Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste - Lester Bangs [91]
My personal payoff with Lou came when we got back to the hotel after the gig. About a dozen people sat around a shadowy suite while the Original Phantom Purveyor of the New Rock got drunk on his ass and rambled on to the point of babble. I got totally blasted myself, my disappointment came through, and I started baiting him:
“Hey Lou, doncha think Judy Garland was a piece of shit and better off dead?”
“No! She was a great lady! A wonderfully wise and witty lady…”
“Hey Lou, then doncha think David Bowie's a no-talent asshole?”
“No! He's a genius! He's brilliant!”
(It makes sense that Lou would say that, since he allegedly made an ass of himself by falling in love with Bowie when he went to England last summer.)
“Ahh, c’mon, what about all that outer ‘Space Oddity’ shit? That's just Paul Kantner garbage!”
“It is not! It's a brilliant masterpiece! Oh, you are so full of shit!”
“It was dogshit. Why don’t you get off all this crap and just try being banal for a change? Why doncha write a song like ‘Sugar, Sugar’? That’d be something worthwhile!”
“I don’t know how. I would if I could … I wish I’d written it….” Jeez, the poor bastard was getting so pathetic even his overweening maudlin streak was beginning to get to me! Like all the last year, every time his name comes up all you hear is “Poor Lou!” Poor Lou, poor Lou, poor poor poor Lou Reed! You wouldn’t wanna be in his shoes! The tortured artist! The poor hamstrung sensibility! But I was too drunk for brakes, so I got even more personal and abusive: “Hey Lou, why doncha start shooting speed again? Then you could come up with something good!”
“I still do shoot it…. My doctor gives it to me…. Well, no actually they’re just shots of meth mixed with vitamins … well, no actually they’re just vitamin C … injections.”
It went on like that for a while; finally, the whole thing sort of flaked into silence, and a girl from his organization had to come and carry him off to his room. But I’ll always carry that last picture of him, plopped in his chair like a sack of spuds, sucking on his eternal Scotch with his head hanging off into shadow, looking like a deaf-mute in a telephone booth. (He's still pretty cool though; I stole that last phrase from him.)
If all this makes you feel sorry for him, then you can compliment yourself on being a real Lou Reed fan. Because that's exactly what he wants.
Then again, maybe time is still on Lou Reed's side. A few days later I was sitting in my room when the door flew back and in barged Josh, nine-year-old son of one of the people I live with. He's one of these typical little prepube smartasses with long hair and a big mouth, and he immediately demanded: “Where’d dja get alla records?”
“Cute kid,” thinks I, “maybe I’ll give him a copy of The Electric Company soundtrack.”
“Hey!” he poots. “Yagotenny Vaaaan Morrison or Leeon Russell?”
Awright you little popsicle pecker, I’m getting tired of all this blatant trashing of respect for elders. So I drag out a copy of Transformer: “Wanna hear this?”
“Naaah,” he snorts. “I awready got a copy.”
“Oh yeah. What's your favorite song on it?”
“‘New York Telephone Conversation.’ But my brother likes the one that goes ‘shaved ‘er legs an’ then he was a she.’” His brother is eight.
“Well, then, whattaya think of it?” I was a broken man.
“I think it's great! We play it all the time.”
So there you are. A bit later I tried to put on an America album and the brat called me a “health food eater.” He's obviously a prodigal snot, but you can’t ignore the evidence: Lou Reed may be leagues from the peak of his creative powers, he may be a deteriorating silhouette of a star…
But give him a child from the time he's nine.
Creem, July 1973
Monolith or Monotone?
Lou Reed's
Metal Machine Music
I have a few theories concerning this new Lou Reed album:
In general, Lou is not excessively fond of other members of the human race, so this album is, or