Lou Reed Solo

um, not counting compilations and catalog stuff, he's made three albums in the past decade. two have gone gold and one went platinum. and his catalog continues to sell quite well. and his records are probably relatively cheap to make. even if he wasn't dylan, any label would be extremely happy to have him. plus, he IS dylan.

Take out the "live" part and that sums up pretty much all of Lou's output in the 70s, bless 'im

Metal Machine Music
Take No Prisoners
Transformer (CD)

That's also the chart (for me) inasmuch as most played...

Couldn't be - because they were certified gold not long after they came out.

So, basically, he is the Woody Allen of rock.

Metal Machine Music is the sexiest album ever made, mark you.

Reed moved from RCA to Arista in 1976, and then back to RCA again in 1981 until 1986. His albums may not have all been massive hits, but he had a solid fanbase which insured that his albums would sell X number of copies. He enjoyed a certain amount of success with Transformer, Rock and Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby and Sally Can't Dance during his initial RCA run, and then with New Sensations and possibly Mistrial during the second run (the videos for "The Original Wrapper" and "Video Violence" certainly received a lot of airplay here in Canada). When he left RCA the first time, he was in debt to them for $700000, so they must have seen some potential for profit to sign him again five years later. It was also about this time that The Velvet Underground was finally beginning to receive some recognition for their influence on modern musicians and their albums began to appear in print again in the USA. So the VU "legend" may have played a part in his re-signing to RCA (or not being dropped during this time), but it certainly wasn't helping him shift units in the US in the mid 1970s. There was no VU Legend in the 1970s.

What is it that labels see now? It must be The Legend. I doubt he will ever duplicate the success of New York. I can't stand the way he sings now and thus can't rate his last few albums (the VU live 93 album was the last straw), so your guess is as good as mine.

Also, the RIAA only logs US sales innit? The labels don't care about international sales because they aren't making the profits.

I am kinda diggin Rock n Roll Heart tbh

That's my favourite one, dude!

The line about New Wave films is batshit awesome.

the lounge jazz version of Sheltered Life is endearing

lou's faux populism is so good it's almost not faux. R&R Heart always has me thinking, "yeah, i don't like opera and ballet either! yeahhhh."

is this the same band as on Coney Island Baby...? It bears some sonic similarities, although this one gets a little more left-field with some of the distorted guitar tones and processed vocals, and the songs are simpler and lighter in general.

fwiw I do not like opera or ballet either lolz

Yeah, that whole album is just killer. The one "Ladies Pay" about the ladies who miss their men at war especially gets me every time. And the piano! Oh god.

not sure if it's the same band as Coney Island -- i don't think so? maybe some of the same dudes. But yeah, this one does have some odd production choices. The superfuzz guitar on the title track is fun.

^^^yes Ladies Pay! good stuff

Banging on a Drum rhythm track is fairly insane, was not expecting that from Lou

I'm thinkin the drummer in particular sounds like the same guy... I should just look it up

ah. yes. the rhythm section + keyboardist are all the same

yeah ... innaresting that lou plays all the guitar on R&R Heart, apparently?

let's take a minute to pay trib to this dude: http://www.iridescentmusic.ca/fonf.html

what is it about old men and terrible hawaiian shirts

maybe it's just something that happens to you, you know? like you wake up one day and you've got nothing but hawaiian shirts in your closet. and it feels good.

Yeah I think Hawaiian shirts are cool, actually, especially on older men.

but... you're onstage, not on vacation!

love these shirts
http://z.about.com/d/classicrock/1/0/I/9/velvetundergroundc.jpg

someone told me that tai chi album he made was surprisingly decent ambient

umm it's ok? i mean, i'm not sure if i'd be super into it if i didn't know it was Lou Reed. but because i know it is him, I AM SUPER INTO IT. to a certain extent. I bought the fucking thing, anyway.

(well, d/l'd from emusic, which isn't quite the same thing)

those VU shirts are NOT hawaiian come on now!

yeah, you're right. i just like that picture. VU at the Zoo!

Check out these Lou Reed acoustic demos from 1970, they are quite awesome:

http://croz.fm/files/category-lou-reed.php

whoah!

Grab 'em fast, I hear this site is getting shut down any minute now...

Yeah I love that pic, too, Tyler. Notice Lou's pants as well. He's got the best outfit of them all.

Okay I'm gonna grab me these acoustic demos now. I've never had the courage to listen to his first solo album until now but I gotta tell you those backup singers on "I Can't Stand It" were a no-no.

those acoustic demos are pretty good -- think i have them on one of those VU Ultra Rare Trax bootlegs. "Ride Into The Sun" is particularly nice. Lou's first solo album is fascinating, though not always in a good way. Hard to know what kind of sound exactly they were going for?

Banging on a Drum rhythm track is fairly insane, was not expecting that from Lou

I was thinking of Follow the Leader here - that sorta Headhunterish jazz-funk groove. very odd. also is it me or do the lyrics namecheck Ornette?

Convinced Bowie ripped off the feel of that track, rhythmwise, for "Look Back in Anger"

Yeah the first time I heard "Follow The Leader" (long before I'd heard the rest of the album) I was shocked. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting from Lou Reed, and damn funky. I'd only gone looking for it because of the song on the Velvet Underground Quine Tapes by the same name which absolutely killed me, albeit in an entirely different way. Shakey have you heard that?

One thing I only recently realised is how much he depended on Velvet outtakes during his 70s solo years. The debut album is almost all VU material. Transformer is, what, about half VU material. Even Berlin is about half VU songs! As late as Street Hassle in 1978, he's still pulling out old VU songs from the bottom drawer.

Really??? I don't think of Berlin as borrowed from Velvets material at all.

Certainly not Street Hassle.

Really??? I don't think of Berlin as borrowed from Velvets material at all.

Men Of Good Fortune, Oh Jim, Caroline Says II and Sad Song were all first done by the Velvets. The title track is also recycled.

Certainly not Street Hassle.

It's got Real Good Time Together on it

"Men of Good Fortune" is a Velvets' song?

Well, according to Wikipedia it is... although I've never heard it. You can hear the Velvets doing Oh Jim and Sad Song on Spotify though...

Oh yeah, I know they're from the Velvets era. Amusing that "Kill Your Sons" on the acoustic demos thing is a fairly naff protest song! Also that Lou was "Looking Through the Eyes of Love" in 1970 but "Looking Through the Eyes of Hate" by 1973.

xpost
A little bit of googling leads me to this site http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/andsoon/lostsongs/lostsongs.html

which says there's a tape of VU doing Men Of Good Fortune in 1966

Love the least-to-most-colourful arrangement of those shirts!

Okay, I'll give you "Real Good Time Together", but where is the Velvets version of Sad Songs, for starters? Don't leave me out of this. Ah fook, here were are with this Spotify thing, though. I can't get Spotify. Jeez, way to kill the joy.

I'll get it my own way, never mind.

Version of "Sad Song" on the expanded edition of "Loaded" with Lou going on about castles and kilts!

which says there's a tape of VU doing Men Of Good Fortune in 1966

I imagine in those days it was one of Lou's embarrassing Dylanesque protest songs

Sad Song actually sounds pretty good as a VU song. You could imagine it on the third album or something.

Yeah I had a problem because I couldn't find my copy of Loaded for awhile there. Totally panicked before I finally figured out where it was. Sorry that I don't remember this or understand why it's not on my iPod. Gonna fix this right away.

downloading all the Lou material from that site!

OK, not all of it.

Alright, listening to this Velvets version of Sad Song now and yeah I remember this, but without all the strings and grandeur, it really ain't much.

"Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall" on the other hand...yikes.

<3 <3 <3 <3 Lou

I think that version of "Sad Song" is great!

Yeah, I kind of like the stripped-down Sad Song, it's got a similar vibe to the stuff on the 69 live album.

Anyway, my point was that in the few years of the Velvet Underground, he must have been bulimically writing songs at an amazing rate but come the seventies, his muse seems to have left him somewhat (drugs age etc I guess), and he has to resort to pulling out all the stuff he wrote years before but at the time didn't deem good enough or something. And he's still doing it late into the seventies

That was always one of my all time faves on this CD, that song "Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall". I love it when the bridge comes in (I guess you can't really call it a proper guitar solo), it sounds so Scottish right there, or like an Irish jig or something. You want to sortof cross your feet and dance to that shit. Fucking kills me.

yeah but Zelda, I mean it's not like he didn't...develop. I think it's kindof unfair to criticize him for that.

Oh I'm not really criticising him, I like those seventies albums, it just hadn't occurred to me before how he'd really squeezed VU for every last bit of juice. I mean, Berlin is immense but I'm a bit bowled over now that I realise out of the nine tracks only four were original to the album! Obviously Berlin is all about the production anyway, love it or loathe it.

Is there a parallel with Bowie? Starts madly doing songs he cowrote with Iggy when his creative juices run dry - to considerably less good effect of course!

Remember reading a rather sneery interview with Sterling Morrison where he pointed out how many of Lou's solo albums were reliant on Velvets' retreads

yeah, it's true -- I think even "Kill Your Sons" from Sally Can't Dance even stretches back to the Velvets days. Still, those were Lou's songs -- no harm in reworking them. Some people just have really strong bursts of creativity, and 1965-70 was Lou's. I loooooove that VU "Sad Song" ... Same with "Satellite of Love." Always thought it was surprising the songs Lou didn't return to in the 70s -- "Foggy Notion," in particular.

"Over You"!

yeah! was just listening to that on Live 69. beautiful song! always liked "move right in" too -- the bootleg versions have lyrics. just a cool groove. though that may have been why he didn't go back to it - it may have just been a cool groove to him.

honestly I prefer most of VU's original versions to Lou's solo ones (with a few exceptions - the Transformer stuff is all improved, and She's My Best Friend on Coney Island Baby is about on par with the original)

listening to a bootleg now from 1976 -- what a funny band, must've been on the Rock n Roll Heart tour. So little guitar, mostly sax and keyboards. Really cheesy synths!

http://dummidumbwit.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lou_reed_hat_std.jpg

I didn't think I had any interest in solo Lou but I heard Street Hassle and Take No Prisoners for the first time this year and they absolutely knocked me out.

doesn't Lou call X'gau some name on TNP?
still vouching for Ecstasy as one of Lou's best solo records; and one of the best records of this decade.

think he calls xgau a "toefucker"
i'll have to listen to Ecstasy again -- I really like parts of it, but am not nuts about others ...

some of the actual music on TNP is atrocious (some of it is great) but oh man it is Lou at his comedy finest

let's talk about the Bells

weird that anyone would characterize anything on here as "jazz" (Don Cherry's presence notwithstanding) - was kinda surprised at how dense and harsh the wall o' synths is on here. Disco Mystic is amazing, almost Spector-esque.

also gotta say when Lou tries to lay on his "I am SINGING, with VIBRATO" schtick it sounds terrible. he's good at singing gently and at doing his speak-singing thing, but when he tries to over-emote it's just urgggh dude you don't have the pipes for this, you can barely stay in tune...

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

it's not even really disco...? the tempo is way too slow

I Want to Boogie With You is similarly ironically titled - kinda impossible to boogie to anything so sluggish. but it's a great song, wonderful combination of doo wop, typical Lou Reed venom, and a dense sludge of synths and horns

"With You" is kinda fun – doesn't he use "capricious"?

rhymes with "death wish"!

Lou must've been pissed the first time he saw the album cover of The Stranger, knowing he could've done that.

I don't see the connection

need to hear the bells again, but i think sally can't dance is my fave studio Lou from the 1970's. it may be considered a throwaway but it seems more consistent to me than CIB and St. Hassle

"Ennui"!

I'd have to go back to it but I think I deleted like 2/3rds of Sally Can't Dance... the tracks that are good on it are REALLY good though. "Billy" (rhyming "foliage" with "college"!), the line about alimony in "Ennui", the title track

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXZ2C5Uil-0

All of the things that your old lover said
Look at them, they jump out of windows
And now they're just dead
It's the truth, don't you realize
Faded without any talent or fun
Running out in the streets, balling everyone
It's the truth, It's the truth
Pick up the pieces that make up your life
Maybe some day you'll have a wife and them alimony
Oh, can't you see

Lou was great at writing songs that capture that morning hangover feeling

Good Taste is the other good one on Sally Can't Dance. I think what bugged me about the rest of the album was the sorta nonsensical/inappropriate arrangements, backing band didn't work well with Lou in general imho

miss ya Bimble
:(

"Billy" holds up better in the memory. When I reheard it last month the inapposite guitar strums and clumsy rhymes bothered me this time.

"Animal Language" is kinda fun.

*"Serenade" rather.

I thought Ecstasy was the best thing Lou had done in a long time. Like, a LONG time (since Songs For Drella at least, probably since New York). I also enjoyed The Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn. Those two stand up to anything Mr. Reed has done, IMHO.

he Stone: Issue 3, the free improv blow-out on Tzadik w/ Laurie Anderson & John Zorn.

curious what Lou contributed to this, exactly

Set the Twilight Reeling is leaner and monochromatic, so I prefer it to the excellent Ecstacy -- and, yes, they're his best albums since the early eighties trilogy.

having listened a few times now I gotta say I kinda really love the sound of "The Bells". Sorta reminds me of the Dion/Spector album. Oddly, the consistently worst thing about it is Lou's vocals, sounds like he's straining way too much most of the time. Even so, plenty of killer lines, particularly in "Families", a couple others

i love The Bells; i think it's the density of the production/mix--cf, the overall thinness of GUIP just a year later--that makes all the difference between these relatively "ok" songs and those on other, comparably more or less hacked-out Reed records. probably my second fave '70s Lou disc really (Street Hassle will always come out tops for me).

yeah it took me by surprise - everything I'd read about it on the internet had led me to expect a much thinner/limp-sounding record. Were the stacked, overdriven synths an attempt to cop some movies from Bowie's Berlin-trilogy...? I think they come out sounding closer to La Dusseldorf or something.

well it was considered to be his art rock (a la Bowie, Eno, Heads, Gabriel) move at the time. so yeah, i suppose.

that's strange, it doesn't seem any art-ier than any of his other albums to me - its the usual mishmash of songs colliding with an inexplicably bizarre production aesthetic, which was pretty much his MO for the entire 70s

it wasn't as "street" as previous efforts, tho, and a helluva lot jazzier (sonically speaking), too. jazz + rock = art + rock. ^_^

the title track alone would probably be enough for people to say "art rock" at the time.

yeah I dunno I don't hear the "jazz", to be honest.

there's nothing on here as capital "J" JAZZY (or hilarious) as "Sheltered Life" off of Rock n Roll Heart, for example

Don Cherry plays on it -- what more do you want?

(but yeah, aside from that, not terribly jazzy)

I know and I love him but his presence alone doth not a jazz record make. I mean even some of Cherry's own stuff can only be classified as jazz in the broadest sense of the term. Brown Rice doesn't really swing, y'know?

Lou loved his Herbie Hancock records, that's for sure.

also this has to be some of the saddest lyrics Lou's ever written (Street Hassle comes close)

Mama, you tell me how's the family
And papa, tell me how thing's going by you
And little baby sister, I heard that you got married
And I heard that you had yourself a little baby girl, too
And here's some uncles and some cousins I know vaguely
And would you believe my old dog Chelsea's here, too
And would you believe nobody in this family
wanted to keep her
And now that dog's more of a part of this family
then I am, too
I don't come home much anymore
No-no-no I don't come home much anymore
Mama

And mama, I know how disappointed you are
And papa, I know that you feel the same way, too
And no-no-no-no-no I still haven't got married
And no-no-no there's no grandson planned here for you
And by the way, daddy tell me how's the business
I understand that your stock she's growing very high
No, daddy, you're not a poor man anymore
And I hope you'll realize that before you die
Because I don't come home much anymore
No-no-no-no-no I don't come home much no more
But daddy

And please-please-please-please-please
come on let's not start this business again
I know how much you resent the life that I have
But one more time, I don't want the family business
Don't want to inherit it upon the day that you die
Really, daddy should have given it to my sister
You know Elisabeth, you know Elisabeth
she has a better head for those things than I
She lives practically around the corner
That's really the kind of child you could be proud of
But papa, I know that this visit's a mistake
There's nothing here we have in common, except our name
And families that live out in the suburbs
Often make each other cry
And I don't think that I'll come home much anymore
No-no, I don't think I'll come home much again
Mama
Papa
Families
Often make each other cry
No, I don't think that I'll come home much anymore
(How's the families)

no, not "jazz record," '70s jazz-inspired sonics. dig?

xp

luv "Families."

Favourite track is "All Through the Night"

'70s jazz-inspired sonics. dig?

I... guess? what 70s jazz record sounds like this?

@ Moshy: I think that's his guitar gettin' all squeely in there. Sometimes hard to distinguish from Zorn's blowin'. ;-)

whoa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Ngt7VY-Iw

That rules.

will go to my grave saying that album's overcondemned

SING ALONG WITH LOU

"She was the first girl
in her neighbourhood
to get raped in Tompkins Square...
real good"

Lou too bored to sing along with Lou

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f480ebfbdc358daf1048c2f1aa537b33/tumblr_mhmtj3PaEa1s54i6co1_400.jpg
i listened to sally can't dance a couple weeks ago -- pretty good! worst thing is the sax on "billy".

lol that's one of the only songs I like on the album

i think the song is ok, but man, that dude playing the sax! like he runs out of ideas about 15 seconds in and has to keep playing for another three minutes.

standard lou reed operating procedure!

not denying its essential cheeseball Saturday Night Live-ness

earotic sax

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjL0HPeCIAAxlsj.jpg

https://31.media.tumblr.com/a152bdb00e88655976632a6696c8f433/tumblr_n3h4darPRJ1qckm0wo1_500.jpg

think i'm going to listen to ecstasy on the bus ride home

I was listening to the "Sally Can't Dance" this morning for the first time in forver and it was a lot better then I remember. Something about the sleazy bar-band r&b combined with Lou "Lou-ing" really makes for something...odd.

"Animal Language"!

I can only imagine how Lou zig-zagged around the beat singing these songs live

new sensations is kind of a jam throughout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQgLn4zo-wA&feature=kp

I really can't stand the overall sound of Sally Can't Dance. I've only kept three songs from it (guess which ones)

can't stand the sound of Rock n Roll Animal either tbh

I used to hate Rock N Roll Animal, I remember just cringing the first time I heard it when I was in college, but I've really come around to it. Esp in the last five yrs or so.

My wife, a die hard Velvets fan, who doesn't have much time for solo Lou considers RnR Animal to be a crime against nature

yeah i'm still on the "why no i dont recall wishing lou would replace the velvets with the silver bullet band" side when it comes to rnr animal

i mean i may turn around on it, lou reed with the silver bullet band does sound not unamusing

but basically any "lou aims for cobo hall" re-arrangement of a velvets song/demo <<<<<<< the velvets song/demo

i forgive 70s critics for being kinder because they were coming from a "why ISNT lou more successful, maybe female background vocalists will do the trick" pov

also it was hard to hear VU before Lou Reed when VU hadn't come out

For me it scratches a certain itch, when I think of those songs I don't usually think of the RnR Anminal vers but it's cool to hear them in a different context.

I saw Jandek a few days after Lou passed and I really, really wanted him to come out and just do a note perfect vers of "Sweet Jane" from RnR Animal.

That, sadly, did not happen.

None other than Sterling Morrison himself nailed what the problem was with that album, more or less, saying something like "these guys use the same guitar tone on every single song from beginning to end, same tone, same volume, they never switch it up." Of course it doesn't help that it is a guitar tone I hate with the heat of a thousand suns.

lol at da croupier

i've kinda come around on the r&r animal band/arrangements, but i did hate it for a long time. some of it still makes me cringe.
speaking of weird eras, this show from 1986 has a totally weird band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv9ZlE3ymZY

i found a fernando saunders solo lp on the street for a buck a few months ago but still haven't gotten around to playing it

this one

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXAYRBxibrs/TbCYdnk8CbI/AAAAAAAAA2k/Mkc0jZvXBos/s400/Fernando%2BSaunders%2B-%2BCashmere%2BDreams.gif

bah

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXAYRBxibrs/TbCYdnk8CbI/AAAAAAAAA2k/Mkc0jZvXBos/s400/Fernando%2BSaunders%2B-%2BCashmere%2BDreams.gif

haha, man, if light in the attic put that out, people would be creaming over it a la this lewis dude.

the rare album to feature both s. porcaro and l. reed in the writing credits

Only thing I like about R&R is when it is name checked on Street Hassle.

Re: Fernando S. Sorry, but I never really learned to love the sound of fretless bass. For me it falls between two stools. Decide whether you want to play upright or electric, don't try to play both at once. Don't even mind if you double track. *Bows to Herbie Flowers*

also you gotta dig this

PRODUCED BY : FERNANDO SAUNDERS FOR FERNANDO'S HIDE-AWAY MUSIC, LTD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk_QrTTNkl8

allmusic review has some choice lines:

- "a highly listenable disc which contains flavors of Prince without a testosterone overdose"
- "Great album cover has Saunders in a dream state flowing into some otherworld"
- "The two songs produced by Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro actually(!) have Jeff Porcaro on drums and Steve Lukather on guitar"
- "one of those records radio should be chastised for not seeking out and playing on its merits"
- "Perhaps this is where Paula Abdul got the idea for her hit of the same name, "Opposites Attract," which appeared just a year later."

an antidote to prince's rampant testosterone

i've kinda come around on the r&r animal band/arrangements, but i did hate it for a long time. some of it still makes me cringe.
speaking of weird eras, this show from 1986 has a totally weird band

I saw that band once in '86 (on the Amnesty Int'l tour). I was still relatively new to Lou, and I assumed it was de rigueur for 60s feedback monsters to eventually settle down with some nice session musicians (see also: Pete Townshend). The drumming was dull, I never got into the sound of fretless electric bass, and the saxophonist was awful, moreso in retrospect (Lou, remember how much you loved Ornette Coleman? Then why'd you hire Dave Koz?)

But not having Quine meant that Lou took the solos. In the set I saw, there was only one solo, at the end of "Video Violence," but holy fuck, it was mindblowing.

B-b-but is there enough estrogen?
(Xp)

I assume everyone here knows that Fernando Saunders' son represented Hungary at this year's Eurovision Song Contest?

the "street hassle" from that 1986 concert is fucking bizarre -- they seem to want to turn parts of it into a singalong: "Hit and Run! Hit and Run!" "Bad Luck! Bad Luck!"

Excellent post, Tarfumes, especially

Lou, remember how much you loved Ornette Coleman? Then why'd you hire Dave Koz?

FERNANDO SAUNDERS FOR FERNANDO'S HIDE-AWAY MUSIC, LTD

looooooool

If someone were to ask me which Marshall Crenshaw album was my least favorite I would have to say: the one with Fernando Saunders on it. Graham Maby runs rings around him.

Lou, remember how much you loved Ornette Coleman? Then why'd you hire Dave Koz?
heh heh, well, lou loved doo wop, he probably thought he was gettin' some honkin' sax action.

goddamn that is an impressive mullet on that sax player in the live show you posted

is that Dave Koz?

yeah it's kinda of funny how some of these guys wanted some hot horns in their tunes and thought they were gonna get some serious muscle and it just ended up like

http://38.media.tumblr.com/2aea9eda7522831e2243945859187f26/tumblr_mn0tbvWfum1s8nhhfo1_400.gif

xp it's apparently a dude named rick bell.
hilarious that the keyboard player is named Woody Smallwood

Hey Lou, at least your arch-rival Frank Zappa hired Don "Sugarcane" Harris.

lol @ Woody Smallwood.

Haim is covering that Fernando Sauders album in it entirety at the next All Tomorrow's Parties

hahahaha i am so about that fernando saunders record holy shit

alfred get in this thread and back me up

Fernandomania 2014 starts here

this is...interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMpWQ9L-Gcs

oh shit totally sick keytar solo on tell it to your heart. take it to the bank, smallwood!!!!!

this version of "jesus" is actually kind of good in a if bruce hornsby was krautrock kinda way

alfred get in this thread and back me up

Think we should keep addressing Lou directly on this thread until his revenant shows up to provide us with posthumous spilkes.

take it to the bank, smallwood!!!!!

dying over here

Maybe Lester Bangs will show up too

this version of "jesus" is actually kind of good in a if bruce hornsby was krautrock kinda way

― sinister porpoise (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 25 July 2014 17:22 (1 minute ago) Permalink

I am currently contemplating the sort of person whose taste falls in the Venn diagram of Bruce Hornsby & Krautrock

man, yeah, i kind of dig that saunders jesus duet. though i don't know, i am kind of replacing fernando's falsetto with bono's in my head. is that lou's final recording?

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0002/095/MI0002095194.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

I am currently contemplating the sort of person whose taste falls in the Venn diagram of Bruce Hornsby & Krautrock
pretty sure we all just have to look in the mirror to see this person, right? i mean goddamn imagine a damo/hornsby collab. as good as lulu.

guilty as charged

I am currently contemplating the sort of person whose taste falls in the Venn diagram of Bruce Hornsby & Krautrock

Go over to the Introduce Yourselves! thread and find out.
(Ha, xp)

lol
"tell it to your heart" really is pretty sweet on that video, like some kind of jersey shore balearic power ballad.

bass solos are really the most useless thing in the history of music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW2TvdefIDg

It can be done well, but it is not really part of the job description.

Plus, general public impressed by any old nonsense. "Look he plays some stuff on those strings! Not everybody can do that!" When the truth is more like, nobody wants to hear it so a lot of guys just aren't allowed to do it.

Saunders justifies his presence in Lou's band with the "Waves of Fear" opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vi9iLZ4vYs

He was better with Bohannon

... of course, he didn't play fretlesss then

Rototoms! Man I love Lou with Quine so much.

i mean i may turn around on it, lou reed with the silver bullet band does sound not unamusing

Seger doing a 14-minute "Hollywood Nights" with VU (or at least The Feelies) would be pretty good, too.

Is everyone playing a game of "Let's see how far this thread can go without anyone mentioning The Blue Mask?"

Guess I lost.

waves of fear video posted an hour ago

Ah. My search skills are lacking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuTittAIp18

aaah was wondering how that went!!

sounds pretty good.

Hi, guys.

Is "Better Back Off" from the Crenshaw album with Saunders and Kenny Aronoff? That tune rules

Someone should do a Lou tribute night playing nothing but Saunders-backed tunes

so there's tons of weird odds and sods of lou's soundtracks stuff, cameos, etc on spotify...compiled them on this spotify mix

he had a song on the Friends soundtrack that should have been a hit!

http://open.spotify.com/user/matthelgeson/playlist/5y0XbLc0mNz0Qwm8WUbJUn

good idea! i remember looking at the friends sdtk in tower records wondering if i should buy it because of the lou reed song. the 90s.

sounds like a Set the Twilight Reeling outtake.

yeah it probably was...was it actually on the show?
friends sdtk is nuts

"I'll Be There for You"—The Rembrandts
"I Go Blind"—Hootie & the Blowfish
"Good Intentions"—Toad the Wet Sprocket
"You'll Know You Were Loved"—Lou Reed
"Sexuality"—k.d. lang
"Shoe Box"—Barenaked Ladies
"It's a Free World, Baby"—R.E.M.
"Sunshine"—Paul Westerberg
"Angel of the Morning"—The Pretenders
"In My Room"—Grant Lee Buffalo
"Big Yellow Taxi (Traffic Jam Mix)"—Joni Mitchell
"Stain Yer Blood"—Paul Westerberg
"I'll Be There for You"—The Rembrandts

"I Go Blind" got airplay.I know "Sexuality" from the k.d. lang album released at the same time, and the Pretenders' Juice Newton cover was a b-side? I think it was the b-side for "Night in My Veins."

funny that westerberg got two slots just like on the singles soundtrack.
anyway, i recommend this lou boot from 1979. just listened to it today. terrible jokes during sweet jane. i think an audience member gets arrested, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeN_DqtN-wg&feature=youtu.be&list=UUMYTXrkONWxR_z8Y5Bf5rHw

'stain yer blood' is from the one where tribbiani murdered someone who was competing with him for a part in a commercial

good idea! i remember looking at the friends sdtk in tower records wondering if i should buy it because of the lou reed song. the 90s.

― tylerw, Monday, August 4, 2014 5:09 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Could you be more 90s?

good chance i was wearing a breeders t-shirt at the time

how lou doin'

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view1/1153216/how-you-doin-o.gif

"It's a Free World, Baby" was also on the coneheads soundtrack

so funny! i was about to bring up westerberg and the singles soundtrack and how the nananananana NA NA song sounded like the friends theme song and how much i thought that sucked at the time but you guys did it for me!
lol the 90s indeed

The only one of those Westerberg songs on either album that doesnt suck is Stain Yer Blood

Friends soundtrack - feat. THE ORIGINAL WRAPPER + others

his fucked up cover of "This Magic Moment" from the Lost Highway soundtrack is great too, speaking of 90s things

yeah that is so good.
not sure how lou made it into this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i2KOV2tZPg

Hornsby, master of the white man funky overbite

i recently met EZ Snappin irl and he had some Bruce Hornsby stories I will never forget!

HI DERE

Trying to work out the kinks in my screenname. Sorry it took a while.

We saw your Cowboys on TV today
They never let Philadelphia have the ball for a minute

You ought to give other people just a little channce

Hmmm: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/20/lou-reed-walk-wild-side-transphobic-lyrics-canada

Discussed here: The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

Worth noting that the student group seems to have deleted the original post pretty quickly so this is probably all over nothing much. Possibly, they thought about the lyrics, saw a potential issue, apologized, realized the initial reaction was ott, and moved on.

Interestingly, this column in the trashy right-wing Sun tabloid is the only coverage I see of this in Canadian media, while the mainstream UK press and American conservative blogs seem to have run with it

Oh, I missed it, thanks.

getting into sally can't dance for the first time. lol @ how comprehensively sleazy this thing sounds, lou barely singing above a whisper, everything seemingly half-assed and gross and swaggering at the same time. and then it gets abruptly devastating on the second side with "kill your sons" and "ennui" and "billy"

i can see why ppl thought this album was trash but i find its loucheness alluring

I love that louche Lou mode

Sit yourself down, take off your pants, don't you know this is a party?

"N.Y. Stars" reminds me of the stuff Amon Düül II was recording around that same time...

Lou was v aware of the deep irony of such a lazy half-assed record that generally smothers him also turned out to be his best-seller. These days the only tracks I return to from it are the title track and the aforementioned "Ennui" and "Billy". "Kill Your Sons" I just don't really like the sound of.

The title track is on that "Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed" collection (one of the first tapes I owned as a kid)... I remember loudly singing the bridge lyrics in the middle-school football team locker room, and other kids being like "wtf"

"Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed" collection (one of the first tapes I owned as a kid)

yup me too. lou solo stuff was only intermittently available to high school me. I did fortuitously stumble on an LP copy of Coney Island Baby, which I still have.

"Animal Language" is garbage, "NY Stars" isn't much better and on most of the tracks Lou sounds like he's gargling Largactyls but I like it nonetheless.

Someday I would love to go through all the Lou albums and make my own personal "best-of" playlist... I've never really been satisfied with existing collections.

I've done that

pretty sure Alfred has too haha

we could poll all the albums individually...

I think I still have the solo VU poll results if we wanted to just isolate Lou's tracks

ah here we are. ILM's favorite Lou songs, in order of placement

Satellite of Love
Coney Island Baby
Street Hassle
Perfect Day
Walk on the Wild Side
Vicious
Waves of Fear
Metal Machine Music
Andy's Chest
Style It Takes
The Blue Mask
Kicks
Romeo Had Juliette
I Love You, Suzanne
Halloween Parade
Crazy Feeling
New York Telephone Conversation
She's My Best Friend
Egg Cream
Men of Good Fortune
Dirty Blvd.
Reed the bed
Metallica Junior Dad
The Kids
My House
Underneath the Bottle
Open House
Sad Song
Hangin' Round
Legendary Hearts
Nobody But You
Brandenburg Gate
Charley's Girl
Make Up
Women
Hello It's Me
What's Good
The Last Shot
Smalltown
Wild Child
Big Sky
The Bells
A Gift
Caroline Says II
New Sensations
Set The Twilight Reeling
I Wanna Be Black
I Want to Boogie With You
Families
The Gun

if you just take the top 12 that's a pretty awesome "greatest hits"

Andy's Chest is awfully high.

^ posts taken out of context.

lol (also, "I Love You, Suzanne" is awfully high...)

what's wrong with that
I'd like to know

sorry about the missed edits in the list

Reed the Bed

I came up with these last year.

I wanna hooky wooky with you! I am also partial to "looking for love" and several tunes from the bells…was it somewhere on ILM that somebody was talking about they can't take fretless? Saunders forever! Quine/Saunders/Maher is one of my favorite bands ever; live in Italy is terrific…

was it somewhere on ILM that somebody was talking about they can't take fretless?

*raises hand*

my tolerance of this sound is... limited. Mostly to XTC records lol

Fernando Saunders taught me to love it in limited quantities, like frosting.

Same here, I enjoy his playing on those records.

Chalk me up as another who has little time for the whale song of the fretless.

Generally have no time for them but I like Fernando's playing - would prefer him on a fretted bass though.

Let us do what you fear most
that from which you recoil

"that from which" in a pop song: is this the only instance! I love its formality, for underlining the seriousness of the sentiments being expressed.

or to make it rhyme

MOVE ALONG

and ignore those that lou wronged 🎶

I don’t think he’s trying to force a rhyme there? I agree w/Euler about that line...

the bells is a fucking awesome album

is it weird to find "i want to boogie with you" really beautiful

also some version of spiritualized was hatched out of that song

I love plenty of purportedly unloveable lou e.g. "sally" but the bells is dire

some of the nils longfren cowrites do sound written an octave outside of lou's range

but idk it strikes me as rock and roll heart merged with street hassle, which i'm into, lou having a blast with horns in every fluctuating foot of stereo space. the second side is all really good especially "families" and the title track

Used to be down on The Bells and think stuff on it like “Disco Mystic” was ridiculous, but now I think maybe it is ridiculously great. Seem to remember on one of the WPIX shows, maybe not one that resurfaced, that Lou was asked if it was a negation or everything he had ever done and he said “it’s a CONTINUATION of everything I’ve ever done.”

"lou's range"

Literally laughing out loud right now.

I’m laughing on the inside.

Agree that The Bells splits the difference between a couple of different other Lou albums. It sounds like if he had decided to sing more songs on Take No Prisoners than just “Coney Island Baby.”

I love plenty of purportedly unloveable lou e.g. "sally" but the bells is dire

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi),

"Looking for Love" though. And "Families."

just speaking for myself "Families" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard by anybody so we're gonna have to agree to disagree here

lol

So you are saying you don’t really like “Families” all that much, is that it?

after some consideration no not really my thing lol

JCLC when will the axe you have so dutifully ground to an unnecessary sharpness for Lou Reed finally become dull

Families, Disco Mystic, I Wanna Boogie With You are all great imho.

JCLC when will the axe you have so dutifully ground to an unnecessary sharpness for Lou Reed finally become dull

Wait lets throw in a beach boys song for good measure

Hadn’t noticed that he had beef with them.

I didn't even include The Bells in my list of his best. At this stage in his life he couldn't even concentrate on failed experiments.

I believe the Kokomo thread contains JCLC’s most scholarly opinions on their output

Xp

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:09 AM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dislike the Beach Boys but Outis evidently has confused "occasionally gives voice to how much I dislike the Beach Boys" with "is on a crusade about it." idgaf honestly they're just fun to hate on because they suck. with Lou it's different, his best work is some of the best rock ever made & his worst work is considerably worse than the Mighty Mighty Bosstones on a bad day. The Bells figures in this latter category.

also my first post on this thread was in defense of Sally Can't Dance, I honestly think I like Lou more than most people I just don't think his shitty "I'm working something out here" albums are secret strokes of genius, they're just bad

^^^ wanna boogie with you imo

I'll insist forever that, obvious exceptions noted, Reed solo is best at the throwaway ("Sally Can't Dance," "I Love You, Suzanne," "Hookywooky").

There’s no law against disliking The Beach Boys, you can hate them in fact, but declaring they “suck” is simply a wrong opinion

i don't think it's particularly a secret stroke of genius, it just surprised me! it's a v odd record

bad Lou Reed albums:

Sally Can't Dance
Metal Machine Music
Rock and Roll Heart
The Bells
Growing Up in Public
Mistrial

Metal Machine Music may be a bad Lou Reed album, but it's a great album. It's unique in its transgression and its impact on the medium, and a scouring pad for the mind. I don't put it on if I want to listen to music, but sometimes I put it on because I need what it provides.

this is pretty much The Ostrich Part II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WsshDpMrxg

xp I'm sympathetic to that reading of MMM

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:09 AM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bad Lou Reed albums:

sally and mmm are both good and great respectively. rock and roll heart deserves way less hate than it gets though the biggest things it has going for it are "you wear it so well," "ladies pay," the title track, and "temporary thing"

you are making me listen to Sally again...

SCD is a solid album.

maybe, I don't enjoy it

I like Sally Can't Dance the way I like Draw the Line, but suspect it's incomprehensible to anybody who's not already invested in the Lou mythos, which means it's probably a shitty album, even though it's the Lou solo record I'm most likely to play after Coney Island Baby

not sure what myth I'm supposed to buy into, usually being a huge Lou Reed fan works for me

what I mean is "does where Lou was at in his life at the time factor at all into the way you listen to the album" - I generally resist this kind of listening & think it's basically made most music writing unreadable in 2018, but as a guy who spent a whole lotta time thinking about Lou as a person/persona and not just "the guy who made these records" I can't fully separate myself from that mythos, it's part of how I relate to this music. I think if you're just listening to the music as-is without other stuff informing your ear, SCD probably sucks pretty bad.

aah ok I get that, indeed I don't know much about what he was up to, seems like more of an outlier than a transitional album

I generally resist this kind of listening & think it's basically made most music writing unreadable in 2018,

preach

also thought JCLC's favorite was Rock n Roll Animal and not CIB but consensus seems to have formed pretty securely around the latter in the past decade

oh I dunno -- Sally Can't Dance is a fun, smutty album even w/out knowing about the chaos in his life. The kids who made it a top ten album weren't reading the Lester Bangs interviews, or at least not all of them.

Coney Island Baby has been my favorite Lou Reed album since I first heard it, R&R Animal is close to my heart but CIB has always been the one where his best qualities rise to the surface & his worse ones recede - his vocals have never been treated more lovingly (it's kind of hilarious how the records that followed are the ones that led him into the finger-wagging panicked baritone quality that became his signature going forward), his guitar never subtler (nor more effective save in the crazy live work-ups of mid-period VU sets), his POV never more relatable for me. some of that's personal - I did my time with the same substances Lou's reckoning with there - but tonally it's just a gorgeous record, which I largely attribute to the studio used & the engineers there.

Rock and Roll Animal is just a kick-ass rock record for me but part of what I love about it is exactly that you don't have to have any investment at all in Lou to bang your head to it. It could be an Alice Cooper album with a more sensitive understudy singing, really.

finally, if a hefty percentage of the sales of Sally weren't label people spending label money in actual stores to get the damn thing to chart, please, we spent a lot of money on this guy, I'll eat my hat.

this'd be my Lou solo 70s ranking most days:

Coney Island Baby
Rock and Roll Animal
Transformer
self-titled
Sally Can't Dance
Street Hassle
Live: Take No Prisoners
Lou Reed Live
Rock and Roll Heart
The Bells

back when, I loved the hell out of "Take No Prisoners" and still think the band there smokes, but for desert island purposes I could happily lose everything after Sally on that list

oh I forgot Berlin. which is fine, because I have no use for it.

Amusing myself by imagining a Lou Reed soundcheck somewhere sometime... "Can you hear the drums, Fernando?"

Chart positions were meant to be manipulated in 1974, but it's hard not to believe that after Transformer and R&R Animal he didn't have career momentum (even with the sodden Berlin as roadblock).

I don't know how much of the guitar work on CIB is Lou's. I'm pretty sure Bob Kulick played the prettier slide work.

Yes, like Lou could play guitar like that!

He rarely played lead post-Velvets until The Blue Mask, and I can hear the difference between him and Quine.

He plays quite a bit of (lead) guitar on "Rock and Roll Heart".

... no session guy, worth his salt, would ever admit to playing the lead guitar on "Ladies Pay" for instance.

the one where his best qualities rise to the surface & his worse ones recede - his vocals have never been treated more lovingly (it's kind of hilarious how the records that followed are the ones that led him into the finger-wagging panicked baritone quality that became his signature going forward), his guitar never subtler (nor more effective save in the crazy live work-ups of mid-period VU sets), his POV never more relatable for me.... but tonally it's just a gorgeous record, which I largely attribute to the studio used & the engineers there.

well put, my feelings exactly. I stumbled on a vinyl copy of CIB at Rhino Records in Claremont while in high school in 1989 and it's been close to my heart ever since

In fact, having just checked, he plays all the guitars on "Rock and Roll Heart".

the lead work on the title track of CIB is so stately and smooth, there's no way that one was Lou. Like Alfred, I'd wager the majority (if not all) of the leads there are Kulick.

All of the lead work is by Kulick.

agreed on coney island baby as a peak of his '70s work, it's so beautifully recorded and feels like a continuation of the later velvets records in a way he never really went for again (which is why it's really nice when "she's my best friend" pops up, though i guess if i'd bought this record at the time it'd be the only version i was aware of)

it's also a v thematically connected suite of songs without being ponderous and obvious about it like berlin (i love berlin, i love theatrical lou obv bc i love ecstasy and lulu but there's such a lightness of touch on coney island baby)

Berlin’s sound is p oppressive, is my main problem w it. With a gentler approach to the arrangements it would’ve made a decent Fassbinder musical.

but Lou's rhythm work on CIB is also p good! it does what it needs to do -- pedals the song forward nicely, sits in the pocket maintaining the groove. there was a quote from Lou at some point along the lines of "if God asked me today, what do you want to be? do you want to be a bestselling author? a millionaire? no, I want to be the rhythm guitar player in a rock band" that resonates for me in that CIB/Street Hassle moment

i really do love the rhythm section on berlin (jack bruce and aynsley dunbar) and also the brief appearances of the hunter/wagner twin guitar attack that drives rock n roll animal

His rhythm guitars on "Foggy Notion" and "What Goes On" are the best in recorded history.

I'm with you on that, Alfred. Particularly on the Live 69 WGO. Just amazing work by Lou and an obvious influence on the next few generations of indie rockers. I'm looking at you David Gedge, and of course many, many others.

I just learned today that Wakeman & Howe played on his S/T debut. Hot playing on that one!

Also -- I dig The Bells. It's a bit hairy in parts, but sure has personality... (And how can you beat an LP with the credit, "Don Cherry - African hunting guitar, trumpet"?)

I still haven't dived into that one, I prefer to find these kind of 70's classic-era things on LP as opposed to streaming. that does sound cool.

lol wait I do have this, I found a copy in the last couple years

a. who the fuck is Michael Fonfara

b. what's up with the weird SBS binaural sound logo

Just a pity Wakeman and Howe et al have no idea how to play rock and roll. (xxp)

Michael Fonfara is from one of those terrible late 60s Elektra bands like Rhinoceros.

We welcome newcomers to the Lou Reed Solo thread.

Lou's taste in sidemen in the 70s left something to be desired, of course all of them could play rings round Mo and Sterling, draw your own conclusions from that.

listening now, wow "All Through The Night" is so tossed-off with the crazy studio chatter on top, ridiculous off-kilter mix, whispered "JUNKIES"

Lou sounds genuinely anguished here, imo

but the anguish is undercut by the giggling studio chatter track, I guess that encapsulates him in the late 70's.

OK "Families" is a little repetitive but y'know it's a Lou Reed album, again I think his vocals sound really desperate and longing on this, I like it.

your comma splices are very Lou Reed imo

i tried with growing up in public but i find it really confusing for the most part. i think i could see myself liking it? i think the first track is p good? but also i have no desire to hear it again

xp I'm not sure if that's good or bad because it's been so long since I've studied grammar, but you are the writer whose chops I most admire here so any criticism is always welcome <3

all of them could play rings round Mo and Sterling

oh hi Brad I see you were repping The Bells upthread, I am really digging this inscrutable title track, I think that's Cherry on trumpet again?

yep!!! god that song is such a ride

Sterling Morrison is the Platonic ideal of rhythm guitarists, therefore this is false QED

I'm pretty sure Sterling would have struggled to get a gig with Rhinoceros or the Flock or Seatrain, let alone Yes.

Just a pity Wakeman and Howe et al have no idea how to play rock and roll. (xxp)

xp further proof of MatthewK's theory ;)

Lou wasn't hiring players like Sterling Morrison in the 70s or any time thereafter tbh. Three years after playing with Mo Tucker he was working with Aynsley Dunbar!

(xp) No!

That a thread called Lou Reed Solo would get into a discussion about what Sterling Morrison does or does not contribute to a tentative Yes gig boggles the mind.

xp I'm not sure if that's good or bad because it's been so long since I've studied grammar, but you are the writer whose chops I most admire here so any criticism is always welcome <3

― sleeve, Tuesday, September 18, 2018 8:50 PM (fifteen minutes ag

besos

Just a pity Wakeman and Howe et al have no idea how to play rock and roll. (xxp)

among this crew, besides with lou, rick wakeman played on "get it on (bang a gong)", bowie's "space oddity", "changes", "oh! you pretty things", "life on mars", and "it ain't easy". but he had no idea!

I still don’t get the joke here(?) I wasn’t making fun of, or disparaging, their presence... I just didn’t know about it

I was disparaging their presence, I don't think they were cut out for playing Lou Reed songs. I must admit I was impressed that Wakeman had played on "Get It On", which I never knew before, until I found out he only contributed the occasional piano glissando part and Blue Weaver played the main piano part.

of course any of the guys in Yes could play rock in straight 4/4 & do so well. playing rock in 4/4 is not magic or "a feeling," it's a skill set, pretty much any prog band member could play in most rock bands &i be good at it . Howe & Wakeman on the s/t are terrific.

Yeah, it's the dull production rather than Howe/Wakeman that's the problem w/ the first solo alb imho.

It's one of the interesting contradictions of Lou's solo career that while he clearly was one of the 'godfathers of punk', w/ the exception of Quine (who was something of a punk outlier in any case), he steered clear of working w/ young upstart musicians, preferring to pick slick session musos.

second side of the s/t has that run of "i love you" -> "wild child" -> "love makes you feel" which i think is really underestimated

i had no idea howe and wakeman were on the first album.

Yes, along with a whole bunch of UK session geezers like Caleb Quaye and Clem Cattini - difficult to know who plays what.

ok here's the thing about growing up in public, is that musically it's kinda what would happen if the simultaneously layered and tossed-off sound of street hassle and the bells were played completely straight? so the arrangements are sorta overworked and boring and i don't really get them, especially "so alone" which is otherwise hilarious. i do think lyrically reed's starting to figure out the approach he'd fully unleash on the blue mask and that's pretty much the best part of the record

Photo on the sleeve is good too!

I think the 1st album is great... surprised to learn it’s undervalued here.

It's undervalued everywhere.

Photo on the sleeve in good too!

Very Al Pacino, he looks terrible on the back cover though and his musicians look like some bar band.

As a Lou fan growing up in public in the UK in the 1980s, his first solo rec was out of print for a long time. So by the time it did come back into print, I'd already heard (to my mind) superior VU versions of most of the songs, on bootlegs or belated official releases. The solo version of 'Ocean' especially misses the mark.

I like the VU versions of those songs too, but the album is its own thing with its own sound.

its own dull, flat sound

I like "Wild Child" though, that one's good

Agreed - and Wild Child is the one song on the rec where there isn't a decent VU precedent.

b. what's up with the weird SBS binaural sound logo

wait did no one answer this question cuz the answer is hilarious: https://damienlove.com/writing/babe-im-on-fire-the-making-of-lou-reeds-street-hassle/

awesome link, thanks

there's another article linked somewhere else on ILM that I can't find right now that has another account of the recording process, people involved complaining about all these heads on poles littering the studio etc.

For the record (no pun intended), binaural recording is amazing when done properly. The jazz label Chesky records all their albums that way, with just one head, and they sound fantastic.

yeah I'm a big fan of Psychic TV's Dreams Less Sweet, also recorded that way

it became a huge thing in the 90's for a while

wow new sensations is fantastic

yes it is! "Turn To Me" is easily in my top ten

wow, thanks for that link - great piece!

"if you remember too much, you weren’t there"

What could be more Lou Reed than insisting on the super-realism of live binaural recording, adding a bunch of mismatched overdubs, and then claiming the resulting sound is exactly what he'd wanted?

its own dull, flat sound

I can listen past the production. The arrangements and playing are great.

The drum sound is great too, actually.

Good article!

I find the debut's sound crisp rather than dull but I also listen to a fair bit of stuff recorded & played by muso dudes whose absolute ideal is clarity over color. to me the sound of the electric guitar on "I Love You", that intro figure, is one of the most memorable musical choices in Lou's discography - as soon as I think of it, I hear it in my head & love it.

think my main problem with the debut is the backup singers, they sound kinda lame. otherwise, i think it's a solid record!

yes it is! "Turn To Me" is easily in my top ten

― sleeve, Wednesday, September 19, 2018 9:25 AM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love the way this song is just the riff suspended in empty space for the first two verses. it's a really good riff. album has a lot of really good riffs

i realllly love "fly into the sun"

"What Becomes a Legend Most" sounds like he's going for a Paul Young pastiche and it works.

So many good melodies on New Sensations jfc

Just wanted to say I'm not entirely convinced by Tom's assessment of Sterling Morrison's capacity as a guitar player. Obviously, the Velvets applied restraints to themselves in how they played (like Sterling is clearly restricting himself to a particular tessitura in what I assume is his six and a half minute solo in "I'm Gonna Move Right In").

I'd actually like to have a clearer view of what he and Lou do on guitars throughout those records but that's obtainable by more close listening and playing along.

there's another article linked somewhere else on ILM that I can't find right now that has another account of the recording process, people involved complaining about all these heads on poles littering the studio etc.

xp there's a great quote by Mo (I think, could be Yule also) somewhere about how Lou and Sterling swapped their solos on any given night according to some inscrutable internal logic

I'd actually like to have a clearer view of what he and Lou do on guitars throughout those records but that's obtainable by more close listening and playing along.

i pretty much know who's doing what — any specific songs?

I can usually distinguish Reed and Morrison. Usually.

Not who's doing what but more like chord voicings, methods of plucking, how they approached solos, gear, etc.

We've talked about this before but, yes, their lead sound/styles are totally different - even their rhythm playing is quite distinct.

"How in the world were they makin' that sound?/Velvet Underground"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAXYW-Bft5A

(Phil Milstein, from the quasi-bootleg What Goes On 3CD on Australian Raven label)

I can listen past the production. The arrangements and playing are great.

I don't think the arrangements or playing are great - it's true they are on "I Love You" though. I like the album btw!

even their rhythm playing is quite distinct.

Well...I don't see how the guitar on "Lady Godiva's Operation" sounds unlike a Morrison part.

Maybe not in every single song!

Ha, that was the first one I checked...

Adding my thanks to Shakey for the link - I just got up early and stretched out breakfast listening to Street Hassle and reading it, I don't think I've enjoyed the start of the day quite so much in a while.

lmao @ mistrial

you're payin' a price where there's no price to pay
love is trust
no money down

YET

"Tell It To Your Heart" is a classic.

yeah that song and "outside" are really good

thought you were going to say "Mama's Got a Lover"

lol i nearly did admit that i like that "the original wrapper" exists in lou reed's discography

The video jukeboxes are-a
playin Madonna

I've never heard "Mistrial". I consider myself a Lou Reed fan too. Shame on me.

before the streaming age you could 99-cent copies on Amazon

No doubt!

wow even Discogs has nothing below $2.99 plus shipping, still too much!

Mistrial >>>>> Berlin

I love how Mistrial gets dismissed most often for "dated production" when fucking Bob Ezrin's despair-on-mothballs arrangements don't scream the seventies, and the songs suck.

Now, you've gone too far.

The currents rage so deep inside us
This is the age of video violenc

mistrial is up there with take no prisoners as his funniest record

the best video ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiyX70ZqsVQ

mistrial is up there with take no prisoners as his funniest record

"Growing Up In Public" is a hoot too.

Mistrial >>>>> Berlin

I think the time is ripe for an "Alfred's 80s records challops" thread

and I wish that it be a cheerful thread

I thought this was that thread?

Preferring Mistrial to Berlin isn't a challops. A B or B- is a better grade than a C+ or C.

I meant for a thread to include more artists than Lou!

idk i can't agree with alfred on berlin, outside of the arrangements all the songs on it seem v well written to me

the (relatively) recent concert movie was v rewarding

I don't know Mistrial apart from the two singles, which are OK. But Berlin is an album I've lived with all my teen/adult life and means an awful lot to me, melodramatic orchestration and all. I hadn't realised until recently though that half the tracks were recycled from VU days. It's amazing that he was recycling VU tracks right up to Street Hassle and maybe beyond.

Listening to the eponymous 1972 album right now and it's sounding pretty good, albeit sort of Loaded II

^Right?

I suppose Street Hassle's ranking might uh rankle.. It's not much beyond the great title track.