What Where and Why:
Where have I been all summer? Well, spending time with Lou Reed, of course.
And like most who have done so, I'm asking myself why. And the only sensible answer is: so you don't have to.
It started with a Father's Day gift which I asked for.
Lou Reed: Original Album Classics
It comprises his first five solo studio albums, skipping two live albums and Metal Machine Music! I wonder why? I WILL get to that, eventually.
It was too hard to absorb all five records in one gulp, so I waited until I had some "free time" and did a deep dive.
Way too deep actually. I decided I would reed (see what I did there?) all the Lou Reed/Velvet Underground biographies I could find. Again, why? I don't know. I treated it like my World History Project, and I can honestly report while VU was worth the effort, Lou himself may not have been. Of course, I'm not sure world history itself is worthy of those efforts either. But that's a topic for another day/decade.
But Reed is an important artist who blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. But when you get down to it, it's because he was the leader of the Velvet Underground. But since most folks my age still don't all that much about them, it's not so easy to care, is it?
Add to that, within the first few pages of any of those books you will find words and phrases like "prick", "jerk", "asshole" and "worst human in history". So the reading experience ranges from horrifying to hilarious to and back again.
I was lucky to start with Lou in 1982 with The Blue Mask, considered by many to be his best solo record. It was also the one to kick off his 1980s resurgence. And I got a few more over those years from that period.
But I never got around to the early 70s, right after the Velvet Underground broke up, which was when the Lou as we all knew and feared him, emerged. This collection had the exact records I needed to fill that huge hole in the Lou Reed story as I understand it to be.
It's one thing to become familiar with the four original Velvet Underground studio records, as I did out of order and after the fact. That only covers five years. It's an altogether different task to track down all twenty-ish Lou Reed records, which I have no plan on doing. But I should at least explore the tumultuous early 70s period when Lou could do no wrong or right, depending on who you were.
But I'm not going to talk about that yet.
Before we skip to my Lou, we're going to talk about the Velvets again, because this trip gave me the chance to listen to them again, which only made me love them more, bad behavior notwithstanding. I was very lucky to hear them in the order I did because I went from most to least accessible record. It goes 1,4,3,2 and I highly recommend it.
So here is my original take on VU, which still holds up.
But for those of you who have to catch a bus, here's a quick summary:
The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)
Epochal. Rockers, ballads, drugs, S&M, and good old-fashioned noise. One of the best ever.
A
White Light, White Heat (1968):
Breaking away from Warhol, losing Nico, and angry at the world for not loving them, they turn up the volume to twelve and give everyone the finger. (A pattern Lou would repeat this many more times.) And "Sister Ray" is earth-shaking.
But only for the converted.
A-
The Velvet Underground (1969):
With John Cale gone, it's now eerily quiet. Even a bit muffled. But well worth it because the songs are great.
A
Loaded (1970):
As poppy as they'd ever get. It seems a bit slight at first. So why did I want to play it over and over again?
A
And for the hell of it, here's some snippets from the later compilations:
I caught Live at Max's Kansas City on YouTube and kinda loved it. The ambiance can be a bit distracting, and Mo Tucker couldn't drum bc she was pregnant at the time. But she wasn't on Loaded either and I love that album, too. They all sound in great spirits. So why did Lou quit right after the show? A-
Anyway, after five years of recording and touring to no avail, an exhausted Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground and the music business altogether, dropping out for about two years.
For your listening pleasure, here's an hour's worth of VU.
Next: Lou, Alone
No comments:
Post a Comment