Lou Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. After serving as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, his solo career spanned several decades. He had a hit in 1973 with “Walk on the Wild Side”, but this level of mainstream commercial success was not to be repeated. Reed was known for his distinctive deadpan voice, poetic lyrics and for pioneering and coining the term ostrich guitar tuning. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time included two albums by Reed as a solo artist, Transformer and Berlin. (More from Wikipedia)
For those in the know, Lou Reed’s remarkable hit “Walk on the Wild Side” – which peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976 – is a sleazy romp through the world of artist Andy Warhol. As a member of the Velvet Underground – the house band of Warhol’s legendary studio The Factory – Lou Reed was certainly a familiar denizen of the Andy Warhol milieu. However, this background was primarily in-jokes that most listeners knew nothing about it, nor did they need to: The song’s under-stated musical arrangement provides an ideal setting for Lou Reed’s deadpan delivery of lyrics about an entire litany of taboo subjects – transsexuality, drugs, male prostitution, and oral sex. And that’s not to mention the chorus line – “And the colored girls go doo dah doo, dah doo, doo dah doo, doo dah doo . . .” – and the use of gay slang like “backroom” and “soul food” (the latter in the line “. . . looking for soul food and a place to eat”).
When women started showing up in otherwise male rock bands, they were normally the lead singers; but after awhile, women were as often on the musician side as the vocalist side. The roster of the classic line-up of the Velvet Underground – Lou Reed (lead vocals, electric guitar), John Cale (multi-instrumentalist), Sterling Morrison (bass guitar, electric guitar), and Moe Tucker (drums) – makes it seem that this classic band was an all-male group like virtually every other rock band in the 1960’s. Actually the drummer’s real name is Maureen Tucker.
Upon the death of Lou Reed in October 2013, the Velvet Underground has been celebrated once again. Allmusic calls them “the quintessential bohemian New York band of the ’60s that fused art, rock, and poetry in a fashion that proved incalculably influential”.
After the Velvet Underground broke up, Lou Reed mounted a decades-long solo career that started with a bang: “Walk on the Wild Side” is hard to top as an I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-hearing song, but it was as irresistible in 1972 as it is today and made it to #16 on the Billboard singles charts. In 1989, he released his long-ranging album New York; as identified as Lou Reed is with New York City, he needed to bring the goods if he was going to use that album name, and does he ever. Allmusic calls New York the finest solo album of Lou Reed’s career.
Among the eulogies written about Lou Reed are some that compare his contributions to rock and roll to those of Bob Dylan and John Lennon, and I can’t really argue with that assessment. Also, many musicians, even great musicians spend a lot of time coasting in their later years, but this doesn’t ever seem to have been true of Lou Reed – he was on his game throughout his career. It wasn’t until after his death that I heard this quote by Lou Reed himself from 1989 that sums up his musical vision perfectly: “My interest – all the way back with the Velvets – has been in one really simple guiding-light idea: take rock and roll, the pop format, and make it for adults. With subject matter written for adults so adults, like myself, could listen to it.”
John Cale has also had an important impact on music following his time with the Velvet Underground, though mostly behind the scenes. Cale’s own solo albums are less well known and include collaborations with Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison.
(December 2013)
Big Midnight also has released only one album, Everything for the First Time, which came out on Alive Records in 2003. Allmusic immediately notes in their review by Brian O’Neill, “Actually, there is nothing here that you will be hearing for the first time” and continues: “Everything for the First Time could have as easily came out in 1973 as it did in 2003. Call ’em ‘the Rolling Stooges’ and the band will have to plead guilty, as Big Midnight combines the nihilism of Iggy Pop (‘Love for Sin’ could have been a [David] Bowie or [Lou] Reed side written specifically with Ig in mind) with the bloozey, boozy swagger of Keith Richards’ crew.”
(June 2014)
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Regarding the Violent Femmes album Hallowed Ground, James Christopher Monger writes in Allmusic: “The album’s centerpiece, a searing indictment of loyalties broken and the snitches that break them, ‘Never Tell’ is the perfect balm for the bloody righteousness of youth; and when [Gordon] Gano screams, ‘I’ll stand right up in the heart of Hell / I never tell’, it’s hard not to stand right beside him. Christian imagery aside, Hallowed Ground is not as polarizing as some make it out to be. The band explores gothic Appalachian folk and child murder on the banjo-fueled ‘Country Death Song’, bawdy and bluesy Lou Reed-inflected infatuation on ‘Sweet Misery Blues’, and nuclear holocaust on the brooding title track [‘Hallowed Ground’], leaving little doubt that this is the same band that penned underground classics like ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ and ‘Add it Up’. Even the decidedly politically uncorrect ‘Black Girls’, with its free jazz mid-section that includes everything from jaw harp to the screaming alto sax of John Zorn and the Horns of Dilemma, is full of the same smirk and swagger that made ‘Blister in the Sun’ the soundtrack to so many people’s halcyon days.”
(November 2014)
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While this line-up never recorded another album, the Crawdaddys secured their place in the rock firmament with their next two releases (both on Voxx Records): the single “There She Goes Again” b/w “Why Don’t You Smile Now” in early 1980, and an EP called 5 x 4 in August 1980. For my money, “There She Goes Again” is the one Velvet Underground song (written by Lou Reed) that is tailor-made to be covered by other bands. There is an obscure cover of “There She Goes Again” by the Electrical Banana in 1967 which is mentioned by Wikipedia; this is not the same band as the Electric Banana that was a pseudonym for the Pretty Things over several years. However, the only other cover version of “There She Goes Again” that I know of is by R.E.M.; and Peter Buck acknowledges that their recording is inspired by the Crawdaddys version. “There She Goes Again” is included on the Bomp! Records compilation CD Straight Outta Burbank, and that is where I learned about the song. The “B” side, “Why Don’t You Smile Now” was co-written by Lou Reed and John Cale but pre-dates their involvement with the Velvet Underground; “Why Don’t You Smile Now” was originally released on a 1965 single under the name the All-Night Workers.
(January 2015/2)
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An honest-to-God music video of the opening track on their debut album, “Ride on the Train” can be seen on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GlNKST3_Rc . Hollis Brown’s great cover of the Lou Reed song “Sweet Jane” (audio only) as taken from Hollis Brown Gets Loaded is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=duP9OECMyWs . Another music video of “Nightfall” that mostly features a female model posing, dancing and stretching in front of Paris street scenes like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre is at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXMTZi0w34 .
(May 2015)
