RIP Lou Reed

[HudsonHawk]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/arts/music/lou-reed-dies-at-71.html?_r=0

[Ron Brand]

This isn't quite how I felt when John Lennon died, but it's closer than I wanted to be.

[strosrays]

This isn't quite how I felt when John Lennon died, but it's closer than I wanted to be.

Very much so for me, as well.  I am truly shaken.

[Ebby Calvin]

Just seeing this. Wow.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

Lou Reed had the ability to make things complex and simple at the same time, beautiful and integral. I didn't love everything he did, but I loved that he did the things he wanted to.

[Ron Brand]

I've been swamped with this. So many of my friends are in shock and there is that common tide we're all dealing with. I'm trying to immerse myself in another project and even that has plenty of Lou Reed in it. Every person on that team is dealing with it. It's not like losing a relative, it's not like that at all. It's finding the end of a thread that we've had in our fabric for decades and there isn't going to be any more of that thread. What we have is all we've got, and in the end what more pure truth can there be?

I posted this on Facebook a little earlier and I think it holds up.

The Beatles were there in my earliest memories, a foundation of my childhood. Lou Reed was that bridge to growth, the dark intelligence carried on the back of churning guitars, decadence and the punk attitude honed and gleaming in the intermittent light of my teenage years. I hadn't listened to anything new from him in years, but I didn't need to. All the scars are still close to the surface, and I run my fingers along them every day.

[strosrays]

I've been swamped with this. So many of my friends are in shock and there is that common tide we're all dealing with. I'm trying to immerse myself in another project and even that has plenty of Lou Reed in it. Every person on that team is dealing with it. It's not like losing a relative, it's not like that at all. It's finding the end of a thread that we've had in our fabric for decades and there isn't going to be any more of that thread. What we have is all we've got, and in the end what more pure truth can there be?

I posted this on Facebook a little earlier and I think it holds up.

The Beatles were there in my earliest memories, a foundation of my childhood. Lou Reed was that bridge to growth, the dark intelligence carried on the back of churning guitars, decadence and the punk attitude honed and gleaming in the intermittent light of my teenage years. I hadn't listened to anything new from him in years, but I didn't need to. All the scars are still close to the surface, and I run my fingers along them every day.

Very nicely put.

I am hardly as eloquent, in my sense of loss, as you are; but still, I am left sitting here, wondering why I am staring at the laptop screen, and impulsively playing old Lou Reed and Velvet Underground videos on YouTube. Loudly. To no one. To myself.

All I know is this - the post-Velvets, early 1970s solo LPS were revelatory to me, and Rock And Roll Animal changed something basic, maybe all the way down to my DNA.

Then again, maybe not.  But, that is what it feels like.

R.I.P., Lou.

[austro]

Rock And Roll Animal was a revelation for this suburban kid. That's probably a cliche, but things are cliche for a reason. The intro to Sweet Jane is one of the great pieces of rock and roll.

[chuck]

I usually get a private thrill out of the fact that no one much cares about my life's various touchstones. Sometimes, though, it can piss me off.

[Ron Brand]

I usually get a private thrill out of the fact that no one much cares about my life's various touchstones. Sometimes, though, it can piss me off.

I'm sure if he had a beard, a flannel shirt, played some acoustic instruments or had a whiny death wish you'd get a better reaction. Sui generis is so passé.

[NeilT]

I was never a Lou Reed/Velvet Underground fan.  By the time I heard of them, Sterling Morrison was a graduate student at UT and the Velvet Underground was old news.  Old news just didn't carry so long then, and there was always something else and something new to listen to. 

One funny thing about Walk on the Wild Side, I was in Vernon, Texas, in high school when it came out, and there was only AM radio.  To listen to music I mostly listened to AM out of Wichita Falls, and they played Walk on the Wild Side pretty regularly between 1972 and 1974.  It was the strangest thing to hear.  I always figured it was so completely out of bounds that no one ever figured out what the song was about, but it oddly left me with the impression that Lou Reed was a novelty act, chosen as a joke by the hip and worldly disc jockeys in Wichita Falls, Texas.  I don't think I ever recovered from that impression, and I never really got back to him.

RIP.

[subnuclear]

I listened to the Velvet Underground records in college to point of memorization. I'm not sure what effect it had on me, except it made me want to move to NY (which I didn't do and don't really regret not doing) and made me wonder why more drummers don't imitate Moe Tucker.

[Ron Brand]

In eighth grade we had this really cool teacher. Really cool. So cool that he had been to Woodstock, used to race trials bikes, and would hang out behind the school and smoke with us. It might've been ninth grade when it came out, but it was important to impress this guy and I had copies of Blackmore Rising and Live 1969 that I'd taped and would play at breaks at school on my cassette deck. There were a few of us who carried those encyclopedia-sized cassette decks around and would play music when we could, sort of a movable party.

Anyway, I remember playing parts of them while he was around, which he enjoyed. I was especially enamored of the guitar sound on Lisa Says, and although I loved the Blackmore record it was that Velvets set that really kicked my ass. I never could figure out why he always asked me to play Tarot Woman though, and didn't seem to favor the VU record at all.

[Ron Brand]

I listened to the Velvet Underground records in college to point of memorization. I'm not sure what effect it had on me, except it made me want to move to NY (which I didn't do and don't really regret not doing) and made me wonder why more drummers don't imitate Moe Tucker.

I was convinced I was going to New York as soon as I got out of college. I got married though, and that stopped that but it's just as well. I'm certain of what I would've gotten in to if I'd followed that muse.

[chuck]

...made me wonder why more drummers don't imitate Moe Tucker.

A bandmate and I were having a discussion with our drummer. We were most likely trying to get him to simplify what he was doing but I really don't remember. My bandmate told him something that I will never forget regarding Moe Tucker, "To you she sounds like an idiot; to me she sounds like a genius."

[Mr. Happy]

I was never a Lou Reed/Velvet Underground fan. 

RIP.

+1 I listened to nothing but black soul/R&B music back then.

[NeilT]

+1 I listened to nothing but black soul/R&B music back then.

No, you think you listened to nothing but black soul/R&B music back then.  As I recall your descriptions of the 70s and 80s, actual results may have differed.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

I only listen to Borghesia.

[Mr. Happy]

No, you think you listened to nothing but black soul/R&B music back then.  As I recall your descriptions of the 70s and 80s, actual results may have differed.

Touche. But my musical tastes were informed by my early childhood, having been raised by a black maid. We listened to Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Rufus Thomas. Lots of Stax Records out of Memphis. I remember when Sam Cooke was killed and when Otis Redding died in the plane crash. By the 70's, I was listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, Manhattans, Stylistics and Dramatics, together with the Tams and the Spinners. I never really ever even got into the Beatles.

[strosrays]

Touche. But my musical tastes were informed by my early childhood, having been raised by a black maid. We listened to Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Rufus Thomas. Lots of Stax Records out of Memphis. I remember when Sam Cooke was killed and when Otis Redding died in the plane crash. By the 70's, I was listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, Manhattans, Stylistics and Dramatics, together with the Tams and the Spinners. I never really ever even got into the Beatles.

I listened to all that.

And Lou Reed.

[Ron Brand]

I listened to all that.

And Lou Reed.

Did your maid listen to La Monte Young?

[strosrays]

Did your maid listen to La Monte Young?

Well, I didn't have a maid. Or, a "black maid", in the parlance.

That was my downfall, I assume.

[HudsonHawk]

Touche. But my musical tastes were informed by my early childhood, having been raised by a black maid. We listened to Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Rufus Thomas. Lots of Stax Records out of Memphis. I remember when Sam Cooke was killed and when Otis Redding died in the plane crash. By the 70's, I was listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, the Ohio Players, Manhattans, Stylistics and Dramatics, together with the Tams and the Spinners. I never really ever even got into the Beatles.

My dog loves 70's R&B.  He loves James Brown, but he really digs on Sly and the Family Stone.

[NeilT]

Well, I didn't have a maid. Or, a "black maid", in the parlance.

That was my downfall, I assume.

A man needs a maid.

[Mr. Happy]

I listened to all that.

And Lou Reed.

I remember listening to Take a Walk on the Wild Side because a chick that I was banging entertaining (is that better, BG?) liked it. That was the same crazed chick who dragged me kicking and screaming to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show, where I made sure that I was so fucked up going in that I fell asleep during the movie. I've never seen that movie. I'm more of an Animal House kind of guy anyway

[Mr. Happy]

My dog loves 70's R&B.  He loves James Brown, but he really digs on Sly and the Family Stone.

I neglected to mention that I too loved James Brown and actually contributed money to the bail efforts when he was put in jail back in 1988 after that wild driving rampage, and I seem to recall him shooting a vehicle too. I loved everything on Soul Train, including soul brother no. 1, Don Cornelius.

[Mr. Happy]

A man needs a maid.

What a gentleman really needs is a gentleman's gentleman like Jeeves.

I loved Betty (our maid) and cried like a baby when she passed away in 1988 because she really was a part of our family, and I have very fond memories of her and the life lessons that she taught me. Our babysitter most of the time when I was a kid was my mother's nanny.