ATN: I was a kid when the first Velvet Underground album came out...

Set the Twilight Reeling may find Reed
reborn as an accepted artist.

Reed: Let's talk about my new record...

ATN: I was just going to point out the irony of it taking so long for the establishment to accept the group...

Reed: Well I hope it doesn't take them that long to accept me.

ATN: Why did you call the album Set The Twilight Reeling?

Reed: Oh I have no idea. Well actually I do. Because it's about transformation and rebirth. That's why.

ATN: That runs through the entire album.

Reed: It's a rock 'n' roll album. That's the theme.

ATN: This is the first album you've recorded at your studio.

Reed: High above the city.

ATN: Can you look out on the city from the studio?

Reed: We were looking out all the time. It was particularly amazing when it was storming out. All of this was cut live. All live vocals. All live tracks. Cut live in the studio.

Reed, Lou, "Romeo Had Juliette" from New York
(45 second excerpt)

Stereo MPEG (1.13M)

Mono MPEG (563k)

Mono Sun-AU (375k)

RealAudio 28.8k

ATN: There's a lot of guitar on this album.

Reed: A lot of loud guitar.

ATN: What motivated you to make this kind of record?

Reed: I just wanted to make a rock 'n' roll record. That is what I do, after all.

ATN: You were recently in Europe working on a play with Robert Wilson?

Reed: I did the music for a play with Robert Wilson called "Time Rocker." In Homberg. He did the sets and designs and I did the music and the lyrics and we worked with a guy named Daryl Pickney. He did the book.

ATN: What's that about?

Reed: Well it's taken from H. G. Wells' Time Machine. It's about traveling around in time.

ATN: Well, of course that book was about an underground civilization that was struggling against this society above.

Reed: It was a tract for socialism. The play we're going to do isn't.

Reed, Lou, "Romeo And Juliette"
46 sec, 3.10M QuickTime

ATN: It seems like you're one of a few artists that have had really long careers. You have this huge body of work like you were talking about earlier.

Reed: (Laughs) Gargantuan!!

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