The first time I heard What Goes On from the Velevet Underground's eponymous album of 1969 I was with a girlfriend in a booth of a record store in Corporation Street, Birmingham around 1970...we were both tripping and had taken refuge from the chaos of the streets in that booth.....We were transformed by this fabulous proto-punk anthem. I had to wait until the1990s before I saw Lou Reed live at a gig promoting his then new album Set The Twilight Reeling (1996) at Birmingham Indoor Arena. This was no stadium rock gig, it was standing/dancing event in which Lou Reed was performing a few feet from where I stood and at more or less the same level, more like a big pub gig than a superstar spectacular.
In the Middle East in the late 70s Lou Reed's album Rock and Rock Heart was my constant companion and his classics like the first Velvet Underground/Andy Warhol ' Banana' album... Transformer, Berlin, White Light White Heat, Live at Max's Kansas City and New York were all albums that I have owned in a variety of formats over the years and still play today. The video below is the best I could find on YouTube, the annoying caption disappears after about a minute, unfortunately it returns at the end, but this original 1965 footage is absolutely priceless I think.
Lou Reed was a master of contemporary music, he was born in New York City and died in New York City and he sang about the place a lot in between. There will be many tributes to Lou Reed in coming days, but for me there will never be a more exciting sound than the one I heard that day back in the mists of time, dancing with my girlfiend out of our heads in a soundproof booth in Lewis's Department Store, Brum... with the sound turned up full, it was divine madness. It was also incidentally - a day to remember for all my life. So thanks for that Lou, you were indeed a fabulous shining star!
Thanks Aaron for this very thoughtful post on Lou Reed, nothing at all I can add, he was my constant companion. To this day I've never heard a song so sad and so full of pathos as pale blue eyes. He was a genuine original, no one else came close.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Pale Blue Eyes is a really great song Loretta, a ballad in the true ballad tradition and an American urban folk song of the mid 20th century. We are lucky to have had these influences I think, but my dad probably would not agree with me on that, its all relative though and Lou had a lot of clout in shaping a generation... so well done him, the boy done good! What's left to say?
DeleteI hadn't heard "What Goes On" in a long, long time so this is a great tribute! Thank goodness for You Tube. It is wonderful what can be found there if one has the time to look.
ReplyDeleteThanks once again, AA, for putting your inimitable personal reflection of the past and the evolving future in a spotlight on the great Lou Reed. My introduction to Lou Reed came from the radio, tuned into the family garage and digging his only Top 20 hit, "Walk on the Wild Side", from 1973 I believe on the "Berlin" album.
The coolest single of the early 70's, bar none. The uncut version they played on the FM music stations only made his New York scene all the more edgy and honest. I never saw him live, but he always came over to me on television rock shows as a powerful presence, one twinged with a haunted, fugitive countenance like a man on the run in an expressionist urban landscape. I wonder if you got that sense seeing him live and close up when he played?
My introduction to his other work with the introductory Velvet Underground albums later on only confirmed how great he was. It was great to see those albums get the recognition they deserved as time went on.
Cheers Doug, to me Lou Reed will forever be part of the Factory and Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. For me he was captured in aspic at that moment in 1966-67 and never completely came out of it. The glam rock Lou Reed of Transformer and Walk On The Wild Side was a reinvention after the big bang of the Warhol New York days when Lou Reed star as he was was sometimes cast as Nico's sideman. I liked that understatedness about Lou Reed, even when it was over the top in the transvestite 70s it was always an image that pranced the stage, Lou Reed was always behind it but relentlessly working the image.
DeleteBy the time I caught up with him some of edge had gone, Candy Darling was dead and so was Andy Warhol, but he was a club musician and that was the atmosphere. The Velvet Underground are most underplayed pub band in global circulation I think, but when I saw him he could still cut it that is certainly true Doug. I suppose I thought I was seeing a rather comfy East Village rocker who had already outlived most of his contempories and that is something I can identify with myself as it happens too. I like Lou Reed and seeing him on that Winter night in Birmingham about 17 years ago was good, I enjoyed the show and felt I had watched a master at work.
I suppose he does look haunted but I guess I always put that down to a rock 'n' roll lifestyle, Keith Richard is a bit like that I think, perhaps it is because rock stars like them are always hunted and haunted it goes with the territory, an occupational hazard of rock stardom you might say.
Anyway he was a cool dude and that is marked down in the history of culture, so nice one Lou!
Good analysis in my book, AA. Thanks again!
DeleteKia ora. I loved his voice, I loved his lyrics, still do. He was indeed a cool dude.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Iri :-)
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