Lou Reed - RIP

[Jimmy Cantiello]

I don't claim to be an expert on Lou Reed or the The Velvet Underground. However, I recognize a rebel when I see one. IMO, he was sui generis. He, his band and his music did not appeal to the commercial market.That's why I think he's important. He didn't give a fuck about the commercial market. All he ever wanted to do was rock it out and..."walk on the wild side". RIP - Lou Reed. I can't explain it but, for some reason, I didn't want this rock and roller's death to go unnoticed. Aside from his music I always admired his individualism. Just sayin'.

Just in case you want to read a little more about an American original.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Reed

[steve(thelil)]

Gentle Giant hipped me to this on FB. Ya wanna hear some attitude?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCPZ-V0i0pU

[Ron Thorne]

He was an "original", unpretentious, unapologetic and honest singer/songwriter. Lou will be sorely missed by his legions of fans.




Lou Reed, 1942-2013
Outsider Whose Dark, Lyrical Vision Helped Shape Rock ’n’ Roll


Lou Reed performing in New York City in 2009. Chad Batka for The New York Times

By BEN RATLIFF
Published: October 27, 2013

Lou Reed, the singer, songwriter and guitarist whose work with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s had a major influence on generations of rock musicians, and who remained a powerful if polarizing force for the rest of his life, died on Sunday at his home in Amagansett, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 71.

The cause was liver disease, said Dr. Charles Miller of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where Mr. Reed had liver transplant surgery this year and was being treated again until a few days ago.

Mr. Reed brought dark themes and a mercurial, sometimes aggressive disposition to rock music. “I’ve always believed that there’s an amazing number of things you can do through a rock ‘n’ roll song,” he once told the journalist Kristine McKenna, “and that you can do serious writing in a rock song if you can somehow do it without losing the beat. The things I’ve written about wouldn’t be considered a big deal if they appeared in a book or movie."

Full Story

[Ron Thorne]

Here's a wonderful photo by renowned photographer Enid Farber, taken in 2011.



Enid Farber

[bluenoter]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/28/lou_reed_american_masters_pbs_documentary_rock_and_roll_heart_watch_it_here.html

Watch a Great Documentary About Lou Reed [and it is]

. . . In 1998, PBS’s American Masters series produced a feature-length documentary on Reed looking back at his whole career. The documentary, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, features interviews with Reed and just about everyone you’d like to hear on him, including David Bowie (who worked with him on Transformer), Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, David Byrne, John Cale, and other surviving members of the Velvets. They even spoke with Holly Woodlawn and "Little" Joe Dallesandro, the drag queen and the street hustler immortalized by Reed in "Walk on the Wild Side."

You can watch the full documentary below. [Note: Removed by the YouTube user; replaced here by a different YouTube user's copy, which eventually disappeared too.]

Sympathy to Laurie Anderson (one of the celebrities I feel that I "know") and
R.I.P., Lou Reed

[Gentle Giant]

Great respect. A local online arts magazine has published my appreciation: http://artsfuse.org/94552/fuse-remembrance-lou-reed-reaped-what-he-sowed-art-truth-beauty/

[steve(thelil)]

Watch a Great Documentary About Lou Reed

. . . In 1998, PBS’s American Masters series produced a feature-length documentary on Reed looking back at his whole career. The documentary, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, features interviews with Reed and just about everyone you’d like to hear on him, including David Bowie (who worked with him on Transformer), Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, David Byrne, John Cale, and other surviving members of the Velvets. They even spoke with Holly Woodlawn and "Little" Joe Dallesandro, the drag queen and the street hustler immortalized by Reed in "Walk on the Wild Side."

You can watch the full documentary below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjPuF-CYuic

Thanks so much, Rita!

I watched the beginning last night and really enjoyed it. Will continue soon.

[bluenoter]

Thanks so much, Rita!

I watched the beginning last night and really enjoyed it. Will continue soon.

YVW.

Edit: The YouTube user took it down; I've replaced it with a different YouTube user's newly posted copy.

Edit: That copy too has disappeared.

[John L]

I've been listening though my Velvet Underground and Lou Reed records in honor of the man.

It just struck me - of course it may have struck many of you already a long time ago - that the Velvet Underground were both art rock before its time and punk rock before its time. What is amazing here is not even so much that it was before its time, but the fact that art rock and punk rock are usually understood as polar opposites. Punk rock emerged in the late 70s as a sort of revolution against art rock. Yet the Velvet Underground somehow managed to be both before there was either one of them.

RIP Mr. Lou Reed - one of kind. Wherever he is right now, you know that he is making the best of it, and still rocking on.

[steve(thelil)]

I'm wondering how many people here were listening to the Velvets when they were still together. I was a regular listener to FM rock and reader of Rolling Stone and other rock rags then and i don't recall knowing their music. I remember when I got to college in September '71 I saw a Velvet Underground sticker on a desk in the library and wondered what they sounded like (I had definitely heard of them and knew they had a following, but that was it.) And soon after that I bought the 1969 Live double LP in the campus bookstore as a cut-out and I just didn't get it. I put it aside until much later and at some point I did.

[BFrank]

Never Back Down: Fresh Air Remembers Lou Reed

[John L]

I'm wondering how many people here were listening to the Velvets when they were still together. I was a regular listener to FM rock and reader of Rolling Stone and other rock rags then and i don't recall knowing their music. I remember when I got to college in September '71 I saw a Velvet Underground sticker on a desk in the library and wondered what they sounded like (I had definitely heard of them and knew they had a following, but that was it.) And soon after that I bought the 1969 Live double LP in the campus bookstore as a cut-out and I just didn't get it. I put it aside until much later and at some point I did.

Good question. I grew up in Berkeley, California in the 60s in a pretty hip family surrounded by a lot of contemporary rock, blues, and R&B. Now that I think about it, we had a strong West Coast bias back then. I can only remember my father and others referring to the Velvet Underground disparagingly as "pretentious" or "the darlings of the New York critical establishment." You might recall that Rolling Stone was a West Coast publication back then. I always wondered what they really sounded like. Only later in life, after they were already no more, did I first remember hearing them. Given my inbred biases, it also took me a while to hear the magic.

And yea, I listened to a lot of FM radio back then. Never did hear the Velvets.

[bluenoter]

http://www.easthamptonstar.com/Obituaries/20131031/Lou-Reed+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Ron Thorne]

What a loving, joyous tribute.