rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey gang, sorry I haven't been posting lately.Been busy trying to keep me, Buster and the cats fed. Day to day **** jobs - literally in the case of cleaning out Fedderman's stables - but honest, though menial, work. In any event I figured I'd repost an old favorite - at least an old favorite of mine - regarding that old death dwarf and one time doppelganger Lou Reed, Hopefully will be back soon w/new thoughts on music, life and that old devil god. tb)

LURID: Shooting Craps with the Bard of Syracuse

 

My Lou Reed can beat up your Lou Reed. We’ve all got one, whether we call it Lou Reed or Satan or America or whatever name one gives to their dark angel; that other that we invest with a self defeating mix of hatred, admiration and no little recognition. Rock and roll has always been a refuge for the outsider, and there was nobody more outside than the Velvet Underground during the Summer of Love, unless you count the people to whom the Velvets’ music spoke most directly. Like a 13 year old boy who ran away to NYC in 1968, expecting that Aquarian Dream he’d seen on tv and instead found soup kitchens, speed freaks, junkies, sexual predators and the Velvet Underground. The pitch of their screed was a soundtrack that made sense. The noisy rush of Heroin mirrored the combination of fear and ecstasy that accompanied this young man’s introduction into real life. Sunday Morning sounded like what waking up in a crowded basement in an abandoned building on 14^th Street felt like. The Black Angel’s Death Song, all rushed phrases through clenched teeth over skittering viola captured perfectly the dazed and somehow wrong reality of a sleep-deprived teenaged boy, freshly raped and bleeding, making his way down 2^nd Ave toward the next revelation.

Lou Reed elevated rock and roll to the level of Literature, not Dylan. Lou Reed was the most exciting and innovative guitarist of the 1960's, not Jimi Hendrix. The Velvet Underground were the most influential and important band of the 1960's, not the Beatles. With their debut record, 1967's The Velvet Underground and Nico, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker punctured the balloon of the psychedelic era’s love-fest to itself with songs that spoke (and screamed and screeched and clattered) with authority of the harsh realities of life. As this balloon was filled with the worst of hot air, narcissistic denial, this puncturing was a good thing. No, the record wasn’t a hit at he time, far from it, but this record was, and is still, more than product. The Velvet Underground and Nico was/is nothing less than a call from one hyper-intelligent soul in pain to another. And another. And another. It’s taken 35 years but we’re as much a religion as you Elvis and Beatle acolytes and, no, I’m not entirely convinced that this is a good thing.

Teenagers, as well as people, have a right, from time to time, to hate the world. The world comes with it’s own sets of problems every damn day. There’s no justice in the woods. Merit often means less than nothing. Some days it feels like it’s never going to change, a night of denser dark’s about to fall and take you and everything you love with it. What you going to do? Shoot heroin or listen to it? Throw yourself off a bridge or wrap yourself in the barbed wire drone of a band that understands the anti and creates war cries and lullabies for it, giving the hardened soul a little mood music for bad moods? Sometimes that’s all the space one needs to avoid the abyss and I speak from experience when I say that some rock and roll can, indeed, save lives.

As you might have guessed by now, the Velvet Underground are my Beatles, or as my wife would say, my Jesus. Lou Reed was my Dylan and Hendrix rolled into one blinding flash of art and noise and inspiration, if not example. If not role model. Which is where I got it the most wrong.

Basketball great Charles Barkley once remarked that just because he could play basketball, that didn’t mean he should raise your kids, a wise and direct rejection of the role model straitjacket worn so righteously and seemingly effortlessly by folks like Michael Jordan. Charles Barkley is a wise and direct man, and if I still had heroes, he’d likely be one of them. But I’ve come to the conclusion that hero worship only places unreal expectations on someone you don’t even know, and all focus placed on someone else’s behavior ultimately removes that focus from yourself, so nothing gets done and you’re not to blame. Neat racket. One gets the self satisfaction of appreciating greatness without ever having to lift a finger to attain it. I once remarked to a friend, upon the release of Let’s Dance, that I had lost all respect for David Bowie. My friend, Paul Martino of Dem Mudbone Boys, turned to mean and said "He doesn’t care, Tim". He was right, of course, and I was a fool to think different and perhaps a bigger fool for thinking it mattered, thinking that it still matters. That rock and roll is anything more than a bunch of bored kids with guitars, looking the devil in the eye and approaching with song. Now, is that noble or ridiculous? You tell me.

Being a fan of the Velvet Underground’s like being in a secret society/chess club. You can content yourself with your perceived hipness, but on many levels you’re still a dweeb in the face of the high school in-crowd of the mainstream. No matter, Lou Reed was my hero back, as the kids say, in the day and remained so until the early 1990's. Not surprisingly the longer I was sober, the less drawn I was to Reed’s music. The Velvet’s reunion of 1993 was, of course, a letdown. No human beings could meet the expectations of my comic book brain that had transformed an exceptionally fine rock and roll band (no small thing) into the cleansing vortex of ritualized envy and agony that rose from the subway stations of a gloriously tortured youth, forming a cloud of faith and fear and greatness, coalescing into the very face of god! That’s a lot to hang on a rhythm section and a guy with a six note vocal range.

But the ideas! The though that went into the lyrics and the musical presentation as well, from the Velvet Underground to his solo career, mark Lou Reed as one of the greats, a true artist.. From the tinsel pop time capsule of Transformer to the Grand Opera sweep and scope of Berlin (the best album of the 1970's, not Never Mind the Bollocks, which is admittedly a close second) Reed took a mass audience from the top of the charts to the depths of hell. Berlin is a cinematic CD, telling in painful detail, the story of two expatriate Americans living in Berlin and tearing each other apart through the sin and disease of being human. Perversely replacing the guitar throb rock and roll of previous work with heavily arranged orchestration and a harrowing chorus of screaming children, Reed created with Berlin the first ADULT rock and roll record. Which of course was too much for most of us, especially the reviewer at Rolling Stone who claimed to be physically sickened by the record. Rock and recoil? This is communication!

After Berlin, Reed backed off and gave us Rock and Roll Animal, the Lou Reed record for people who don’t like Lou Reed. A live record, Animal presented classic VU tunes along with cuts from Berlin played in a rather heavy metal manner by a back up band featuring the guitar wankery of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner. While a fine band who played the tunes’ new arrangements tightly precisely, in my opinion they lacked the sheer (ironically enough) animal commitment that best serves Reed’s music. Once again, Lou couldn’t give a rat’s ass what I think. Funny how that component of the artist’s make up is only cool when he or she is pissing someone else off. With his next record, the magnificent Metal Machine Music, Reed pissed just about everybody off.

MMM, for the uninitiated, is a two record set of electronic feedback, split completely into separate left and right stereo channels. No songs, so lyrics, just 2 records worth of pure White noise stretching on into infinity (literally, the last groove on Side 4 loops back into itself, never leading the needle off the record. The record will not end until you remove the stylus from the disc. For all you CD kids, I know this sounds like ancient history, but it was still a cool move). The record’s packaging made it look like another live album along the lines of Rock and Roll Animal while the liner notes were, I assume, speed driven ramblings that led me to believe that when I got this record home and played it that I would find absolutely nothing in it’s grooves. Which might have been an even bigger rip on his fans, except that MMM, in all it’s pristine cacophony had the cultural edge of being the prototype for bands like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine and thus directly influencing rock and roll history. Again. This revelatory album was followed by Coney Island Baby, a collection of love songs, an apology of sorts. All was forgiven as Reed created a record of a sweetness rarely seen in rock.

The punk years brought Street Hassle, a tough minded, beat poet/electronic high mass. Reed was experimenting with a recording technique called Stereo Binaural Sound, the physics of which escape me, but involved two microphones embedded in a plastic head. Listening to this record (and it’s follow ups, The Bells and Take No Prisoners), especially through headphones, was like 3D sound well before the advent of the 5.1 systems so prevalent today. You could almost tell where the musicians were positioned in relation to each other, and on the live Take No Prisoners, you could here people talking at the table behind you between songs. Take No Prisoners is perhaps the greatest live record ever, and certainly the greatest live Lou Reed performance. That it was recorded is a blessing, that it was released, a miracle. Over a fine tuned band, although one that can swing as opposed to the Animal trackers, an admittedly drunk Lou Reed throws down to an audience of worshipers. Calling us out as cowards regarding rock critics who get in free (‘Why do you put up with this? Go to another club?), cutting us off at the pass as we try to bask in his glory ("I can drown you out" after bashing a power chord to silence a heckler, "If you write like you talk, no one reads you" to another in a moment worthy of Dorothy Parker), telling tales out of school about himself and friends in a devastating monologue over the chord changes to his biggest hit Walk On the Wild Side ("Little Joe.......... was an idiot!), taking us all to church on a transcendent version of Coney Island Baby’s title cut, Reed brought a brutal honesty to the stage. I wish there was a video of this show, what a miraculous thing, a rock star abrogating the responsibility of being nice to his audience, to be something other than a vessel for their failed aspirations and having the nerve, not to mention common sense to utter the following to a particularly annoying heckler.

"Oh, leave if you don’t like it."

A great moment in rock and roll history and perhaps the greatest thing ever said from an artist on stage to the crowd in the pit. Leave if you don’t like it. Take some responsibility. I’ve always read the title of Take No Prisoners as meaning, not the Professional Wrestling like allusion to murder but a rejection of letting the audience into your head and leaving them, in their entirety, back at the ranch when the show’s over. Leave if you don’t like it. Priceless.

Lou Reed has always attracted dirty dark wannabees all trying to out ‘decadent’ the perceived master. I’m sure many people have used heroin in a misguided attempt to be like Lou Reed (or Charlie Parker, Keith Richards or Johnny Thunders), but you can’t lay those hurt or wasted lives at his doorstep. Hearing the song Heroin kept me off the drug, and I was something of a garbagehead in the day, it was that little laugh between the lines ‘It’s my wife" and "It’s my wife’. I never wanted to be on the other side of that laugh and, as a direct result of Lou Reed, have never put a needle in my arm. Maybe it’s time he started getting a little credit for that influence. By dispassionately describing the world of the junkie, he provides the information for one to make an informed choice. Can’t blame him for everyone who made the poorer one.

The 1980's brought Reed’s work into a tighter focus with the formation of the band that featured Robert Quine, guitar hero extra ordinaire and Fernando Sauders, he of the fretless bass which sings like angels. The Blue Mask and, to a lesser degree, Legendary Hearts, were the last time Reeds flame burned this hot. By taking the re-evaluation of self that all of us go through when we first get sober and giving it voice and a back beat, Reed produced some of the most honest work of a carrer steeped in the bleakest honesty. The direction he seemed to be heading toward, this time, though, was one of hope and the search for some kind of redemption, implicit in all his work dating back to the VU seemed to be closer than ever to positive fruition. This struggle between self and substance struck a chord with me, as I was in a similar situation at the time, trying to clean up. I was rooting for Lou, as much, if not more, than myself to make it. So far, we both have,

Through the 1990's to the present day, Lou Reed has taken great pains to reposition himself as a man of letters and a serious voice in American Literature, sometimes at the expense of great rock and roll. It’s a shame to me, that he feels the need to deny the sex and drug adventures that built the house of his career. I get it Lou, you were never gay, never really a junkie, never really a drunk, it was all poetic license. No, you are, and have always been a Great American Writer and you can line up all your records and get The Great American Novel in sound. You are a genius. Genius enough to walk away from the Velvet Underground not once, but twice. You’ve got your henchmen and music stands and professorial glasses and demeanor and your acoustic guitar and your sights on a place in Legitimate History, as if your involvement in the evolution of rock and roll from kid’s stuff to high art wasn’t enough. Maybe too much clean living washed away the dirt from your hands, it’s certainly washed the blood from your art.

So, I’m going to leave, because I don’t like it

Posted by: timbyrnes at 18:38 | link | comments (4)

Gold In The Silence: And The Gods Pushed 'Mute'

     It all started w/the Roxy Music video I special ordered from our quaint little vidstore in our quaint little town. I ordered Roxy's 2001 Reunion Concert on DVD back in August when the job was going well and I felt a little flush. It was an indulgence.

     Fast forward to last week where I felt flushed, having been laid off w/no warning and thrown headfirst into a cooking job I was totally unequipped to perform. Seriously, there's a lot more to it than you'd think. Anyway, being between jobs again's not such a big deal, been there, got out of that, y'know?  But it had been like 2 months of story after story as to why my DVD wasn't in yet. Had to be ordered twice (the guy was buying it off of ebay, fer Lester's sake). Anyway, being down on my heels I figured I'd just cancel the order and get my money back.

    So, of course the DVD came in that morning.

     "Roxy Music Live at the Apollo" is a thing of wonder, dear readers. Impeccably played, presented, filmed and recorded, it made this old man very happy. Ferry misses a high note or two, but the band is feaking on. Manzanera, MaKay and the great Paul Thompson prove once again what an incredible backline they were and are. Augmented by keyboardists Colin Good, Julia Thornton (also percussion) and Lucy Wilkins (also violin and what look like Eno's origanal Moogs) the original Roxy run through one of the most thrilling and varied catalogues in all of what we'll call rock and roll.

     The opening segment finds the band drawing from it's 1st three records, the quirky, stilted bebop of 'Re-Make/Re-Model', the swiftbeat slink of 'Street Life', the cracked grandeur of 'Ladytron". The crowd loves Roxy Music, it being London and all. It breaks my heart that even w/this kind of evidence Roxy Music are still denied their place in the rock pantheon.

     I mean Pink Floyd, my ass. Have you seen the Pink Floyd cover band they've been showing on PBS during Pledge Week? It's not enough they they gotta play the actual Pink Floyd concert overandoverandoverandover, now they gotta trot out the Australian Pink Floyd, as if w/all those smoking planes and mirrors it actually matters who's playing 'Comfortably Numb'. Please write yr PBS station and demand that they show the Roxy Music Live at the Apollo DVD or at least puhleeeeze stop running Orbison's Black and White Night show. At least for a full 6 months, OK?

     Yeah, I'm a little disjointed. Kids getting shot in schools. Senators hitting on pages and then blaming alcoholism and the Church. I'm a lapsed Catholic/Alcoholic and I've never molested anybody. Woodward hipping us to this State of Denial like it's actually news. Iraqi Police squads going over to the other side. Winter setting in, nights slowly getting longer. Old age creeping in on all fours, all scissor steps and shadowlike, giving perspective as it takes yr eyesight. Alla sudden it's like yr at the bottom of a deep, deep well looking up into the pitiless glare of the oncoming train, the dark a little darker every day.

....and that's the type of crap that's been running through my head the last few hours so I decided to come to the Library and type howdy into the cybervoid, hype Roxy Music a little (seriously it's great, even the poppier stuff like 'Oh Yeah' and 'Dance Away'), diss Pink  Floyd, gotta love dissing the Floyd. REST IN PEACE, SYD!!!!! And maybe to just type that as slick and snotty as I like the sound of my own voice to sound, recent events have stunned me into silence. Never have the words "I don't know" carried such weight, or held it so heavy on my soul. The world's gone mad and me along w/it but here comes a big so what?!  Sometimes when there's nothing you can do, the best thing to do is nothing. At least for a while.

"There's no more time for us.

  Nothing is there for us to share but yesterday."

                                                       Bryan Ferry, 'A Song for Europe'

"Dance away the heartache, dance away the tears"

                                                        Bryan Ferry, 'Dance Away'

Posted by: timbyrnes at 22:48 | link | comments (3)