Adrian Crowley – The Birdwatchers – EP Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Loaded – The Life (and Afterlife) of The Velvet Underground – Dylan Jones – Book Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

The Velvet Underground – Film Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Lou Reed - Lou Reed

Lou Reed's debut album, released in 1972, is a strange album.  And, let's face it, kind of a failure.  After the heights of the Velvet Underground, who across four albums released some innovative and resonant music, this is... well, pedestrian at best.  It opens with I Can't Stand It, one of several (at the time) unreleased Velvet Underground songs he chose to record for this album.  A big problem here, and across the album is Reed's vocal.  It sounds like he was told to 'try and sing', rather than his sing/speak style which suits him so well.  The band are ok, but not great at confronting any subtleties.

Some songs here appear to have come from a random Lou Reed song title generator, Going Down, Wild Child, Walk It and Talk It.  The last of these sounds like an attempt to ape the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar and doesn't suit Reed at ALL.  Oddest of all is Berlin, reprised for his excellent 1973 album of the same title.  Here it sounds very much like 'cocktail party music', a whispered Reed vocal, over pleasant sounding soft rock.  It's not bad at all, but again, doesn't really suit Lou Reed.  I Love You is a charming little song, and one of the stronger ones here, and it's followed up by Wild Child, which is probably the song that works best on this album.

Worst of all is the final song, Ocean.  The band of session players assembled here cannot cope at all with the pacing of this song and smother it in instrumentation, while Reed sings it TERRIBLY.  Don't listen to this version, go seek out the Velvet Underground version, found on their collection of outtakes V.U., which is excellent.  Overall this is a skippable album in Lou Reed's back catalogue.

Looking back to Lou Reed

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2018/11/23/looking-back-to-lou-reed/

Scott Weiland – An Appreciation – 1967 – 2015

Article for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

http://nomoreworkhorse.com/2015/12/06/scott-weiland-an-appreciation-1967-2015/

In appreciation of Lou Reed

Article for www.meg.ie

http://www.meg.ie/in-appreciation-of-lou-reed/

Album Review: Lou Reed - Coney Island Baby

Coney Island Baby was released at the end of 1975, the follow up to Lou Reed’s aggressively noisy Metal Machine Music.  This album couldn’t be further away, his band, including ex-Velvet Underground bass player Doug Yule, create a warm, melodic collection of songs.

The lyrical message across this album is of Reed’s blissful love life.  Opening with the chiming keyboards of Crazy Feeling, the lyrics are peppered with references to his love interest Rachel (“and you, you really are a queen, oh such a queen”).  The strutting, skipping guitars of Charley’s Girl follow before the guitars add a little bite on a slowed-down version of VU tune She’s My Best Friend (guess who).

The album takes a sharp left as, unhappy with this gooey softness, the Lou Reed street persona reappears on Kicks, a murderous tale of getting thrills from violence (“when the blood comes down his neck, don’t you know it was way better than s€x”) as snatches of conversation swoop in and out, creating a most unsettling atmosphere which threatens to completely spoil the mood.

A Gift follows, where Reed sings tongue-in-cheek lyrics about being “just a gift to the women of this world” over soothing, strummed guitars and dippy pipes.  After two relatively throwaway songs, the sighing guitars of the title track are a fitting end to the album.  Here Reed recites a possibly autobiographical (hard to tell though as the man lies constantly) tale from his childhood of high school days and sports try-outs over a wonderful melody.  Some of the lyrics hark back to his edgier past (“all your two-bit friends, they’ve gone and ripped you off”), culminating in Reed cooing about the “glory of love…. man, I swear I’d give the whole thing up for you”.  It sounds quite wonderful, though it’s so far removed from Heroin, Waiting for the Man and Berlin that it’s hard to take it 100% at face value.  Nonetheless it’s probably the most tuneful Lou Reed album.

Album Review: Lou Reed & John Cale – Songs for Drella

Lou Reed was on a particularly strong creative streak in the late 80s/early 90s, and in 1990 he teamed up with fellow ex-Velvets’ John Cale to record a tribute to the late Andy Warhol.  Reed had developed a subtle, deft guitar playing style which really works on this album the second of three real classics from this period (1989’s New York and 1992’s Magic and Loss also).

The keyboard-based Open House is wonderfully warm piece of music, as is the Cale-sung Style It Takes.  The second of these is a particularly beautiful piece of music, mainly keyboards but with great guitar touches from Lou Reed.  Supposedly John Cale had to be talked into singing the line “this is a rock group called the Velvet Underground... they have a style that grates”. 

Many of the songs are intelligent and original, without being up their own behinds.  Trouble with Classicists is an interesting musing on classicists, impressionists and personalities, while Faces and Names considers how easy it would be “if we all looked the same, and we all had the same name” how much easier things would be.

The album takes you through Warhol’s life, from his early days in America (Smalltown, Open House) to his shooting (Slip Away, I Believe) to his final, lonely days (A Dream, Forever Changed).   Nobody But You, an almost Leonard Cohen-style track muses about surviving his shooting by Valerie Solanas (“I’m still not sure I didn’t die”) and concludes devastatingly that “all my life... it’s been NOBODIES like you”.

The six-minute spoken word of A Dream is almost light relief.  The track is recited by John Cale, who can make a mundane passage sound very strange as the protagonist (Warhol) talks about Cale (“he’s been looking really great... what does it mean if you give up drinking and you’re still so mean”) and Reed (“I’m so mad at him, Lou Reed got married and didn’t invite me...   I hate Lou, I really do”).

The album ends splendidly, penultimate track Forever Changed has almost frantic piano under Reed’s streetwise guitar riffs while Cale laments how (Warhol) is “forever changed”.  The tender final track Hello It’s Me sees Lou Reed take the lead role as he directly addresses the deceased Warhol, lamenting his treatment of him (“I wished I’d talked to you more when you were alive) praising his vision (“I haven’t heard ideas like that in such a long long time”) but allowing himself a final sidewipe (“your diaries are not a worthy epitaph”).

Even without the words and knowledge of the subject there is fine music here.  Often overshadowed by its predecessor, this is a fine album in its own right.

Album Review: Various Artists – Fifteen Minutes: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground

The early 90s saw US underground rock godfathers the Velvet Underground finally receive the full-blown tribute by some of the early 90s European and American indie fraternity.

The album kicks off with a bang with Nirvana’s powerful version of Here She Comes Now where Kurt Cobain and co build up from a low growl to a visceral roar, vocally and musically finishing in a haze of distortion. Forgotten shoegazers Swervedriver take the once muted Jesus and transform it into a blissed-out, distorted anthem, all mumbled vocals and searing guitars.

Lee Ranaldo sounds unrecognizable from his dayjob in Sonic Youth as he slide-guitars his way through Stephanie Says. Things get really demented with Fatima Mansions’ electro-pop version of Lady Godiva’s Operation, Cathal Coughlan barking the lyrics like the inmate of a correctional facility, as chainsaws perform the ‘incisions’ in the lyrics!

Some of it doesn’t quite work, Echo and the Bunnymen turn Foggy Notion into one of their latter-day chug-along rockers. Stronger are the Wedding Present’s faithful homage to She’s My Best Friend and at the other extreme, the Screaming Trees’ desecration of What Goes On .

Like any tribute album, it’s an uncohesive and at times incoherent listen. But like any good tribute album, this makes you dig out the original material so in this regard, it succeeds.

Album Review: The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s 3rd album is an underrated gem. After the intensity of their first 2, it’s a much lower-key experience. The artwork is predominantly black with a cool-looking black and white photo. It creeps quietly into the room with the opening track Candy Says, which is sung by Doug Yule who replaced John Cale in the band. The playing on this and most of the rest of the album is spare and simple. On the face of it, it’s a quiet poppy album, but there are moments when things are just a little off (a little guitar distortion here and there) which makes the album a little messed-up, in a good way.

The pace picks up a bit with What Goes On which jumps along nicely, Lou Reed taking vocal duties and a great guitar solo. In fact, the guitar all over this album is really good and blends in well with the quietly sung vocals. Some Kinda Love has a bit of swagger to it before 2 very quiet songs – Pale Blue Eyes and Jesus (even quieter). If there is any kind of slow anthem on this album, Pale Blue Eyes is it. It has probably the most conventional structure here, with a proper verse and chorus. Jesus is the quietest song on here, and is a kind of odd song with lyrics like “Jesus, help me find my proper place”.

The album is thrown in a different direction by the more propulsive Beginning to See the Light, which features quick-strummed guitars and some fairly unhinged vocals from Reed. It’s followed by 2 more quietish songs, I’m Set Free and That’s the Story of My Life. These, like most of the rest feature some really clean-sounding jangly guitar, quite influential on the jangly guitar bands of the 1980s.

The second last track, The Murder Mystery is a departure. Featuring more words in it than the previous 8 tracks combined, sonically it’s also quite different. If anything it harks back to Cale-era VU, with a torrent of lyrics cascading through each side of the stereo (try it with headphones, different lyrics left and right!). It sounds more eerie than the rest of the album, with ghostly-sounding guitars and thrilling stops and starts. The ending of this track is a little disappointing, with a seemingly random piano playing accompanied by yet more random lyrics. It’s not like anything else I’ve heard, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately I really don’t enjoy the closing track, After Hours, which features drummer Mo Tucker on cloying vocals. The whole tune is to my ears a little cheesy.

Overall the rest of the album is great, it’s one of those albums I dig out every so often and never get tired of it. Each time I listen to it, a little more of it reveals itself. Although it’s overshadowed by its 2 predecessors, this album endures and does not suffer with age (was released in 1968!). It's very much an album to sit and listen to in a room rather than a party album.