'd put on a sailor's suit and cap". This is strong. I ended up on tour with Lou in the days when he was still a speed freak and it was crazy LOL

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

I really like Lou Reed but kinda lost touch with him after New York.

The Blue Mask is a great album with a lot of spontaneity and rawness. The album's greatness owes a lot, in my opinion, to Robert Quine. His guitarplaying was uniquely beautiful and raw. When you hear him play on a record you recognise immediately it's him. Another great album on which he's playing and very present is Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend"; a masterpiece.

I would rate R.Quine somewhere close to the top on my favorite guitarist list together with Keith, Lowell George and Jeff Buckley. All of them have an amazing ability to put a unique blend to song without becoming boring or repetetive.

ChelseaDrugstore

You should tell us some funny tales of Lou's speed freak days, that would be really interesting.

Ekelundh

In my opinion Lou hasnt made much great studio music in the last 15 years, the best things I have heard have been live bootlegs, especially of the last 2 or3 years. The album Ecstacy is not bad, and his Poe album the Raven is worth hearing, there are a few blistering numbers on it like "Blind Rage".

Also a DVD just came out of his show at Montreux in 2000, I was at that gig and it was awesome, it was billed as "singer-songwriter evening",an evening with Lou and Susanne Vega, some of the crowd expected an acoustic show, Lou however started with ten minutes of riffing and feedback and played brainblastingly loud about a third of the audience left, the other two thirds were in heaven.