Recent Reed releases

Rip It Up, Issue 6, 1 November 1977, Page 9

Recent Reed releases

William Dart

Velvet Underground Loaded Cotillion Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side RCA Lou Reed Rock and Roll Heart Arista Why shouldn't there be all that crap for kids? Nobody's making you buy it. There's plenty of attention for everything. Besides, I've always had somewhat patrician taste. I've worked so much. I've earned the right to be awful. They've got a head start. Lou Reed on punk rock. The master of cynico-minimo-rock himself commenting on would be competition. All the Reedian characteristics are here the flipness ( I ve always had somewhat patrician taste"), as well as the camp ive earned the right to be awful ). Add to all this a dash of Dada and. a pinch of Warholian minimism and’ what do you have a Lou Reed. Three records are now out which show three different phases of Reed's work. The first is the 1971 Velvet Underground album Loaded (Cotillion). This was the last album that the group released with Reed amongst its personnel, excluding the later posthumous live albums. Loaded has material which is still near enough to Reed s contemporary style for him to include on his current concert programmes— Sweet Jane being an obvious example. Some of the songs seem just a little ineffectual, but that is sometimes part of the Velvet s rather casual-sounding style. Who Loves the Sun is a lovely pop song, Beatles harmonies and all, and contrasts strongly with Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll which are quintessential Reed, screaming out for a machismo live performance. Reed s Solo career started with a bang in the early seventies, right in the middle of the rising Gay Consciousness. Green finger-nail polish, drag, where would it all end 9 Reed s second album, Transformer even had a young man with a rather stunning credential on its back cover. Just as monstrous as the young man’s credential was the song Walk on the Wild Side which was a big hit for Lou. It was a typical Reed song in its cataloguing of the seamier sides of the side, a sort of corollary to Nico’s Chelsea Girls . R.C.A. have titled their new compilation disc of the best of Lou Reed, Walk on the Wild Side and it is a rather super slice of the singer. As well as the title track we have such decadent

lovelies as New York Telephone Conversation one minute plus of breathless campy trivia. There is my favorite Reed song. Satellite of Love as well as live versions of Sweet Jane" and White Light White Heat both old Velvet songs. Add to this "Wild Child". Sally Can t Dance and Coney island Baby and what do you have a helluva lot of good ole decadence for your $7.99 lou's latest offering is on Arista and has the delightful title of Rock and Roll Heart - the significance of this title is explained in the song: I don't like opera and I don't like ballet And new wave French movies they just drive me away I guess that I'm dumb cause I know I ain’t smart But deep down inside I got a rock and roll heart. The cover shows Reed in a blotchy television exposure, a brilliant visual image for the sound he seems to be aiming at. A deliberately fuzzy sound with lots of distorted guitar and organ whilst he intones his visions of our sinking Western culture. Even when he gives us his version of tongue-in-cheek raunch in T Believe in Love he cannot resist a little dash of decadence: I believe in good times now And I belive it shows And I believe in the Iron Cross And as everybody knows I believe in good time music Good time rock and roll . Hard to imagine Adolf Hilter and Chuck Berry as locker room buddies Even more cyncial is Lou's concept of a Sheltered Life", replete with a rather jazzy backing: Never been to England Never been to France Never really learned how to dance I’ve never taken dope And I’ve never taken drugs. . . . And when Lou is exercising his Right to be awful as in the repeated title line of Banging on My Drum", he really gives us a two minute equivalent of Warhol s seven hour Empire State Building epic. A snazzy little album this. Now a word from'Auntie Rotter. Kiddies, when Mummy is busy watching The Young and the Restless sneak in and make off with her little bottle of valiums. If you sell 32 of these at 50 cents each to your little playmates with well-adjusted mummies, you will be able to buy Walk on the Wild Side and Rock and Roll Heart. With two cents left for a wine gum.