uncle lou reappraised
i find it interesting that my two favorite musical artistes (the stooges; lou reed) -- one of which released three bona fide albums, all of which are great in different ways and one of which (funhouse) is probably my favorite rekkid _of all time_; the other of which has released dozens of albums, less than half of which are listenable and maybe ten of which have truly stood the test of time -- as my buddy geoff from philly points out, utilize different channels (the cock; the cerebrum) to take the listener to the same place (transcendence).
since jettisoning titanic early collaborators 'n' mentors andy warhol and john cale -- after which the velvet underground devolved into a confluence of _the talent_ with two beloved friends (sterl 'n' mo) and one much more modestly gifted opportunist (doug yule) who nonetheless sought to impose his stink on the songs lou brought for their last album by overdubbing each and every one of them with a cheeseball, inorganic-sounding veneer of every last instrument he could possibly imagine) -- lou's career has been the story of his development as a songwriter. the latter-day release of robert quine's v.u. tapes, which depict the velvets as a kind of black-turtleneck wearing psychedelic jam band (three, count 'em, _three_ long versions of "sister ray," etc.), only served to cloud the picture. the _real_ thread starts with the velvets' eponymous third album, the one with all the "soft" songs. you could say that lou's latter-day music sounds like what that record would have if the velvets hadn't had all of their f/x boxes stolen immediately prior to recording it (as legend holds they did).
when reed hired quine to give his art a much-needed kick in the ass in the early '80s, he soon realized the diminishing utility of having a band that he had to yell over to be heard (see the live-in-italy vids on youtube, where lou looks like joe piscopo-as-broooce springsteen) and after another fallow period in the mid-'80s, he came up with an alternative: the "loud soft sound" he described in musician magazine around the time he released new york and songs for drella. on those two albums and the one that followed them (magic and loss), uncle lou crafted a kind of rock chamber music that's served him well ever since. in the fullness of time, he's even dispensed with the drummer in his touring band. so there.
the surfeit of hype surrounding the first quine-era album, the blue mask, when it was new probably had more to do with the assembled rockcrits of the planet becoming so accustomed (in the retreat from artistic ambition that followed the public's rejection of berlin) to lou's releasing album after album of cynical _product_, first exploiting the mainstream rock appeal of the super-slick band of studio cats that backed him on his '73 tour (who had less genuine feeling for his songs than had either the yes guys on the eponymous solo debut or the long island garage band losers that had backed him on the road in '72 and can be heard to good advantage on american poet), then churning out a half-dozen or so lackluster releases wherein worthless dreck bordering on self-parody ("dirt," "i wanna be black") rubbed shoulders with the occasional good song ("coney island baby," "street hassle"). while the blue mask bore at least two outright clunkers ("women" and "heavenly arms"), counterbalanced by two real good lou reed songs ("my house" and "the day john kennedy died"), the gtr-heavy sound crackled with spontaneity and energy and the man his own self sounded like he was trying hard again, maybe for the first time since berlin.
the subject matter of berlin (boy meets girl, boy beats up girl, girl cuts her wrists, boy washes his hands) had been enough to thoroughly bum out and scare off the legions of bowie fans seduced by the shiny pop confection that was transformer. whatthehell was all this tawdry winesburg, ohio-sounding shit about speedfreaks, they wondered. what happened to all the lipstick 'n' faux glamour? against all odds, he managed to top berlin's not-inconsiderable buzzkill quotient with metal machine music, two full elpees' worth of feedback and white noise released on rca's _classical_ label (subsequently covered by the zeitkratzer orchestra in 2002), and a few years later with take no prisoners, an andy kaufman-like comedic tour de force disguised as a double live eruption of vitriol 'n' bile directed at lou's critics 'n' fans. with the blue mask, he gave up trying to scare the bejeezus out of evabody as a spectator sport and got back to the business of finding an appropriate medium for a kind of "adult rock 'n' roll" through which he could address thoughtful lyrical content, minus the sensationalism. he found it on legendary hearts, the album that followed the blue mask.
when thom robinson recently groused in perfect sound forever about the "detrimental effect" of bringing forward fernando saunders' bass in the mix of legendary hearts at the expense of quine's gtr, he missed the point: that lower-register sounds had been lou's preferred medium for melodic instrumental statements at least since brit session hack herbie flowers' sliding stand-up bass figure on "walk on the wild side," or ex-cream guy jack bruce's signature sound on berlin. these days, of course, lou carries a cello in his band.
while he's always stripped it down to just two gtrs, bass and drums when in doubt, y2k's ecstasy employed the production services of hal willner, producer of cinematic-sounding anthologies of monk, mingus, kurt weill, and disney movie-ola, to obtain a vivid, dynamic sound unheard on a lou reed alb since the bob ezrin-produced berlin. (ezrin, of course, is the canadian who made '71-'73 alice cooper albums listenable before going on the make money doing similar work for the likes of peter gabriel and pink floyd.) since then, he's gone off chasing tangents (edgar allen poe, ta'i chi), but he's proven time and again that he can pull it together and make interesting and vital music when he wants to. (from all reports -- i missed the one chance i'll probably ever have to see him in texas when he played the bronco bowl in dallas back in '96 -- he's capable of doing so at will in a live situation. it's also interesting that steve hunter, the berlin gtrist whose intro to "sweet jane" on rock 'n' roll animal was as much of a long island bar band staple back in the day as the mitch ryder version of lou's "rock and roll" that hunter also played on, was back in lou's band for the recent spate of berlin live shows.) still, i commend to you without hesitation the following (in chronological order):
1) the velvet underground
2) loaded (in spite of my stated reservations about the doug yule issue, it was still the first lou rekkid i dug when i was a snotnose)
3) lou reed (especially "wild child")
4) berlin
5) the blue mask (except "women" and "heavenly arms")
6) legendary hearts
7) new york
8) songs for drella (wherein lou and john cale bury the hatchet for 15 minutes in memory of andy)
9) magic and loss
10) ecstasy
his batting average may suck compared to the stooges', but when he wants to enough to stop playing the fool (or, more recently, the pompous windbag), dude can write songs to make you feel as well as think. dig him.
since jettisoning titanic early collaborators 'n' mentors andy warhol and john cale -- after which the velvet underground devolved into a confluence of _the talent_ with two beloved friends (sterl 'n' mo) and one much more modestly gifted opportunist (doug yule) who nonetheless sought to impose his stink on the songs lou brought for their last album by overdubbing each and every one of them with a cheeseball, inorganic-sounding veneer of every last instrument he could possibly imagine) -- lou's career has been the story of his development as a songwriter. the latter-day release of robert quine's v.u. tapes, which depict the velvets as a kind of black-turtleneck wearing psychedelic jam band (three, count 'em, _three_ long versions of "sister ray," etc.), only served to cloud the picture. the _real_ thread starts with the velvets' eponymous third album, the one with all the "soft" songs. you could say that lou's latter-day music sounds like what that record would have if the velvets hadn't had all of their f/x boxes stolen immediately prior to recording it (as legend holds they did).
when reed hired quine to give his art a much-needed kick in the ass in the early '80s, he soon realized the diminishing utility of having a band that he had to yell over to be heard (see the live-in-italy vids on youtube, where lou looks like joe piscopo-as-broooce springsteen) and after another fallow period in the mid-'80s, he came up with an alternative: the "loud soft sound" he described in musician magazine around the time he released new york and songs for drella. on those two albums and the one that followed them (magic and loss), uncle lou crafted a kind of rock chamber music that's served him well ever since. in the fullness of time, he's even dispensed with the drummer in his touring band. so there.
the surfeit of hype surrounding the first quine-era album, the blue mask, when it was new probably had more to do with the assembled rockcrits of the planet becoming so accustomed (in the retreat from artistic ambition that followed the public's rejection of berlin) to lou's releasing album after album of cynical _product_, first exploiting the mainstream rock appeal of the super-slick band of studio cats that backed him on his '73 tour (who had less genuine feeling for his songs than had either the yes guys on the eponymous solo debut or the long island garage band losers that had backed him on the road in '72 and can be heard to good advantage on american poet), then churning out a half-dozen or so lackluster releases wherein worthless dreck bordering on self-parody ("dirt," "i wanna be black") rubbed shoulders with the occasional good song ("coney island baby," "street hassle"). while the blue mask bore at least two outright clunkers ("women" and "heavenly arms"), counterbalanced by two real good lou reed songs ("my house" and "the day john kennedy died"), the gtr-heavy sound crackled with spontaneity and energy and the man his own self sounded like he was trying hard again, maybe for the first time since berlin.
the subject matter of berlin (boy meets girl, boy beats up girl, girl cuts her wrists, boy washes his hands) had been enough to thoroughly bum out and scare off the legions of bowie fans seduced by the shiny pop confection that was transformer. whatthehell was all this tawdry winesburg, ohio-sounding shit about speedfreaks, they wondered. what happened to all the lipstick 'n' faux glamour? against all odds, he managed to top berlin's not-inconsiderable buzzkill quotient with metal machine music, two full elpees' worth of feedback and white noise released on rca's _classical_ label (subsequently covered by the zeitkratzer orchestra in 2002), and a few years later with take no prisoners, an andy kaufman-like comedic tour de force disguised as a double live eruption of vitriol 'n' bile directed at lou's critics 'n' fans. with the blue mask, he gave up trying to scare the bejeezus out of evabody as a spectator sport and got back to the business of finding an appropriate medium for a kind of "adult rock 'n' roll" through which he could address thoughtful lyrical content, minus the sensationalism. he found it on legendary hearts, the album that followed the blue mask.
when thom robinson recently groused in perfect sound forever about the "detrimental effect" of bringing forward fernando saunders' bass in the mix of legendary hearts at the expense of quine's gtr, he missed the point: that lower-register sounds had been lou's preferred medium for melodic instrumental statements at least since brit session hack herbie flowers' sliding stand-up bass figure on "walk on the wild side," or ex-cream guy jack bruce's signature sound on berlin. these days, of course, lou carries a cello in his band.
while he's always stripped it down to just two gtrs, bass and drums when in doubt, y2k's ecstasy employed the production services of hal willner, producer of cinematic-sounding anthologies of monk, mingus, kurt weill, and disney movie-ola, to obtain a vivid, dynamic sound unheard on a lou reed alb since the bob ezrin-produced berlin. (ezrin, of course, is the canadian who made '71-'73 alice cooper albums listenable before going on the make money doing similar work for the likes of peter gabriel and pink floyd.) since then, he's gone off chasing tangents (edgar allen poe, ta'i chi), but he's proven time and again that he can pull it together and make interesting and vital music when he wants to. (from all reports -- i missed the one chance i'll probably ever have to see him in texas when he played the bronco bowl in dallas back in '96 -- he's capable of doing so at will in a live situation. it's also interesting that steve hunter, the berlin gtrist whose intro to "sweet jane" on rock 'n' roll animal was as much of a long island bar band staple back in the day as the mitch ryder version of lou's "rock and roll" that hunter also played on, was back in lou's band for the recent spate of berlin live shows.) still, i commend to you without hesitation the following (in chronological order):
1) the velvet underground
2) loaded (in spite of my stated reservations about the doug yule issue, it was still the first lou rekkid i dug when i was a snotnose)
3) lou reed (especially "wild child")
4) berlin
5) the blue mask (except "women" and "heavenly arms")
6) legendary hearts
7) new york
8) songs for drella (wherein lou and john cale bury the hatchet for 15 minutes in memory of andy)
9) magic and loss
10) ecstasy
his batting average may suck compared to the stooges', but when he wants to enough to stop playing the fool (or, more recently, the pompous windbag), dude can write songs to make you feel as well as think. dig him.
posted by stashdauber at 4:42 AM
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