Music: What Goes On in Lou Reed’s Mind?
There aren’t many queer music icons that hold personal significance to me. I feel that the user’s manual of contemporary gayness was written before my birth and such accepted gay go-tos like Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Elton John are part of a homo certification that I never received. I like their music, but when bop around to “Into the Groove” it has nothing to do with my sexuality.
The one queer musician that really means something to me is Lou Reed. Between his years in The Velvet Underground and the occasional genius of his solo albums he’s one of the few gay artists whose songs even come close to reflecting my gay life. When a last minute opportunity arose to see his sold out 9:30 Club show last week, I was thrilled. I could barely concentrate all day. Would he play Pale Blue Eyes? Would his encore be Goodnight, Ladies? Could I possess a brief, secondhand scrap of Greenwhich Village in the ’60s, the countercultural Shangri-La that a too-recent birthday will forever leave out of my reach?
None of these things happened. The show was actually boring. And not just boring for a Lou Reed show. I mean it was unabashedly, bad songs and lazy banter, low-energy boring.
My sister Molly always says that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By that definition, I’m insane. (And the pope is Catholic. And Larry Craig sucks dick in the woods. ) The latest sign loose screws is my habit of seeing aged music legends and expecting them to rock like they did in their prime. Debbie Harry and Donovan both just made me sad about not being alive in their respective 80′s and 60′s heydays, and to this cavalcade of disappointment I must now add Lou Reed.
Half the letdown was the set list: Lou barely played any songs that the I or the audience seemed to know or be excited about. I’m far from a paragon of Velvet Underground knowledge but I consider myself a pretty big fan. I can tell you what Stephanie, Candy, Lisa and Caroline said. I once got bored and memorized the entirety of The Black Angel’s Death Song. None of this mattered, as all but four songs were from the last 15 years. I know that Lou Reed has a back catalog of about a bajillion albums, but I also feel like legendary artists who rarely tour have a certain obligation to play their classic songs. Not begrudgingly, not while skipping verses and flubbing lines (like he did for Sweet Jane) but actually throwing a bone to the fans that made him famous in the first place.
(And I should say that I’m not just being bitter at being deprived of “Cool It Down.” The songs he played were were rambling to the point of masturbatory. Several times I had to lean over to TNG Michael and say “Songs like these are the reason that people don’t like Lou Reed.”)
It was also distracting that Lou wouldn’t let any of his bandmates do their jobs. During songs, he would put his back to the audience and non-verbally instruct his drummer to drum harder or his keyboardist to play faster. This man’s supposed to be an asshole, but a control freak asshole? The bars on the main floor of the club had to close before the performance started, as if all that pouring and sipping would disrupt his flow.
Of all this though, the biggest cause of my disappointment was that there was absolutely nothing subversive about the performance. I discovered The Velvet Underground at 19, when a friend of mine filled an 8-hour car ride with their comprehensive box set and the sweet acid strummings of “Who Loves the Sun” opened up a new world. I was astounded at the range of moods and subjects that one band could cover. The S&M drone of “Venus in Furs.” “All Tomorrow’s Parties‘” pity stomp. “The New Age‘s” hopeful nostalgia or “One of These Day’s” swagger. These songs all mean something to me, both for the various stages of my life when I discovered them and for the way they could uncannily reflect my state of mind while still providing enough distance to allow me reflection.
However, I had years of fandom under my belt before I found out that Lou Reed wasn’t straight. After I graduated from college, a friend of mine mentioned that Lou would fuck anything and has slept with bandmates of both genders. A little research dug up the fact that his parents sent him to electro-shock therapy at an early age to “cure” his homosexuality. So many of his solo songs (“Take A Walk on the Wild Side,” “Makeup,” “Hangin’ Round“) espoused a sexual freedom that is different from the “be fabulous” attitude of today’s gay music. He gave permission to lick boots and give head and come out of your closet and have sex in the hall while never losing his voice as an outsider. Even when I first moved to D.C., I could listen to a gorgeous love song like “I Found A Reason” and think that maybe, just maybe, Lou had written it for a guy.
So Lou Reed is queer, but damned if his stage show wasn’t a vanilla bombast on par with listening to the Foo Fighters play over the loudspeaker CVS. I didn’t expect him to put on fishnets and blow a roadie but even songs about a Halloween parade in New York, and Lou’s mumbled regret that so many of it’s participants had died of AIDS, seemed like the polished motions of someone who forgot how important he was to his audience. An audience that felt some connection to one or another underbelly of society.
So Lou Reed has grown up and gotten older and married a woman. That happens. I knew that going in to the show. But there’s a pleasant middle ground between nostalgia act and experimental dad-rock, and I certainly didn’t see it.
So I can check one more “see ‘em before they die” artist off my list (and hope that Jeff Lynne stays on our mortal coil just a little bit longer) but I might’ve been better off staying at home with a spliff and an LP. Come to think of it, there is probably no way that the show could live up to my expectations. I guess that’s the thing about heroes — you get closer to them and they’re just people. Old, wrinkled people in awkwardly-fitting t-shirts.
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Lou has been doing half-assed performances for the last 30 years now. Watching him gives you the impression not only that he doesn’t want to be there but that he is deliberately trying to suck. Don’t even get me started on the records he’s made in the last twenty years…puke. Many artists from Lou’s era who are still performing suck pretty bad now but Lou is genuinely in a league of his own. Someone needs to shoot him up with heroin and bring Nico back from the grave, then maybe…just maybe, he’d do something worthwhile.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
that’s a shame. i always kind of felt like lou reed: VU is as morrissey:the smiths. just not the same. they need a john cale/johnny marr to keep them on point. or maybe a bowie.
i think morrissey is decidly on point, thank you. compare his post-smiths work to johnny marr’s!
Morrissey’s songs used to be about feelings and situations and state of mind I could relate to, because I felt that way too.
I’ve never been a millionare rockstar, so songs about how horrible that is fall short of the mark.
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
i knew the moz fans would crucify me (joan of arc style) for saying that…i just don’t like him as much as as the smiths
That post made me incredibly sad.
I missed both the Lou Reed and Debbie Harry concerts but I do get your point. You want to see them as you imagine them, a legend, even though it’s not going to be the same but somehow you hope they will be evolved artists.
I have to say I saw Patty Smith recently when she came to the 9:30 club and I was worried a little as well. It’s not like she tours a lot so there was nothing being said about her concerts. I have to say it goes down in history as my favorite concert ever. She was amazing to a degree that aging rockers should be. She evolved. (Also, I did accidentally step on her foot and touch her when she sneaked down in the crowd and that may have been the best moment of my life)
But I hear you on Lou Reed, I am almost glad I didn’t get a chance to go, just so I can keep my love of him alive.
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