Lou Reed died today (1 Viewer)

[Jerry Twig]

This is all very nice but I've a vague feeling that if he had been from, say, Newbridge and not New York we'd have thought he was a total wanker .

But he wouldn't have been Lou Reed then. VU were the Lower East Side and the Factory scene and he documented that so brilliantly. Fucking hell - nobody sounded like that and it wasn't going to come out of Newbridge. Same with his early 70s records. 1989's New York, with songs like Halloween Parade are an absolute homage to his city. When I think of New York I think of Lou Reed, as do millions of others.

He was an oul bollocks, but it's his music I love (and actually that he was a right aul bollocks as well).

 

[rettucs]

aye, Lou was an awful grumpy bollox. I remember seeing an interview where he went through Dave Fanning for a shortcut after Fanning second-guessed what a certain Lou Reed song might have been written about.

But he made it ok to hate everything.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Farewell to Lou, so many great records and influenced countless others to make good shit.

Great memories - asking what the banana was, to Berlin full blast summer osmosis 1984.

 

[Unicron]

Just my thoughts. I was surprised at the outpouring of grief and the front page on the Indo and whatever.

That's fair enough, personally I think Lou is better than any Beatle.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

That's fair enough, personally I think Lou is better than any Beatle.

So do I, (except for Wings), but what's that got to do with it?

 

[Unicron]

So do I, (except for Wings), but what's that got to do with it?

Well I mean, they're generally considered the gold standard aren't they? Just trying to place what I think of VU/Lou Reed in context

 

[GO]

Ahh he was class

 

[washingcattle]

This is all very nice but I've a vague feeling that if he had been from, say, Newbridge and not New York we'd have thought he was a total wanker who did some good/amazing stuff decades ago and wouldn't care too much.

There's a piece on the Guardian from some writer who says he listened to Metal Machine Music for a couple of weeks while writing or doing something and it "helped". You wouldn't even get a Morrissey acolyte saying that about Kill Uncle.

I dunno. Never really liked him apart from VU. Listened to Transformer a few times and thought it wasn't much better than a dozen New York proto-punk/punk/new wave albums released around then. And I say that as a lad who bought White Light/White Heat on tape from Dun Laoghaire Market aged about 14 and loved it. Ha! The looks on my (two) friends' faces when I played them Sister Ray....good tune.

Just my thoughts. I was surprised at the outpouring of grief and the front page on the Indo and whatever.

Ah C'mon.

You're surprised that there are outpourings of grief over the death of a man who at the height of his powers made work that was undoubtedly brilliant ?

Firstly there are outpourings of grief over useless talentless shitehawk hacks that appear on big fucking brother for christ sake.

Secondly Lou deserves it. For Velvet Underground and Nico alone, he deserves it.

Thirdly he's on that list of generation "defining" artists.

There's Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCarthy, Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Plant, David Bowie and Ozzy Osborne and probably a few others but not many.

That's the premier league right there. It's huge when one of them goes.

Basically everything that exists in pop/rock has it's roots in that period between 1956-1977 (except hip-hop to an extent, which is probably the only genuinely "new" thing to happen after that period).

Lou was a massive part of that it's no surprise to me how massive the tributes are.

Might have been a surprise to him though.

 

[Lili Marlene]

It is interesting how he's sold as a cult musician but seems to be up there obituary-wise with all the other baby-boomer musician gods.

 

[Kermit McDermott]

Poor ol' Lou. RIP

And Keith Richards is fit as a fiddle....

 

[washingcattle]

It is interesting how he's sold as a cult musician but seems to be up there obituary-wise with all the other baby-boomer musician gods.

Cult musician up until Perfect Day loomed into the mainstream in the mid 90s. It only really takes one "hit" to be "elevated" from cult musician to celebrity.
That's why Lou is on the front pages of the Irish times and Captain Beefheart was on every cover of every single music magazine and website.

Edit: I forgot the Captain was dead for a second. That was a nice second altogether.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Who is Paul McCarthy?

 

[washingcattle]

Who is Paul McCarthy?

Eh......

*Gets coat, runs away in shame. Hides in Cave plotting revenge on the internet*

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

There's Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCarthy, Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Jimmy Plant, David Bowie and Ozzy Osborne and probably a few others but not many.

I was being internetty with you, but mostly because you don't have John Lennon on there.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Cult musician up until Perfect Day loomed into the mainstream in the mid 90s. It only really takes one "hit" to be "elevated" from cult musician to celebrity.
That's why Lou is on the front pages of the Irish times and Captain Beefheart was on every cover of every single music magazine and website.

Edit: I forgot the Captain was dead for a second. That was a nice second altogether.

So do you think your list up there can still grow? If some other cult musician has a hit*?




*and the discography to back it up

I was being internetty with you, but mostly because you don't have John Lennon on there.

not sure how to break this to you....

 

[Jim Daniels]

Here's a really great version of Heroin

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[washingcattle]

So do you think your list up there can still grow? If some other cult musician has a hit*?




*and the discography to back it up





not sure how to break this to you....

Of course. That's how "the mainstream" works.

On a side note, Imagine the amount of great music lost to the ages between 1700-1900 because it was deemed unpatriotic.

To be fair most of the "great" innovators of the late 20th century who will be adopted into the mainstream canon at this stage will be african americans or of "black" origins so in that alone it will be an interesting time to watch conservative media deal with that.

I.e Dr Dre dies and blah de blah newspaper has to follow the suit of it's competators by paying tribute to a man who they blamed for the moral decline of civilisation. In much the same way that the same newspapers blamed The Rolling Stones, Elvis and The Beatles for the same things 30 years earlier.

I was being internetty with you, but mostly because you don't have John Lennon on there.

Eh...... yeah this is going to be hard but....eh........John Lennon yeah ? ......Brown bread mate.*



*right so that's probably not funny to anyone else but a mate of mine was playing Elliott Smith songs on his CD player at Electric Picnic a few years ago when a very nice very young lad started chatting to him for ages about tunes. They were getting along great. The young lad eventually asked very earnestly if the two of them could meet up and go see mr Smith next time he played in Dublin, to which my mate replied "nah, Brown Bread mate". The young lad having never heard this phrase before, sulked off into the shadows. it was down right hilarious, and tragic. Good times. Kinda.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

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[David Kronenbourg]

Lou would have hated this

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[David Kronenbourg]

i love this picture