Lou Reed will be gone 8 years on the 27th. Not technically a Boomer (b. 1942) but he blew away a few zillion of us. We’ll be feeling his reverberations a long long time.
Apple TV has just released a documentary of his band The Velvet Underground. As a city-dweller like Lou was I got to see it on the big screen. Well worth the sticky armrests and risk of illness.
The Velvets music sold poorly but influenced majorly. Formed in 1965 New York as an avant-garde project managed by Andy Warhol, in the early days they turned out Lou’s dark and edgy yet hummable tunes, boogie woogie hopped up on feedback, not exactly peace and love, sweet stuff. They wore black!! Girl drummer!! Welsh artist (John Cale) playing viola or droning organ!!! It’s been said they sold only a few thousand copies of their first album, but everybody who bought one formed a band.
Lou wanted to be a rock star though, so he split with Andy and Cale and all of a sudden we got Sweet Jane. Dang!
All four VU albums are on RS’s top 500…not too bad. A lot of music from The Era hasn’t aged well (I’m talking to you, The Doors) but the Velvets keep exploding, giving and giving.
In the 80’s, a punker friend with ripped stockings (and according to her) the Best Legs in Baltimore turned me on to post-Velvets Lou, a whole other rock ‘n roll world. He later married Laurie (Oh Superman) Anderson, and went all mellow and Tai Chi. Gone too soon, RIP Lou.
Check out the VU rockumentary BB’ers…a brave artist was in our midst!
- Old Man Wrong
Photo: Billboard.com
