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| Lou Reed, self-portrait from Facebook |
My
listening habits in the last two weeks centred exclusively on the
music of one artist - Lou Reed. In the days following his untimely
death it seemed the most fitting thing to do.
I
admit that I came to Reed's music relatively late in life; I was
aware of his influence, just like I was aware of Bowie, punk, The
Ramones and so on, but as with all of those things I just figured it
wasn't for me. Until university I only really listened to electronic
music - pop, techno, ambient and so on - but after a while I found my
tastes becoming more eclectic. A key turning point came toward the
end of my second year when I decided to buy a biography of David
Bowie called Loving The Alien by Christopher Sandford from the campus
branch of Waterstone's. I don't know why, but I suspect it was
chiefly to read more about Bowie's Berlin period, whose starkness had
a direct influence on the electronic music I was familiar with.
I
surprised myself with enjoying the passages on how Bowie's love of
The Velvet Underground and its frontman Lou Reed had directly
inspired his Ziggy Stardust alter ego. The sections recounting the
speed anthem 'White Light / White Heat' from the Velvets' second
album were especially vivid, I recall, as was the description of 'I'm
Waiting For The Man'. In my head it sounded wild. Raw. Decadent.
Gritty. I wasn't then in love with New York like I am today but the
idea of Reed singing about buying drugs from a dealer up in Harlem
seemed just about the most thrilling thing I'd heard about in my
early twenties. It sounded a lot more interesting than the song
'Perfect Day' that I'd first heard the year before on the
Trainspotting soundtrack, and which by then had been butchered into
an unlikely star-encrusted advert for the BBC. I knew that track was
about a heroin comedown and so in its own way it was still 'punk' but
'I'm Waiting For The Man' sounded infinitely more appealing. In my
head.
It
took over a year before I bought The Velvet Underground And Nico, the
album that included that song. I'd travelled from my girlfriend's
parents' house in rural Norfolk to North London for an interview with
a big pharmaceuticals firm, part of that painful cycle of third year
soul-selling, and this one had gone really badly. Back at Liverpool
Street station I had hours to kill before a train back to Norwich so
I wandered out of the station and found a branch of Our Price (it's
now a Specsavers) and came out with a copy of The Velvet Underground
And Nico. I studied the sleeve the entire journey back to my
girlfriend's house. It felt like I'd taken a leap into a completely
unknown world, one that was appealing but one that barely made any
sense in amongst the music I'd been consuming up to that point.
At
her house I remember putting it on, realising that I knew 'Sunday
Morning' from the OMD album Liberator and was blown away by 'I'm
Waiting For The Man'; it was better than it had ever sounded in my head. My girlfriend hated it. I think that made me
like it all the more. Last week I was given the chance to contribute
to a piece on Lou Reed's best moments for a Clash piece; I
instinctively chose that track that had first gripped me.
Unfortunately someone else got the honour of writing that one and so
my piece didn't get used (I wrote about Metal Machine Music instead).
Here's what I wrote anyway.
“Like Hubert Selby Jr, Lou Reed always had a penchant for subjects that were completely taboo. This song joyously documented scoring drugs from a Harlem dealer, and would provide the obvious reference point for punk and glam.”
I
rented a room in a house in Colchester that year with a couple in
their forties. Dave was the muso of the couple. I remember coming
home raving about having bought the first Velvets album and, from his
pile of cassettes in the kitchen, he retrieved a copy of Berlin. He
told me that if I loved that album I'd love Reed's solo output. I
didn't believe him, much like I didn't believe that the Velvets
post-John Cale would be any good, and so I approached it cynically,
just as I had with 'Perfect Day'. I concede now that he was right,
and I absolutely love those Lou Reed solo records that I own.
In
the summer that followed I bought a tiny CD-sized book that was
effectively a track-by-track description of every track the Velvets
ever recorded. I think I bought it from Athena. I consumed it avidly
and it became a sort of buyer's guide for the Velvets' music over the
coming years. Better and more comprehensive books have been about the
Velvets and Lou Reed, but I still refer to that tiny book from time
to time. Right now it's on top of a pile of reading material next to
my bed, the product of showing my two daughters pictures of the band
after subjecting them to a cheap Velvets compilation I've been
listening to in the car since I first saw that Reed had died.
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| The Complete Guide To The Music Of The Velvet Underground by Peter Hogan (1997) |
So
the past week has seen me listening to more or less everything of
Reed's that I have in my collection (including listening to Metal
Machine Music as the backdrop to various Tube journeys; it works
surprisingly well for that). I genuinely thought Reed would live
forever, as I suppose he will through his music and reputation. He
had long ago sorted the addictions that had informed his early lyrics
and found solace in daily meditations and tai chi (if you think Metal
Machine Music is the most unusual album in his back catalogue, try
Hudson River Wind Meditation, an ambient album designed to accompany
tai chi and meditation). I saw him as the role model for a life I
guess I want - namely one of being creative, being centred, living
healthily and having a reputation for being monumentally grouchy.
Rest
in peace Lou.
-
MJAS, London, November 2013
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