David, Lou, and Bono hang out at Syracuse University
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Events
Oh man, this is an unreal meeting.
Lou Reed was honored with the George Arents Pioneer Medal For Excellence In The Arts by his alma mater, Syracuse University. Besides Bowie, Bono was there as well to honor Lou. Now, I think I would have actually gotten pretty nervous if I had been given the chance to squeeze in the middle of a pic with Lou Reed, Bono, AND David Bowie. One on one would be super-cool, all three at the same time near mind-blowing for me. These guys didn’t just play music, they defined my entire generation for me. If you were way out there, you were a Lou Reed fan walking on the wild side. If you were into exploring alternative sounds and weren’t intimidated by distractions such as sexuality or hipness, you were into David Bowie. If you wanted to impress the babes and hopefully score, you were into U2. The rest of the stuff was pretty safe depending on which trend you bought into. By being into Reed/Bowie/Bono combined, you pretty much told the world you were into intellectual qualities of music such as the lyrics. These guys didn’t write rap and hip hop, they wrote stories, sagas, tragedies, and ethical odes that meant something.
So, why do you suppose a rocker like Lou Reed would be honored by Syracuse University? That’s where he got his degree. Honorary anyway, in English. Reed credited his musical writing style to a professor he had at Syracuse, Delmore Schwartz. Reed described it as “to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music,”. In other words, to tell a story. Intelligently.
No one even tries any more. And, the three best at doing that were all there in the same room at the same time. Lou’s last real hit was over 30 years ago and people are still honoring him. I wonder how many hitmakers of 2007 will be remembered in 2037?
Tags: award, bono, david bowie, Events, george-arents, Lou-Reed, syracuse
Femme Fatale
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
Sparkalot sent me a link to a video of Nico performing with Lou Reed. It’s gone now. However, I did find another of her performing with Velvet Underground. So, here goes.
This was Lou and the boys a few years before he would team up with Bowie for Transformer
Nico was the main babe of the New York alternative/punk scene during it’s climax. As that scene eventually faded, so did Nico. She died of a brain hemorrhage in Ibeza in 1988.
Lou is still performing today.
Femme Fatale is by far my favorite Nico song. I leave this post with a video of my favorite Lou Reed ditty. And, it’s not Walk on the Wild Side.
Tags: femme-fatale, Lou-Reed, Nico, sweet-jane, The World Of David Bowie, walk-on-the-wild-side
Lou Reed
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
Lou Reed had been dancing on the edge of fame. Everyone seemed to know who he was from his days with Velvet Underground to his solo stuff. But, as a young kid at the time, no one I knew seemed to have a clue why. Although being spoonfed The Jackson Five and The Osmonds, I kept hearing this song that was kinda creepy, and sang about people I didn’t think I’d like to meet. I finally started exploring the alternative scene of that time via The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. A local FM station played a lot of alternative stuff as well. Eventually I would learn the song was “Walk on the Wild Side”, and the singer was a guy named Lou Reed. I loved Walk on the Wild Side, but, nothing by Reed ever blew me away more than the live version of Sweet Jane. The intro to Sweet Jane has one of the all time greatest guitar licks ever performed. At about that time I became a huge Bowie fan. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Bowie and Ronson actually produced Transformer. White Light, White Heat was a constant Bowie performance for years and often was the best song he would do in shows as he tended to over-manipulate his songs, but never altered Reed’s songs. The coolness and mellowness of Reed with the over-the-top nervousness and paranoia of Bowie’s early writings were a hell of a mix that should have been pursued much, much more than it was.
Today, Lou Reed is just Lou Reed. Like Andy Warhol, his mentor, he has one of those personalities that just screams individuality. All you have to do is look at Lou and you know who it is. You may not remember why, but you’ll know it’s Lou.
That’s very cool.
I’ve redone Walk On the Wild Side for my own karaokeing pleasure. Hope you enjoy it. It’s about the same as the original.
Tags: david bowie, Lou-Reed, The World Of David Bowie, walk-on-the-wild-side
