Lou Reed: Caught Between The Twisted Stars

Lou Reed was SO New York when I was a sophomore at Columbia that posters advertised Transformer, his seminal solo album, in the subway.  Mick Rock took the cover photo, manipulated here even more than it was there.

I bought the album mostly for "Walk on the Wild Side" and the opportunity to study the back cover, surely the most explicit presentation of the gender bending pioneered by Mick Jagger and David Bowie.  For a kid still confused about his sexuality, it was radical!  To paraphrase Mae West: "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"

Here's an iconic period photo (also by Mick Rock) of Lou with his glam pals, David Bowie and Iggy Pop wearing a T-Rex tee. Call me a fan boy for 'em all--my idolatry is wide, not deep.  It's hard to believe Iggy is the last one standing.  Bowie produced Transformer--you  just know he was responsible for best pop music chorus ever--and played sax on "Walk."  

Lou's reserved masculinity appealed to me almost as much as Iggy's wild child.  It's hard to look at this shot, again by Mick Rock (glam's official photographer), and not think "Everything old is new again."

Unlike most discriminating rock 'n roll fans of my time, I did not pretend to revere the Velvet Underground despite its deep connection with Andy Warhol.  The muddiness of the first recording, the one with Andy's banana art, alienated me.  I'm not even sure I realized Lou had written most of the songs on Rock 'n Roll Animal, still my all-time favorite live album, while a member of the Underground.

"Caught Between The Twisted Stars," an exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center stimulated all this reverie about Lou.  The library acquired his archives in 2017.  That would have been inconceivable to me when I worked there, pretty much at the height of Lou's fame.  If you live long enough, astonishment goes with the territory.  Another case in point: Susan Boyle, Lou's least likely cover artist, turning "Perfect Day," (my second favorite song from Transformer) into a choral hit nearly 40 years after he composed it.  Unbelievably, his song survived the schmalz treatment perhaps because it always was a bit treacly.

Here's an excerpt from the film Andy directed about the Velvet Underground that features Lou, Nico and Nico's son.  

Lou and bandmate John Cale paid tribute to Andy with "Songs for Drella," several years after his death.  The two musicians hadn't worked together since Cale left the Velvet Underground in 1969.

Although Lou never recorded another song as popular as "Walk on the Wild Side" (released exactly half-a-century ago on November 24) he kept churning out one (mostly) transgressive classic after another:  "Kicks," "Coney Island Baby," "Rock 'n Roll Heart," "Temporary Thing," "Street Hassle" and "I Wanna Be Black" which you probably aren't supposed to like any more. Of course there were some bombs, too, including Berlin, an autobiographical rock opera about a couple's drug addiction, and the unlistenable Metal Machine Music.  Like many fans, I eventually came around to the former although not before I gave my copy away.   Damnit!

Live performances at the Bottom Line, where I took the photo below in 1977, and the Academy of Music suggested that his gender bending was more au courant than characteristic.  He rocked with New York attitude.  Lester Bangs, the rock critic immortalized in Almost Famous, wrote:  He fixes you with that rusty bug-eye, he creaks and croaks and lies in your face, and you're  helpless.

Photo by Jeffrey Hon

Dion, another legendary New York City performer, drew this caricature of Lou.

I kept up with Lou's solo career until 1983.  Now that he was married and in recovery, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll were behind him.  So was I, after The Blue Mask, his most critically acclaimed recording.  The music had lost its punch.  I gave up entirely with the release of Legendary Hearts, which I bought mostly because it featured this motorcycle helmet on the cover.

 

My copy is probably still as pristine as the library's because I played it only once or twice.

Lou jotted down his lyrics in small notebooks.

I looked for my favorite singalong, from "Rock 'n Roll Heart," to no avail.

I don't like opera and I don't like ballet

And New Wave French movies, they just drive me away

I guess I'm just dumb, 'cause I know that I ain't smart

But deep down inside, I got a rock 'n' roll heart

Yeah-yeah-yeah, deep down inside I got a rock 'n' roll heart

This photo of Lou with Václav Havel adds more live-long-enough astonishment.  How many rock 'n roll bands have had political revolutions named after them?  Havel told Reed "I am [Czech] president because of you."  In 1989 Havel led the Velvet Revolution.  It peacefully toppled the Soviet government which had banned rock 'n roll, including the Velvet Underground, during its occupation.  

Lou's marriage to Laurie Anderson in 2009 enhanced the "downtown" credibility of both artists.  A year later they served as the grand marshals of Coney Island Mermaid Parade along with Lola Belle, their pooch.

When Lou died, Laurie writes in the exhibition hand-out, he left everything to me.  It was overwhelming and it took me a while to imagine what to do with it.  The process took years but the collection of Lou's public life has finally entered the New York Public Library.

I'm so happy!  First, because Lou is a legendary New Yorker and his work belongs to this city.  And second because the library is free and public.  This is not a white gloves collection.  Anyone can come in and look and listen to his life's work.

Hear ye, hear ye!  It's comforting to think that the future generations always will have access to "New York Telephone Conversation," a throwaway song from Transformer that captures one of the fundamental pleasures of mid 20th-century life:

I was sleeping, gently napping, when I heard the phone

Who is on the other end talking, am I even home?

Did you see what she did to him, did you hear what they said?

Just a New York conversation rattling in my head

Ooh my, and what shall we wear, ooh my, and who really cares?

Just a New York conversation, gossip all of the time

"Did you hear who did what to whom?", happens all the time

Who has touched and who has dabbled, here in the city of shows

Openings, closings, bad rap party, everybody knows

Ooh, how sad and why do we call, ooh I'm glad to hear from you all

I am calling, yes I'm calling just to speak to you

For I know this night will kill me, if I can't be with you

If I can't be with you

In my imagination, Andy was usually on the other end, and their conversations inspired "Walk on the Wild Side." Here in the city of shows.