NYS Music 20​13

Tag: Lou Reed

  • Journey to China: Suck It

    Some dog mounts Nikki’s bitch

    You would think after Kid Rock got into the mix with Tommy Lee back in 2007, no one would want to bother with any of the members from Motley Crue.

    Oh, no.

    Nikki Sixx was minding his own business before some dog decided to get friendly.

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    Meanwhile, Tommy had his own battles to contend with.

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    In case you didn’t hear us before…

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    Last Tuesday marked the end of a two-week, marathon “eulogy” for Lou Reed by Rolling Stone magazine.

    Reed died on October 27th, after a long bout with liver disease.  And, the magazine was not about to let anyone forget him.  Each day, for two-weeks, they tweeted something regarding the deceased.

    After serving as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, Reed’s solo career spanned several decades. The Velvet Underground were a commercial failure in the late 1960s, but the group has gained a considerable cult following in the years since its demise and has gone on to become one of the most widely cited and influential bands of the era – hence Brian Eno’s famous quote that while the Velvet Underground’s debut album only sold 30,000 copies, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”

    After his departure from the group, Reed began a solo career in 1972. He had a hit the following year with “Walk on the Wild Side”, but subsequently lacked the mainstream commercial success its chart status seemed to indicate.

    More than 150 people attended a memorial service in New York City’s Lincoln Center last Thursday.  Reed, himself, was a New York resident. His voice resonated through the air by means of mounted speakers speckled throughout the park. Many who speak of Reed’s talent, speak of the intimacy of his delivery; singing as if he was having a direct conversation with his audience.  Perhaps that’s why RS felt the need to stretch out this period of mourning.  But, the national attention that the magazine garners, coupled with the low-turnout for the memorial, makes one wonder whether or not such attention was in the service of his fans, or merely a few editor’s morning in public.

    Happy Birthday

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    Pearl Jam took a moment to pay tribute to one of their influences, when they wished Neil Young a happy birthday.

    Young’s time in the spotlight started as a member of Buffalo Springfield, and later playing on as a fourth member to Crosby, Stills & Nash.  But, his fame is predominately established through his own, solo work, which spans nearly 45 years. In certain circles, Young is considered the founder of the grunge sound that made Pearl Jam successful back in the early 90s, thanks in part to the heavily modulated guitar play in “Hey Hey, My My” off of Rust Never Sleeps.  He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 as a solo artist, and again in 1997, as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

    Young turned 68 last Tuesday.

    Journey: “Send Her My Love”

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    Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippine Islands on Thursday, November 7th.  It registered as a Category 5, “super” hurricane.  At it’s peak, it was recorded with sustained winds of 195 miles per hour (mph), with gusts of 235 mph.

    In its wake, nearly 11 million people were impacted directly by the storm, many of whom are believed to be homeless and deprived of food.  Climatologists and some politicians have quickly linked the strength of the storm to global warming. While politicians continue to squabble over the facts of climate change, there are some within the music industry already taking arms in providing aid to the Philippines.  One that stood out the most last week was Journey, who donated $350 thousand.

    The band announced the donation on November 15th, and it will go to the United Nations World Food Programme, which is providing Filipinos with food assistance.  The donation should provide 1.4 million meals.  Arnel Pineda, the band’s lead singer, is Filipino.

    To lend perspective on the band’s contribution, the rockers in Journey donated three times more than the country of China alone, who donated only $100,000.

  • Lou Reed by Proxy

    I experienced Lou Reed by proxy while attending a creative writing course at a community school in Troy, NY.  Joe Cardillo walked into his class room, always wearing a black sweater, black leather jacket, Army-issue pants, black-leather boots, topped off with a black beret.  The beret partially covered his black, curly hair, and once the attention to his attire was broken away, his tough, leathery skin revealed he was not among my peers of twenty-year olds.

    He was a beatnik who admired Patti Smith.  He smashed the rigid lesson plans we were all familiar with in high school.  Writing did not have to follow a set of rules.  Poetry didn’t have to rhyme.  Stories didn’t have to flow chronologically (see also Robert Coover’s The Baby Sitter).  The very structure of a paragraph need not be followed.

    In my mind, as I write this now, Joe Cardillo was Lou Reed.  If, only, because he looked like him.

    Now, that is the extent to my experience with Lou Reed.  Before I heard of his passing yesterday, I knew little of the man.  I knew him to be the man who sang, “Take a Walk on the Wild Side.”  On a good day, I may have been able to remember he was in a band known as the Velvet Underground.  I’m sorry to admit that, but at the same time, I grew up on Neil Young, The Eagles and The Beatles.  As a know-it-all teenager, and college student, I would see Reed in his ever-present black shirt, and sunglasses, and I would see a caricature of a man from a time I recognized was twenty years behind me.

    So, as I read about the man, I’m less inclined to read over the details that encompassed his life recently.  I’m more interested in how it all started.

    He graduated from Syracuse University in 1964, where he studied journalism, film directing and creative writing, but not before developing a fondness for rock and roll.  As a songwriter, he set out to tell a story.  But, he wasn’t invoking Pete Seeger through  folk songs he penned.  He was cynical,  Not because it was cool, but because he had reasons to be cynical. He was Jewish. He was guant.  He was bi-sexual.  (As a teenager, he suffered through electro-shock treatment to “cure” him of such acts.)  He wrote about drugs and sex, not vaguely, but quiet directly. His Velvet Underground was a mid-20th century version of a chamber orchestra for artist Andy Warhol and his factory of artists, writers and actors – a place for exchanging ideas, freely.  (Warhol?  Campbell’s soup?  Meek looking, bi-speckled gent with crazy hair?  I’ve seen him before.  Warhol was shot by a man-hating lesbian?  See also Valerie Solanas – and, yes, she hated men.)  In 1975, Reed released a solo double-album called Metal Machine Music, which included nothing but over-modulated feeback and guitar effects.  Years later, he would collaborate with Metallica, and claim he established the Heavy Metal genre. Others still see it as Reed throwing up a middle-finger to conformity. I only now appreciate the fact that Reed was not a product of non-conformity, it was his non-conformity that established a product – a way of holding one’s self in a society that did not accept differences.

    By now, every Lou Reed obituary is quoting from music producer, Brian Eno, who said, “The first Velvet Underground album sold 30,000 copies in the first five years. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!” But, it speaks of how Reed’s popularity germinated from the 60’s and seemed to blossom over the decades.  He was “avant-garde” when it was more hip to say “avant-garde.”  As the baby-boomers of his generation grew older, his talent was appreciated more commonly.  And, the following generations seemed to catch on.

    Joe Cardillo was blowing my mind while I was still an easily impressionable man of eight and ten.  I still take some of the things I learned from his class with me everyday.  I think it’s clear now that Lou Reed had a profound influence upon my instructor. So much so, it permeated into my lessons. I still don’t think I’m the right person to be writing this.  I can not properly articulate the influences Lou Reed had upon the masses who now mourn his death.  But, to see some of the names who speak out with such reverence for the man, who am I to think I need to define his legacy? I’m just ashamed that I’ve only now recognized that Reed is… was prototypical.