Lou Reed RIP

[bamajohn1]

Wow! I didn't know Lou had been sick but I see he had a liver transplant back in May. I also didn't know he was just 2 years younger than my dad. May he RIP!


music.yahoo.com/news/lou-reed-velvet-underground-leader-rock-pioneer-dead-171511963-rolling-stone.html

[HollyH]

A sobering bit of news. I saw him perform only once, but we shared a subway ride back in the 80s. (He was wearing leather, naturally.) Though his music was not really my style, I always admired his intelligence and honesty. And his unshakeable coolness.

May you walk on the wild side eternally, Lou.

[gary]

I was a fan for many years, all the way through the "New York" and "Songs for Drella" albums, but have yet to listen to the albums of the '90s and 2000s. I saw him at the Bottom Line in the '70s -- I think it was one of the shows taped for the "Take No Prisoners" album. Lou kept us waiting for well past an hour, maybe two as I remember, and some of the crowd was pretty angry by the time he finally took the stage. The story going around my table is that he had been shooting heroin in his trailer parked outside, but who knows? I find a few of his songs repellent, but I love so many others. I think of him as a perfectionist, a minimalist, and a loving curator of rock n roll. I once read a piece arguing that Mick Jagger invented a whole new way to sing rock, and I think you'd have to say Lou did too.

[maddogtim74]

My friend Wally Farkas (from the metal band Galactic Cowboys) did a cover of a Velvet Underground song for his impending solo album. Wally is a big Lou Reed fan as well as a Kinks fan.

[maddogtim74]

RIP Lou.

[bamajohn1]

Thanks for posting that cover tune by Wally Tim! I honestly didn't appreciate VU or Reed's tunes that much until I heard more and more covers of their stuff, and this one is really good as a cover and as a song!

Oh, I just heard Sean Penn (or Piers Morgan?) mention last night that there have been a slew of RIP Lou messages left on twitter etc and that is ironic because Reed mentioned often that he never wanted to be remembered with a RIP because that sounded too sentimental sounding in his mind!

[HollyH]

Yeah, I can't imagine Lou ever wanting to rest in peace!

I agree that covers reveal the surprisingly deep pop impulses in a lot of VU material. For all their proto-punk swagger, Lou Reed and John Cale were quite the romantics at heart.

Yet I don't think of Lou Reed as a composer primarily, but as a poet, aural pioneer, and performance artist. It was so fitting for him to end up with Laurie Anderson, who is just as intelligently creative as he was. Anad I loved that he never lost his sense of humor, even when he was at his most experimental (and when he was most addled by drugs).

Syracuse University had an ad in the New York Times today memorializing Lou as one of their treasured graduates. I gather that he loved his time at Syracuse and it was really formative. (I believe Delmore Schwartz was his English teacher and mentor there.) He graduated with honors -- no small achievement. Not that many rock and rollers even have a college degree, much less made the dean's list.

[gary]

Don't forget Rhodes scholar Kris Kristofferson!

Lou's song "My House," from the Blue Mask record, is about Delmore Schwartz.

[Deleted]

R.I.P Lou!
You will be sorely missed by many of us!

[uncleson]

Was visiting my sister in Manhattan, in the 1980s. Everyone, including Mr and Mrs Uncle, was excited because Lou had been spotted in the elevator.

Lou was a great artist and songwriter.

I just read that Heroin was the blueprint Jagger and Richards used for Stray cat Blues.

The Cowboy Junkies version of Sweet jane is exceptional.