Saturday, June 1, 2013

I Think Lou Reed Is A Creep

News from over 40 yrs. ago:
(Reuters) - Velvet Underground, the 1960s avant-garde rock band, has settled a fight with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over the rights to an iconic pop art image of a banana that graced the band's best-known album.
News from over 40 yrs. ago & from two months ago:
Lou Reed, the US songwriter, poet and vocalist with the Velvet Underground, had a liver transplant last month, according to his wife, the musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson.
And from a mere 38+ yrs. in the past:

4 comments:

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Is this some kind of East Coast/West Coast thing? Or are you pissed that nobody serves a decent egg cream in LA?

M. Bouffant said...

Egghead Editor:
Don't be so quick there. We'll admit we've never tried any of these dumps, though Langer's isn't that far away.

Mostly the chance to be mean to the notorious & quote the Dictators, who (as they'll tell you) are as New York as Famous Ray's or Famous Original Ray's (whichever) so it's not really East/West.

This also enters into it:
"Frank Zappa is the most untalented musician I've ever heard... He can't play rock 'n roll because he's a loser...". Lou Reed according to Neil Slaven, Zappa, Project/Object chapter. "He isn't really interested in music...he's using music for ammunition". John Cale in Oor, January 1994.

During the sixties Zappa's Mothers of Invention and The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed and John Cale were competitors for the promotion budget of MGM, for which both groups were contracted. Some serious animosity evolved. On the tapes for Zappa's "We're only in it for the money" The Velvet Underground got mentioned via a musician complaining that he has to play Zappa's creations and to make matters worse, he has to play with the Velvet Undergroud the next day, "just as shitty a group".

Let it be noted for the record that we approve of the V.U., John Cale & even Reed's solo work, at least through Berlin. Post-Berlin we are pretty much unfamiliar w/ the oeuvre, so we can't criticize.

Or this, which implies a certain East/West pre-rap competition, if not war. Not that we give an actual flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about any of it. There's just no acct'ng. for taste (or lack thereof).

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Mostly the chance to be mean to the notorious & quote the Dictators, who (as they'll tell you) are as New York as Famous Ray's or Famous Original Ray's (whichever) so it's not really East/West.

Handsome Dick Manitoba is still active in the local music scene.

M. Bouffant said...

UNDER THE THUNDER* Editor:
Also owns or has lent his name to a local watering hole, we've heard.

*Of Manitoba, that is. Don't get any other ideas.