The Lou Reed Appreciation Thread

So sad over this.  Rip to one of my most favorite artists ever, hands down. 

absolutely… major bummer…. struggling for the words on this one…

I was majorly shocked even though I knew he'd had a liver transplant earlier this year…

when I saw him the last time at the club (my only time)  I remember thinking he didn't look so great and he had a senior moment ……but I enjoyed the show.. of course I was in awe like "THAT IS LOU REED STANDING 10 feet away!"

people like Lou you grow up with them and they're like a part of your family..

I want to say Lou to me represents the seedy dark underbelly of life… in some ways the idea of Lou Reed is already kind of dead because of the way society has developed…but I won't cause I'm not sure it makes any sense..

in the end I could not make the Sparks show….god I hate the early shows…

I'll be home spinning my Lou /VU records and watching the World Series..

Wow, really wasn't expecting this one for some reason.  He's been very active lately.
I bet more people saw lou live in his 60's than ever saw him in the 60's

Lou… NYC incarnate, gateway drug to the subversive and just so damn f'n cool.

I really never got deep into his solo stuff, but the 4 albums they he was a part of with VU have placed an indelible mark across my music appreciation.
Well, Transformer has never left the heavy rotation list either.

My introduction (besides WotWS) was in the early 90's.  Close to 25 years after the music was recorded and I was in awe and really have never lost my reverence for those albums.  It is a rare bird that can be so timeless.  They do not sound one bit dated to me. 

It wasn't until later I learned that nearly every one of the artists I'd liked for the last 30 years were all citing him as an influence. 

I saw him at the 9:30 about 10 years ago and that had to be one of my favorite 9:30 experiences and just live music in general.  He was rocking and just played all the songs I wanted to hear from VU and his solo stuff. Again, was so damn F'n cool up there in his 60's.

I do wish the whole VU crew mended their ways before people started dying. 

A giant has fallen and all we have to look are his spectacular footprints

hutch wrote:
in the end I could not make the Sparks show….god I hate the early shows…

I'll be home spinning my Lou /VU records and watching the World Series..

Heard the news right before Sparks went on.
Don't know if it tainted the show for me, but I would have rather been home doing the same.
'New York' does it for me.
That 9:30 show was way cool.

Sidehatch wrote:
Wow, really wasn't expecting this one for some reason.  He's been very active lately.

what? we haven't heard a peep from him since his liver transplant in April!!!!!!!!!!

Sidehatch wrote:
I saw him at the 9:30 about 10 years ago and that had to be one of my favorite 9:30 experiences and just live music in general. 

ah, I date myself, it was 1998 shortly after Fully Loaded was released.
the setlist was stellar Lou 930 98

it was good what we did yesterday and I'd do it once again
the fact that we are married only proves you're my best friend
but its truly truly a sin

VU catalog and Transformer were the gateway drugs.  Dylan was the first rock poet.  Lou Reed was the first rock fine artist.

First time I ever heard of Lou Reed was randomly watching Letterman back in 1986.  Letterman introduced him as one of the legends in music history and then he played 'Mistrial'.  I was 13 and into music and I couldn't believe this guy I never heard of playing this song was some kind of legend . . . but damn he seemed cool.  My first VU phase started soon after

Saw Lou Reed at Merriweather on the New York tour in 1989.  Amazing show.  Dion opened.  My friend and i snuck down to about the 10th row.  He played played most of, if not all of New York then played the classics with excellent backing band.  Wonderful night.

First show I ever went to at the new 9:30 Club was Lou Reed in 1996.  Hearing the songs live again were like revisiting old friends.  Another fantastic show with Lou in great spirits and a great vibe all around.  It was fun to see a healthy and happy looking Lou Reed play Heroin and either before or after joked about the song 'I don't even smoke cigarettes anymore'.

Saw him one more time at the National in Richmond in 2008.  A smoking show with his old guitarist from the Rock and Roll Animal era (forget his name) going off on every song.   I had a shit-eating grin from start to finish.

R.I.P.

In my top 20 shows of all time:
3/13/89 at the Warner
(New York tour)

I was just listening to his early solo albums a few weeks ago. They're all sooo good! Lou was a one of a kind. R.I.P.

I am so sad today!  One of my favorite shows ever was seeing him in August of 1998 at the old Bohagers.  I sat up in the balcony and he played Pale Blue Eyes.

So many good memories of driving around listening to his music with my friends.

First show I ever saw at The National in RVA was Lou Reed. It was astonishing. I will always remember that encore with Pale Blue Eyes, it was worth the price of the ticket alone.

VU + Nico is maybe the best record ever. Sad news yesterday.

He NEVER repeated himself.  He never rested on his past works or achievements. 

i was going to say something mean about his liver and how . . . but i wont, because a man died.  a great man.  a man i worshipped.  a man that mattered.  a man that changed music.  how many men can you say did that.  how many men can you remember their name.  how many men, just didnt give a fuck.

?? they put him in a hospital where he received shock treatment as a kid.  Apparently, he was at Syracuse University and was given this compulsory choice to either do gym or the Reserve Officers Training Corps.  He claimed he couldn?t do gym because he?d break his neck and when he did ROTC he threatened to kill the instructor.  Then he put his fist through a window or something, and so he was put in a mental hospital.?
? John Cale

Mr. Reed wrote in the liner notes [to Metal Machine Music] that ?no one I know has listened to it all the way through, including myself.?


The composer Brian Eno, in an often-quoted interview from 1982, suggested that if the group?s first album, ?The Velvet Underground & Nico,? sold only 30,000 copies during its first five years, ?everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.?

I was a teenager in the 80's, so this was my introduction to Lou Reed:

http://youtu.be/lDLAM48TmJQ

ggw wrote:
Mr. Reed wrote in the liner notes [to Metal Machine Music] that ?no one I know has listened to it all the way through, including myself.?

This was my problem with Lou…why put out an album you know no one will listen to after they buy it. Same thing about seeing him live. Why start your set 25 minutes late when you know you are taking away from someone else set.  Anyway Velvet Undergrounds first album is one of the best of all time.  Transformer is a great album.  Nicos first album is amazing and he wrote some of the songs and played on it as well. 

atomic wrote:

ggw wrote:
Mr. Reed wrote in the liner notes [to Metal Machine Music] that ?no one I know has listened to it all the way through, including myself.?

This was my problem with Lou…why put out an album you know no one will listen to after they buy it. Same thing about seeing him live. Why start your set 25 minutes late when you know you are taking away from someone else set.  Anyway Velvet Undergrounds first album is one of the best of all time.  Transformer is a great album.  Nicos first album is amazing and he wrote some of the songs and played on it as well.   

classic tommy fresh baby! comes to the appreciation thread to tell us what he DOESN'T appreciate! happy monday folks!

but for real, metal machine music was a mistake, and lou said so himself.  it probably has some roots with la mont young, and the avant garde/minimalist approach that surrounded his earlier influences. but who cares? he tried something new and failed.