The Velvet Underground and 1970’s Loaded, which despite being recorded while he was leaving the group, contained two Reed standards, “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Jane,” were similarly ignored. But they’d be embraced by future generations, cementing the Velvet Underground’s status as the most influential American rock band of all time.
That about sums it up for me. I’m sorry he dies but his music never touched me. All that NYC artsy fartsy shit was out of my orbit.
3.
Gator90
What a bummer. RIP and thanks for all the great songs.
4.
The Sailor
I’ve been doing this thing on another channel where I link to music by dead people (usually rock) a few times a day as a Halloween homage. It’s gotten kinda depressing, actually. I worked with some of the people, and many others I didn’t know they were dead.
This is sad.
I worked with a New Wave band in the 80s called Deloris Telescope, they covered very few songs, but Sweet Jane was one of them, and it was awesome.
“Great guitarist” is not the first thing you think of when you think of Lou Reed. Which is a shame, because he was.
6.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: In a 1982 interview, Brian Eno said that while the first Velvet Underground album may have sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”
7.
hells littlest angel
I can’t think of anything he wrote or performed in the last 35 years that I find listenable. Still, he wrote a hell of a lot of great songs, and he changed rock n roll.
8.
trollhattan
Oh, no, Lou’s larger than life, this can’t be.
Coincidentally, I just got a remastered edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico with a ton of alternate versions, etc. (Released in ’67?!? Unpossible) Remains brilliant as ever.
9.
Tokyokie
All things considered, I’m surprised he made it to the age of 71.
RIP Lou. I’ll raise a glass and listen once more to the savage poetry of “Dirty Blvd”:
Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I’ll piss on ’em
That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
Get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard
16.
Jewish Steel
@raven: To their credit. Songwriting is where it’s at, if you ask me.
Also recall excerpting all four sides of Metal Machine Music on the radio–just for the sheer Saturday night joy of doing it. Now that was fun.
22.
hells littlest angel
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve tried in vain to like stuff post-Coney Island Baby. Out of respect for the newly dead, I won’t say what I really think of it, but if I did, I’d use the word “mawkish.”
Hey, why is the Rolling Stone the only source for this story? The fact that this isn’t in the NY Times makes me suspicious.
From RS: “One chord is fine,” [Reed] once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. “Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”
32.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I didn’t like Lulu, his introduction to me, the first time, but I’m listening to it right now in his honor.
33.
raven
It hit the NYT online.
34.
hells littlest angel
@Spaghetti Lee: Really? Every mention I’ve seen uses RS as its source.
[Edit] — and here comes the Times…
Too bad, though I had a foreboding a few months ago when he was crowing about how great he felt after the liver transplant.
I have just one Lou Reed album — the death-themed Magic and Loss which he did in the 1980s. Some elegantly-played music on it, but a rather morbid album. It’s a work I admire rather than like.
I don’t usually get touched by celebrity deaths, but I’m damn sorry to see him go.
I’m too young to have been of age when the VU was active and too old not to have been a little amused by (but nonetheless glad for) the “discovery” of him by now-young people, and yet his work, at least through New York, has been the background music to many of my most memorable moments from high school on.
39.
Steeplejack
Lou Reed was a big deal, but that Rolling Stone obit contains some serious fanboi bullshit:
But [the Velvet Underground’s albums would] be embraced by future generations, cementing the Velvet Underground’s status as the most influential American rock band of all time.
Cannot read that with a straight face.
ETA: Off to find and play “Sweet Jane.”
40.
Shortstop
@Steeplejack: perhaps not the most influential, but certainly in the top five. That’s not really disputed.
41.
hells littlest angel
@Steeplejack: “… the most influential American rock band of all time.”
I really can’t think of another band that comes close.
Well… that’s the culture of the Boomer generation. Someone else might give that title to the Stooges, but they were a punk band and punk was the sound of a different generation. Still, there isn’t much competition in the ‘American rock band’ genre. Most of the giants were British (or AC/DC). American bands have always been in the shadows of American solo artists.
49.
J R in WV
Wow. Just wow. And looking at the music I grew up with – pretty eclectic, there’s going to be a lot of sadness in the next few years. The great ones of the rock era are elderly now. I’m getting close, retired old fart.
RIP Lou…
50.
raven
Oh, now I get it:
Miley Ray Cyrus ✔ @MileyCyrus
noooooooooo notttttttttt LOU REED ?
I get that he was influential — some of my favorite artists were influenced by him and VU. But I always got this impression that he felt he was just playing ironically at being a rock musician, that he was “better” than that. Slumming.
Now, I don’t know that he really did feel that way, and I’m sure fans of his, being more familiar with his work, could probably prove me wrong very easily. But that’s the vibe I always got. (David Byrne is another artist who’s always struck me that way.)
Can’t deny the writing, though. Slumming or no, he was damned good at what he did. RIP.
52.
Omnes Omnibus
@Karen in GA: Slumming? I don’t see that. I think that he and Cale from the beginning of the VU saw themselves as artists whose medium was rock music as opposed to being some guys who liked music and wanted to play it.
53.
Shortstop
@Karen in GA: hmmm, interesting take. Both of them revel/ed in irony and sardonics, but I never got a condescending vibe off it. I don’t see it as slumming so much as having a healthy sense of self-deprecating humor…Reed more than Byrne on that score.
54.
Keith G
Oh jeeze. While Lou Reed did not cause the change, his music was part of the soundscape as this teenage gay boy left the farm and moved to the city. The city boys who who befriended me immersed me in Reed’s music. A bit later, they took me to see Iggy Pop.
Iggy and Lou struck a nerve with me quite unlike my sister’s Carpenter albums or my brother’s collection of Credence Clearwater and Three Dog Night.
There’s a good argument to be made that The Stooges were responsible for a lot of what is punk rock and modern heavy metal, but you’ve got to dig deep to find artists before, say, 1990, citing them as an influence. OTOH, you cn go back a long way and read interview after interview with artists, post-Velvet Underground & Nico, in which they credit that album as the reason they kept going when others eschewed them as too fringe. Whoever dubbed VU & N as “The album that launched a thousand bands” wasn’t pulling it out of his ass.
57.
Cassidy
Meh. Lou Reed was done better by Kurt Conain.
58.
Cassidy
@Cassidy: can’t edit on my phone. Cobain. Stupid autocorrect.
59.
opiejeanne
He never owned it but I’d bet that the liver transplant was due to Hepatitis C, and even people who were treated successfully are now finding that they need a new liver a few years after treatment. There are glancing references to him having had hepatitis but not a specific type, and C is the leading cause of anyone needing a liver transplant in the US. He experimented with needle drugs. one of the methods of transmission if the needles aren’t clean or are shared. There is still a bit of secrecy from people who have it as if they had done something to be ashamed of, reminiscent of the way venereal disease was kept quiet in polite society.
You can have it for 20 years without having a clue that you have it.
I know too damned much about this subject because I had Hepatitis C type 4, contracted in 1985 when I needed blood following surgery. I hemorrhaged, they gave me at least 4 pints, and one of them must have been from someone sharing needles in Marrakesh, since type 4 is the rarest form here but pretty common in the Middle East and northern Africa. I was treated in 2005 with a new protocol combining interferon with ribavirin, and I think what was new was not just the combination of the drugs but the amounts and frequency. The treatment was nasty but successful and I still test negative after 8 years. I was only the 8th patient Kaiser had treated with type 4 out of thousands of Hep C patients, and the only one of that group of 8 whose treatment was successful.
You can not believe the ignorant remarks that I heard and still hear regarding this disease. I still have people who try to tell me it’s spread by sex and no, you don’t get it from sex despite what they claimed on “House”. If that were so my husband would certainly have it, and yet I had a dentist, a RW nutjob relative who is a more likely vector himself because of his job, insist that it was spread by “certain sexual behaviors”, meaning Those Gheys!.
You also don’t get it the same way you can catch Hepatitis A. People have told me they were invited for family dinners and then were expected to sit outside to eat on paper plates with plastic utensils, at Thanksgiving and Christmas, in cold and snowy places because no amount of explanation could convince them of the differences between Hep A and Hep C. (Don’t get me started on B or D which are both tragic.)
And you don’t get it from mosquitoes, but you could get it from a dentist or a tattoo artist if they didn’t autoclave their tools or use disposables back in the day. you could even catch it sharing a toothbrush with someone who has it. Gum problems seems to be one of the early signs, receding gums, bleeding gums, etc.
In Vietnam it is/was pretty common among the population because they were so short of resources after the war that they’d sharpen and “clean” the hypodermic needles and reuse them maybe 50 times each. The doctor who spotted mine was from Vietnam and she was suspicious of a slightly elevated liver enzyme count and ordered further testing for me, and then FURTHER testing. She said because she speaks the language she gets a lot of new patients from Vietnam, and the first thing she tests them for is Hep C and unfortunately most were testing positive.
Sorry for the rant.
60.
Ripley
@Mullah DougJ: It’s large and difficult, for certain. Used effectively during the climax to the film The Squid And The Whale, which was also large and difficult.
ETA: Love the Springsteen monologue that bridges parts two and three, a real highlight and an interesting meeting of minds/styles.
It’s a rock critic’s parlour game to anoint an act “one of the greatest/most influential ever”, with or without a geographical qualification. For starters, how do you quantify artistic influence so that you can measure artist X’s influence on band Y? Whom did Chuck Berry, or the Clash, or the Velvet Underground, or the Ramones, or any number of other acts you could name, not influence? Greatness is unique, influence can be so nebulous.
Given the social and artistic circles he ran in, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a certain amount of survivor’s guilt that he “only” had hepatitis and not AIDS.
64.
hells littlest angel
@Keith G: The Transformer doc is pretty cool, especially the behind-the-mixing-board stuff.
For most popular music, the lyrics and the instrumentation have virtually nothing to do with each other. Not so with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. The song Heroin pulses slowly and then speeds up as the drugs take hold. “Oh, Sweet Nuthin'” would sound despairing even without the lyrics. I’m Waiting for the Man races along with a nervous urgency.
66.
Cassidy
The VU could learn a thing or two from The Strokes.
67.
burnspbesq
If you were growing up in the suburbs in 1971, “Walk on the Wild Side” was some pretty strange shit.
I’ll give you a pass because you’re probably quite a bit younger than me, but that is some serious ignorance you’re putting on display.
You’ve got the causation exactly backwards. Without the Velvet Underground, there would be no Strokes.
69.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah…I was the youngest by many years. The first sibling music I remember was Bobby Vinton and the Letterman. My brother jammed mainstream rock and rockabilly. I have his Sergeant Pepper’s album that he bought in ’67.
My music started out with Detroit R&B. Strangely enough, Lou Reed was not far off that compass heading – and Iggy cut his musical teeth in southern Michigan not far from my northern Ohio farmstead.
70.
raven
@Keith G: Putting Credence in the same paragraph with the Carpenters and Three Fucking Dog Night is ridiculous.
VU and Reed were huge in the late 80’s / early 90’s alternative, postpunk, neopsych scene. I must have listened to the banana album a million times. It was a great antidote to Hairmetal.
73.
raven
@opiejeanne: My MD had me tested because people in my age group are supposed to be very susceptible. Does having been in Vietnam make it more so? (no needles here)
Exactly. And it’s also a generational thing, not just geographical. I’m sure that for the 40-ish (white) cohort who were weaned on punk rock— and who, judging by their comments on Balloon Juice, were all edgy radio DJs at their small liberal-arts colleges ;-)—the Velvet Underground is the greatest band ever. But that exhibits the same myopia they love to criticize the boomers for.
@dedc79: I don’t think so. Cassidy and Raven are identical persons in every way…separated by five or six decades.
@burnspbesq: I think it was in Rock and Roll Heart that David Byrne said he couldn’t believe “WotWS” was playing in every drugstore, grocery store and public venue. “I kept wondering, ‘Have none of you actually listened to the lyrics?'” As far as I know, “giving head” was the only thing that ever attracted censors’ attention.
@Steeplejack: except that lots and lots of the bands and musicians who specifically cite Reed as a direct influence are older than that. Many of them are as old as you. ;)
I don’t deny that the Velvet Underground was great, but Jon Dolan’s overheated Rolling Stone piece just rubbed me the wrong way. It is an occupational hazard of rock music criticism that whatever the writer really likes (or is currently writing about) must have cosmic import and implications that transcend the petty boundaries of mere “pop music.” (Lester Bangs, looking at your dead ass.)
83.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:Although VU was contemporary with my parent’s music (Beatles, Stones, Jefferson Airplane, etc.), it was distinct from it. And the “edgy” music of my generation frequently traces back to VU (directly or indirectly). Basically, it starts a new branch of the Rock family tree.
ETA: @Steeplejack: As I mentioned briefly above, VU hit the scene at a point in rock history when people were starting to look at rock as art. Reed and Cale certainly did. And now I could go into the whole John Cage, La Monte Young spiel, but I’ll spare everyone.
85.
AnonPhenom
Fuck you world.
I lived at The Bottom Line throughout the 70s.
Just fuck you.
And Pat fuckin Boon is still breathing?
Fuck you.
86.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes it was contemporary with our music but, as one of us pointed out, none of us listened to it.
87.
Keith G
@raven: The Carpenters were a fav of my sister. CCR and TDN were my brother’s.
If you want to take it up with my sis, I will give you her #s. She is in the Carolinas not that far from you. Have it out.
Edit – You can’t dispute my brother’s eclectic tastes with him as he croaked a while back.
Off the top of my head, Squeeze was named for a post-Lou Reed VU album, and Echo and the Bunnymen cited VU as a major influence. Both of these were well before 1990.
89.
raven
@Keith G: Cool, just drove through there coming back from Virginia. Even stopped at Cowpens!
@raven: There was this thought that GIs who came back from Vietnam brought it with them, but it was never stated in my hearing how they were supposed to have caught it.
I think that was shorthand for “you guys who did H in Vietnam” but you also could have caught it if you came in contact with infected blood where you had a scratch or a cut, if someone bled on you who had it. Also, transfusions.
The thing is, this didn’t even have a name until 1989; they just knew it attacked the liver and was sort of like Hepatitis A, which wasn’t A yet.
When mine was diagnosed, the identified types were only 1-4. Now they’ve identified 5 and 6.
92.
White Trash Liberal
Who knew the death of a musician was going to bring out cranky bitters?
I wasn’t an edgy DJ at my liberal arts college. I was a teenager that thought what passed for music on the radio was garbage. The Velvets were a welcome tonic. And I love Credence too. Fogerty and Reed have a lot in common in terms of trying to take their world and put it into sound.
Can’t people just enjoy what is good about being human and mourn when an artist passes? Why be a dick about it?
93.
raven
@opiejeanne: The big smack influx started just after I left (whew) but my understanding is that it was so powerful that most guys smoked it rather than pointed it.
94.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Yes it was contemporary with our music but, as one of us pointed out, none of us listened to it.
No, you didn’t. But an assload of were listening to The Turtles, to The Buckinghams, to The Association in that spring that directly preceded the Summer of Love. Influential stuff, that…In that it’s influenced me to smash at least one radio.
The only opening bit of a song that comes close to the live Intro to Sweet Jane for me is the studio Gimme Shelter. Life stops whenever I hear either.
96.
raven
Only a minority of those who used heroin in Vietnam had ever injected it there. Most smoked or snorted it. After their return, most of the men who had used heroin in Vietnam used it very occasionally or not at all. Among those who did use heroin more than five times after their return, most had tried injecting it. Significant predictors of post-Vietnam injection included living on the east or west coast, deviant behavior both before and in Vietnam, opiate use before Vietnam, serious involvement with heroin in Vietnam, use of non-opiate drugs before and in Vietnam, and associating with drug users before Service. The variables that increased significantly the probability of injection among men who relapsed to heroin use after return to the United States were living on the east or west coast and having a history of using non-opiate illegal drugs before they entered Service. Blacks who returned to heroin use after return were less likely to inject than were non-blacks.
97.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: I lay in the hospital, just after my second operation to stop the bleeding that caused my needing at least 4 pints of blood, and I was given a roommate because the ward was full up. I didn’t mind, but she had an ectopic pregnancy that they initially thought might possibly be appendicitis (she told them she was a virgin, didnt’ want her parents to know she’d been sleeping with her fiance) and it ruptured in the middle of the night. She was freaking out about getting blood from someone she knew because AIDS!!!! It was 1985. They were trying to calm her down because she was going to need the blood right away.
I was too groggy to say much other than to take the blood if her brothers couldn’t get there, not knowing that I’d caught Hep C. I don’t think she heard me, and her whole family showed up right away and she was fine.
98.
Cassidy
@burnspbesq: Hehehehe. Relax. I just felt like fishin’.
I actually like VU. They’re not my favorite as I’m more in the New York Dolls, Stooges, etc. camp, but I’ve always enjoyed them when they come on. My generations music was heavily influenced by the VU.
@raven: That is the thing. It is as far back as I can reach in rock history without sharing the artist with my parents. I like that music as well, but from VU forward there is music that is mine, not ours.
And it’s also a generational thing, not just geographical. I’m sure that for the 40-ish (white) cohort who were weaned on punk rock— and who, judging by their comments on Balloon Juice, were all edgy radio DJs at their small liberal-arts colleges …
Why are my ears ringing?
101.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): True dat. I saw the Turtles in a parking lot at a shopping center in the Chicago burbs. They didn’t play they just made an appearance and there were 10,000 people there. Flo and Eddie were pretty good.
102.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea, I wasn’t dissin Lou or VU, just No Bic.
103.
raven
@Cassidy: And you had those three round limits on rock and roll! Ha!
They’re not my favorite as I’m more in the New York Dolls, Stooges, etc. camp,…
There are camps?
I’m much better looking.
I think of you both as looking like Harvey Pekar. Now I’ll have to think of raven as Pekar-as-drawn-by-Crumb and you as Pekar-as-drawn-by-I-dunno-not-Crumb-I-guess.
106.
JGabriel
I don’t know what to say about Reed’s death. It’s like there’s another hole in the world. I just keep thinking feeling bad for Laurie. They’ve been together for … what, two decades now?
I wasn’t specifying some age ceiling on the artists. Obviously, people in their 40s—like anyone—are going to like artists who are older than they are, because they come to the music (that already exists), as it were; the music doesn’t suddenly appear out of thin air.
What I meant is that there is a cohort of (white) 40-ish people who, rebelling against hair metal or power pop or whatever they perceived as the toxic mainstream of the time, gravitated to punk rock and followed its roots down to (yes, older) artists like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.
All of which is fine. What I am suggesting is that the perspective of “my favorite music = greatest music ever” is not just a boomer thing. And, as Amir Khalid said, statements like “X is the greatest band ever” are just parlor games.
Finally, this whole thing about “Look how many bands cite them as an influence” smacks of the whole New York art-rock sensibility, where it’s not enough to just make the music, or it’s not just about the music; it has to be written about, peer-reviewed and codified as “artistic experience.”
The best way that I can think of to remember Lou Reed is to read everything that Lester Bangs wrote about him. They had a love/hate relationship that was intense and often hilarious. Lester turned out to be the one who flamed out young.
Too bad that Reed went out with the album Lulu. It’s almost universally seen as a horrible album, and I agree. It sucked.
As the gen-x’er noted above, we’re getting to the point where all the boomer musical heroes are going to start dropping like flies. I’m surprised we don’t have a Lou Reed level obit every week.
@Omnes Omnibus: Ugg.. Those two are pikers. Go Caravaggio or go home.
/sanctimony
116.
Cassidy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I’ve been listening to punk since before I was a teen, so I listened to a lot less VU and a lot more Sex Pistols. You could probably make an argument of influential musical bloodlines if you want, but I was under the impression that all those bands played together and socialized regardless of genre. I don’t know. I wasn’t born then.
I didn’t really spend any time listening to the VU until after I’d already been exposed to the Cure and the Church.
@Steeplejack: You lost me with your last paragraph. There are authors/poets/painters/historians who have influenced the progression of their mediums even without having a popular following (in their time or in subsequent generations). It’s a different kind of influence, but still an important one. And talking about this kind of influence (as opposed to “how many albums did they sell?”) is a way of getting past popularity as a gauge of quality.
I like both. And I like Lou Reed. And I liked the Velvet Underground. What I don’t like is the attempted quantification of things that are essentially matters of taste.
The VU was one of the many classic ‘influential’ bands I could never really get into, but I suppose that could just as well mean that the VU’s sound is so deeply ingrained into alt rock and indie rock that it’s hard to notice if you’re coming at it decades later like me. Honestly I liked Reed in singer-songwriter mode (New York, Magic and Loss, etc.) rather than Velvets-thru-Metal Machine Music “noise artist” mode.
125.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
RIP Lou Reed, an immensely talented and influential artist. And I’m on the young end of the generation that was his original audience (too young to be a parent of Omnes and a few years younger than raven). It’s a loss, but he had a good run, and I suspect Hep C for the liver transplant as well.
That said, I’m still mourning Levon Helm, and chez Q, we don’t even mention what it might be like when Keef expires.
IIRC, I first dug into the Velvets after reading comparisons between them and The Dream Syndicate (I really, really got into that first DS lp).
I don’t think the influence the Velvets have had was necessarily musical, at least not directly. I think it was the approach and the attitude- they were literate and mature, which you could also say about The Beatles and Dylan at that point (and Brian Wilson, too, as far as that goes), and they weren’t afraid to write and sing about subjects that had been taboo up until that point, and they did so without a sense of shame or guilt. In that way, they opened a door for The Ramones and The Sex Pistols.
133.
White Trash Liberal
And I just wanted to add for those of you citing The Stooges: their first album was produced by J Cale of The Velvet Underground.
I Wanna Be Your Dog would be at home on a Velvets album.
134.
shortstop
@Steeplejack: Ignoring your and Amir’s invitation to join you in purposely conflating the terms “great band” and “influential band,” I’m going to stick to your original complaint, which was that the writer was full of fanboi-ism when he called the VU the most influential rock band ever.
Several of us pointed out, because you seemed (and still seem) to really be unaware that this is not a hyperbolic gasping that has just now appeared, that the VU and Reed have indeed been very widely considered for many decades to be hugely influential. Amir feels this kind of labeling is a game rock critics play. I pointed out that, keeping critics out of the mix entirely, a great number of musicians themselves identify the VU as a profound influence. I’m not interested in proving my “New York art-rock sensibility.” (Really, do you have any idea how silly that sounds? I keep thinking of that rural GOP Congressional candidate making vids about “Nancy Pelosi’s SAN FRANCISCO VALUES.”) I made the point merely to lay to rest your ill-conceived argument that the VU hasn’t been hugely influential — regardless of which post-late 1960s demographic is saying so.
If you think musicians are somehow being pretentious or unseemly in citing their own influences, then say so if you think you can pull off that argument. Otherwise, knock off growling at us for simply pointing out that Reed and the VU had an exceptionally profound effect on a great deal of the music that came after them.
You keep moving the goalposts, but every comment sounds more like “Get off my lawn! Fine, if not that lawn, get off another lawn!” than the last. I’m not sure what you’re complaining about anymore, other than that Damn Kids are doing it.
135.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: After all, he had Hep C and says he cured it by being Keith Richards.
It is an occupational hazard of rock music criticism that whatever the writer really likes (or is currently writing about) must have cosmic import and implications that transcend the petty boundaries of mere “pop music.” (Lester Bangs, looking at your dead ass.)
I’m glad that you can keep your enthusiasm for music so well in check. You might say something embarassing while talking about a song you like.
137.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Finally, this whole thing about “Look how many bands cite them as an influence” smacks of the whole New York art-rock sensibility
Oh, for fuck’s sake. If there’s any band that punched way the fuck above their weight influence-wise, it would be the Velvets. It’s a major part of their legacy–especially Reed’s–and bears repeating when he passes.
And sure, other bands–a very few. If there’s no VU, Stooges, Ramones, and Black Sabbath, 80% of my music disappears.
There are authors/poets/painters/historians who have influenced the progression of their mediums even without having a popular following [. . .].
Nothing I said denies this. What I meant is that there is an artsy New York sensibility that gets off not just on the art but on writing about it, codifying it and properly taxonomizing it.
I listened to a lot less VU and a lot more Sex Pistols. You could probably make an argument of influential musical bloodlines if you want, but I was under the impression that all those bands played together and socialized regardless of genre. I don’t know.
Someone else better take this. As is now obvious to all, I need a walk.
Eh…Maybe? To paraphrase Steeplejack’s favorite critic, The Stooges were the unchecked id of a teenager (not saying that’s bad). IMO, The Velvet Underground were a bit more grown up. Where Iggy’s basically saying, “I WANNA FUCK!”, Lou’s singing, “Yeah, sure, everyone wants to fuck, but here’s the unconventional way I enjoy it.”
That is a mean-spirited comment. I have waxed rhapsodic about all sorts of music many times on this blog.
145.
Cassidy
@dedc79: I know that. I said that I listened to more Sex Pistols, as in more punk, than I did VU and associated styles of music. I was referring to that particular era of VU, Iggy, MC5, NYD, etc.
146.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): @Steeplejack: If we want to play with the influence thing, just take a look at the number of people from about 1970 on who were produced by, or collaborated with, either Cale or Eno. In its way it makes a case that VU and Roxy Music were stunningly influential (see how I avoided quantifying).
The Velvet Underground disbanded in 1973. Sex Pistols didn’t get started until 1975.
What’s truly amazing is how much VU was influenced by the Sex Pistols.
148.
gbear
@Steeplejack: Sorry, but the comment about Lester Bangs was also a mean-spirited cheap shot. His writing had more to say about music than most bands had to say.
149.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I got it. With the exception of the MC5 (who were hanging with The Stooges earlier on), there was a lot of socializing between the early ’70s glam figures (Lou and Iggy had become part of that scene) and the early punk guys.
Hell, iirc, Townshend’s “Who Are You” is about an incident that occurred after going on a bender in which he tipped a few with Cook and Jones.
150.
gbear
@SFAW: I read a record review (name of the band doesn’t matter) where the writer was pointing out all of the VU influences in the band’s work but then went on to say that if the VU had actually sounded like this band, no one would have ever given a shit about the VU. That had to have stung.
I think 90’s alternative is an interesting parallel to that time period. The influence of those bands is easily apparent and they had a similar community of sorts. And everyone thought Billy Corgan was an asshole.
I don’t deny that the Velvet Underground was influential, even “hugely influential.” I do deny “most influential” as a meaningless absolute.
My comment about the “artsy New York” thing was a perhaps infelicitious shorthand for a sensibility that enjoys not only the music but writing about the music, codifying it and taxonomizing it as “art.” You can find tons of such stuff about the Velvet Underground and, say, Patti Smith; much less about Maceo Parker, who was probably equally “hugely influential” in a different region of the pop-rock spectrum.
Sorry if all that comes across as goalpost-moving get-off-my-lawnism.
154.
Cassidy
Slightly related, there is a song that references going to see MC5 in Kansas City or at Louis or something and it sounds a lot like the New York Dolls, but I’m damn near positive it’s not them. I heard it a few times when I had XM radio and it played occasionally on a channel that played a lot of early punk, Sex Pistols, Jim Carrol, etc. Anyone have an idea?
155.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
If you think musicians are somehow being pretentious or unseemly in citing their own influences [. . .].
Not at all. What I meant is that artists who cite the Velvet Underground as an influence are much more likely to have those opinions recorded, because of the “artsy New York” sensibility that feels the need to codify and taxonimize the experience.
And, if you like punk rock, of course you are going to find its artists citing Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground as influences. Duh. Just like you would find many country artists citing, say, Buck Owens or Willie Nelson as influences. The difference, I submit, is that there is not a large group of people who want to write about country music as capital-A art.
157.
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
Ahem. I’m pretty sure I was saying that greatness and influence are two distinct things. On the latter subject, an artist’s say-so on who influenced him and how isn’t always to be taken as gospel truth, however sincere he may be in crediting them. It all comes in from one’s environment, and interacts in mysterious ways with one’s other influences (and the influences on those influences …). And any two acts who cite the same influences can still produce very different music on their own. You could draw up a Pete Frame-style family tree for who was in what bands, sure; but drawing one up for the music they made is another matter.
158.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
You can find tons of such stuff about the Velvet Underground and, say, Patti Smith; much less about Maceo Parker, who was probably equally “hugely influential” in a different region of the pop-rock spectrum.
Because when you’re talking about Maceo Parker, you’re sort of limited to talking about musicianship alone, and you can’t even talk about him the same way you can talk about musicians like Diz, Miles, Coltrane, Glenn Gould- guys who revolutionized their forms, genres, etc.. OTOH, when you talk about lyricists, you start talking about the subject matter.
I’m pretty sure I was saying that greatness and influence are two distinct things
Yes, I see now that you did that later in your first post on the topic, after first putting them together: “greatness/most influential ever.”
an artist’s say-so on who influenced him and how isn’t always to be taken as gospel truth, however sincere he may be in crediting them.
And yet his or her say-so is the most reliable measure we have, unless you’re arguing that we simply can’t have any measure at all of influence by other artists and shouldn’t ever try. It seems somehow churlish, not to mention condescending, to flatly disregard the word of musicians themselves on this point. And given that almost all of us would agree that some bands are considerably more influential than others, it seems pointless to apply a universal “We can never even begin to quantify influence” rule across the spectrum of musicians. Call the exercise inexact, if you like, but I don’t think most of us would agree that it’s a wholly fruitless endeavor.
@Cassidy: Are you sure those are song lyrics, or are you possibly thinking of the Heartbreakers’ (with Johnny Thunders, previously of the NYD) live album recorded at Max’s Kansas City?
161.
Cassidy
@shortstop: It may have been by the Heartbreakers but I distinctly remember a line about going to see MC5. It may have been Kansas City, St. Louis, Max’s Kansas City, I don’t know.
162.
shortstop
@Cassidy: There could be a line like that on that album — been too long since I’ve heard it for me to remember. Thunders was working with Wayne Kramer right about that time or maybe a little earlier, I believe.
@Cassidy: I just got an email about Lou from my buddy in NYC. He was associated with Pylon back in the day and he wanted to know if the flags in Athens were flying at half-staff. I pled ignorance.
eta and his reply “That said, he was–as you might imagine–the largest figure (ever) amongst the Athens Arties. Specifically, I think many are grateful for one simple thing. Even more than the Sex Pistols, he was a great directive for those who hoped they could to play in public.
You could draw up a Pete Frame-style family tree for who was in what bands, sure; but drawing one up for the music they made is another matter.
THANK YOU! Speaking of influences, I was just thinking yesterday if someone had ever or could try to draw a family tree for influences (I was thinking the offshoots from Fripp and Eno alone would take pages), but I couldn’t remember who did the originals.
Pete’s site, which has, coincidentally enough, VU as the featured tree (but the shop is closed, alas!)
170.
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
I wouldn’t say that trying to attribute a musician’s influences is impossible or entirely valueless, only that it’s bound to be a subjective exercise. Any worthwhile artist is more than the sum of his influences, so that too puts a limit on the value of the exercise. It’s informative and fun, certainly, especially the arguments; but in the end it’s really just compiling footnotes on the art itself.
171.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Any worthwhile artist is more than the sum of his influences
I’ll keep that in mind if I ever hear anyone making that argument. So far, I haven’t. ;)
173.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: It is a good way to find new music. If you like Band Z and they cite Band D as an influence, you might listen to Band D. Or you could seek out other bands that cite Band D as an influence. And so on.
174.
Cassidy
@shortstop: Gotcha. I was thinking you meant some live banter on stage.
@shortstop: @Cervantes: I’m pretty sure that’s it. Thanks. It would come on occasionally, but I was always driving. I loved it when it did, though.
175.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): You will be shocked to know I didn’t get them either! A couple of the folks are still here and I really like them but when I went to see them 20 years ago I was baffled.
176.
Cervantes
@Cassidy: It would come on occasionally, but I was always driving. I loved it when it did, though.
@Cassidy: Note that I found that on a Czech lyrics site, proving without a doubt the LASTING WORLDWIDE INFLUENCE OF WAYNE/JAYNE COUNTY!!! Heh, just messin’ witchall.
179.
gbear
@Steeplejack: There are always going to be a certain number of rock writers who are a shitload smarter and have more to say than the bands making the music. I’d rather read Lester Bangs or Greil Marcus than listen to Journey or The Foo Fighters. I find it just as interesting to read about the history of The Velvet Underground (and the scene they were a part of) as it is to listen to the albums. Knowing the backstory adds to the meaning of the music. I’m addicted to liner notes.
I wouldn’t say that trying to attribute a musician’s influences is impossible or entirely valueless, only that it’s bound to be a subjective exercise
That’s the only type of thing humans are still better at than computers. Subjective exercises are pretty much all the human race is still good for.
181.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: And conversely, the sort of diaspora that comes from a particular band’s work — the very different sounds Amir mentions, all allegedly translations of the same influence — are interesting to me.
182.
Omnes Omnibus
@shortstop: Good point. Just because a band influences two other bands does not mean the influence is the same.
183.
Cervantes
@shortstop: Note that I found that on a Czech lyrics site
The video on that page — “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” — is an older song, mid-60s, and does not match the lyrics.
@Cervantes: I didn’t even look at the video — I couldn’t figure out what song Cassidy was talking about, and I was curious enough to do a search for the lyrics.
ETA: And now I’m reminded that I haven’t had that Heartbreakers album since a boyfriend gave it to me on vinyl c. 1983. I think I must track that down in digital format and see what it sounds like to me now.
188.
Cassidy
@shortstop: The video didn’t sound right, but the lyrics did. I looked it up on YouTube.
Again thanks for the find. That song had a great vibe to it.
189.
shortstop
The video was worth it for her fabulous boots, though.
190.
Amir Khalid
@gbear:
How does the simile go? “Writing about music is like …”
191.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: To some extent this conversation reminded me of this from Diner:
Shrevie: Ok, now ask me what’s on the flip side.
Beth: Why?
Shrevie: Just, just ask me what’s on the flip side, OK?
Beth: What is on the flip side?
Shrevie: Hey, Hey, Hey, 1958. Specialty Records.
[Beth nods blankly]
Shrevie: See? You don’t ask me things like that, do you? No! You never ask me what’s on the flip side.
Beth: No! Because I don’t give a shit. Shrevie, who cares about what’s on the flip side about the record?
Shrevie: I do! Every one of my records means something! The label, the producer, the year it was made. Who was copying whose style… who’s expanding on that, don’t you understand? When I listen to my records they take me back to certain points in my life, OK? Just don’t touch my records, ever! You! The first time I met you? Modell’s sister’s high school graduation party, right? 1955. And Ain’t That A Shame was playing when I walked into the door!
Some of are a little more that way than others.
192.
Honus
@burnspbesq: You are absolutely right. Those were the old Alice Cooper group guys on guitar. And as a friend of mine, who’s a pretty good singer herself, said when we first heard it, “and after all that, Lou comes on, and he can’t sing a lick.” Which is true, and we both say that as people who love Lou Reed. She’s a native Italian/Irish New York city kid and I’m a native arab West Virginian. What a wonderful world.
193.
piratedan
@Steeplejack: I agree with that sentiment. I don’t care to deny Lou and his bandmates their due, but to call them the most influential American rock band in the history of Rock and Roll does a disservice to folks like Bill Haley and his Comets, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, The Everly Brothers, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Grateful Dead, and so on and so forth. Plenty of room in the pantheon, just not sure that they’re sittin on the throne….
regardless, RIP Lou, I think that you music touched and helped people and as such, not sure that there’s any better accolade as an artist.
194.
smintheus
I saw Reed at a concert in Rome in the early ’80s, I think ’83 or ’84 at the circus maximus. He was brilliant.
195.
Omnes Omnibus
@smintheus: Envious. That would be such a cool place to see a concert.
I think they were the most influential American rock band in the history of Rock and Roll.
197.
smintheus
@Omnes Omnibus: Only event I ever attended there, had a great view down the valley of the circus with the Palatine looming above.
198.
suzie
@opiejeanne: Hi, that’s really interesting about bleeding gums being an early sign. I’m currently trying to track back in my own medical history to pinpoint the possible cause and time of infection and this info is useful. Lou Reed was fabulous. I do hope that if his death was hep c related (and it looks likely) that it increases awareness somehow. Here in the Uk most people wait for years before getting the correct diagnosis and often visit their doctor with early symptoms that get ignored. I got told all my symptoms were in my head and I was a neurotic, depressed woman. If my doc had done his job and sent me for a hep c test I might not be where I am now.: too late for interferon, not yet ill enough for a transplant. It truly is a terrible disease. R.I.P. Lou.
I knew it was coming soon enough – Lou Reed without his own liver felt like an unsustainable joke on nature. Still, a shock. It is absolutely impossible to overstate the influence Lou Reed (and indeed John Cale,Sterling Morrison, Mo Tucker & Nico) have had on my musical lifetime. Right off the top of my head – Iggy Pop, Julian Cope, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, Jesus & Mary Chain, Roxy Music, Mazzy Star, Television Personalities, REM, Joy Division & New Order, Bauhaus, Pulp, Can, David Bowie, Talking Heads, the Fall – that’s just the top of my head – instinct – with no attempt at memory recovery at all. Like Neil Young, the Beatles and Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground’s impact on recorded music is undeniable and pervasive. Like the rock under my feet – it is there.
It is a shame that his last album will be the mixed bag collaboration with Metallica (curiously with Reed representing the weaker portion of that bag) “Lulu.” But then I felt he tailed off after “Magic & Loss.” Really his solo career was always a mixed-bag, with cynical and catchy throwaways, strange detours (“Metal Machine Music,” “The Raven,” and the amazing “Take No Prisoners” live, er, comedy record.) But always a worthy adventure.
We still have John Cale.Check him out – he’s still got it. I bet he lives to 100, just to keep the Reed rivalry going.
Don’t expect to have a good picture of Reed with just “Transformer,” “New York” or the critically and culturally resurrected “Berlin.” Here’s some other gems:
1. All Through the Night (“Growing Up in Public”)
2. The very unsettling Kicks (from “Coney Island Baby”)
3. The very upsetting Gun (from “The Blue Mask”)
4. Lou Reed’s 15-minute rendition of Walk on the Wild Side from “Take No Prisoners,” barely getting to the second verse. But he does talk about his agent, contracts, New York music critic “toefuckers” and the validity of Barbra Streisand.
5. “Betrayed” and “Bottoming Out” (from “Legendary Hearts.”)
6. Yes, “Walk on the Wild Side.”
What a career, what art, what a life! With high Art and swearing too!
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Omnes Omnibus
New York is a great album and this is my favorite song on it.
RIP, Lou.
raven
The Velvet Underground and 1970’s Loaded, which despite being recorded while he was leaving the group, contained two Reed standards, “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Jane,” were similarly ignored. But they’d be embraced by future generations, cementing the Velvet Underground’s status as the most influential American rock band of all time.
That about sums it up for me. I’m sorry he dies but his music never touched me. All that NYC artsy fartsy shit was out of my orbit.
Gator90
What a bummer. RIP and thanks for all the great songs.
The Sailor
I’ve been doing this thing on another channel where I link to music by dead people (usually rock) a few times a day as a Halloween homage. It’s gotten kinda depressing, actually. I worked with some of the people, and many others I didn’t know they were dead.
This is sad.
I worked with a New Wave band in the 80s called Deloris Telescope, they covered very few songs, but Sweet Jane was one of them, and it was awesome.
Jewish Steel
Lou Reed – See that my grave is kept clean
“Great guitarist” is not the first thing you think of when you think of Lou Reed. Which is a shame, because he was.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: In a 1982 interview, Brian Eno said that while the first Velvet Underground album may have sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”
hells littlest angel
I can’t think of anything he wrote or performed in the last 35 years that I find listenable. Still, he wrote a hell of a lot of great songs, and he changed rock n roll.
trollhattan
Oh, no, Lou’s larger than life, this can’t be.
Coincidentally, I just got a remastered edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico with a ton of alternate versions, etc. (Released in ’67?!? Unpossible) Remains brilliant as ever.
Tokyokie
All things considered, I’m surprised he made it to the age of 71.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Ha, that’s good.
Alex S.
RIP – the idols of the Boomer generation are in their Seventies now. An era is coming to an end.
raven
@Jewish Steel: You know I never had any idea that Prince was a great axe player till my baby brother clued me.
Omnes Omnibus
@hells littlest angel: You don’t find the song Doug J frontpaged listenable? It’s from 1989.
wasabi gasp
Lou Reed – Live at the Olympia, Paris 1973
Spike
RIP Lou. I’ll raise a glass and listen once more to the savage poetry of “Dirty Blvd”:
Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I’ll piss on ’em
That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
Get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard
Jewish Steel
@raven: To their credit. Songwriting is where it’s at, if you ask me.
raven
I liked him in Blue in the Face when he was quitting smoking.
raven
@Jewish Steel: VU or Prince?
Jewish Steel
@raven: Both!
Yatsuno
Interesting interpretation.
trollhattan
Also recall excerpting all four sides of Metal Machine Music on the radio–just for the sheer Saturday night joy of doing it. Now that was fun.
hells littlest angel
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve tried in vain to like stuff post-Coney Island Baby. Out of respect for the newly dead, I won’t say what I really think of it, but if I did, I’d use the word “mawkish.”
Hey, why is the Rolling Stone the only source for this story? The fact that this isn’t in the NY Times makes me suspicious.
Cervantes
Damn. Not a perfect day.
Spaghetti Lee
@hells littlest angel:
I assume it will be soon. There’s a lot more sources than RS at this point.
Comrade Mary
Jesus is a beautiful song, but I think this might have been one of Lou’s choices as a farewell.
Valdivia
I once saw him hanging out at a Starbucks. He was super nice, down to earth, said hi. Cool cat for realz.
burnspbesq
Damn.
burnspbesq
If there’s a better 4:30 of instrumental rock guitar than the intro to “Sweet Jane” on Rock’n’Roll Animal, I wish somebody would tell me what it is.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Spike:
Here’s the video for the song. One of my all-time favorites, if a song so depressing can be called a “favorite.”
Ripley
Street Hassle is classic. A long, wild ride; hope he subverts the next world too.
Hungry Joe
From RS: “One chord is fine,” [Reed] once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. “Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I didn’t like Lulu, his introduction to me, the first time, but I’m listening to it right now in his honor.
raven
It hit the NYT online.
hells littlest angel
@Spaghetti Lee: Really? Every mention I’ve seen uses RS as its source.
[Edit] — and here comes the Times…
Too bad, though I had a foreboding a few months ago when he was crowing about how great he felt after the liver transplant.
Jewish Steel
@raven: That is awesome. Thanks!
Amir Khalid
I have just one Lou Reed album — the death-themed Magic and Loss which he did in the 1980s. Some elegantly-played music on it, but a rather morbid album. It’s a work I admire rather than like.
raven
@Jewish Steel: That film was made as a follow-up to Smoke by Wayne Wang. Both worth a gander.
Shortstop
I don’t usually get touched by celebrity deaths, but I’m damn sorry to see him go.
I’m too young to have been of age when the VU was active and too old not to have been a little amused by (but nonetheless glad for) the “discovery” of him by now-young people, and yet his work, at least through New York, has been the background music to many of my most memorable moments from high school on.
Steeplejack
Lou Reed was a big deal, but that Rolling Stone obit contains some serious fanboi bullshit:
Cannot read that with a straight face.
ETA: Off to find and play “Sweet Jane.”
Shortstop
@Steeplejack: perhaps not the most influential, but certainly in the top five. That’s not really disputed.
hells littlest angel
@Steeplejack: “… the most influential American rock band of all time.”
I really can’t think of another band that comes close.
raven
@Shortstop: Not disputed by who?
geg6
@Hungry Joe:
Love that, just love that. Met him once in the late 70s. Was totally tongue tied. Damn.
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Now that’s something we can agree about whole heartedly.
raven
Here’s what’s weird for me, Stipe hung around some with Warhol. In my head they are a century apart but I guess not.
Shortstop
@Hungry Joe: I’ve always loved that quote. Also: “I’ve been trying to leave New York for 35 years.” He never succeeded, unless I missed it.
Mullah DougJ
@Ripley:
That song is a little much for me, but it’s great in its own way.
Alex S.
@Steeplejack:
Well… that’s the culture of the Boomer generation. Someone else might give that title to the Stooges, but they were a punk band and punk was the sound of a different generation. Still, there isn’t much competition in the ‘American rock band’ genre. Most of the giants were British (or AC/DC). American bands have always been in the shadows of American solo artists.
J R in WV
Wow. Just wow. And looking at the music I grew up with – pretty eclectic, there’s going to be a lot of sadness in the next few years. The great ones of the rock era are elderly now. I’m getting close, retired old fart.
RIP Lou…
raven
Oh, now I get it:
Miley Ray Cyrus ✔ @MileyCyrus
noooooooooo notttttttttt LOU REED ?
Karen in GA
I get that he was influential — some of my favorite artists were influenced by him and VU. But I always got this impression that he felt he was just playing ironically at being a rock musician, that he was “better” than that. Slumming.
Now, I don’t know that he really did feel that way, and I’m sure fans of his, being more familiar with his work, could probably prove me wrong very easily. But that’s the vibe I always got. (David Byrne is another artist who’s always struck me that way.)
Can’t deny the writing, though. Slumming or no, he was damned good at what he did. RIP.
Omnes Omnibus
@Karen in GA: Slumming? I don’t see that. I think that he and Cale from the beginning of the VU saw themselves as artists whose medium was rock music as opposed to being some guys who liked music and wanted to play it.
Shortstop
@Karen in GA: hmmm, interesting take. Both of them revel/ed in irony and sardonics, but I never got a condescending vibe off it. I don’t see it as slumming so much as having a healthy sense of self-deprecating humor…Reed more than Byrne on that score.
Keith G
Oh jeeze. While Lou Reed did not cause the change, his music was part of the soundscape as this teenage gay boy left the farm and moved to the city. The city boys who who befriended me immersed me in Reed’s music. A bit later, they took me to see Iggy Pop.
Iggy and Lou struck a nerve with me quite unlike my sister’s Carpenter albums or my brother’s collection of Credence Clearwater and Three Dog Night.
The mini documentary on Netflix is a fun reminiscence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G:
Is that about right?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Alex S.:
There’s a good argument to be made that The Stooges were responsible for a lot of what is punk rock and modern heavy metal, but you’ve got to dig deep to find artists before, say, 1990, citing them as an influence. OTOH, you cn go back a long way and read interview after interview with artists, post-Velvet Underground & Nico, in which they credit that album as the reason they kept going when others eschewed them as too fringe. Whoever dubbed VU & N as “The album that launched a thousand bands” wasn’t pulling it out of his ass.
Cassidy
Meh. Lou Reed was done better by Kurt Conain.
Cassidy
@Cassidy: can’t edit on my phone. Cobain. Stupid autocorrect.
opiejeanne
He never owned it but I’d bet that the liver transplant was due to Hepatitis C, and even people who were treated successfully are now finding that they need a new liver a few years after treatment. There are glancing references to him having had hepatitis but not a specific type, and C is the leading cause of anyone needing a liver transplant in the US. He experimented with needle drugs. one of the methods of transmission if the needles aren’t clean or are shared. There is still a bit of secrecy from people who have it as if they had done something to be ashamed of, reminiscent of the way venereal disease was kept quiet in polite society.
You can have it for 20 years without having a clue that you have it.
I know too damned much about this subject because I had Hepatitis C type 4, contracted in 1985 when I needed blood following surgery. I hemorrhaged, they gave me at least 4 pints, and one of them must have been from someone sharing needles in Marrakesh, since type 4 is the rarest form here but pretty common in the Middle East and northern Africa. I was treated in 2005 with a new protocol combining interferon with ribavirin, and I think what was new was not just the combination of the drugs but the amounts and frequency. The treatment was nasty but successful and I still test negative after 8 years. I was only the 8th patient Kaiser had treated with type 4 out of thousands of Hep C patients, and the only one of that group of 8 whose treatment was successful.
You can not believe the ignorant remarks that I heard and still hear regarding this disease. I still have people who try to tell me it’s spread by sex and no, you don’t get it from sex despite what they claimed on “House”. If that were so my husband would certainly have it, and yet I had a dentist, a RW nutjob relative who is a more likely vector himself because of his job, insist that it was spread by “certain sexual behaviors”, meaning Those Gheys!.
You also don’t get it the same way you can catch Hepatitis A. People have told me they were invited for family dinners and then were expected to sit outside to eat on paper plates with plastic utensils, at Thanksgiving and Christmas, in cold and snowy places because no amount of explanation could convince them of the differences between Hep A and Hep C. (Don’t get me started on B or D which are both tragic.)
And you don’t get it from mosquitoes, but you could get it from a dentist or a tattoo artist if they didn’t autoclave their tools or use disposables back in the day. you could even catch it sharing a toothbrush with someone who has it. Gum problems seems to be one of the early signs, receding gums, bleeding gums, etc.
In Vietnam it is/was pretty common among the population because they were so short of resources after the war that they’d sharpen and “clean” the hypodermic needles and reuse them maybe 50 times each. The doctor who spotted mine was from Vietnam and she was suspicious of a slightly elevated liver enzyme count and ordered further testing for me, and then FURTHER testing. She said because she speaks the language she gets a lot of new patients from Vietnam, and the first thing she tests them for is Hep C and unfortunately most were testing positive.
Sorry for the rant.
Ripley
@Mullah DougJ: It’s large and difficult, for certain. Used effectively during the climax to the film The Squid And The Whale, which was also large and difficult.
ETA: Love the Springsteen monologue that bridges parts two and three, a real highlight and an interesting meeting of minds/styles.
Skippy-san
I loved the long song Heroin.
Amir Khalid
It’s a rock critic’s parlour game to anoint an act “one of the greatest/most influential ever”, with or without a geographical qualification. For starters, how do you quantify artistic influence so that you can measure artist X’s influence on band Y? Whom did Chuck Berry, or the Clash, or the Velvet Underground, or the Ramones, or any number of other acts you could name, not influence? Greatness is unique, influence can be so nebulous.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@opiejeanne
Given the social and artistic circles he ran in, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a certain amount of survivor’s guilt that he “only” had hepatitis and not AIDS.
hells littlest angel
@Keith G: The Transformer doc is pretty cool, especially the behind-the-mixing-board stuff.
dedc79
For most popular music, the lyrics and the instrumentation have virtually nothing to do with each other. Not so with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. The song Heroin pulses slowly and then speeds up as the drugs take hold. “Oh, Sweet Nuthin'” would sound despairing even without the lyrics. I’m Waiting for the Man races along with a nervous urgency.
Cassidy
The VU could learn a thing or two from The Strokes.
burnspbesq
If you were growing up in the suburbs in 1971, “Walk on the Wild Side” was some pretty strange shit.
burnspbesq
@Cassidy:
I’ll give you a pass because you’re probably quite a bit younger than me, but that is some serious ignorance you’re putting on display.
You’ve got the causation exactly backwards. Without the Velvet Underground, there would be no Strokes.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah…I was the youngest by many years. The first sibling music I remember was Bobby Vinton and the Letterman. My brother jammed mainstream rock and rockabilly. I have his Sergeant Pepper’s album that he bought in ’67.
My music started out with Detroit R&B. Strangely enough, Lou Reed was not far off that compass heading – and Iggy cut his musical teeth in southern Michigan not far from my northern Ohio farmstead.
raven
@Keith G: Putting Credence in the same paragraph with the Carpenters and Three Fucking Dog Night is ridiculous.
dedc79
@burnspbesq: I figured it was a joke, no?
nastybrutishntall
VU and Reed were huge in the late 80’s / early 90’s alternative, postpunk, neopsych scene. I must have listened to the banana album a million times. It was a great antidote to Hairmetal.
raven
@opiejeanne: My MD had me tested because people in my age group are supposed to be very susceptible. Does having been in Vietnam make it more so? (no needles here)
burnspbesq
@dedc79:
One never knows, do one?
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Exactly. And it’s also a generational thing, not just geographical. I’m sure that for the 40-ish (white) cohort who were weaned on punk rock— and who, judging by their comments on Balloon Juice, were all edgy radio DJs at their small liberal-arts colleges ;-)—the Velvet Underground is the greatest band ever. But that exhibits the same myopia they love to criticize the boomers for.
Omnes Omnibus
@nastybrutishntall:
Oh god yes.
Shortstop
@dedc79: I don’t think so. Cassidy and Raven are identical persons in every way…separated by five or six decades.
@burnspbesq: I think it was in Rock and Roll Heart that David Byrne said he couldn’t believe “WotWS” was playing in every drugstore, grocery store and public venue. “I kept wondering, ‘Have none of you actually listened to the lyrics?'” As far as I know, “giving head” was the only thing that ever attracted censors’ attention.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Hey!
Shortstop
@Steeplejack: except that lots and lots of the bands and musicians who specifically cite Reed as a direct influence are older than that. Many of them are as old as you. ;)
raven
@Shortstop: And who the fuck are you?
burnspbesq
@Shortstop:
“Shaved her legs and then he was a she” was the line that made me go “wait a minute” the first time I heard it.
Only 17 miles as the crow flies from the town I grew up in to the Village, but in 1971 they might as well have been on different planets.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry, it had to be said.
I don’t deny that the Velvet Underground was great, but Jon Dolan’s overheated Rolling Stone piece just rubbed me the wrong way. It is an occupational hazard of rock music criticism that whatever the writer really likes (or is currently writing about) must have cosmic import and implications that transcend the petty boundaries of mere “pop music.” (Lester Bangs, looking at your dead ass.)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Shortstop:
Brian Eno? Whippersnapper!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack:Although VU was contemporary with my parent’s music (Beatles, Stones, Jefferson Airplane, etc.), it was distinct from it. And the “edgy” music of my generation frequently traces back to VU (directly or indirectly). Basically, it starts a new branch of the Rock family tree.
ETA: @Steeplejack: As I mentioned briefly above, VU hit the scene at a point in rock history when people were starting to look at rock as art. Reed and Cale certainly did. And now I could go into the whole John Cage, La Monte Young spiel, but I’ll spare everyone.
AnonPhenom
Fuck you world.
I lived at The Bottom Line throughout the 70s.
Just fuck you.
And Pat fuckin Boon is still breathing?
Fuck you.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes it was contemporary with our music but, as one of us pointed out, none of us listened to it.
Keith G
@raven: The Carpenters were a fav of my sister. CCR and TDN were my brother’s.
If you want to take it up with my sis, I will give you her #s. She is in the Carolinas not that far from you. Have it out.
Edit – You can’t dispute my brother’s eclectic tastes with him as he croaked a while back.
Curt
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Off the top of my head, Squeeze was named for a post-Lou Reed VU album, and Echo and the Bunnymen cited VU as a major influence. Both of these were well before 1990.
raven
@Keith G: Cool, just drove through there coming back from Virginia. Even stopped at Cowpens!
Elroy's Lunch
@burnspbesq: @burnspbesq:
There isn’t. Sublime…
opiejeanne
@raven: There was this thought that GIs who came back from Vietnam brought it with them, but it was never stated in my hearing how they were supposed to have caught it.
I think that was shorthand for “you guys who did H in Vietnam” but you also could have caught it if you came in contact with infected blood where you had a scratch or a cut, if someone bled on you who had it. Also, transfusions.
The thing is, this didn’t even have a name until 1989; they just knew it attacked the liver and was sort of like Hepatitis A, which wasn’t A yet.
When mine was diagnosed, the identified types were only 1-4. Now they’ve identified 5 and 6.
White Trash Liberal
Who knew the death of a musician was going to bring out cranky bitters?
I wasn’t an edgy DJ at my liberal arts college. I was a teenager that thought what passed for music on the radio was garbage. The Velvets were a welcome tonic. And I love Credence too. Fogerty and Reed have a lot in common in terms of trying to take their world and put it into sound.
Can’t people just enjoy what is good about being human and mourn when an artist passes? Why be a dick about it?
raven
@opiejeanne: The big smack influx started just after I left (whew) but my understanding is that it was so powerful that most guys smoked it rather than pointed it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@raven:
No, you didn’t. But an assload of were listening to The Turtles, to The Buckinghams, to The Association in that spring that directly preceded the Summer of Love. Influential stuff, that…In that it’s influenced me to smash at least one radio.
debbie
@burnspbesq:
The only opening bit of a song that comes close to the live Intro to Sweet Jane for me is the studio Gimme Shelter. Life stops whenever I hear either.
raven
Only a minority of those who used heroin in Vietnam had ever injected it there. Most smoked or snorted it. After their return, most of the men who had used heroin in Vietnam used it very occasionally or not at all. Among those who did use heroin more than five times after their return, most had tried injecting it. Significant predictors of post-Vietnam injection included living on the east or west coast, deviant behavior both before and in Vietnam, opiate use before Vietnam, serious involvement with heroin in Vietnam, use of non-opiate drugs before and in Vietnam, and associating with drug users before Service. The variables that increased significantly the probability of injection among men who relapsed to heroin use after return to the United States were living on the east or west coast and having a history of using non-opiate illegal drugs before they entered Service. Blacks who returned to heroin use after return were less likely to inject than were non-blacks.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: I lay in the hospital, just after my second operation to stop the bleeding that caused my needing at least 4 pints of blood, and I was given a roommate because the ward was full up. I didn’t mind, but she had an ectopic pregnancy that they initially thought might possibly be appendicitis (she told them she was a virgin, didnt’ want her parents to know she’d been sleeping with her fiance) and it ruptured in the middle of the night. She was freaking out about getting blood from someone she knew because AIDS!!!! It was 1985. They were trying to calm her down because she was going to need the blood right away.
I was too groggy to say much other than to take the blood if her brothers couldn’t get there, not knowing that I’d caught Hep C. I don’t think she heard me, and her whole family showed up right away and she was fine.
Cassidy
@burnspbesq: Hehehehe. Relax. I just felt like fishin’.
I actually like VU. They’re not my favorite as I’m more in the New York Dolls, Stooges, etc. camp, but I’ve always enjoyed them when they come on. My generations music was heavily influenced by the VU.
@Shortstop: I’m much better looking.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: That is the thing. It is as far back as I can reach in rock history without sharing the artist with my parents. I like that music as well, but from VU forward there is music that is mine, not ours.
JGabriel
@Steeplejack:
Why are my ears ringing?
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): True dat. I saw the Turtles in a parking lot at a shopping center in the Chicago burbs. They didn’t play they just made an appearance and there were 10,000 people there. Flo and Eddie were pretty good.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea, I wasn’t dissin Lou or VU, just No Bic.
raven
@Cassidy: And you had those three round limits on rock and roll! Ha!
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I get ya.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cassidy:
There are camps?
I think of you both as looking like Harvey Pekar. Now I’ll have to think of raven as Pekar-as-drawn-by-Crumb and you as Pekar-as-drawn-by-I-dunno-not-Crumb-I-guess.
JGabriel
I don’t know what to say about Reed’s death. It’s like there’s another hole in the world. I just keep thinking feeling bad for Laurie. They’ve been together for … what, two decades now?
Anyway: Heroin. RIP, Lou.
.
Steeplejack
@Shortstop:
I wasn’t specifying some age ceiling on the artists. Obviously, people in their 40s—like anyone—are going to like artists who are older than they are, because they come to the music (that already exists), as it were; the music doesn’t suddenly appear out of thin air.
What I meant is that there is a cohort of (white) 40-ish people who, rebelling against hair metal or power pop or whatever they perceived as the toxic mainstream of the time, gravitated to punk rock and followed its roots down to (yes, older) artists like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.
All of which is fine. What I am suggesting is that the perspective of “my favorite music = greatest music ever” is not just a boomer thing. And, as Amir Khalid said, statements like “X is the greatest band ever” are just parlor games.
Finally, this whole thing about “Look how many bands cite them as an influence” smacks of the whole New York art-rock sensibility, where it’s not enough to just make the music, or it’s not just about the music; it has to be written about, peer-reviewed and codified as “artistic experience.”
Violet
A big loss. RIP Lou.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I’s ugly but I sho can cook!
gbear
The best way that I can think of to remember Lou Reed is to read everything that Lester Bangs wrote about him. They had a love/hate relationship that was intense and often hilarious. Lester turned out to be the one who flamed out young.
Too bad that Reed went out with the album Lulu. It’s almost universally seen as a horrible album, and I agree. It sucked.
As the gen-x’er noted above, we’re getting to the point where all the boomer musical heroes are going to start dropping like flies. I’m surprised we don’t have a Lou Reed level obit every week.
raven
@gbear: Keep on rockin in the free world.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Can we play Picasso vs Monet now?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
X is a really good band. They were probably influenced by the Velvets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Well played.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: Ugg.. Those two are pikers. Go Caravaggio or go home.
/sanctimony
Cassidy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I’ve been listening to punk since before I was a teen, so I listened to a lot less VU and a lot more Sex Pistols. You could probably make an argument of influential musical bloodlines if you want, but I was under the impression that all those bands played together and socialized regardless of genre. I don’t know. I wasn’t born then.
I didn’t really spend any time listening to the VU until after I’d already been exposed to the Cure and the Church.
SFAW
@raven:
WTF do the Murica-hating canucks know about the “free world”?
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: No, per my later interaction with CS, that was probably arrogance with a touch condescension mixed in.
raven
@SFAW: Yes!
SFAW
@raven:
As all those who’ve eaten your fixins could attest.
Or would, if they hadn’t all died.
Of food poisoning.
Myteriously.
dedc79
@Steeplejack: You lost me with your last paragraph. There are authors/poets/painters/historians who have influenced the progression of their mediums even without having a popular following (in their time or in subsequent generations). It’s a different kind of influence, but still an important one. And talking about this kind of influence (as opposed to “how many albums did they sell?”) is a way of getting past popularity as a gauge of quality.
SFAW
@raven:
It weren’t a yes-or-no question.
I realize you consider yourself to be old, but I didn’t think you were senile. Well, not compared to me, at least.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like both. And I like Lou Reed. And I liked the Velvet Underground. What I don’t like is the attempted quantification of things that are essentially matters of taste.
I’ll just be “Waiting for the Man.”
Spaghetti Lee
The VU was one of the many classic ‘influential’ bands I could never really get into, but I suppose that could just as well mean that the VU’s sound is so deeply ingrained into alt rock and indie rock that it’s hard to notice if you’re coming at it decades later like me. Honestly I liked Reed in singer-songwriter mode (New York, Magic and Loss, etc.) rather than Velvets-thru-Metal Machine Music “noise artist” mode.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
RIP Lou Reed, an immensely talented and influential artist. And I’m on the young end of the generation that was his original audience (too young to be a parent of Omnes and a few years younger than raven). It’s a loss, but he had a good run, and I suspect Hep C for the liver transplant as well.
That said, I’m still mourning Levon Helm, and chez Q, we don’t even mention what it might be like when Keef expires.
Steeplejack
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Why, I oughta . . . ::eye-poke::
SFAW
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Richard(s)?
You sure he’s still alive?
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
He’ll outlive us all.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can confirm that the lab tests came back negative for sanctimony.
debbie
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I cannot imagine him dying, having survived all he has.
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
(Sticks flat hand in front of nose, “pointing”/saluting outward.)
ETA: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cassidy:
IIRC, I first dug into the Velvets after reading comparisons between them and The Dream Syndicate (I really, really got into that first DS lp).
I don’t think the influence the Velvets have had was necessarily musical, at least not directly. I think it was the approach and the attitude- they were literate and mature, which you could also say about The Beatles and Dylan at that point (and Brian Wilson, too, as far as that goes), and they weren’t afraid to write and sing about subjects that had been taboo up until that point, and they did so without a sense of shame or guilt. In that way, they opened a door for The Ramones and The Sex Pistols.
White Trash Liberal
And I just wanted to add for those of you citing The Stooges: their first album was produced by J Cale of The Velvet Underground.
I Wanna Be Your Dog would be at home on a Velvets album.
shortstop
@Steeplejack: Ignoring your and Amir’s invitation to join you in purposely conflating the terms “great band” and “influential band,” I’m going to stick to your original complaint, which was that the writer was full of fanboi-ism when he called the VU the most influential rock band ever.
Several of us pointed out, because you seemed (and still seem) to really be unaware that this is not a hyperbolic gasping that has just now appeared, that the VU and Reed have indeed been very widely considered for many decades to be hugely influential. Amir feels this kind of labeling is a game rock critics play. I pointed out that, keeping critics out of the mix entirely, a great number of musicians themselves identify the VU as a profound influence. I’m not interested in proving my “New York art-rock sensibility.” (Really, do you have any idea how silly that sounds? I keep thinking of that rural GOP Congressional candidate making vids about “Nancy Pelosi’s SAN FRANCISCO VALUES.”) I made the point merely to lay to rest your ill-conceived argument that the VU hasn’t been hugely influential — regardless of which post-late 1960s demographic is saying so.
If you think musicians are somehow being pretentious or unseemly in citing their own influences, then say so if you think you can pull off that argument. Otherwise, knock off growling at us for simply pointing out that Reed and the VU had an exceptionally profound effect on a great deal of the music that came after them.
You keep moving the goalposts, but every comment sounds more like “Get off my lawn! Fine, if not that lawn, get off another lawn!” than the last. I’m not sure what you’re complaining about anymore, other than that Damn Kids are doing it.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: After all, he had Hep C and says he cured it by being Keith Richards.
gbear
@Steeplejack:
I’m glad that you can keep your enthusiasm for music so well in check. You might say something embarassing while talking about a song you like.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
Whoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoop!
Cassidy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): That sounds reasonable to me.
Citizen_X
@Steeplejack:
Oh, for fuck’s sake. If there’s any band that punched way the fuck above their weight influence-wise, it would be the Velvets. It’s a major part of their legacy–especially Reed’s–and bears repeating when he passes.
And sure, other bands–a very few. If there’s no VU, Stooges, Ramones, and Black Sabbath, 80% of my music disappears.
RIP Lou.
Steeplejack
@dedc79:
Nothing I said denies this. What I meant is that there is an artsy New York sensibility that gets off not just on the art but on writing about it, codifying it and properly taxonomizing it.
shortstop
@Cassidy:
Someone else better take this. As is now obvious to all, I need a walk.
dedc79
@Cassidy: The Velvet Underground disbanded in 1973. Sex Pistols didn’t get started until 1975.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@White Trash Liberal:
Eh…Maybe? To paraphrase Steeplejack’s favorite critic, The Stooges were the unchecked id of a teenager (not saying that’s bad). IMO, The Velvet Underground were a bit more grown up. Where Iggy’s basically saying, “I WANNA FUCK!”, Lou’s singing, “Yeah, sure, everyone wants to fuck, but here’s the unconventional way I enjoy it.”
Steeplejack
@gbear:
That is a mean-spirited comment. I have waxed rhapsodic about all sorts of music many times on this blog.
Cassidy
@dedc79: I know that. I said that I listened to more Sex Pistols, as in more punk, than I did VU and associated styles of music. I was referring to that particular era of VU, Iggy, MC5, NYD, etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): @Steeplejack: If we want to play with the influence thing, just take a look at the number of people from about 1970 on who were produced by, or collaborated with, either Cale or Eno. In its way it makes a case that VU and Roxy Music were stunningly influential (see how I avoided quantifying).
SFAW
@dedc79:
What’s truly amazing is how much VU was influenced by the Sex Pistols.
gbear
@Steeplejack: Sorry, but the comment about Lester Bangs was also a mean-spirited cheap shot. His writing had more to say about music than most bands had to say.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cassidy:
I got it. With the exception of the MC5 (who were hanging with The Stooges earlier on), there was a lot of socializing between the early ’70s glam figures (Lou and Iggy had become part of that scene) and the early punk guys.
Hell, iirc, Townshend’s “Who Are You” is about an incident that occurred after going on a bender in which he tipped a few with Cook and Jones.
gbear
@SFAW: I read a record review (name of the band doesn’t matter) where the writer was pointing out all of the VU influences in the band’s work but then went on to say that if the VU had actually sounded like this band, no one would have ever given a shit about the VU. That had to have stung.
Cassidy
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Cool. If I had access to a time machine….
I think 90’s alternative is an interesting parallel to that time period. The influence of those bands is easily apparent and they had a similar community of sorts. And everyone thought Billy Corgan was an asshole.
D Clarity
“I’m surprised we don’t have a Lou Reed level obit every week.”
We will only ever have 4 other Lou Reed level obits. And we’ve already had Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee. Only Iggy is left.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
Let me boil it down to this:
I don’t deny that the Velvet Underground was influential, even “hugely influential.” I do deny “most influential” as a meaningless absolute.
My comment about the “artsy New York” thing was a perhaps infelicitious shorthand for a sensibility that enjoys not only the music but writing about the music, codifying it and taxonomizing it as “art.” You can find tons of such stuff about the Velvet Underground and, say, Patti Smith; much less about Maceo Parker, who was probably equally “hugely influential” in a different region of the pop-rock spectrum.
Sorry if all that comes across as goalpost-moving get-off-my-lawnism.
Cassidy
Slightly related, there is a song that references going to see MC5 in Kansas City or at Louis or something and it sounds a lot like the New York Dolls, but I’m damn near positive it’s not them. I heard it a few times when I had XM radio and it played occasionally on a channel that played a lot of early punk, Sex Pistols, Jim Carrol, etc. Anyone have an idea?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cassidy:
I’m hearing a bell ringing, but it’s off in the distance. Way off in the distance.
Steeplejack
@shortstop:
Not at all. What I meant is that artists who cite the Velvet Underground as an influence are much more likely to have those opinions recorded, because of the “artsy New York” sensibility that feels the need to codify and taxonimize the experience.
And, if you like punk rock, of course you are going to find its artists citing Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground as influences. Duh. Just like you would find many country artists citing, say, Buck Owens or Willie Nelson as influences. The difference, I submit, is that there is not a large group of people who want to write about country music as capital-A art.
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
Ahem. I’m pretty sure I was saying that greatness and influence are two distinct things. On the latter subject, an artist’s say-so on who influenced him and how isn’t always to be taken as gospel truth, however sincere he may be in crediting them. It all comes in from one’s environment, and interacts in mysterious ways with one’s other influences (and the influences on those influences …). And any two acts who cite the same influences can still produce very different music on their own. You could draw up a Pete Frame-style family tree for who was in what bands, sure; but drawing one up for the music they made is another matter.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
Because when you’re talking about Maceo Parker, you’re sort of limited to talking about musicianship alone, and you can’t even talk about him the same way you can talk about musicians like Diz, Miles, Coltrane, Glenn Gould- guys who revolutionized their forms, genres, etc.. OTOH, when you talk about lyricists, you start talking about the subject matter.
Steeplejack
@gbear:
He had good things to say, but he also turned it up to 11 way too often.
ETA: And, Christ, I never want to get to a place where the writing about the music is more important than the music.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, I see now that you did that later in your first post on the topic, after first putting them together: “greatness/most influential ever.”
And yet his or her say-so is the most reliable measure we have, unless you’re arguing that we simply can’t have any measure at all of influence by other artists and shouldn’t ever try. It seems somehow churlish, not to mention condescending, to flatly disregard the word of musicians themselves on this point. And given that almost all of us would agree that some bands are considerably more influential than others, it seems pointless to apply a universal “We can never even begin to quantify influence” rule across the spectrum of musicians. Call the exercise inexact, if you like, but I don’t think most of us would agree that it’s a wholly fruitless endeavor.
@Cassidy: Are you sure those are song lyrics, or are you possibly thinking of the Heartbreakers’ (with Johnny Thunders, previously of the NYD) live album recorded at Max’s Kansas City?
Cassidy
@shortstop: It may have been by the Heartbreakers but I distinctly remember a line about going to see MC5. It may have been Kansas City, St. Louis, Max’s Kansas City, I don’t know.
shortstop
@Cassidy: There could be a line like that on that album — been too long since I’ve heard it for me to remember. Thunders was working with Wayne Kramer right about that time or maybe a little earlier, I believe.
Cassidy
@shortstop: I know it was actually a song lyric.
shortstop
@Cassidy: What about this?
@Cassidy: Right, I said I thought it might be a lyric from that album.
Cervantes
@Cassidy: Possibly “Max’s Kansas City 1976” by [W|J]ayne County & the [Backstreet Boys|Electric Chairs].
It was dedicated to Lou Reed.
raven
@Cassidy: I just got an email about Lou from my buddy in NYC. He was associated with Pylon back in the day and he wanted to know if the flags in Athens were flying at half-staff. I pled ignorance.
eta and his reply “That said, he was–as you might imagine–the largest figure (ever) amongst the Athens Arties. Specifically, I think many are grateful for one simple thing. Even more than the Sex Pistols, he was a great directive for those who hoped they could to play in public.
And some of us did.”
shortstop
@Cervantes: Jinx!
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: God, I haven’t heard Wayne/Jayne County in years.
Comrade Mary
@Amir Khalid:
THANK YOU! Speaking of influences, I was just thinking yesterday if someone had ever or could try to draw a family tree for influences (I was thinking the offshoots from Fripp and Eno alone would take pages), but I couldn’t remember who did the originals.
Pete’s site, which has, coincidentally enough, VU as the featured tree (but the shop is closed, alas!)
Amir Khalid
@shortstop:
I wouldn’t say that trying to attribute a musician’s influences is impossible or entirely valueless, only that it’s bound to be a subjective exercise. Any worthwhile artist is more than the sum of his influences, so that too puts a limit on the value of the exercise. It’s informative and fun, certainly, especially the arguments; but in the end it’s really just compiling footnotes on the art itself.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@raven:
Oooooo, Pylon- good band!
shortstop
@Amir Khalid:
I’ll keep that in mind if I ever hear anyone making that argument. So far, I haven’t. ;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: It is a good way to find new music. If you like Band Z and they cite Band D as an influence, you might listen to Band D. Or you could seek out other bands that cite Band D as an influence. And so on.
Cassidy
@shortstop: Gotcha. I was thinking you meant some live banter on stage.
@shortstop: @Cervantes: I’m pretty sure that’s it. Thanks. It would come on occasionally, but I was always driving. I loved it when it did, though.
raven
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): You will be shocked to know I didn’t get them either! A couple of the folks are still here and I really like them but when I went to see them 20 years ago I was baffled.
Cervantes
@Cassidy: It would come on occasionally, but I was always driving. I loved it when it did, though.
Here’s a version.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@raven:
But you take your Geritol now, right?
shortstop
@Cassidy: Note that I found that on a Czech lyrics site, proving without a doubt the LASTING WORLDWIDE INFLUENCE OF WAYNE/JAYNE COUNTY!!! Heh, just messin’ witchall.
gbear
@Steeplejack: There are always going to be a certain number of rock writers who are a shitload smarter and have more to say than the bands making the music. I’d rather read Lester Bangs or Greil Marcus than listen to Journey or The Foo Fighters. I find it just as interesting to read about the history of The Velvet Underground (and the scene they were a part of) as it is to listen to the albums. Knowing the backstory adds to the meaning of the music. I’m addicted to liner notes.
D Clarity
That’s the only type of thing humans are still better at than computers. Subjective exercises are pretty much all the human race is still good for.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: And conversely, the sort of diaspora that comes from a particular band’s work — the very different sounds Amir mentions, all allegedly translations of the same influence — are interesting to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@shortstop: Good point. Just because a band influences two other bands does not mean the influence is the same.
Cervantes
@shortstop: Note that I found that on a Czech lyrics site
The video on that page — “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” — is an older song, mid-60s, and does not match the lyrics.
raven
@Cervantes: Electric Prunes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes: Try this.
ETA: Or this live one.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks.
shortstop
@Cervantes: I didn’t even look at the video — I couldn’t figure out what song Cassidy was talking about, and I was curious enough to do a search for the lyrics.
ETA: And now I’m reminded that I haven’t had that Heartbreakers album since a boyfriend gave it to me on vinyl c. 1983. I think I must track that down in digital format and see what it sounds like to me now.
Cassidy
@shortstop: The video didn’t sound right, but the lyrics did. I looked it up on YouTube.
Again thanks for the find. That song had a great vibe to it.
shortstop
The video was worth it for her fabulous boots, though.
Amir Khalid
@gbear:
How does the simile go? “Writing about music is like …”
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: To some extent this conversation reminded me of this from Diner:
Some of are a little more that way than others.
Honus
@burnspbesq: You are absolutely right. Those were the old Alice Cooper group guys on guitar. And as a friend of mine, who’s a pretty good singer herself, said when we first heard it, “and after all that, Lou comes on, and he can’t sing a lick.” Which is true, and we both say that as people who love Lou Reed. She’s a native Italian/Irish New York city kid and I’m a native arab West Virginian. What a wonderful world.
piratedan
@Steeplejack: I agree with that sentiment. I don’t care to deny Lou and his bandmates their due, but to call them the most influential American rock band in the history of Rock and Roll does a disservice to folks like Bill Haley and his Comets, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, The Everly Brothers, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Grateful Dead, and so on and so forth. Plenty of room in the pantheon, just not sure that they’re sittin on the throne….
regardless, RIP Lou, I think that you music touched and helped people and as such, not sure that there’s any better accolade as an artist.
smintheus
I saw Reed at a concert in Rome in the early ’80s, I think ’83 or ’84 at the circus maximus. He was brilliant.
Omnes Omnibus
@smintheus: Envious. That would be such a cool place to see a concert.
D Clarity
I think they were the most influential American rock band in the history of Rock and Roll.
smintheus
@Omnes Omnibus: Only event I ever attended there, had a great view down the valley of the circus with the Palatine looming above.
suzie
@opiejeanne: Hi, that’s really interesting about bleeding gums being an early sign. I’m currently trying to track back in my own medical history to pinpoint the possible cause and time of infection and this info is useful. Lou Reed was fabulous. I do hope that if his death was hep c related (and it looks likely) that it increases awareness somehow. Here in the Uk most people wait for years before getting the correct diagnosis and often visit their doctor with early symptoms that get ignored. I got told all my symptoms were in my head and I was a neurotic, depressed woman. If my doc had done his job and sent me for a hep c test I might not be where I am now.: too late for interferon, not yet ill enough for a transplant. It truly is a terrible disease. R.I.P. Lou.
Death Panel Truck
Hitler wasn’t wild about Lou Reed.
Dream On
I knew it was coming soon enough – Lou Reed without his own liver felt like an unsustainable joke on nature. Still, a shock. It is absolutely impossible to overstate the influence Lou Reed (and indeed John Cale,Sterling Morrison, Mo Tucker & Nico) have had on my musical lifetime. Right off the top of my head – Iggy Pop, Julian Cope, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, Jesus & Mary Chain, Roxy Music, Mazzy Star, Television Personalities, REM, Joy Division & New Order, Bauhaus, Pulp, Can, David Bowie, Talking Heads, the Fall – that’s just the top of my head – instinct – with no attempt at memory recovery at all. Like Neil Young, the Beatles and Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground’s impact on recorded music is undeniable and pervasive. Like the rock under my feet – it is there.
It is a shame that his last album will be the mixed bag collaboration with Metallica (curiously with Reed representing the weaker portion of that bag) “Lulu.” But then I felt he tailed off after “Magic & Loss.” Really his solo career was always a mixed-bag, with cynical and catchy throwaways, strange detours (“Metal Machine Music,” “The Raven,” and the amazing “Take No Prisoners” live, er, comedy record.) But always a worthy adventure.
We still have John Cale.Check him out – he’s still got it. I bet he lives to 100, just to keep the Reed rivalry going.
Don’t expect to have a good picture of Reed with just “Transformer,” “New York” or the critically and culturally resurrected “Berlin.” Here’s some other gems:
1. All Through the Night (“Growing Up in Public”)
2. The very unsettling Kicks (from “Coney Island Baby”)
3. The very upsetting Gun (from “The Blue Mask”)
4. Lou Reed’s 15-minute rendition of Walk on the Wild Side from “Take No Prisoners,” barely getting to the second verse. But he does talk about his agent, contracts, New York music critic “toefuckers” and the validity of Barbra Streisand.
5. “Betrayed” and “Bottoming Out” (from “Legendary Hearts.”)
6. Yes, “Walk on the Wild Side.”
What a career, what art, what a life! With high Art and swearing too!