No artist knows how to frustrate and antagonize his core audience like Lou Reed. For every collection of classic material, there’s at least one release of "I-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-make-this-any-good-and-I-don’t-care-what-anyone-thinks-anyway" garbage that may as well come straight from the pressing plant with a clearance bin sticker already pasted to its shrink-wrap. This practice begs the question, "Why don’t you just make simple yet creative and challenging songs like we know you can, bozo?!”
Having…entire summary
Lou Reed - vocals, guitar
Marty Fogel - saxophone
Michael Fonfara - keyboards
Jeffrey Ross - guitar
Michael Suchorsky - drums
Bruce Yaw - bass
No artist knows how to frustrate and antagonize his core audience like Lou Reed. For every collection of classic material, there’s at least one release of "I-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-make-this-any-good-and-I-don’t-care-what-anyone-thinks-anyway" garbage that may as well come straight from the pressing plant with a clearance bin sticker already pasted to its shrink-wrap. This practice begs the question, "Why don’t you just make simple yet creative and challenging songs like we know you can, bozo?!”
Having first created a stunningly beautiful and perfectly flawed oeuvre with The Velvet Underground, in the 1970s Lou embarked on a deconstructive solo career consisting chiefly of album-long exercises in one of three categories - awesome rock ‘n’ roll, intolerable noise and boring crap. This self-proclaimed average guy tends to linger in some pretty bleak territory when left to his own devices; charitably, however, he has been known to invite over some talented friends - Bowie, underground guitarist Robert Quine, even former Velvet John Cale on occasion, along with a whole host of topnotch session players - often with powerful results.
This performance from New York’s Bottom Line finds Reed fiercely fighting his way out of the mid-‘70s, post-glam doldrums, and with a team of certified power-punks brought along to lend a hand. His band pounds out a heavy-browed Neanderthal quake with smooth saxophone administering just enough urban cool to soothe the layers of crunching guitars and pneumatic drums. Meanwhile, Lou’s up front mumbling through dope-sick heartbreak and itchy, sweaty angst in his characteristic lazy talk-sing, but he sounds a little different this time - stronger and more emphatic, like he’s barking orders on a hopeless battlefield. It’s a duel to the death and these electric warriors show no mercy; this is the stuff of which his legend is made.
Figuring out Lou Reed may involve a lot of head scratching and ear plugging, but the rewards for mining the depths of his catalog are incalculable. Here is a true rock ‘n’ roll individual at just one of his many exciting and confusing peaks.
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