Lou Reed
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Review by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, May 1974
AND IT CAME TO PASS in the 1970's that rock culture began to doubt whether it existed at all, and every time that two or ...
Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, 18 May 2000
THE PREMIER PARAGON OF subterranean New York cool’s post-Velvet Underground career has never been anything other than unpredictable. For every Berlin there’s been a Metal ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1989
Lou talks about his new album, New York: getting the right sound; modified guitars and amps; playing with fellow guitarist Mike Rathke; producer Fred Maher, and finding the right studio; his lyrical concerns, and writing and rewriting; having Mo Tucker play on the album; on Andy Warhol, and working on Songs for Drella with fellow ex-Velvet John Cale,
File format: mp3; file size: 27.8mb, interview length: 28' 57" sound quality: ***
Interview by Larry Jaffee, Rock's Backpages Audio, 25 February 2003
On The Raven, the ups and, mostly, downs of CDs, mp3s and (re)mastering and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 24.9mb, interview length: 27' 11" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
That Shock Of Recognition Tells You Where He's Been
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Chicago Sun-Times, 7 February 1971
Author's note, 2018: I met and interviewed Lou Reed twice, in early 1971 and mid-1972, in New York. He gained a reputation for being horrible ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, 1972
LOU REED looked out of his seventh floor window down onto six floors of other people’s windows. He asked what the weather was like outside. ...
Lou Reed — End of the Black Comedy
Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 22 January 1972
LOU REED is the founder member of the Velvet Underground. Together with John Cale, he wrote New York as he saw it from Greenwich Village ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, May 1972
THIS IS one of those albums you have to have spent at least a year waiting breathlessly for to appreciate the full import of. This ...
Lou Reed: A Voice From The Underground
Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 17 June 1972
ONCE HE wore black, tinselled clothes and was a human screen for movies. He sang and wrote about evil characters; sometimes happier ones. But always ...
Lou Reed Talking About His First Solo Album
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, July 1972
Author's note, 2018. This was my scoop. New York, June 1972. Lou discusses all the tracks, one by one, in detail and with diversions, on ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Let It Rock, July 1972
IF I WERE thirteen, or Lou was, or better still if we both were, this would be great, everything I wanted to think about life, ...
Lou Reed, Brinsley Schwartz, Gnidrolog: King's Cross Cinema, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 July 1972
THIS WAS one of the few gigs I can remember where all the acts deserved a full-length review to themselves. The teaming of Reed, Gnidrolog ...
Broken Reed? Lou Reed, Duncan Browne: Sundown Theatre, Edmonton, London
Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 7 October 1972
THE FACT is that his association with David Bowie has done Lou Reed no good at all. Despite the adulation from the audience at Edmonton's ...
Lou Reed: Edmonton Sundown, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 7 October 1972
EDMONTON IS NOT exactly the rock capital of the world, and when Phillip Goodhand-Tait took the stage, the auditorium was somewhat underpopulated. This was somewhat ...
The Stones, Bowie, Roxy and Mott. And What They Owe To The Inspiration of This One Man
Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 14 October 1972
NICK KENT analyses the growing influence of America's LOU REED ...
Lou Reed: The Black Sheep of New York
Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 21 October 1972
THE INTERVIEW is to take place in a pub just off London's Curzon Street at around lunch-time. Lou Reed arrives late, looking papery. He's not ...
Review by Ray Fox-Cumming, Disc, 2 December 1972
THOSE OF you kind enough to read the idiocies I write to introduce the live gigs will know that, as far as I'm concerned, Lou ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 16 December 1972
LOU REED WITH COLOURED GIRL DAVID BOWIE... ...
Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 4 January 1973
A REAL COCKTEASER, this album. That great cover: Lou and those burned-out eyes staring out in grim black and white beneath a haze of gold ...
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, February 1973
Their faces drooping in disbelief, the fans shook their baffled, bewildered heads. "If we hadn't seen him with our own eyes we never would have ...
Lou Reed: Scotch & Sympathy At Tully Hall
Report by Ed McCormack, Rolling Stone, 1 March 1973
NEW YORK — For weeks, the sinister-looking poster haunted the subway stations. Taken from the cover of Lou Reed's latest album, Transformer, it showed an ...
Lou Reed: The Sinatra Of The 70's
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 28 April 1973
LOU REED SURE is a card. The day before this interview was supposed to take place, an associate of mine phoned up the Reed management ...
A Walk On The Wild Side Of Lou Reed
Comment by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 9 June 1973
"I HAVE ALWAYS thought it would be kinda fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn't met before, or hadn't wanted to meet, y'know. ...
Bob Ezrin: The Square And The Faggots
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 18 August 1973
"DETACHMENT. Yes, that's it exactly. We were both talking about that. Lou said last night: 'This album is an exercise in detachment and apathy'. I ...
Lou Reed's New Deco-Disk: Sledgehammer Blow to Glitterbugs
Report and Interview by Larry Sloman, Rolling Stone, 27 September 1973
NEW YORK — At 10 AM on a muggy New York morning, in Studio A of the Record Plant, a slight, dark, intense young man ...
Lou Reed, James Taylor, Beck Bogert & Appice, et al: Crystal Palace Bowl, London
Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 29 September 1973
LOU REED and James Taylor on the same bill? What a masterstroke of pure gonzo rock n' roll strategy! ...
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 6 October 1973
JUST WHEN you think your ex-idol has slumped into a pitiful display of gross terminal self-parody, Lou Reed comes back and hits you with something ...
Lou Reed: A Deaf Mute In A Telephone Booth
Interview by Lester Bangs, Let It Rock, November 1973
YOU WALK into the dining room of the Holiday Inn filled with expectation at finally getting to meet one of the musical and psychological frontiersmen ...
Lou Reed Stuns Listeners with the Horrifying Story of Berlin
Report and Interview by Stephen Demorest, Circus, December 1973
Confronted by the velvet shadow-master's terrifying movie without pictures, one employee ran from the studio in tears, Julie Christie stayed up all night talking about ...
The Head Doll talks about Lou Reed's Berlin
Interview by Ron Ross, Phonograph Record, December 1973
Note: Marty Cerf and I conceived of a series of these for Phonograph Record: I think Iggy may have done Aladdin Sane for PRM. I ...
Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, January 1974
LOU REED IS the grand ghoul of them all. He happens to scare people. He stands in the same relation to Bowie and Iggy and ...
Lou Reed: Berlin (RCA APL1-0207)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 3 January 1974
HEARD ANY good jokes lately? Here's one from Lou Reed. "She put her fist through the window pane/It was such a funny thing." That's from ...
Lou Reed: A Stumble on the Wild Side
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 9 March 1974
A sort of... uh, you know, interview with... uh, LOU REED, who's lost three stone but still has problems ...
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 9 March 1974
UP ON THE 37th floor of a Park Avenue office block which faces north and thus commands an extensive view of New York's Central Park ...
Farewell Androgyny n. hermaphroditism (Gr. Gyne, woman)
Overview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 16 March 1974
Is it time to shut the closet door? OUR HERO SEES THROUGH THE SEE-THROUGHS AND COMES TO THE CONCLUSION THAT ELEGANCE IS MORE THAN A LIMP ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Phonograph Record, April 1974
LOU REED'S LAST album, Berlin, vividly demonstrated how his talent can be misrepresented and abused. Berlin failed not because of its theme or its viewpoint, ...
Lou Reed: Rock N Roll Animal (RCA)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 25 April 1974
IT'S JUST like Lou Reed to follow the worst album by a major artist in 1973 (Berlin), with what might be his best album since ...
Profile by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 18 May 1974
Tony DeFries is Mr Big of today's rock —the 70s' Col. Parker. He deals in STARS, the most glittering of whom is David Bowie. He ...
Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 8 June 1974
Resuscitated zomboid wows Gallic crowd ...
Overview by Mick Gold, Let It Rock, July 1974
YOU COULD hardly miss him on the first album: his rubber-stamped signature was the only wording on the front cover, while on the back his ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Phonograph Record, September 1974
LINES. A LINE here, a line there. Sometimes it seems that the best songwriters are the ones who are sure to pop up with a ...
Lou Reed: Sally Can't Dance (RCA Import)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 28 September 1974
"Life is such monotony/Without a good lobotomy" – Roy Harper ...
Lou Reed: Felt Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 17 October 1974
LOU REED stepped out on the Felt Forum stage Friday night looking like something out of a Casey Donovan movie. ...
Lou Reed: Sally Can't Dance (RCA CPL1-0611)
Review by Arthur Levy, Zoo World, 24 October 1974
At the Point Where the Velvet Underground Leaves Off And Lou Reed Begins ...
Glitter Rock's Lingering Shadow
Report by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 3 November 1974
I like sex, because sex is not dangerous. Violence is dangerous, that's why I leave my violence on stage. But we've never been into glitter. ...
Lou Reed Does Not Want Anyone To Know How He Writes His Songs
Interview by Bruce Pollock, Modern Hi-Fi and Music, 1975
LOU REED THINKS he's gone as deep as he wants to go for his own mental health. If he got any deeper, he'd wind up ...
Lou Reed: Ladies and gentlemen... the interview of the year (already)!
Interview by Lester Bangs, New Musical Express, 8 March 1975
"Lou Reed is a completely depraved pervert and pathetic death dwarf — a wasted talent living off the dumbell nihilism of a '70s generation that ...
Nick Kent – A Limey in LA #1: Hey Man, You With A Gwoop?
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 15 March 1975
Speech impediments are the thing in Los Angeles this year. There are quite a lot of naked men jumping out of bushes – whereas more ...
Lou Reed: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, The Times, 26 March 1975
IN THE case of Lou Reed I must confess – why shouldn't I – a prejudice. ...
Lou Reed at the Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 5 April 1975
THERE'S AN ILLUMINATED sign outside the Hammersmith Odeon that says: "It's all too much. Lou Reed in Concert." Wry humour or someone taking a subtle ...
An Afternoon With Lou Reed And Metal Machine Music
Report and Interview by Anthony O'Grady, RAM, 9 August 1975
Quite simply – there were no survivors ...
Discography by Andy Childs, ZigZag, September 1975
THERE WAS once a time when I thought that Lou Reed was the single most important person working in contemporary American rock 'n' roll. I ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 17 January 1976
Coney Island Baby finds Lou Reed in buoyant mood, the feeling that lilted through his first solo album, Lou Reed, and flashed intermittently in Sally ...
Interview by Lenny Kaye, New Musical Express, 24 January 1976
HIS HAIR IS short, coloured black and closely cropped, though not unnaturally so. He wears a red T-shirt and his body, which has fluctuated from ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 24 January 1976
ARGUABLY, THERE IS no more exciting rock artist to listen to than one whose time has come; one whose art (not to mention attitude, appearance, ...
Review by Lester Bangs, Creem, March 1976
IT HAS BEEN suggested that in my annual regress report to the stockholders, published here last month, I neglected in all five thousand words to ...
Lou Reed: Coney Island Baby (RCA APL1-0915-B)
Review by Kim Fowley, Phonograph Record, March 1976
LOU REED is back. Coney Island Baby is the new wimp non-rock of the New Year. 'Crazy Feeling' is George Harrison Meets Buddy Holly's 'Everyday'. ...
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, December 1976
LOU REED should have a new album out by the time you read this, and unless Lou has had a change of Rock and Roll ...
Lou Reed: How Lou Saw The White Light
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 18 December 1976
LOU REED, the crafty old rock 'n' roll fox, is alive and kicking. In fact, he's standing in the lobby of the Los Angeles Hyatt ...
Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (Arista)
Review by Stephen Demorest, Creem, January 1977
OH, BUSHWAH. I liked Lou's last album, Coney Island Baby, for its integrity, combativeness, and character, but Rock and Roll Heart flashes none of these qualities. ...
The Sex Pistols: Lou Reed Joins Pistols Furore
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 26 March 1977
LOU REED claims he has been banned from the London Palladium because of the continuing controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols and punk rock. ...
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 11 March 1978
WHAT DO you expect from someone who's been playing rock'n'roll for nearly 15 years, in a business where age is to be feared rather than ...
Lou Reed: From Genius to Jerk and Back
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 12 March 1978
LOU REED has been called everything from genius to jerk, and in the course of his career he's lived up to it all. With New ...
Lou Reed: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 20 March 1978
A FUNNY THING happened to Milton on the way to Paradise. He discovered the devils to be more fascinating than the angels, and that gave ...
Lou Reed In Cloning Sensation!
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 6 May 1978
PETE SILVERTON goes to Philadelphia to borrow a book from Lou Reed (That's not what it said on his expenses — Ed.) ...
Lou Reed: Live – Take No Prisoners (Arista Import)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978
AH, LOU, we meet again. How long it's been. Ah, of course, don't tell me – Rock 'n' Roll Heart, wasn't it? A right piece ...
Lou Reed: Live – Take No Prisoners
Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, January 1979
"I DO LOU REED better than anybody else, so I thought I'd get in on it." ...
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1979
LOU REED IS one of the major influences on '70s rock, but consistency has never been his strong point. As the creative catalyst of the ...
Lou Reed & the Secret Life of Plants: Cross-Pollination at the YMCA
Interview by Stephen Demorest, Creem, March 1979
"WHERE DOES this put me with the punk-rockers?" Lou Reed mutters, not caring much, as he helps himself to another blini. ...
Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 21 April 1979
ANOTHER YEAR, another Lou Reed in a different toilet. ...
Lou Reed: I Love It When You Talk Dirty
Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 21 April 1979
WHY DOES SUCH A MAN LIVE? ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 28 April 1979
AH, THE BELLS, the bells…somehow I don't think this is what Victor Hugo had in mind all those years ago. However, what Slick Vic had ...
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 5 May 1979
WHAT DO you buy when you buy Lou Reed, and do you still need to buy him? ...
Lou Reed: Growing Up In Public (Arista)***
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 3 May 1980
THIS BUGGER don't give up, and, like poseurs of antiquity, rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated. ...
Will The Real Lou Reed Please Speak Up?
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 22 May 1980
"I don't especially tell the truth most of the time, anyway." — Lou Reed Creem interview, July 1973 ...
Lou Reed: Growing Up In Public (Arista)
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 12 July 1980
GROWING UP IN PUBLIC finally spells out what Lou Reed's records since 1976's Coney Island Baby have been murmuring in varying dissonances: that the inspiration ...
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, September 1980
"There's a lot of very funny things floating around my albums." ...
Lou Reed: Clean Living And Dirty Looks
Report by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982
FLANKED BY his wife Sylvia to his right and his management on his left, Lou Reed lords it over the press gathering from a sofa ...
Lou Reed: Blue Reedo A La Talk
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 3 April 1982
LOU REED has a song on his new album about the day President Kennedy was shot. His manager looks like the kind of guy who ...
Lou Reed: Legendary Hearts (RCA)
Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983
What made The Blue Mask Lou Reed’s watershed album was his choice of musicians, a new wave super-set of them – Fernando Saunders on bass, ...
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 18 February 1984
GROWING UP in public (a further instalment). ...
Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, November 1984
IMAGINE BEING served one of the greatest meals of your life, and then being told you have exactly one-half hour to consume it. ...
Interview by Richard Kick, ZigZag, April 1985
WILD MEN of rock come and wild men of rock fizzle out. Or, rebels don't – their voices just fade away. Robert Quine, mild mannered ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, June 1985
Pop Royalty's First-Call Bassist Is Into More Than Keeping Time. ...
Robert Quine: Newark's Reverent Iconoclast
Interview by Gene Santoro, Guitar Player, January 1986
"YOU'VE GOT to hear this," insists Robert Quine, as he finds what he's looking for on a wall full of shelves sprouting thousands of records. ...
U2, Sting et al: Amnesty International, Conspiracy of Hope Benefit, Cow Palace, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986
Amnesty's rock & roll roadshow All-star lineup gives America the message ...
Lou Reed: The Prince of Darkness Lightens Up
Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, GQ, September 1986
I NEVER SAW the Velvet Underground during their five-year lurch through the New York music scene. From 1965 to 1970 I was on the left ...
Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Blues & Soul, 3 February 1987
Golden oldies never die, but they come back in different guises. Sam Moore and Lou Reed are currently scoring with 'Soul Man' — a veritable ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 29 January 1989
FIVE-YEAR-OLDS take guns to school, 10-year-olds sell crack. Homelessness, Howard Beach, Joel and Hedda, Tompkins Square, Tawana, AIDS. Lou Reed didn't make this world, but ...
Lou Reed: New York State of Mind
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, 6 February 1989
Lou Reed's Sire/WB debut, New York, marks a welcome return to the wild side for the veteran Velvet Underground founder and street bard. It is ...
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, 23 February 1989
NEW YORK is Lou Reed's rock & roll version of The Bonfire of the Vanities. But whereas Tom Wolfe maintains an ultimately cynical distance from ...
Lou Reed and John Cale: Deja VU
Comment by Byron Coley, Spin, April 1989
POPULAR RUMOR has long held that Lou Reed and John Cale are mortal enemies. ...
Lou Reed, The Feelies: St James' Theatre, New York NY
Live Review by Tony Fletcher, Record Mirror, 8 April 1989
PROOF MAY no longer be needed that Lou Reed's former group the Velvet Underground are the most influential band in the field of rock 'n' ...
Velvet Memories of Andy Warhol
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 22 April 1990
Simon Reynolds on Lou Reed's reunion with John Cale. ...
Lou Reed/John Cale: Songs For Drella
Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 28 April 1990
DETERMINED TO reclaim the remains of their sometime friend and one-time manager Andy Warhol from the beady gaze of the culture vultures, John Cale and ...
John Cale and Lou Reed: Songs For Drella
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, May 1990
ANDY WARHOL'S NAME was all over the famous banana sleeve of The Velvet Underground's debut album. ...
Lou Reed and John Cale: Songs for Drella (Warner Bros.)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, May 1990
Forty-five Minutes of Fame — Reed and Cale Build Warhol a Velvet Coffin ...
Nelson Mandela Tribute Concert, Wembley Stadium, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Rolling Stone, 31 May 1990
WHILE THE black south African leader Nelson Mandela was still in jail, his seventieth birthday, in June 1988, inspired the starriest gathering of rockers since ...
John Cale/Lou Reed: 15 Minutes With You
Interview by Mark Kemp, Option, July 1990
THE HECKLER'S voice sounded its fury like a cannon about midway through Lou Reed and John Cale's performance of Songs For Drella, a pop requiem ...
Once-cool songs now politically incorrect
Comment by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 9 January 1992
IT'S TIME TO re-evaluate that good ol' time rock 'n' roll. Or, as you may discover, not so good ol' time rock 'n' roll. ...
Lou Reed: Magic And Loss (Sire/All formats)
Review by Edwin Pouncey, New Musical Express, 11 January 1992
LOU REED may have abandoned his 'Phantom Of Rock' image long ago, but the search for his creative mainline has continued unabated. ...
Cool Hand Lou: The Transformations of Lou Reed
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, February 1992
SINCE THE RELEASE of Growing up in Public in 1980, Lou Reed has pretty much grown up in private. In 1981 he not only ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, February 1992
THESE DAYS, PREPARING for a Lou Reed interview is like joining the Civil Service. First, the specially run-off CD of the new album, Magic And ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1992
SINCE POWERING HIS WAY BACK info everybody's good books three years ago with the New York album, Lou Reed has become more creatively focused than ...
Lou Reed: Alchemical Engineering
Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, February 1992
Lou Reed is one of the few 60s figures who has kept up any serious exploration of rock's sounds and words. In this exclusive New ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, February 1992
On Lou Reed's touching elegy to two recently departed friends, Magic and Loss, he grapples with the age-old question: What is the meaning of death? ...
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, February 1992
At the age of 48, Lou Reed is better disposed to write sedate six-string symphonies about mortality than feedback musings on the subject of scoring ...
The Velvet Undertaker: Lou Reed at the Palace Theatre, Manchester
Live Review by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, 28 March 1992
A CURSORY listen to Lou's latest, Magic And Loss, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that Tragic Old Toss might have been a better title. ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
IT'S OFTEN OVERLOOKED in the face of the wholesale "decadent" mythology that has surrounded him since the early Velvet Underground, but of all the poets ...
Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, February 1996
He's been a junkie, a beatnik, a Rock & Roll Animal. But these days, Lou Reed is taking a walk on the mild side. ...
Lou Reed: Walk on the Mild Side
Interview by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 16 February 1996
Lou Reed was the ultimate rock'n'roller who mimed shooting up on stage. Now he's clean and sober, but what kind of shape is his music ...
A Dark Prince at Twilight: Lou Reed
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1996
THE DAY DOES not begin auspiciously. The first flakes of a snowstorm descend as I open the curtains in my hotel room, adding yet another ...
Lou Reed: Set The Twilight Reeling (Warner Bros.)
Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, March 1996
LOU REED is old-school about albums; he looked the word up in a dictionary, found it meant a binder of blank of pages used for ...
Essay by Mark Sinker, The Wire, June 1996
2005 note: Savage Pencil did a nice illustration for this: John and Yoko hilariously naked, among other excellent things. It also elicited an angry postcard ...
Interview by Paul Zollo, Performing Songwriter, 2000
"Music was what bothered me, what interested me. I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it. That's why I ...
Review by Tom Cox, The Guardian, 24 March 2000
IT BEGINS WITH a grumble: not Lou himself, but a bass guitar attempting to clone the sound of an OAP getting on a downtown bus, ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 10 April 2000
LIKE THE ALEWIFE and the manatee, Lou Reed has enjoyed a sort of protected status in the wake of punk rock. The truth is, he's ...
Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Barbara Ellen, The Times, 21 May 2000
IN THE BAR, the bets were on for what would be Lou Reed's token "old one" encore number. We know he's going to be mainly ...
Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, August 2000
BACK IN the Seventies – revelling in junkie debauchery – Lou Reed shows were a notoriously ghoulish spectacle, He was the wayward poet of sleaze, ...
Lou Reed: The Velvet Evolution
Retrospective by Kieron Tyler, Mojo Collections, Fall 2001
Even the coolest stars had to learn their craft at some point and Lou Reed was no exception. Kieron Tyler picks the dark one's early ...
Review by Jon Young, Blender, August 2002
New Yawk maverick gets commercial makeover from Ziggy Stardust, reaps chart reward. ...
Review by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 17 January 2003
IF ANYONE IS still wondering, more than a quarter of a century later, what Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music was all about, they need look ...
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, February 2003
The Dark Prince entertains Jaan Uhelszki with tales of rewriting Poe, not punching David Bowie and understanding the emotional history of the amplifier. ...
Review by Max Bell, Uncut, February 2003
Reed shows off "heavy bear" side on two-CD tribute to 19th-century poet ...
Lou Reed: The Artist on the Biz
Report and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Medialine, March 2003
AT THE 45th annual Grammy Awards ceremony last month, Lou Reed was introduced by his co-presenter of the Best Pop Song category as a "true ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, March 2003
… is a sprawling epic inspired by the work of drugged-up 19th-century horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Is it a marriage made in heaven, or ...
Lou Reed: NYC Man -The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection
Review by Richard Riegel, Harp, July 2003
FOR "QUINTESSENTIAL New Yorker" Lou Reed, the irony he's directed toward his fans has often been less subtle patronization than his hectoring middle finger thrust ...
Lou Reed: Walk On The Mild Side
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 Fall 2003
These days, he's more addicted to herbal tea than drink and drugs. So how, at 60, has Lou Reed remained on of the most enigmatic ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, April 2004
Yet another live album from that model of maturity, Library Lou ...
Lou Reed: The Uncut Questionnaire
Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, May 2004
UNCUT: Didn't you once remark that being interviewed by an English journalist was the definition of abject misery? ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2005
Listen up limeys! From the Velvets to The Raven, Lou Reed has remained pure, "professional" and the scourge of "asshole journalists". And he's still here. ...
Another Brick in the Wall: An interview with Lou Reed about Berlin
Interview by Mark Mordue, unpublished, Fall 2006
This story appeared in various edited versions in Rolling Stone Australia, December-January 2006-07, New York magazine, USA December 11, 2006, and The Word, UK February ...
Lou Reed: Iron Glove, Velvet Fist
Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2007
The legendarily cantankerous Lou Reed's definition of abject misery is being interviewed by an English journalist. But get him on the right subject and he ...
Preview by John Lewis, Metro, June 2007
IT'S 1973. Your name's Lou Reed and you've just released a classic album called Transformer, featuring a huge international hit single 'Walk On The Wild ...
Lou Reed: Berlin live at Forest National, Brussels
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 June 2007
THE BRUSSELS equivalent of Wembley Arena was nearly full for what had been billed as a "European premiere": Lou Reed performing his 1973 album Berlin ...
Special Feature by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 28 December 2007
GIGS OFTHE YEAR LOU REED: Hammersmith Apollo, London Critically mauled on its original release, Berlin – Reed’s 1973 masterpiece of drug-addled despair, emotional and physical breakdown – ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 June 2008
Lou Reed's live version of Berlin, now a film, is hailed as his masterpiece. So, is he any easier to interview? Not really... ...
Profile by Robert Sandall, GQ, August 2008
ROCK STARS were never supposed to be regular guys, though that's the way most of the ones who stick around usually end up. It's hard ...
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 October 2008
Van Morrison's revival of Astral Weeks is the latest example of yesterday's cult LPs being turned into today's sell-out concerts. ...
Interview by Holly Gleason, American Songwriter, 2 January 2009
HE IS sitting right there on the sidewalk, eating red snapper, heavy-lidded eyes taking in the world around him and engaging with the various people ...
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Clash, April 2010
IN 1975, LOU Reed was the most dangerously fascinating figure in rock 'n' roll. With his old associates Bowie and Iggy having turned respectively into ...
Lou Reed: Back On The Road At 68
Interview by Mark Paytress, The Times, 10 April 2010
In a rare interview, the rock icon is as challenging as the album he is re-releasing. ...
"It has so much rage": Metallica And Lou Reed Talk About Their New Album
Interview by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, 20 October 2011
It's a collaboration that has prompted much head-scratching, but Lou Reed and Metallica tell Edward Helmore that teaming up to make their new album was a ...
Overview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, March 2012
Because sometimes the only way musicians can actually talk to each other is by writing songs ...
Retrospective by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages, October 2013
I WAS TALKING with Lou Reed in his New York office, Sister Ray Enterprises, in 1996 and Reed was dressed, as usual, in a plain ...
Lou Reed, Mick Rock and John Varvatos launch Transformer in New York
Report by Jeff Slate, Examiner.com, 4 October 2013
"THESE ARE amazing images," host John Varvatos said at the opening of the Q&A at the launch party for Transformer, the new deluxe book from ...
Lou Reed Dead: The Day I Interviewed Velvet Underground's Auteur
Memoir by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 27 October 2013
The Velvet Underground may have sold few records during their lifespan but Lou's songs with them became a potent inspiration ...
I Thought That Lou Reed Would Outlive Death Itself
Obituary by John Doran, Noisey, 28 October 2013
STUPIDLY, I thought Lou Reed would outlive death itself. It wasn't just his implacable, gimlet-eyed countenance; his face already a kind of premature living death ...
Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 28 October 2013
Velvet Underground frontman and solo artist whose hymns to transgressive behaviour created an audience of outsiders. ...
Lou Reed: The Wild Side, Magic, and Loss
Obituary by Robert Dean Lurie, National Review, 29 October 2013
His subjects were difficult and his voice abrasive, but he never tried to be anyone other than himself. ...
Lou Reed: Why no one wanted to write his obituary
Comment by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 November 2013
MOST ROCK STARS are about 70 years old these days, so their departure is a constant possibility and music journalists are mentally prepared to trot ...
Lou Reed tribute concert brings stars of music to Harlem
Live Review by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, 18 December 2013
Patti Smith, Moe Tucker, Antony Hegarty, Paul Simon and Debbie Harry sing at Reed's memorial service in New York. ...
Lou Reed: A Last Waltz on the Wild Side
Memoir by Ed McCormack, Vanity Fair, 13 January 2014
In an excerpt from his in-progress memoir, former Rolling Stone writer Ed McCormack remembers his friend Lou Reed, and the small theft and turn on ...
Lou Reed's friends dismiss claim that 'Walk on the Wild Side' is transphobic
Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, 20 May 2017
Defence came after Canadian student body apologized for "hurtful" lyrics to the trans community after including the 1972 hit on a playlist at a campus ...
Dispatches from the Everyday World of Music: An Assortment
Book Excerpt by Martin Colyer, 'Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week', July 2018
Excerpts from RBP co-founder Colyer's new book Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week, published this week with an introduction by Richard Williams ...
Guide by Steve Matteo, Boomer, 17 August 2018
Recent books by and about favorite boomer musicians and influencers ...
Lou Reed: At Alice Tully Hall (January 27, 1973)
Sleeve notes by Ed McCormack, Legacy Recordings, 2020
I WROTE REGULARLY for Rolling Stone for over a decade – when it really meant something to write for that publication. I spent a lot ...
see also Velvet Underground, The
see also Fred Maher
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