Jul 092008
“Not everyone does…”
Mar 202007
First, you know you wanted another selection from Lou’s 1974 All-Star Porn Rock Band. It’s going to be hard continuing this feature once I move beyond this era, but I’ll do my best.
I was watching a making of Transformer doc on VH1 Classics. You know, as much as I love Lou Reed and as many mediocre – some might say “humble” – albums as I do by the man, Tranformer is a generally flat listening experience for me. I’m only stoked by the album’s version of “Walk on the Wild Side”. As great a song as “Satellite of Love” is, I find the album’s version lacking in something. I’ll take any number of live versions over it.
The album’s subject matter doesn’t grab me – all that glam/butch-femme dynamic/Andy Warhol stuff ranks down there with workin’ for the weekend cock-rock subject matter in terms of my lyrical interests, but I think the real problem is Bowie. Here’s a rare example of an artist in his prime being produced by an artist he heavily influenced. As with Bowie’s production of Raw Power, I’m left cold.
That said, let’s hear what Lou and his contributors had to say about the making of this supposed classic!
4 Responses to “Lou Reed…As His Music Was Meant to Sound!”
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I should let Bowie produce my next book. Glam me up, hollow me out, bring me some coin.
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A glammed-up Mark Wallace! The mind boggles. This, from the man who once wisely admonished me, “no trend is definitely a trend… BUT IT’S THE BEST FUCKING TREND THERE IS!”
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Don’t worry, my friend, my books are honest all the way through, even when they’re full of lies. And I’ve got readers. But we’re talking big-time COIN here. That’s what I don’t have. And that’s, apparently, what Bowie can deliver. If you were Lou Reed, what would you have done?
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I never really liked Transformer either, except maybe for Vicious. I’m glad it made him some money, but from the looks of these videos he spent it all on speed. He can’t weigh much more than 100lbs, and they’re painful to watch. As my friend who is an emergency room doctor told me, “Steve, it’s a BAD drug. If you ever even think about trying it, call me first.”
He disses it now, but I love Lou’s first solo album and always have. The material, mostly VU leftovers, was really there, even if he didn’t enjoy the recording experience.
“motorcyclist”
try Ballbreaker.
The other day my wife and i were house painting and listening to music. I had on a mix-disk i made a few days before. Lou Reed’s We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together came on.
It’s really terrible.
When I burned the disc, i thought it was the Velvet version, which is awesome.
I explained to her as i hit skip, that he is into covering his own songs poorly.
She said, “he’s a parasite”
that is all.
Shawn, I love that version of Real Good Time Together that’s on Street Hassle. I probably heard it before the one on the underpants album. Is there another version? You probably didn’t have binaural sound available wherever you were painting so you couldn’t appreciate the remake as it was meant to sound.
i’ll give it a binaural try.
So far, it just creeps me out.
The Velvets studio take was on the second CD of unreleased scraps calle “Another VU” It’s pretty close to the Live ’69 version.
Ah I no longer have Another VU. The 69 version does have that cool ‘worship my rhythm guitar as it was meant to sound’ passage, but I love the way the Street Hassle version only fades in the whole band at the end of the song.