Lou Reed: Hater of Beatles and British rock in general.

Oh, Lou, how I love thee.  Your way of saying anything outrageous in a deadpan manner has always been your trademark.  Let's forget all about how you recorded your first three albums over in England and have also been quoted in regards to your love for how the Beatles wrote so many groovy tunes.  And how Bowie basically gave you a career.  You rock, Lou.

Reviews from the Spark Plug - Lou Reed's Mistrial

 Lou Reed

Mistrial

Rating: **

Lou originally wanted to call this one Lou Shits A Really Good One, but RCA wouldn't hear of it, especially after they let Lou jack off on the previous album cover.  So Reed bitched up and down and called it Mistrial instead.  No one bought it, even though Lou was clearly humping a drum machine on the tracks and trying to get into the dance clubs.  No one wants to dance to Lou Reed.

Lou Reed - Quotes of Gold

Lou always says it best. Take it, Lou.

"Gimme an issue, I'll give you a tissue. You can wipe my ass with it."

"We were pretty bad, and we had to change our name a lot. We played fraternities. People would vomit on your amp."

"Dylan was never around for me. But he did have a nice flair for words that didn't mean anything. They were just marijuana throwaways."

"I enjoyed those shows I did in London at the Rainbow, but I kept thinking that Frank Zappa fell seventeen feet down into that pit. I hate Frank Zappa, and it made me so happy to think about that."

"Musicians usually cannot speak. That's why they communicate through their instruments. But Frank was one who could. And because music is pure, the musician is pure as well and when Frank spoke he demonstrated the power of purity. Who will do that now? I admired Frank greatly and I know he admired me."

"Everyone should have a divorce once, I can recommend it."

"This is fantastic - the worse I am, the more it sells. If I wasn't on the record at all next time around, it would probably go number one."

"Show me a journalist who isn't a whore and I'll show you a man."

"I created Lou Reed. I have nothing even faintly in common with that guy, but I can play him well. Really well."

"This waiter came up to me in a restaurant and said, 'Listen, I write songs, what do you suggest I do?' I said, '"Let me hear them so I can steal them off you if there's anything good.'"

"My current designation as godfather of punk is shit, ridiculous. I'm too literate to be into punk rock."

"A punk is a misplaced hippie."

"Nixon was beautiful. If he had bombed Montana and gotten away with it, I would have loved him."

"I don't smoke grass and I don't like things that everyone sniffs off a table. That's tawdry, it's so common. I like to play with my system, alone. I'm into drug masturbation."

"The nice thing about New York is that you're anonymous. I mean, who wants to be known?"

"I like my trash to sound better than anybody else's trash, because I make records to sell records."

"I wanna be black, I wanna be like Malcolm X and cast a hex over President Kennedy's tomb. And have a big prick, too."

"Not everybody gets the chance to live out their nightmares for the vicarious pleasures of the public."

"I believe in all things in moderation...including moderation."

"I really love the farm, it smells great."

"I don't write for a rock 'n' roll audience. I write for adults...who listen to rock 'n' roll."

"It's very hard to keep it simple."

"Who else could make a scooter hip?"

"I've had reviews that say, 'Why don't you just die?' and it hasn't seemed to make any difference."

"I can't do anything outside of New York. It's death."

"Fuck Radio Ethiopia, man, I'm Radio Brooklyn!"

"Nothing beats two guitars, drum and bass."

Was the Cowboy Junkies' version of "Sweet Jane" the worst thing that ever happened to that song?

The Velvet Underground is my favorite band of all time. Lou Reed's song "Sweet Jane" originally recorded by the Velvets is my favorite song of all time. But I, like a lot of other people who grew up in my generation, first heard that great tune through the Cowboy Junkies' version of it that was a hit for them back in the late '80s.

It was OK enough, but when I finally got into Lou and his version via the version on his Walk on the Wild Side best-of, I was fucking floored. I was expecting that same laid back shit (which I'd later hear as originally intended on the Velvets' 1969 Live LP and was still tons better than the Junkies' take), but instead I got it as it needed to be. Rocked-up, serious, and indestructible.

But it was the Junkies' version that so many who weren't clued in to Lou came to know and accept as gospel. This belief may have been furthered when it was included in the film Natural Born Killers and its accompanying soundtrack. Reed has had nice things to say about the Junkies' take, but he's had lots of "nice" things to say about many bands and their takes on his music, so it's best not to always take what he says as gospel, either.

As for me, I don't think the Cowboy Junkies ultimately did the song any favors. The song is about Jack and Jane, not waitin' for Jimmy. Although, I suppose a super version would mash the two ideas together at last. Maybe someone's covered the song in such a way (I was planning to myself at one point but thought better of it). At any rate, let's take a listen to a couple dandy versions of the tune right now, won't you?

Lou Reed: "Sweet Jane"

I love Lou Reed.  The Velvet Underground is my favorite band of all time.  "Sweet Jane" is my favorite rock song of all time.  Here is Lou, Robert Quine, Fred Maher, and Fernando Saunders rocking it perfectly from the A Night with Lou Reed show filmed in 1983. 

Five lyrically lazy pop tunes (with hits!)

Not every pop star can always be magically productive, be it musically or lyrically.  But sometimes our heroes crank out songs that can make us scratch our heads looking back at them.  Here are five tunes hand-picked by yours truly from some of my fave artists that just don't get me in any sort of rah-rah mood when it comes to the lyrical portion of the song.

1. The Beatles - "Love Me Do"

So simple a first grader could have written it (possibly with a little help from a friend).  In fact, it's so simplistic that it's no wonder Capitol and other US labels passed on The Beatles originally if this was one of the tunes offered up by the soon-to-be Rock Legends.  This is moon/June/spoon rhyming at its worst.  Granted, this was circa 1963, so it's to be expected...sort of.  Given the fact that the followup single "Please Please Me" was light years ahead of this tune (most notably at the song's bridge where Lennon rapidly fires off the lyrics), it begs the question how did it make #17 in the UK?  The Fabs even had better numbers they could have dished out like "Some Other Guy" whose sheer energy was plenty more exciting than that of "Love Me Do."  Maybe we should blame it all on George Martin.  Of course, he'd be the one being told what to do not long afterward.

2. Teenage Fanclub - "What You Do To Me"

The Fanclub made no bones about being fans of Big Star.  After breaking onto the charts with "The Concept" from their second LP Bandwagonesque, the band hit us with this tasty slab of #1 Record-inspired goodness.  Too bad, then, that the lyrics are fucking terrible.  "What you do to me / I know, I can't believe, there's somethin' about you, got me down on my knees /What you do to me /What you do to me / What you do to me / What you do to me."  Repeat.  Laziness at its worst, no matter how convincing the music was.

3. Bob Dylan - "All the Tired Horses"

Wow.  Dylan was so lyrically burned out by the time he recorded Self Portrait that even he couldn't be bothered to sing on this, the album's opening track.  "All the tired horses in the sun / How am I supposed to get any ridin' done?"  Who knows?  Just keep repeating it and have some ladies sing it for you, Bob.  Sure, picking anything from this album might seem like an easy target, but come on.  It does pick up a little later on.  Dylan's cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" also on the album makes Paul Simon sound like a hack.  Now that's funny.

 4. Lou Reed - "Follow the Leader"

After releasing the excellent Coney Island Baby in 1976, Lou Baby switched labels from RCA to Arista and crapped out the Rock and Roll Heart album for Clive Davis.  Oh, it's got its selection of really bad tunes ("I Believe in Love" is both unbelievable coming from Lou and also sounds like the rejected theme to some bad TV sitcom), but "Follow the Leader" has to take the cake all around.  Lou's band gets all sweaty, cookin' up a boogie that this time sounds like some rejected incidental '70s cop show music while Mr. Reed on Speed stammers such memorable lines as "Follow, follow the leader n-n-now / New York, New York City n-n-n-n-now-now."  Great, Lou.  How does the rest of it go, dude?  Oh yeah, "Oh, if you wanna dance / Hey, work up a sweat / Better, better, better get yourself a little romance / And you better, oooh / Get up a little sweat and a little romance."  Jesus, Lou, put down the drugs already, man.

5. Billy Joel - "We Didn't Start the Fire"

Who started it, then?  I'm one of Billy Joel's biggest fans, but damned if I can't even bring myself to put this on my iPod, or into a Billy Joel mix or ever feel the need to hear it ever again.  Billy's always had his critics, usually about his lyrics, but listing names and events off one after another does not make for inspiring listening.  Of course, that didn't stop us fans from shooting it right up the charts, either.  Go ahead, lay the blame on me.  I never gave much of a damn for the Storm Front album from which this was taken, anyway.  The only part of the whole thing that sticks in my head is "Communist Bloc."  So I must have blocked out the rest of it successfully.  Get it?  Haha.  Yeah.  OK.