Hello Jim
Yes, you speak for the 'masses' for Herd Culture, as does Morrissey. But you do not speak for Lou Reed.
I've 'followed' Lou since I was 12, but as a discerning member of the Audience, not a fan. He didn't change my life, but those who informed his art certainly did. He was only original within the breathtaking conformity of popular music. He's no literary genius. Nor is Dylan. And don't even think about suggesting that Morrissey meets the criteria.
The first time we met, Lou was non-plussed that I held back from the devotees and just raised my eyebrow. He approached me. We talked at length and he wanted to continue the conversation which we did at other times. However, he was not a personal friend, and was not well disposed to my criticisms that he behaved incredibly foolishly, as did Bowie and Iggy, in foisting the pseudo-rebellion of endless hedonism onto impressionable youth, just like all the other fake 'rebels' he hung out with. I hardly cared that he defended his behaviour, whilst Ralf and I rolled eyes at the Obvious Troll is Obvious re-run of already discredited tropes of post-war consumer excess as 'rebellion'. Mind you, we're rooted in the European industrial cultures of Birmingham and Dusseldorf, not the Norman vanity project of London or the Time Square Americana memetic cauldron that Lou and Andy traversed with aplomb. So it's perhaps understandable that Lou just couldn't follow the argument for so many years. Who cares? He doesn't. He's left the planet.
What was important about Lou and his colleagues in the Velvet Underground was that they referenced gritty urban culture at a time when the La La Land nonsense of hippy counterculture was hegemonic. Very few people noticed or cared. I only became aware of them because of a hip priest who had discovered them in New York. It's ridiculous for Morrissey to try and eulogise Lou Reed, who spent most of his career either as a genuine Outsider, or a bitter angry Bowie fellow-traveller, when Morrissey cares only for sales and acclaim by press and other C-list celebrities. As Eno suggested, the Velvets only sold 10,000 records but most who heard them went on to form bands which were usually crap. It shows that the real path-finder artists don't necessarily get crowds storming venues in Greece or given the keys to Tel Aviv, or sell more tickets than Oasis, etc. Now, the Velvets, like the Pistols, have become a tiresome touchstone, the Blarney Stone arse-kissing trophy/totem for fake punk/post-punk Boomers to comfort themselves that they were always hipper than the Zepp or Abba fans, for instance. No sensible or serious person now thinks this, and no-one did in playgrounds in English industrial cities in the early 70s when a bunch of pseuds walked around with "Raw Power" thinking that that made them 'hip', rather than desperate and insecure. Warhol, so much to answer for, etc.
If everyone who claimed to have been at a Sexy Pisser concert or to have been 'into the Velvets and the Dolls and Iggy' in the early 70s were assembled, they'd fill Wembley stadium several times over. People are telling porkies. And Arthur Lee's Love, for instance, are just as significant as the Velvets to serious cultural curators. Nick Drake..the Velvets told important stories that were ignored. Now? It's a cliche business card handed out by prats who thought Metallica were just heavy metal nonsense until St Lou showed them the light.
My eulogy to Lou Reed will be part of my posthumous diaries. For the record: I miss him, and last night, when the Rockabilly Halloween party in King's Norton was interuppted by a message from the stage that Lou had died, I couldn't get my mojo back, despite the wild ecstasy of The Delray Rockets. I drove home and wrote a song. It's called "Monday Mourning". If/when it's released, it *might* become clear what Lou Reed and the rest of the Velvet Underground meant in my life. But as they are now such an obvious reference by desperate hipsters, I doubt it will make the cut.
regards
BB
ps: Jim, do I know you? I'm terrible with names, but it rings a bell. PM me with a face pic,if we've met, and you'd like to reconvene. Or maybe that's another Jim Moriarty? You're not a BrummieBoy, are you? LOL! Stay sane? In this world? Without Lou! Dear God! Please help me! How will I get through this day? "Monday morning, as it's dawning, I'm just thinking about all the games that we played.."
