Lou Reed

Perfect Night Live In London (Reprise)
by Chris Adams

After watching the Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart documentary on PBS a coupla months ago, my mouth was agape with reverence. Not that I’m a newcomer to ol’ Rushmore Face’s work – I’ve been a fan since 1985 when I was first turned onto The Velvet Underground – still the greatest band ever – with the release of the VU “lost tracks” compilation. But seeing the man’s entire career distilled and compressed into an hour, it was hard not to be blown away, not only by the broad scope of his music, but by the constantly evolving images he projected. There was Lou the cool snotty street punk, Lou the child-eyed balladeer, Lou the anemic twitching speedfreak, and Lou the lunatic avant-garde composer, among others. Unfortunateley, these days, the mercurial Mr. Reed seems to be settling comfortably into “Lou, the boyfriend of Laurie Anderson” mode, which I find a little unsettling. Lately, he seems just a little too approachable, a little too warm and fuzzy, and, frankly, a little too content. This ain’t helped much when you consider the fact that he currently sports the uncoolest head of hair in rock history, prattles on for hours about all this techno-gearhead shit (“that amp had a second-rate dual rotator, but the heads had such fantastic mini-compression, blah blah blah…”), and generally seems to be buying all that “elder spokesman of rock” crap. It’s like, hey Lou, if I want quotes from Macbeth, I’ll watch A&E. But when I put on a Lou Reed record, I wanna hear a rippin’ rhythm guitar and lyrics like “hey hey hey BAAAYbay now” and “I’m gonna stop wasting my time/anybody else… would’ve broken both of her arms.” I mean, rock and roll is a basic platform from which you can do almost anything, but when every song has a subtitle and sound like forced James Joyce (remember Magic and Loss? – not much of the former on that piece of overambitious kaka) maybe yer over yer head just a leeetle bit.

So yeah, when I tossed Perfect Night… on the player, I knew there wasn’t much of a chance that it was gonna live up to its title. And, surprise surprise, it doesn’t. But that said, it’s still a lot better than I expected. Lou settles for an intimate, stripped-down, semi-acoustic approach on most of the songs, which works well with his atonal sing-speak, and thankfully prevents things from devolving into any of what I believe musicians refer to as “jams” (read: directionless wankfests). He even dusts off a few of his more twisted classics for the occasion: there’s “The Kids” a nightmarishly bleak song from his Wagnerian post-divorce masterpiece Berlin, and “Kicks,” originally recorded during his amphetamine days (years, whatever – he wasn’t counting and neither am I), which discusses, in delicate detail, how getting someone to come onto you and then killing them is “better than sex.” Granted, it doesn’t really sound like he MEANS it this time around, but fuck, I’m just glad he still remebers the words. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” is “I’ll Be Your Mirror” (and if ya don’t know it, stop reading this magazine, rush out and buy the first Velvets album immediately, then come back to this article when you’ve internalized the record completely). “Perfect Day” is still one of the most gorgeous modern love songs ever written, although Lou’s vocals can’t hit the heights they do on the studio version. And while the “new material” doesn’t fare as well – esp. the self-conciously literate “Into the Divine” – there’re a still a few cool moments, especially on “Why do You Talk”, where Lou brings his voice down to an uncharacteristic whisper and tells some unnamed loquacious lass to “shuuuut uuuuuppp.” Then, alas, there’s the crap bits. You need a “Busload of Faith” to make it through that one-dimensional yawnfest of a clunker, and “Original Wrapper” is probably the most pathetic, uptight, whitest rap you’ll ever endure the first 10 seconds of as you sprint, shrieking and crying, to the stereo to shut it off. The intriguingly-titled “Sex With Your Parents” is mercifully unburdened with quotes from Othello, but still sounds as if Lou just wrote it as an excuse to say “motherfucker.” As in “Hey, you Prodigy-lovin’ modern kids, I’m Lou Reed, pushing 60, and I still say ‘motherfucker’ – pretty boss, huh? I was a punk before you was…” But then ya backtrack to the lean, lowdown, badass version of “Vicious” and remember why you endure shit like that. Cos, despite all the half-baked crap he’s slung at us over the years, Lou Reed, still, somehow, manages to come off as Lou Reed, Mr. Rock and Roll, King of Noo Yawk, the last guy you’d wanna pick an argument with. Exactly 67.3 percent of the great things that currently exist in rock and roll wouldn’t without him, so we all owe him big-time. Now, about that hair, Lou…
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