Sassy Lou Reed interview shot during the Sally Can’t Dance/Rock & Roll Animal phase in Australia, 1974.
Reed is clearly having fun toying with the reporters on the topics of drugs (he’s all for them), transvestism (sometimes) and what he spends his money on (drugs).
Lou Reed performing at the Houston Music Hall on November 13, 1974.
This multi-generational copy of a fan shot video looks like shit, sounds okay, but given there’s so little performance footage of Lou from this period, I’ll take it. Beggars can’t be choosers.
The Houston show was part of the “Sally Can’t Dance” tour and Reed’s band was comprised of former members of the hugely underrated and deeply funky Rhinoceros: Danny Weis [guitar], Michael Fonfara [keyboards], Eric “Mouse” Johnson [drums] and Peter Hodgson [bass].
“Sweet Jane”
“Vicious”
“Heroin”
“New York Stars”
Reed is gettin’ on the good foot Long Island-style.
A big collection of Doctor Who action figures “sing” Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.”
This version of Reed’s “Perfect Day” was originally done for a BBC charity promotion in 2008 which included a vast array of singers including “David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Bono among many others.”
Unfortunately, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory are not included in the video.
Thanks you, Edward Ludvigsen!
Iggy
Talk about yer strolling bones…
To be fair to these aging rockers, anyone, and I mean anyone over the age of 40 would look unsightly photographed this close-up.
John Lydon
More after the jump…
The fact of Vanessa Paradis (proudly displaying her Jane Birkinesque diastema) and Dave Stewart (a neon Serge Gainsbourg) singing Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” is evocative enough in and of itself. But there’s an added dimension to this video that makes the whole thing kind of spooky and more than a little bit clammy. Watching Paradis performing a duet with Stewart, who looks uncannily like a combination of the future father of her two children, Johnny Depp, and Depp’s frequent collaborator Tim Burton plus his former lover and collaborator Annie Lennox, is like watching a re-tooled version of “Lemon Incest” for the MTV generation…without Gainsbourg’s real incestuous vibe.
As the echoplex of history loops in upon itself, let’s ponder other elements of this time warpy video.
Paradis’s cover of “Walk On The Wild Side” appeared on her 1990 album Variations sur le Meme T’Aime, the same year that Depp and Burton’s first collaborative effort, Edward Scissorhands, hit the big screen. 1990 was also the year that Lou Reed re-united with John Cale and the other members of The Velvet Underground to play a charity gig in Paris. The last time they had played together was 1972, the year that Paradis was born. Add up the numbers in 1990 and you get 19. Paris 1919 is the title of John Cale’s third solo album.
Exactly 19 years after singing her duet with Stewart, Paradis covered the Serge Gainsbourg song “Ballade de Melody Nelson” with Johnny Depp.
Sigmund Freud was 19 years older than Carl Jung. Flight 19 disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. The Qur’an teaches that 19 angels are assigned to guard the fires of Hell. Which brings up the question: “where were those angels when this video was made?”
“Walk on the Wild Side” is 40 years old. So is Vanessa Paradis. Jesus fasted 40 days and nights….
If you have ever seen any of those low-budget “Under Review” made for DVD rockumentaries, then you know that they follow a fairly tried and true formula: Almost no music by the group or performer the doc is about, approx 5 minutes of archival film clips in the course of 90 minutes and usually a bunch of crazed loner rock critics you’ve never heard of, yakking it up about their favorite rock groups. Often the interviewees are fairly tangential to the subjects, but not always. The range from awesome (the one on the early days of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention was excellent) to awful.
In The Velvet Underground: Under Review, they managed to nab TWO actual members of the Velvet Underground, Maureen Tucker and Doug Yule—both Reed and Cale, predictably sat this one out—which elevates this way above most of the others ones. Even longtime VU fans might learn something new here. For instance, I’ve listened to the VU for 36 years now and I didn’t know that Maureen Tucker didn’t play drums on Loaded because she was pregnant. Every copy of that album (and the CD) credits her on the back—your copy and mine—but it’s not her drumming, it’s Doug Yule, studio engineer Adrian Barber, a session drummer named Tommy Castanaro and Billy Yule, who was still a high school student (It doesn’t sound even remotely like Mo Tucker on Loaded as I found listening to it the day after I watched this doc). You also hear Mo talk about how she stripped down her drum kit to get a more primitive, less busy, sound. And Yule, who always gets short shrift in the VU saga, gets plenty of onscreen time to discuss his role in the band (How many of you reading this know it’s him singing “Candy Says” and not Lou Reed?). I’ve never seen an interview with him and I was very pleased to see his participation in this film. If you’re a VU fan, this film is absolutely worth your time.
Lou Reed. P.M. - Pre-Metallica. A Night with Lou Reed, his performance at the Bottom Line, New York, from 1983.
Track Listing:
01. “Sweet Jane”
02. “I’m Waiting for the Man”
03. “Martial Law”
04. “Don’t Talk to Me about Work”
05. “Women”
06. “Waves of Fear”
07. “Walk on the Wild Side”
08. “Turn Out the Light”
09. “New Age”
10. “Kill Your Sons”
11. “Satellite of Love”
12. “White Light/White Heat”
13. “Rock & Roll”
Look out for an air-guitaring front row fan around 51.48 - a portent of things to come A.M.? (After Metallica?)
Previously on Dangerous Minds
A little more from Lou, after the jump….
Director Darren Aronofsky, whose films Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan oozed visual style, can’t do much to polish the turd that is Loutallica. Grainy black and white, super slo-mo and lens distortion create a nightmarish quality that is undercut by the song’s ludicrous heavy handedness, ending up more silly than spooky.
Some tellin’ it like it is, spotted in record store.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Lou Reed and Metallica mutilate ‘White Light/White Heat’ on British TV November 8
NONONONO Cat reviews Lou Reed and Metallica’s ‘Lulu’
Loutallica: Hot trash video mix - NSFW
30 second shards of Hell: Excerpts from the new Lou Reed/Metallica album
(via reddit)
In the mess that is Lulu one song that is generally singled out as having some of the vibe and feel evoking vintage Lou Reed is “Junior Dad.” Last night, during their concert in Cologne, Germany, Reed and Metallica performed the song and, lo and behold, it’s the first live video I’ve seen of the band that actually moves me in a good way.
Reed seems a shitload more engaged with what he’s doing in this video than during his addled performance on Jool Holland’s show from a few nights ago. World weariness has displaced death warmed over.
Is it possible that as Loutallica tours behind Lulu they may actually discover the heretofore untapped magic in their collaboration? Perhaps, if they replace their current drummer with Mo Tucker.
You can visit the Lou Reed/Metallica Youtube channel for more of the Cologne concert.
Loutallica take another shot at ‘White Light/White Heat’ after the jump…
Lou Reed and Metallica in hit and run accident leave White Light/White Heat dead on the side of the highway - rock and roll road kill.
Everything about this is just plain wrong, from Metallica’s dunderhead playing to Reed’s total inability to find the pocket of the song…which is understandable because there is none. What is not understandable is why Reed continues to trash the Velvet Underground’s legacy. Can the surviving members of VU get a cease and desist order?
This is like watching a beloved friend racing toward the edge of a cliff in an out-of-control 1978 Ford Pinto - a sense of helpless dread overcomes you as you avert your eyes and pray for Divine intervention.
Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, Loutallica shows you just how bottomless the pit is. And that Lars fuck should have his hands bound with chicken wire and never allowed anywhere near a drum kit.
“If all this makes you feel sorry for him, then you can compliment yourself on being a real Lou Reed fan. Because that’s exactly what he wants.” Lester Bangs, 1973.
Later With Jools Holland, November 8, 2011.
WFMU’s Tom Scharpling tweets in realtime about a close encounter with Lou Reed at a Starbucks. Read from bottom.
#LouAtStarbucks
Thank you very kindly, Edward Ludvigsen!
Here’s a reminder of just how cool Lou Reed can be. Consider it a palate cleanser for the shit sandwich that is Lulu.
I think this is from the mid-70s. Anybody know?
Update 11/1: The clip is from Jimi Hendrix directed by Joe Boyd and John Head in 1973. Thanks to DM reader Steve.
Before there was a Velvet Underground, there was Lewis Reed, Lewis Allen Rabinowitz (aka Lou Reed), who in 1962 recorded a couple of self-penned tracks for indie record mogul Brent Shad. “Merry Go Round” and “Your Love” were written a year before Reed’s residency as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records.
‘Merry Go Round’ sounds like most teen pop tunes of the era. The only thing that distinguishes it is the unmistakable voice of Lou Reed. Kinda sounds like Dion on white crosses.
