Lou Reed Dead/Albright

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Tue May 8 19:48:34 PDT 2001



>It's good Lou isn't dead after all, because now I can flame him. His
>taste for a "sententious faker" like Havel (Alexander Cockburn's
>great epithet) is bad enough - but for a war criminal like Albright,
>well, there's just no excuse. Has Reed done anything interesting in
>the last 20 years?
>
>Doug
>

How political was Reed in the first place? I believe Havel liked the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa among others, so probably Reed was just hanging with a famous admirer. And then Havel introduced Reed to Albright. (Why was the '89 revolution in Czechoslovakia called the Velvet Revolution?)

The only thing I know about Reed is that he's a complete asshole. Still, the Velvet Underground has been a huge influence. Off the top of my head, a couple of great covers of their songs include Jane's Addiction's cover of Rock and Roll and the Cowboy Junkies cover of Sweet Jane. Also, Stereolab - one of my favorite bands - list them as a main influence.

I was dumping in my pants and drooling all over myself when Reed was young and interesting. How political was he or the Underground? I know he hung out with Andy Warhol, who was apolitical, correct? He didn't write any songs with titles like Bonzo Goes to Bitburg, no?

Peter



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