28 October 2013 (Day 301) – Lou Reed

With memories of Saturday’s festival sitting warmly in my memory bank, I breezed through Sunday.  Even waking at 5 am this morning didn’t seem to phase me.  Then I turned over in bed to generate more warmth and seconds later was screaming in pain as the calf in my one of my legs twisted and tore itself.  “M” did her best to initially treat it and an hour later I hobbled to breakfast wondering if I could find a doctor later in the day.

It was then that I turned on the morning news and discovered that Lou Reed had died.

This was not turning out to be a perfect day.  With his devotion to tai chi, etc, I was under the impression that Lou was one of the healthier rock stars going round.  He certainly sounded in great voice on the Lulu album with Metallica but the news he had a liver transplant in May came as a bit of a surprise.  It seems that in death, as in life, Lou had managed to maintain a distance between himself and his fans. 

I don’t mean this last statement to be taken as a negative one.   As a musician and a lyricist, Lou Reed was utterly fearless, prepared to peer into and report on and from some the darkest corners of his own life and that of his hometown New York City.  It sometimes didn’t make for pleasant listening but it was always compelling.  One of the very few rock musicians who should be regarded as a true poet, his words more often than not conveyed a dark realism (and dare I say sit, a beauty) that was usually matched by the music. 

Initially, this approach was hugely influential.  The work of his initial band, The Velvet Underground is today regarded as the wellspring from which most of today’s independent/alternative music has sprung.  Just about the truest cliché in all of modern music is probably the one about the VU not selling many records during their existence but that everyone who did manage to hear one was sufficiently inspired to form a band.  That some of the output of his subsequent solo career is viewed as falling short of the quality of that band is probably an indication of just who quickly the rest of the rock world came to understand the band’s approach and Lou’s insistence on telling true stories no matter how sleazy, gritty or unpleasant the circumstances.

Not that any of this seemed to matter to him.  Lou, especially in his solo career, refused to be pigeonholed and if you didn’t agree with what he was doing I suspect he would muttered “tough shit” (or something to that effect) and left you behind.   It has led to an amazingly diverse body of work, one that constantly challenged his audience’s expectations, left a trail a of emotionally or intellectually battered music journos and bemused or infuriated just about everyone else.  How many rockers could possibly have sustained a career that took in glam rock (Transformer), a junkie rock opera (Berlin), a meditation about death (Magic And Loss), a musical adaption of the works of Egdar Allen Poe (The Raven), songs about his own personal happiness (the New Sensations album and Hooky Wooky on Set The Twilights Reeling), an attempt at rap (The Original Wrapper on Mistrial), a double album of sheer noise (Metal Machine Music) and the collaboration with Metallica?  Some, indeed most of these excursions were derided at the time of release, yet today some of these, especially Berlin, are now regarded like the VU as visionary classics.  So there is a lot to celebrate, and as I spend the next few days recovering, I’ll be hitting the highlights of his catalogue in tribute.

In doing so, there is an aspect of Lou’s death that has been the cause for much reflection.  It really hasn’t dawned on me until now, but with the recent deaths of icons such as Ray Manzarek, J.J Cale, Chrissie Amphlett and now Reed, all seemingly of what others would describe as “natural causes”, I think we’ve finally entered a stage in rock history where the death of the major white rockers that had survived drugs/drink, misadventure, the perils or the road and the occasional psychopath is going to become a regular occurrence.  Certainly, a number of the major blues, jazz and soul masters have already died, but the key thing there was that the great number of these were not in their early 20’s when they embarked on their careers.    And for me Lou is just about the first major rocker to have died of natural causes after I spent decades following a career, purchasing albums and going to gigs that I found richly rewarding.  Whilst I’m not going to declare that I’ve lost a musical brother or some other form of hackneyed shit descriptor that he would have probably abhorred, I feel the loss of one the major figures who has helped shape my musical taste and outlook and encouraged, through his own example, the relentless exploration of new sounds and sensations. 

At least there are the records and the videos to sustain me, but ultimately, as I apply another batch of ice to my damaged calf, all I can do is mutter “tough shit” and carry on.