We weren't sure whether to run a piece like this, after all it's going to be a very small drop in the outpouring of tributes to an iconic figure, but after some discussion enough of our writers wanted to just contribute a few reflective thoughts on what Lou Reed meant to them. So here they are, unabridged and raw.
I remember the first time I discovered Lou Reed. We were watching concert footage of him perform Venus in Furs solo with the violinist (he dropped it for a while) and I couldn't quite process what this amazing music was - it spooked me in the best possible way.
The second big memory I have is the first time I drove my first car for the first time. I popped in the only cassette I had lying around, a mixtape, and off kicked Waiting For The Man and I shuttled around a very small time, quite dangerously, hitting bumps and loving it. It was a truly excellent, slightly scary dangerous drive that I'll never forget.
Oh and of course there's Such A Perfect Day in Trainspotting.
A lot of the times when celebrities die I shrug it off, but Lou was one of a kind... truly. For every up and down he had, everyone still loves him like he's top of the dog pile. For the record I'm currently listening to Velvet Underground & Nico, which I have in the edition with the peelable banana sticker. I fucking love it.
- Jake Murray
I don't have much to say about him, except that discovering Velvet Underground & Nico when I was 19 and kicking back in my smoky, dimly lit room while listening to the album repeatedly was a huge insight into where the music that I loved so much in the years before came from. Those guys made the musicians who made the music that sparked my love of music. Ta Lou x
- Kunal Singhal
It’s not the kind of music I used to listen to but I grew up with his music and, more than its music, with his icon. I particularly like the album Tranformer, maybe the most famous, but my father has always been a fan of it and the first picture in my room was the this album cover framed and hung close to my pic of me celebrating my first birthday (it was the December 31st, 1978). Those pics are still in my room. Despite the fact that Berlin was a sort of flop from the commercial point of view, I like that album because it tells a story that was pretty common in Berlin at that time.
- Daniela Patrizi
I said, "I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed"
"I like Lou Reed," she said, sticking her tongue in my ear
-Pixies, Tired
- David Guzda
If you grew up in the '70s in Adelaide you knew the words to Walk on the Wild Side. Everyone did and probably still does. One of those songs that never reached No.1 but will be part of music folklore long after Robin Thickie is dust.
My sister bought Transformer when I was around 9 or 10 and I can't say I was a huge fan except for Perfect Day and Walk. I had no idea what the line "And she never lost her head, Even when she was giving head" meant (back then saying "bum" got you suspended), and I didn't realise Walk had two bass lines. But I remember the record being very different from what was in the charts and if I look back I can see the beauty in the simplicity and the variety in the songs. Still don't like the album, but it's of the highest calibre.
My sister also bought Sally Can't Dance, with I thought was just plain shit. She got Street Hassle which I remember thinking was good. It was one of the first recordings that combined live and studio recordings as overdubs. She also had Blue Mask and The Bells but although they were good, it wasn't really my thing. I bought New Sensations in '85. Listened to it a fair bit but not for a long time.
Like many others, however, I pay respect to Reed because he gave others permission to do something different, first with VU then on his own. Without him R.E.M. would arguably have been a different band, a band who for over a decade I listened to almost exclusively. Nick Cave and Sonic Youth, who in turn have spent years being copied, were influenced by Reed and VU.
More than that, though, perhaps it was Reed's songwriting that will always live with me. I think Pale Blue Eyes, Femme Fatale and There She Goes Again are among the best tracks berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe ever laid down. I always cry when I hear them.
So thanks Lou. I'm not that upset, because you lived a long life and got to do a lot of things and made a lot of people happy. That's how I am.
So just thanks.
- Gilbert Potts
My exposure to Lou Reed was more of contact association than anything else. While I was jamming out to Black Sabbath and Judas Priest etc... my older brother was introducing all of us to the genius behind Velvet Underground and Lou Reed himself. The VU and Lou Reed albums played throughout our house on a very frequent rotation. My brother was such a fan that years later when he got his first dog he named her Nico.
The interesting thing about VU and Lou was that there imagery and lyrics were at time so dark that they could have been part of any of the darker sides of metal that we know today. The off-beat rhythms and style of VU and Lou as a solo artist lend themselves to some of the things we hear today in modern metal like Inter Arma and even what Ihsahn is doing with his solo work. Lou Reed always had a way of keeping the timing and rhythm off just so that it made you have to pay attention to what he was doing in order to really appreciate his genius. We write a lot of reviews where we talk about having to listen to an album several times to really let it sink in, Lou Reed and VU's albums were always like that. It takes several listens to really pull out the pure genius behind what he/they were doing, but once you heard it, it never went away.
- Justin Petrick
For me when I really first took a serious listen to Lou was, to some of your horror, when a tribe called quest sampled him on can I kick it.
I was a huge fan of hip hop (and still am, to an extent) and although I of course knew the song it made me dig into who he was. This was going back to maybe 1992 or something (memory is sketchy).
But the important thing for me was it was finding out about different styles . I always have enjoyed most music when into ATCQ was listening to metal, etc as well.
Although "can I kick it " is seen as a novelty song they were a serious group. Through their music I discovered about jazz greats like Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and so much more. Like Reed these were musicians as a young guy listening to slayer and fuck knows what, I might not have seen as cool enough to dive into, or something for my parents. I was always keen though to find what influenced or shaped what I liked.
The point of my rambling is Reed said recently he believes that rock n roll can make a difference. And in the power of punk. Damn right .
Call it what you want, music as mentioned should transcend boundaries, affect lives and influence us all.
- Phil Johnston
I remember Lou Reed from the day I was able to understand what music my dad was listening to as he's been my dad's biggest idol and he always listened to Lou Reed in his studio, during cooking dinners or just in the car. I can't remember my dad listening much to VU but the solo records always got a heavy rotation in our family.
From a very young age on wards my dad always played Lou Reed for me and asked me my opinion or pointed out particular riffs, bass lines or guitar solos. I remember very clearly that my dad had a VCR copy of an old Lou Reed concert and we watched it together numerous times. It started with the longest version of Sweet Jane with a minutes long intro with Lou Reed having a massive guitar dual with his other guitarist, playing solo after solo. My dad's favourite Lou Reed song is Waves of Fear and especially the live version on that VCR tape was sublime. Again a very long live version and that high almost staccato played guitar solo in that song was absolutely brilliant.
My dad also took me to the VU reunion tour on the 9th of June 1993. And this was a very impressive concert. I was 17 and not I was listening to many other genres of music, but seeing VU was an eye opening experience. I definitely dived a lot more into Lou Reed's musical legacy after that day on my own account instead of my dad playing his music to me.
My favourite Lou Reed albums are Blue Mask and his more recent release The Raven (also heavily undervalued).
I was always hoping to be able to see him live again. Sadly this won't happen. My dad turned 64 on the day Lou Reed passed away and I phoned my dad to tell him this sad news and there was a long minute of silence between us. The world lost a great musical innovator and poet.
- Sander van den Driesche
I was digging out some CDs to take into the car a couple of months ago. I grabbed Loaded because Sweet Jane had been on the radio and I wanted to hear it again. I hadn't listened to it for years and it grabbed me immediately, from the warmth of Who Loves the Sun to the soft doo-wop of I Found a Reason. Lou Reed left the band in part because he wasn't happy with this album? What?! Was he high? Oh, right.
I always raise a wry smile when I think of bands' outputs these days compared with what happened in the sixties. Velvet Underground's entire existence lasted about as long as the writing and recording process on the last Coldplay album. Loaded was the last of those albums and I mention it only because it was the last Velvet Underground album I listened to. It's not their best. The Velvet Underground & Nico is. And without getting drawn into a debate that could last for eternity, it's also perhaps the best album ever recorded. It illustrates a world in change - and not the clean, pot-smoking hippy change more commonly associated with 1967, but a dark, dirty change that would cast individual against the perceived social order. Reed's ear for a melody was as good as anyone's who ever sat down and picked up a guitar. The album's themes go places no one had tread before. Listen to Heroin and imagine it's 1967 and you're hearing it for the first time at the same time as everyone else. The album's effect in retrospect can never fully be appreciated but as Brian Eno put it: "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band."
Lou Reed's work with his band was only the start of it too - but beyond the big hitters, I never invested myself in his solo career. I didn't have to. He'd already done enough to change the world, and how many people can say that?
- Kevin Scott
My introduction to Lou Reed was via a BBC promotional video some years back where various celebrities sang a piece of the song "Perfect Day". I hummed along not realising that this song belonged to one of the most influential artists the 20th century has ever created.
Thank you Lou for challenging us and for rewarding us. You influence lives on.
- John Sturm
“Shiny, shiny...boots are made of leather...”
A couple of years ago I was wondering around Camden Market on a day out to The Big Smoke. Of all things I was looking for a bag (yes...a man bag!) but was very picky about what I wanted. Going down one dark corridor of vendors a light shone on at the end of one stall and a familiar banana motif on a black background struck my eyes. This was it...the bag I had been looking for, and one that said everything about me and the music I loved.
That bag was obviously using the iconic cover of the first Velvet Underground album as its design but it was the symbolism behind it that meant more to me. Here was a bag that summed up why I loved music. This bag now represents Lou Reed.
The news of his passing affected me deeply. I'm not one to get overly upset over famous people dying (the only other time was Freddy Mercury) but here was a guy who I would count as one of the few people I would ever call an idol. A word not to be bandied about cheaply but in this case well deserved.
My first memories of Lou were seeing the Transformer album cover in the record shops when I was about 12 years old. The music was a mystery, but even more mysterious was the guy on the front. Who was he? Who was the person on the back? Are they both the same person? The song titles offered a glimpse into another world which to my young mind sounded surreal, out there and in all honesty, a bit weird.
Eventually the album came into our circle in school as it probably did with everyone. The iconic Walk on the Wild Side being a particular favourite but also classics such as Vicious, Andy's Chest...in fact the whole damn album. For 20 years or more Transformer has been one of my all time, if not the, favourite albums. Its litany of down and out characters created vivid pictures in your mind as a seedy side of downtown is brought to life. Let's be honest...we all want to go there.
Not long after I discovered VU and another seismic influence came into my life. With a growing fascination in the more artistic side of life, this was an album which transfixed me. It's litany of dirty punk songs mixed in with the avant garde spoke volumes to me as I searched for a guiding light in music. It is said that everyone who bought it back when it first came out formed a band. I probably got into all those bands and the bands who were influenced by them.
So what is it about Lou which struck a chord with me? At time of writing this I'm listening to New York. On here are songs about the real NYC, or at least the one Lou saw. To me, this was the NYC I had always imagined. The beat poetry of the streets mixed in with the grime of the music creates a fantastic image which can only be matched by people who have lived it...Bukowski, I'm thinking of you. Writing like this stirs my heart and Lou had it on buckets. Never afraid to hold back, at times often uncomfortable (for further proof here, listen to Magic and Loss, an album inspired about dying from cancer) but mixed in with an innate beauty. This is life whether we like it or not and as soon as we face up to it we can make it much better.
As well as the lyrics there is the simplicity of the music. Why use three chords when one will do? This was back to basics rock and roll which also managed to mix in the European. Bowie and Iggy may have got the plaudits but Lou made it happen first and happen much better. The simplicity of a song like Heroin creates a disturbing dissonance with the music, the garage punk of Waiting for the Man provides that urgent feel of life on the street, and the rolling guitar if What Goes on which goes on...and on...and on.
Not all of his music struck a chord with me but as the man himself said, he trusted in his listeners to be intelligent enough to understand what he was trying to do. Not for me a lot of the 80's albums or Metal Machine Music but oddly these provide the influence for some of my favourite bands these days. There was always something there to challenge and that to me has to be the most important part of being an artist.
So Lou, I'll miss you even though I didn't know you. You have been an inspiration and a joy through my life so far and I have no doubt I will continue to enjoy your work for a long time yet. I'd like to ask everyone to raise a glass, stick on their favourite Lou record (how about Rock and Roll?) and drink to an innovator, an inspiration and a genius.
- Martyn Coppack
