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."

How to properly rate Britney Spears?

So Britney Spears has a new album out called Femme Fatale. If I was younger, this probably would have irked me and I would have written out a not at all well thought out rant against it. But this is counter-productive. You can see enough of such "reviews" for the album over on Amazon.

Which leads me to ask, how does one properly rate or review a new Spears album? If you look at the entire swath of reviews on Amazon, you'll see that there is no middle ground for the most part. The fans love, love, love it, proclaiming it to be the album of 2011 and Britney's best yet (undoubtedly something they say every time she puts out a new one), and the people who don't like her write one-star reviews and bitch about how she's phony, the music is all auto-tuned and overly processed and takes no talent, blah, blah, blah. There is truth to some of those accusations, but at the same time the venom is guiding the way and not an objective set of ears.

As I get older, I get tired of seeing the same rants of "Music ain't what it used to be!" Music is cyclical. There will always be wheat and chaff, and radio-friendly pop tunes that you can dance to will always be frowned upon because there is no "artistry" or "talent" that goes behind such work. But if that were truly the case, then the shit wouldn't sell at all, and Britney's fans would have all grown up and forgotten her. But the thing is, Spears gets new fans with every new album. New, young fans. And that's the key. The people working behind her know this, as does Spears herself. Hell, she wants to maintain a career. Not even Federline and going nuts in public could derail her, so why would she suddenly start doing confessional singer-songwriter stuff? Lindasy Lohan tried that on her second album and we all know how well that turned out.

I used to not like Spears as well. I mean, I still don't like her music, period, but I don't dislike her for it. She's made a fortune out of what she's done and she continues to do so, so something's working in her favor and it isn't just luck. No, she can't really sing, but that's beside the point these days. The decade will continue and new old trends will rise and fall again and someday this will all repeat once more.

No more Phil Collins (!)

So, Phil Collins' doctor has advised him to quit playing drums lest he loses all functionality in them. Instead of balking, Collins has decided to quit altogether. Good.

I mean, not good that the poor guy's hands are in such a shape, but Phil is one of those dudes who used to make pretty groovy music and then decided to slide into a pool of sap and remain there for the last couple of decades. Elton John is also guilty of this. Perhaps he'll quit soon as well.

But when was Collins at his peak? In Genesis? Probably. Suffice it to say that the guy has always managed to mix crap with cool in his solo stuff. As a kid, I found his cover of "You Can't Hurry Love" charming. Now it just grates me. But at the same time, his weirdo impersonation of Peter Gabriel on "Thru These Walls" from the same album is pretty damn good.

Then again, there was that whole horrid "Two Hearts" and the Buster movie, "I Can't Dance" with Genesis, and his complete humping of the suck with his Grammy (TM!)-winning Tarzan tune. Oh well, I'll still enjoy "It Don't Matter To Me" from time to time.

Was there ever a bigger explosion than "I Saw Her Standing There"?

Light fuse - get away.

As countless teens dropped the needle on Please Please Me in 1963, the end had arrived.

Track one, side one. "I Saw Her Standing There." That was it.

Since then, has there been anything that came close to exploding so perfectly, turning the black and whites into full-on beautiful, vibrant color?

"One, two, three, FAHHHHHHHH!"

It was rock and roll unlike any that had ever been. Not even the previous singles of "Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me" gave any hint that this was it. No looking back.

Lennon's driving rhythm. McCartney's furious and exciting vocals and Chuck Berry-swiped bass line. Ringo's propulsive drumming that was air tight. Harrison's tasty licks that should have taught Dave Davies a thing or three about making a ballistic solo without fucking it up, but didn't. And those harmonies. Pow!

Think of everything that came after that count-off. The changes the world over encountered. It can never be done again. It was bottled lightning and it struck vibrantly for a few more years.

That it still sounds that essential and joyful nearly 50 years after the fact is reason to never forget it.

So don't.

White People Fuck Up Black Music, Vol. 2

Listen to this:



Now listen to how it got fucked:



Thanks for nothing, Crew Cuts.

White People Fuck Up Black Music, Vol. 1

Listen to this:



Now listen to how it got fucked:



Thanks for nothing, Elvis.

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?