Lou Reed's Rock and Roll Heart

[med-lou-bw1]


At 54, Lou Reed has mellowed out a bit--but not too much.
ATN Editor Michael Goldberg spoke with rock's avant-garde avatar
about censorship (on the Internet and elsewhere), art, recognition and heroin.


By Michael Goldberg

New York City

Lou Reed is dressed in black. Black leather pants. Black t-shirt. Black shoes. Electricity is, literally, crackling off him, as he stands in his elegantly cool, private sixth floor office at the back of Sister Ray Enterprises, overlooking Broadway in the Village.

"Did you hear that?" he asks, walking over to an open window and closing it.

I think he's referring to the street sounds, but I'm wrong.

At Sister Ray, there are Lou Reed and Velvet Underground posters on the walls, as well as framed gold and platinum albums for New York. A rack holds copies of many of Reed's older albums; boxes of the recent Velvet Underground boxed set sit on a bookcase. A photographer is setting up to shoot Reed up front. Reed's publicist is on the phone, dealing from a couch at the back, just outside the room where Reed and I are talking. Nearby is Reed's Internet expert, Struan Oglanby.

''I'm getting a shock every time I get up," Reed says with a grimace, taking a seat back at his desk. "That was that snapping sound." Then, in that classic Lou Reed monotone, "I conduct a lot of electricity. It's really strange."

Maybe not so strange. We are, after all, talking about Lou Reed, founder of the Velvet Underground. Writer of such highly charged songs as "Heroin," "I'm Waiting For The Man," "Sweet Jane" and, of course, "Rock & Roll." And Lisa Says." And "Walk On The Wild Side." And "Satellite Of Love." And "The Blue Mask." And "Romeo Had Juliette." And "Dirty Blvd." And....

Reed, Lou, "HookyWooky" from The Twilight Reeling
(45 second excerpt)

[PLAY] Stereo MPEG (1.19M)
[PLAY] Mono MPEG (594k)
[PLAY] Mono Sun-AU (395k)
[PLAY] RealAudio 28.8k


For over 30 years, he has recorded albums that have ranged from truly brilliant (Street Hassle) to downright annoying, yet revolutionary (Metal Machine Music), from insightful (New York, Magic & Loss) to, well, not so hot (Mistrial). Mostly though, Reed has managed that difficult feat of simultaneously making rock 'n' roll and art.

"I don't want to be pretentious to call it art," he says quickly, when I bring up the A-word. "But I hope that it's pure and good enough and honest enough of thought and expression to be... "His voice trails off. He lays his hands flat on the desk that separates us.

Then, as if to say to hell with this humility bullshit, he says, "I'm trying to make art out of it."

On to page 2 of 10
Geocities