The group played their Lou Reed cover in Liverpool this evening (October 28, 2013).
Patti Smith spoke about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground in an interview with the Associated Press today (October 28, 2013).
“I was so taken with their [the Velvet Underground] music. I made it my business to study him. His process completely spoke to me, the process of merging poetry with these surf rhythms, this pulsing loop. You could get into a trance listening to 12 minutes of Sister Ray.”
Smith said Reed brought “the sensibility of art and literature” to rock music. Smith and Reed often spoke about poetry, and such poets as Hart Crane or Walt Whitman or Federico Garcia Lorca.
Smith said that “Pale Blue Eyes,” a song she often performed at the beginning of her career, is a favorite, and that it reminds her of her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith.
“I never fail to think of him and his gaze when I’m singing that or hear that song. Lou had a gift of taking very simple lines, ‘Linger on, your pale blue eyes,’ and make it so they magnify on their own. That song has always haunted me.”
For the whole story go here.
Patti Smith sings “Pale Blue Eyes” in 1976.
At Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit concert this past Sunday night (October 27, 2013) there was an all-star performance of Lou Reed’s “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’.”
Jim James of My Morning Jacket led a group of musicians that included Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis and others.
This fan video shows a beautiful and moving tribute to Lou Reed.
Beck returns with his first new album in five years in February 2014. The new album, Morning Phase, is, according to a press release, along the lines of the acoustic, ballad filled Sea Change, released in 2002, which had a Nick Drake vibe at times.
For the new album Beck utilized many of the same musicians who played on Sea Change including Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Smokey Hormel, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner.
The album will be Beck’s first for Capitol Records. He previously recorded for Geffen Records.
Here’s a video for “The Golden Age” off Sea Change.
Writer Neil Gaiman published an essay today in The Guardian about Lou Reed, and Reed’s influence on Gaiman.
Gaiman writes:
‘There are certain kinds of songs you write that are just fun songs – the lyric really can’t survive without the music. But for most of what I do, the idea behind it was to try and bring a novelist’s eye to it, and, within the framework of rock’n’roll, to try to have that lyric there so somebody who enjoys being engaged on that level could have that and have the rock’n’roll too.” That was what Lou Reed told me in 1991.
I’m a writer. I write fiction, mostly. People ask me about my influences, and they expect me to talk about other writers of fiction, so I do. And sometimes, when I can, I put Reed on the list, and nobody ever asks what he’s doing there, which is good because I don’t know how to explain why a songwriter is responsible for so much of the way I view the world.
For the rest head to The Guardian.
Lou Reed was, of course, a big influence on Lou Reed.
Here are three videos in which Patti covers Lou.
“We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together”
“Perfect Day”
“perfect Day” (studio version)
Awesome to see Tom Waits do his thing at the Bridge School concert yesterday (Oct. 27, 2013).
Dig it the most!
Be sure to click on the “Play All” link to see Waits’ entire set.
Set list:
Raised Right Men
Singapore
Talking at the Same Time
Chicago
Lucky Day
Tom Traubert’s Blues
Lucinda
Last Leaf
Cemetery Polka
Come On Up to the House
If you missed my previous Banksy posts, here’s an easy way to check them out: Day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven, day eight, day nine, day ten, day 11, day 12, day 13, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 20, day 21, day 22, day 23, day 24, day 25, day 26, day 27. Plus: “A Consideration Of The Politics Of Banksy’s Syria Video,” “Source For Banksy’s ‘Concrete Confessional’ Revealed,” and “Banksy Update: NYC Mayor Attacks Street Artist.”
John Cale wrote about Lou Reed:
“The news I feared the most, pales in comparison to the lump in my throat and the hollow in my stomach. Two kids have a chance meeting and 47 years later we fight and love the same way —losing either one is incomprehensible. No replacement value, no digital or virtual fill…broken now, for all time. Unlike so many with similar stories—we have the best of our fury laid out on vinyl, for the world to catch a glimpse. The laughs we shared just a few weeks ago, will forever remind me of all that was good between us.”