the
urge
the
E
do
my
0 you
three
stirs a little moment in time that's the fun of a record but its
just this very ephemeral thing that has been captured your not
there it's acting transformer
for me is a total
timeless album now still the plan when I might 76
long dialed
them
said
stab
the
yeah I really wanted one
I and be a memorable out my people wouldn't Rekha
transformer hones in under very specific sense of identity
and I think David had a lot to do with shaping up request the album is somewhat
of a tribute
to the Warhol seen
did you see what she did to him did you hear what they said
just and New York conversation rattling
and my head the briefing about transformers that
it sounds great now because it was not made to sound like 1972
and what he was saying about in the back course if my mother could have
understood it should have been absolutely appalled but sheen is the
last day ahead
even when she was given here she says he be
take a walk on the wild salmon
said he
take a walk on the wild side and and the college girls go due to do
didn't didn't I don't know what people get opened up to
do assisted as
dis writing about people I knew in where I come from
the and
denied
T response from
and it's kind of an underground and
and what time questions and only
anymore i sat in a business where combining
I and we have this chance to combined music and
are and
I Britain most the stuff before Amanda with
similar interests like a hand in glove he just said I was a lazy
is that hong a hong how many songs you right to die and I have five
it wine in to rate and you're so lazy
you're just sleazy you you know you should be writing
all the top name so
now I really admired and to admire him to this day
there's no telling where the group might have gone had
and the not met or heard the music or met the group for
it was seemed almost faded that the group would be
a essentially connected with Andy Warhol
and he was really supporting us i mean you got this equipment
and we would go the faction and he would feed everybody
just take everybody out he would pay for it by doing some commercial art
the factory was a place where and a year made paintings and
shot films it was a kinda center where people would gather from time to time in
exchange creative ideas kinda
laboratory most bands at the time were
either writing songs about love or how to get a girl
and velvet suede like mature newsreel footage
and they also seem to be pushing the boundaries love
rock toward a place that was almost akin to
something like free jazz the valve and the kind you could actually sit there
and I actually am you know
work at the song in about 10 minutes and then the lyrics are so amazing so you
memorize them
and you're off in a run around Britain with a guitar the governor to ground
were
where r really the seminal band for for so many musicians
I'm you know there's an old expression that in sell at a record but everyone
who bought one
a start a band and in a sense is very true well thats
know it's true I wish they would give me a tease the royalties Butler
on out that's true arm
I never cared about credibility except from need that's all
we always thought we were the best and I still do
do
well lou left the dogs who literally disappeared you know he play max is one
night in August 1970 and he was gone the next
went back to Long Island you know work for his father's firm
he literally walked away from everything well there's been like a a real
I'm problem with management I'm gonna love to lick my wounds
my mother told me when I was in school she said you should take typing
and so you have a professional for Bangkok at that time it wasn't
such megan is that it would reach you know Sunderland's
daily in weekly newspaper and it was mostly a
record came at that wasn't about undergone but it was leery
it's not representative of his sound it was made in London
arm it's made with you know all these
classy British session and Rick Wakeman please on it you know here's a guy from
you know yes what we gonna be and yes playing on a loop read record the first
record was a flop so go make another one
you know in those days they gave me a chance you could go make another one
do
do would help
how long do
do
only do
I
so
heat
that
the
this
me
it
I think that the from what I understand lou and boy who had met and were
friendly and and certainly had many things in common
and I'm what whoever's idea was to put them together to Brian idea
david was in town we can introduce I'll
I think the record label thought he was very contemporary and
I thought all the records it sounded good with coming out London
I was petrified that he said yes he would like to so that worked with me and
that produce a capacity because
I had so many ideas not felt so intimidated by
my knowledge of the work that he's already done on even though those who
live on the edge
that much time between this is seen like lou has this great legacy at work who
wanted
to reach to pop audience that David was
skyrocketing on at the time and David
was consciously placing him self within the artistic tradition
up the velvets yeah
beaches
do
I never had kids screaming at me particularly it scream it David not me
me they would throw syringes and joints on stage
is not a great line having someone
like Bowie helping get you know that kind of attention
get him the the marquee value other producers name produced by David Bowie
and Mick Ronson
you know that's valuable that's valuable calling
I remember meeting him up max's kansas city in the can on to the hotel a couple
times must sit around talk about
production at the chance for well done you know
into sittin player no a new song come
try and put on an adult epic on or something you know
with the you know rano and
David there is you know Arreola
my simpatico
which is certainly party the situation I had the pelvis and was
you know miles above where I'd been on the Lou Reed first redirected where
there was nothing simpatico
so you gonna go to London again this time
David Hart
ok
do
the thing about transformer is that
did is not like of fulfilled its record it is not fall
older adults songs that he was working his way through
you know he was this was this was new stuff
this was a new it was it was is entirely new project
I couldn't be in the direction the girl on the ground is only the Velvet
Underground could make that sound
and I didn't have abandoned so it's going to be stuck with studio musicians
David found that men said their have you ever heard the bang called Velvet
Underground
house the I think so and this about this the
one other guys Lou Reed wants to do an album
and it's the Trident studios
to anita is three days work you know it was really good fun I really enjoyed
herself in studia
am Lou Reed sat in the corner some out can't remember ever seeing the masjid
at the I don't remember sinn inner soul they will says somewhere
in a gloomy Cooper the dark glasses on and dressed in black
I just you know ran over the songs with them by that I mean the chord structure
on the melody
this is didn't seem to
la jolla do
do do you have it power diesel
is
this is
do stage
line %uh guitar pick
this vicious is a song that you know has its origins in
breeze relation with Andy Warhol you I said once wrote a song called
vicious I said vicious work on a vicious
is a vicious I hit you with a flower
as a %uh what great idea
the whole set up for this was to
try to make it a lot more basic than a lot of that the but we think sleep
and we just started walking bass drum
to Peter and some of the tracks had more overtime tonight and
this particular one vicious kittens it was kept
stocks this shirts
baby you're so knows the fact that we tried that
I don't think was used in the mix it all
but I'd still on the multitrack hit
backwoods echo on says
it said pastures
this altogether
pounds
the
mmm
no Louis so laid-back neither can a
welcome to the studio now hey you know likes us sat down in the chair please
get alan
me on when I am well be on our children Anna
and the hymie ready you know I they'll remember and risk it at like
way out in a Welsh in and I can wander off and I can see
your chillin a bit lawyers to look at me like going on okay
united in medicare weather is in China where is our children risk I wanted to
sing the song enough that they would run away as I could
very rarely understand a word he said he has a whole accent he tapped
he have to repeat things five times
but our really sweet guy great guitar player
really sweet guy weather satellites gone
way up to the sky
things like that John me downloader
my mind
lodged in boiler to a long while
like to watch things on TV
%uh
yours said love
your saddle and
your sanity to land
I find out what the song is about when I do them out loud in front of an audience
actually performing up and over the years I realize satellite love is
really about jealousy that's what I think it's about but I could be wrong I
mean just cuz I wrote it doesn't mean I
I know what it's about it's a wonderful song essentially about obsession
about stalking and yet it's really a beautiful ballot that
also brings out the romance
that's sorta but the heart of the obsession this is somebody who
just is following someone everywhere cuz they don't trust them but that truck
that lack of trust is based
in I you know complete devotion
mine
and allies car
we I'm I
soon be bill
with parking I
I watched it cool
I
I'm
love
to lunch names on TV
this said
I
it's also get that weird little
you know humor in it that whole bridge you know I've heard that you've been out
with
you know Harry Mark and John whoever they are Tom
you know the you know she's out
whoever this person is she's out with everybody and the
boom gave you be loom
and me John Monday and Tuesday
Thursday human
and
John
when I hear satellite of love I think I follows
kid standing on the street corners a Brooklyn when I was a mere Ted
hitting notes in harmonizing in trying to sing stormy weather
to me it's the duo of blue
which is a very sweet and tender part of him
satellite that's David Davidson Mazinger background vocal parts
at bong bong bong that's okay
it's really great but the really great thing as a high note at the end
I mean very few people could do that I just love
when he did that its just I mean what a move
I'm easy I think everything is really about details
and that was the exclamation mark
iPod when he goes up like that very few people could do that
really pure fearful
a
they regard
that great
a
life
and a
like
season
I
high desert in
I
hi
me
her I might have been me
gone I think the concept
above transformer is
very important because in a sense that's what
the Warhol seen offered to people
these pot misfits to transform and become
their inner beauty whatever strange
and eccentric forms that might take
workgroup Liu was writing from were experiences that went back to the
factory
when he was sitting at the factory in observing this parade of people walking
in and
you know which is coming from all kinds of strange corners
love culture and society and watching them interact and mingle and try and
make lives for themselves in this
in this freak show in the beginning it was like a bunch in
drug type people and then and when I went to work there was my job to try to
get rid of all those people
and them and then
it was his people that we do Monday in a film with them and they would hang on
for
you know years and years and years I was a kid I was 15 years old
I did all I wanted was to learn you know and
everyone just kept and one thing to have my body in an a1
job I don't want don't all I wanna do is learn
I wanna Grohl in
ok but nobody listens to child
I used to keep a notebook I
but that was just a put-down good lines like people would say
really funny things but I and thought about writing about them
I don't know why I wrote about poly Canyon for mine and make them
LA
it shocked the way across the USC
you know actually I on always so that more like a story thing there is a book
bag
an author called Nelson aldrin call walk on the wild side
the book deals worth the character but dregs of society as it were
you know the down-and-out and
this the same to be a kind a connection that we've made
I read the book are has quite a book fail at least
an I was working with these guys and wanna make a play at a bit
and they said well there should be a song here may be a sign here and it's
got to be a title songs I was running a title song
and then they got this offer to go do mahogany
and I said SIA the virus on a walk on the wild side so I
rewrote it my putting everybody from the factory Warhol's Factory
I friend up call members to death some
that the song about you I think d
would you shooting me and and then I'm I'm
on be in a cab and
their own dome from Holly came from I'm going how the hell does
Lou Reed no dash Aden Mike
who legs and plug my eyebrow I never met him
I met him once a party idk and your at the factory
Majin up we don't have a good week then had intimate relations
how the came from my and if they'll day
each had two way across the USA
live as a long way
on save the legs and he was she there said hey
take a walk on the wild side dandy and
chechyan Holly were
you know it's funny
you think back now you wanna call them transvestites or are they transsexuals
I'm in vocabulary is kind above all but
to they never pretended the fact that they were man to begin with specially
Kenny was very ladylike
can deny we're very close increase go out on dates together so I never thought
for a second I was going out on the table up man
and it's one of those things candy came from out on the island
in the back room she was a everybody's
daunting but she never lost to hear
even when she's given good here this is
take a walk on the wild side
I never met the character that you wrote about me just to get from
having seen the movies that I did with them might might starring roles were
flesh trashing heat the trilogy I do it poor Marcy in
in Indy and so he just two to the from the Rose that he saw me play
mmm and because the early factory the movies that they made were just about
whoever PNM were just playing themselves in that wasn't the case was me
anyway so he wrote a song about that character
the school
doing
the
here
made the table
we %uh searched and searched
and down what the sugarplum pro wealth
was mom %uh
drug dealer and
our that's what they called him sugarplum fairy
that was his name is
and assist this hustler out of San Francisco
on
your friend %uh vanities somebody's
I didn't certainly not a friend of mine and on I'm but
with a name like that it was too good to legalize I mean now you haven't
Snoop Doggy Dogg so but I think Sugar Plum Fairy
preceded the dog
missus PvP manifesting
missile you gonna be
mom should
the
you listen to walk on the wild side there's not much going on in that track
you have that really great swinging kinda weird waltz time Jazz Bass
and the sax but there's not a lot of guitar
arm there's not a lot of music crowding
breeds Voice base is to probably one of the most
claims baselines around it consists actually
to basics Herbie flowers
a style of playing an upright with the track
and he had this very strange idea which David let him
go along with where he wanted double track it there was a
crafty little thing that us session musicians to go up to that
the recording right was I think 12-pound for three hours
but if you overdubbed
that men put another instrument down you cooked up all the money
so style of playing acoustic bass the on
mmm
then
on up but the double byes down first
on by aside for spam
with the Qatar drums
just are then asked ken
engineer up the coast right back down over the top
the alleged price on in 10 games
to stir give in a little bit more
on a atmosphere all Carrington
first started this on
the be
the drama was told kinda for me most-wanted them
you stop playing who sticks then I was upstairs and control me just
it sounded like a march this quickly dashed and Tom
tribe russians its stock everyone like 10
this is how it finished up jackie is just this
the new with the thought she was James Dean
dollar-a-day then I guess she had to crash
Valley in would have held that Nash said BB
take a walk on the wild side that he honey
take a walk on the wild side and the college girl same
to think that walk on the wild side by fluke got on the radio
and it was of course such a catchy tellin
and and I'm think people really understood what the subject matter was
it to a great extent so that the people who did understandable
were very amused by it it took I think probably nine or ten months
before a disc jockey called johnnie walker
he actually follow me out instead of just heard a
at an album called transformer and I'm picking
a track called walk on the wild side is recorded the week next week
nasa polemics the BBC just didn't know what
even when she was giving head meant and so it goes on the radio the coast
I'll all these young guys hey you know blow
BBC miss that one but sheen is the last day ahead
even when she was given here she says he beams
take a walk on the wild side
from did he
take a walk on the wild side and and the college girls cool dude im
I never thought of having head wild side be ahead you gotta be kidding
did not didn't but I know I'd I don't think about anything being adhered
on
done
do
on the
the net
blue really walk on the wild side
walk it like you talk did and people like
to stories have explores going out into the wilderness
and bring em back alive and Lou did he brought back these character portrait
from
the world that people were intensely interested in
well I'm let me backtrack
William borrowers had been there alan ginsberg had been there Hubert Selby had
been there
there who is a uncharted territory for song lurks
except maybe in old blues writers
most popular X you just can't read as poetry
because the totally connected to
and amusing to take the musical Les justice and a bit strange
but was loosely she can actually just read them at
for a page like a billion poem and his chest if I could be anything in the
world that flew
I would be a baton come swooping after you and at the last time you were here
things are a bit askew
well you know what happens after dark rattlesnakes with their skins
and their hearts and all the missionaries is their bark all the trees
are calling up to you and all the venom sniper's iPhone
numeral mountains older and you
doom if I could
the anymore %uh the list
well the fun
it's the into the salon
I'd rather the year kinda love the things I really like about his chest is
that it's
kind of a pretty song but it's also just got this
undercurrent love well certainly violence
you know it'd makes a reference to arms
the attempt on warhol's life oMG by Valerie Solanas who had been
sorta a member for hang around at the factory in
to develop this kind of feminist manifesto saying im she just decided
that you know we're all had to go
and he had I was given a script by this woman Valerie Solanas and
arm because Andy didn't really read it he put it
can toss in a pile somewhere and then she psychologically felt that he was
controlling your life by not returning the script and
the only way that she could free herself psychologically was too
symbolically shoot him maybe not intending to try and kill on but any in
nevertheless she wounded him seriously so
it did really got its panetta controllers
for I'm not explain it to you it's I'm what I thought about and it being shot
so love song and curtains laced with diamonds tear for you
and all the Roman nobleman
for you and kingdoms christian soldiers
dear for you and melting ice caps
mountaintops for you all and nights
inflaming the silver robes for you
and bats that with a kiss turn Prince
for you swoop swoop all baby rock rock
swoop swoop rock rock
is a poet macaws he
more than anybody else's identified with one
particular City I mean I suppose the big was right then 25 with Liverpool
I'm butts
the bales are really became very universal very quickly lou
is always identified with New York do the there's a very urban
experience related to lose work it would be very funny to hear
through listen to record a song a blues were sucking about
you now you know river flowing rivers and mountains and trees
for I mean I lose work is very much tied into it kinda
New York urban experience as it were this is a New York telephone
conversation it's the shortest track
on the album the other thing that makes it different from any of the others is
everything's recorded 16 track and this one we only use
seven tracks of the 16
we had room to make it much much bigger but it wasn't needed
just based symbols and piano and lewin David
doing vocals and it was or cut live mines
engine doing
mmm mom Liz
the other men song on
this is Lou solo see what she did to him
did you hear what they said just in New York conversation rattling in my head
David all why
shall we wear 0
who really care together
just and New York condensation
Gaza all the time did you hear who did what to whom
happens all the time who has ties then who has dabbled
using this incident shows openings closings bad rap Heights a
every time he now but it's a great little social portrait
for Weiden
retrospect was a very small scenes
gathered around the back room over club I'm
Park Avenue South just and strange characters
that found themselves me found their senses being
him I'm can be
we you them
I think people always think that are just so singing about themselves that
there's an element div autobiography
even if the artist thinks they're creating a character
but the artist is creating a character from what they know
and so I believe that there is
that element have personality
mean people believed lou
and I think to carry of those songs Liu had a belief lou i
I'm wanna go to extremes so you know shakespeare really hamlet already
reeling macbeth
or as the King Lear is either sir is he that home
camp not by any stretch the imagination to compare myself I'm just giving
really ludicrous example to bring it back to earth but
but there's always part 7 your own experience and personality and whatever
you're writing down
lou is guilty
of both expressing a son area
all concerning sex deviant sex and drugs
in such a brilliant way I that
it did inflict a lot of what time of day and
it did um it did forms people limit people's image a payment and and and in
a way
that's where I shot when I shot the transformer cover
I was shooting that I was interested in the lab souls saw only shot where he
presented to me
I did was not my suggestion the way he did it David's ex wife took him outside
you know let's dress you can't wear this skate you something
and there I was in rhinestones
I was glorious I love the pictures from
the Mako I put on was the stuff I found from Japan it took all the Colorado 5th
race:
cuz they were saying pale New York site
I tried to make it
gone one step further no blood originally the concept for the back of
the cover was going to be the from
now is my friend ernie you know and I'll
rejecting just put a banana down there I mean if he was really like that we all
would have been too jealous to let 'em
to have a would put money back to say go away
we don't even want to be near you a lot people would ask me if they were both
Laredo remember one point that I have heard about like you know
people asking me you know I in my the woman
I and my the moment and the guy
its it's really funny what was really great was that they could think I could
be both
them the hapless really great
Mike gone I could have had a whole new career in some ways
you it's arguably the definitive album times although you could also argue for
Ziggy Stardust
maybe those two ziggy and the transformer but the transformer
was the perfect reflection all that
summer and in many ways I have discovered that the
transformer album cover represents the decadent clan thing
probably more than any other image %uh you
the swedes be
is lon
glamour and glitter rock
in 1972 and safety for most kids was about dressing up
and it was about testing sexual identity at an age when
you're still forming your sexual identity then comes
and cake thanked her number one
eyeliner
rose its and little as such fun
you know first slip little
%uh who is this whole clan thing going on so I just put myself in the head
missile I had to go very far to do it you know I have
and about a thousand cells running around it's easy
the thing about transformer and the best reads
records and songs is that they are not didactic
he is not telling you what is right and what is wrong he's telling you what is
and he's doing it in ways that make you think
I'm now where come in now old
group you an Obama closets
you down on the streets
you year we had come in an hour
group you I listen to the songs I can't believe
how perfect they feel today
meant perfect day is a great example it was number one in England
twenty-five years after is written a
it's a phenomenal Sun just a perfect the name
do
drinks and good
in the bar
and then lane
gets done
we do our
I think is just sublime low
wrote the pace just and somebody else extended is like shakespeare's an
airplane
if the stops good you can't do anything
on nan:nan
from team
and then
done
scenes
New Jersey do
a thing as a whole confusion you know
and people talk about seeing is in who's a great singer
hand who's a great guitar player in the confuse it with
movies some kind olympian feet of singing
vocal acrobatics 0 you know it I was playing a million no to second
but that's got nothing to do that many events the same in
painting enough certainly could paint the back garden scene
absolutely perfectly and so you could call on the due to push trucks
and to me the mall
refine Dr some writing guest
so last post: roxy is dialogue its
such a perfect day
on land as spam and it will you
did
surgeon victim
you just keep me
you know
years the media
you know it's a fantasy perfect day the whole things about
not just you can reap what you sow which is cliche but
blindly for it and thought it was somebody good
I like that idea
just a perfect day
%uh
you made me forget my cell
I thought I was someone else someone
good when you start to understand
sounds like perfect day and surgeon you know the feeling
that comes from a sandwich it's like steeped in some kind
drink crazed so
scary dark
feeling with this light beautiful melody going on
when I think he kinda was
on the right is that told me things about plant in shaping
darkness you know and taking all of that so
music that turned into xell them Disneyland
and defusing in Macon into like black Land
meets Disneyland or Universal euros have this we ansel
feeling in music that is could kill really scary now
or it could certainly become alright every song ever written in my life
as I've tried to write emotionally and all the songs are
here to try cause a commotion and they're always about
card Lewis SM from the things on
comin in the quite not use to set something up
some things like an can make it a little bit more on
gray on and then turn it on to the house he talking about
I guess it was just trying to explain things in
a more artistic wear something I can I was kinda going over my head a bit
on time
Jones long
stern
mmm
nephew
while
why runs good line
then that amazing just like that
well I think so it has a really good arrangement parts you don't need a vocal
he always said that you know he made records when he was in the velvets and
later on his idea to record was something in which he was talking
directly to you
you were in one room sitting across from each other and he was singing directly
when you hear that in the character his voice
everybody can talk about tracks on
transformer and you go vicious perfect day
walk on the wild side makeup and his chest
but could not latest is just i I think the best song on the album
it's just this fantastic a.m. number
which is like it sounds like a lotta guys clownin about
I don't know whose idea was late spring and on pop and
which is not what they call in London whatever you call it
and David one got one or someone might cop on
and this is what they sounded like
who
and Lee cool
the non
20 inches herbie playing cuba who
when who who
when who world
I think the last track that what we call it was good nite light
his and buy it then and we're running out of steam
and it melt I'm well here's a song is called
steady note to it and at all well maybe
who it should just knew had like her
you not use Juber on it and kind of phone up
a troubling hadline Dixieland band
when mmm
but now you %uh your land
field Ron
so why not here hi that get
the apps heard mixture people the music was always going to be a bit of the wall
and know why would be a better been a copy of The Velvet Underground
because lou wouldn't have wanted that I'd never heard of them
and toussaint a good idea at the time
have any kind of thing have the imagery this David Bowie
you know on the production test meet bronze
you know these these rock gardens and this is bun Chu
Twilio session musicians with the brass band do this
bizarre song which I just think is lot absolutely fantastic
and then you listen to the lyrics in it is Hispanic like a guy who's
lost in math again in this the forlorn missive
that and thats Lou Reed its allure eat song
the I
I and II
mommy
into
people wanted to hear transform they wanted to hear walk on the wild side
and because there was enough for them it became a hit
the most unlikely hits up that year
are probably any other year the amount of time that went from
lose darkest nights to
suddenly him being the star that human could never be in the Hall that's
was less than a year it's really quite extraordinary when you think about it
transformer was just a massive and I actually think
to bring out my mom's sure that and
lou thinks it's a particularly you know his favorite album on
I think part info to a degree me
but maybe there was psychologically the compromise with transformer
but you know is wrong sobrino
yeah the fact that it was commercially successful World he just got lucky with
that
I mean it's just an alkyl but the two songs to stand down
its you know you do in albany and the rest your life
in
now if I was an actor
or dancer who is cool and most then you know what I am ruins lives which soon be
mine
but now the 10 lyden Starcraft
is all that's left to apply my heart right and 11 a lot i watch
the world I'm
all will
fails to really
dime you said we did
the friend
them
I N
TV dinners on
it's a lot of
there
on demand
the
well
and you guys were pure pleasure
most say I think goes about its up
15 1514 was actually
and I was so desperate to try and so
find out what was living in someone Tina and hearing about these things in San
Francisco and New York in London
even London same miles away and but the only way you could kind of
assess what happens through getting me using and a friend with some nigga
Velvet Underground album us and we'll go around his house in like put it on
and them i member you know
hearing the Sun Columbia mara when Nico missing it and
have been and desperately trying to solve find out how to get stoned or
something
in some industry do it so some friend of mine said no
I've got this stuff and it was just all it was was tiger balm in a teen
because it looked cool so funny writing in a lot we thought it was some kinda
true
should have to rebut in a on yet
tempelsman then it will feel wildman we put on this
found on the ground now Mira Vista fun cause
for about a minha thoughts as I was getting very cold and suddenly
was that really hard to see anyone to put a tiny bit on
and it was in my eyes and burning answer so I first experience was kind of like
you get banned the death in Tiger Balm and
listening to that and felony grand
album my college roommate home
had gotten a copy love the very first over underground record the banana
record as
a stereo demonstration record like you went to a store to buy stereo
and this is what they gave him to listen to which when you consider what's on it
you know screeching viola intensely distorted guitars that
you know tribal TomTom thing that that mode tucker did
you know you wouldn't demonstrate a record with that would blow up the
stereo with it i met this guy bring in this record in M
so you gotta listen to this mix and putting it on and it
was unprecedented music
I mean it was didn't sound like anything I've ever heard before
and close it was totally fabulous
so dot I was from that many all but I love the Velvet Underground
and in fact when I first met David Bowie um
on the main topics of discussion between us was the Velvet Underground
mutual aberration for the raid in his cry art
when I was in the velvets there are certain things we didn't do we had a
fine system because we're certain things week
had absorbed will have couldn't play well enough like blues and certain kinds
a turn so weak
made a really determined effort never never never
to play that kinda stuff and was more like country rocker
rockabilly consoles but staying away from blues
you know an Hannah R&B saying
but underneath all that is a major league fan
in the East Earl more reunion was
you know she her heart belongs to Bo Diddley always has always will I'm in
love with Bo Diddley to
up Ike Turner's guitar player I was listening to a lot along with Carl
Perkins
those I was the and James Burton I mean it
I tried so hard to play like James Burton
you have no idea I'm like you know closet James Burton player
I can only only do it in the bathtub we were friends with an underground
filmmaker named
barber rueben barber room in New Gerard malanga and we were playing and as
tourist dive and the village
I'll it's great I only remember the name anymore thank God mutual friend a
for I I guess it was lou and John name barbara been a filmmaker that I
I worked with from time to time a
urge media come with her to see this group that was performing at a
local coffeehouse in greenwich village called the catheters are
a the cafe bizarre bad tell and it was
can you imagine planet cafe bizarre now I think bizarre about was that it
existed
suburban I went down to premise religion I'll
the bill the school performing and at one point
and no one seems to be dancing everybody seems to be sort of like fixed in their
seats watching the group because the music was
wear black in a certain way it was he was not sure
bubble gum type rock-n_-roll and
at one point I got up and started dancing from the group because there was
no stage separating the group from the audience was just one floor
so I was literally almost in their faces as it were but they
year I thought I was in their way at one point to and during the intermission a
day said oh no no you must come back and dance again we want you to
hit they like the idea that I was dancing in front of a group so
up couple nights later a barber and I brought anti-cancer
hit a group I so dry and came down and then
and he came down we got fired that night anyway because
in some sailors had come in we played
on who knows black Angel's death song or something
an ACE we were getting paid five bucks a guy
well with ma girl and
we were allowed to have two hamburgers
sometime that was its success tonight and these guys yelled at us
you fucking play that again will beat the shit out is so course week he has
started right up and played it immediately in the chair started flying
hours
I mean an audience for four people all of them tryna
attack us that's where guitar comes in handy electric one solid bodies
fuck you anyway we got fired but
Andy with their he said
you know while I'm gonna be at the senator chris is Jonas me cassese
worldly underground movies
now here in New York estan Tyler G Film Archives Jones is still here he
remembers all these things
and I and he had a week earlier
he said arm I don't wanna migrant 21 or 22
we've got to do something that's fine all we can all
why don't you play and our show the movies on you
and we'll have lights
an from multimedia
Pagano there was and then
different people factual running out microphones like and tape recorders like
interviewing the audience who is holding areas
we wearing sunglasses were not blinded by the whole thing
because they were trying to figure out those days you know like mmm strobe
lights can cause
epilepsy at what rate and it's really it was a
it is a great place to be and he was not
want to have a hands-on type love a
management's position with the group
um he was a bit more just enter I think lou
hadn't had more ideas essentially in terms of
where he wanted to text a group of course Andy a
spearheaded arm for Mabel
made the factory available for them to rehearse and then eventually
I did produce the first album so the it was
a bitter financing on any spartan terms of creating enough material in the
studio for the 1st LP
what he did do is he made it all possible one by is backing
and two before we went to syria said you've got to make sure
use all the dirty words and
and don't let don't let them clean things and so when he was there
they they you know
they didn't dare try to say hey why don't you do that over
she you know I'm
any anyone have fallen the other things they wouldn't normally have done
never happened and they hated the music D
hated the music so no one listen to it
even complain about was on they couldn't get past mantra
actors garbage we an engine is walkout
I am one engineers say they don't pay me enough to listen to this shit
whining I'll turn the machine on you call me when it's over
for me the velvets accomplished what they set out to do
I there was no way to do more of it
except to turn it sideways and I think we were at a certain
more courage in setting out
on a solo career I think he felt the doors opening
cue he could see what his idea sounded like
coming out of his own head not within the compromise
other band I don't think
having gotten the velvets musically to a certain level
that he would stop playing guitar if anything you would have
hooked on it is a chance to play more guitar and two
more fully realize who he was
as an artist and again is not just a musical artist
these functions on several different levels and that
gives it a nice sensitive movement
and he said one to write a song called viciousness and we mean while we're
kinda vicious
is a vicious I hit you with a flower so I thought that was
so in a
home this is didn't you
Lalan do
you didn't have it our
day
miserable is shoes
dishes do
listed d
like gone good job him
day
this this
day
see do
dude
donna Brazile
around down day
in
do
them
than not
done
do you
goes your soldiers
hmm
suitors hit me with a flower
yet she was staying in Wimbledon
blue redeemable them what was he doing in Wimbledon he had like a duplex the
and I'm very unlikely place very light suburban looking place but I think they
I think he wanted to be there because he was in a period where he wanted to
he had drawn back from all the madness was trying desperately for a moment
through 22 thats what where he stay when I first got there I a hash cookie
and it took about a month to recover
and have been holding it told me I didn't know that that it was a hedge
cooking not that would change anything probably but
at least I would known what happened the
do
the
all good sounding workers were coming out having
was like it was amazing demanded
the records being made here compared and records being made in London London
just the sound what's more powerful on punchy ran
brighter just you know who knows why
I mean I hate to admit this what would happen is
loom would be asked to place the song and he sit down
and make Bronson was sit with them on acoustic guitar
know who might play acoustic guitar and sing the song
and in five minutes because she listened to all the songs on the album dole very
simple
didn't take very long for me
to then play acoustic guitar and if these plain to see
see major I have to play SC and
the drums have to get up it's quite easy
that that's out job to to make it appear easy
that the whole set up to this was to try and make it a lot more basic than a lot
of that the polly things we've done in the past
and we just started off with based around
to the terms and some of the tracks at moreover Thompson others
this particular one vicious it was it was kept stocks
more rock n roll and it goes something like this:
this is the basic track just based
drums to douse them
home
said then probably the next hour tops with this one
more percussive overdubbed rom's and
cabell
smother guitars
run some wouldn't famous distorted guitar sound
Mick Ronson roundabout that period
world's my favorite guitarist
a whole time he is so melodic without being
colonial cheesin and it's got a kind of
edginess over his guitar playing
so anyway I think it fit the album really well
this
I was in bar bands all through high school and college
displaying top 40 stuff and
but I was also um and a creative writing program
and I English department
so when I started
I writing songs again
you know just for myself it wasn't we didn't do any of them with the band's
I they're very lurk oriented
alluded study torture with very distinguished American poet named elmore
sure what's
in happenings tonight at the University a
circus University back nearly six is I studying
Joyce in yeats keats with him
%ah but I was really impressed by him
and the way he use language
and I wanted to use language like that in a lurk
I mean that was conscious demoss shorts was a
tremendous influence on the read he with his teacher at Syracuse University
and was a great great poet and writer and could have a tragic figure also
the I think lou really
felt he was the first great person he ever met
and Delmore gave
a Lou Reed a real sense of the importance of poetry
and love having kinda convictions about your work
I think that's what he really got it down more but I've never been as
impressed by anything as I was by the story of his called in dreams began
responsibilities
he showed me a letter TS eliot had to
sent em saying this was
most amazing short stories ever written which it really is it something about
five pages long but incredible I remember it
to this day think myself that's amazing to be able to accomplish that
with the simplest language you can imagine and such a
short space I thought you could
problem you know maybe you could do that with the song lyric
most public she just can't read as poetry
because the totally connected to
and amusing to take the musical Les justice and a bit strange
but was loosely she can actually just read them at
from a page like a billion poem and
up there with all the great you know poets not only should they be able to
stand on their own but i wanna be able to read the lyrics
without the melody their nations they should stand on our own to
knows Naidu reading is a
you know lyrics in whatever lyrics not whatever
an arm and it's different when the music's not there
gary was a rich young man who would become
a priest he dug up his dear father who is recently deceased
he did I he did with tarot cards
and mystically a tune mine and shortly there
and after he did find genie was a spoil young braque she thought she knew it all
she smoke methylated cigarettes and she had sex in the hall but she was not my
kinda even have my signed the kinda animal that I would be about all
you keep hanging around me and I'm not so glad you found me you're still doing
things I gave up years ago
kathy was a bit surreal she painted all our toes in our face your dentures
clamped tightly to her nose and when she finally spoke
which Langer glass is broken no one else could smoke while she was in the room
hark the herald angel saying in reached out for a phone
and plucked it with ivory hand dial long distance home but it was all too much
sprinkling angel dust AT&T you who didn't wish you well
oh you keep hanging around me I'm not so glad you found me you're still doing
things I gave up years ago
my idea was to have what amounts to a lead baseline words
on melody as well as rhythm that you could isolate and listen to it is
more than just a row and I'm not say more than in the Sansa
route ok I just on rhythm it's not good I'm just me a rhythmic
melody part up you know any
accountability to the vocal melody then
I think well can I try and put
the electric bass on as well
had him in a swirl playing
much higher a the interval is well
to any musicians is a tenth but
if the double buys played the bottom say at play
atopy on the bass guitar slide about
portamento I think back on it separate colony really because sir
you could they could only ever be one recalled with that particular thing on
and I'm to be the the person that did it first
the
why
mmm
from
Mon
on
on mine and Melanie
on
lied to me
healing the
d
blood diamonds on the Wii she
was she says the take a walk on the wild side
the money
take a one on one
d
on
candy cane
down
the
the back the she was everybody darn
by Gina loves the head even
she's given his me stay cool on
then he
E
take a walk on the wild side the Colored Girls Gone
did
on
d
didn't
on
them the next day
somebody had to say well we need three female session singers
02 the all Latin and do it three times
and somebody Anna goodness knows who that would have been
said all there were three singers band
often about get them down and I got these three singers to come along and
decided to call themselves thunder thighs
brilliant 9 one and college we'll see
do not really know didn't the
the
Lee
leave
the year they gonna litter
do
done
and I and said to them why you have been coming out
coming up coming I'm coming I'm coming I'm coming up you coming up
and now they're going to go away there
they gave him added the nearness and mister
down
were that's the other so often
the naan
like you said as drina by been around i mighta said let's do that
when I had a head
don't way they don't want me on
and I was not as good as your the night
I'm
happen
him
I never have known what an audience
does your I mean or even expect I don't I'm not writing for them
I I'm I'm writing for me
and whole you know I try really hard to make something that I really like
I figure if I really like it not being
particularly different from you then maybe there's a chance you'll like it
but
I'm not trying to write something to please you because I don't know what
pleases you
thing which is kept lou alive
in people's jukeboxes
and memories and still making records
is the fact that he's so many different elements
that when she think you've got em cornered is one
the slide around you and move to the other
if the slipperiness than an artist needs
to continue as an artist
mmm
such a perfect G
weekend is online
later a movie then we go home watch some
what one fun
what a perfect day
damn
you may need me to get myself
thought that I was somebody else
somewhat good
I
up
day
span
day
subject to
me
jewish
because Liu has written some %uh the most tender
love songs ever I mean I'll be your mirror
Sun by make or sung by low but some by Nico you could cry
on the first time I heard I was in tears pile blue eyes
perfect day satellited love the guy has written some the greatest love songs of
all time
extraordinary stuff satellite love as well
for that reason that's another brilliant them melodic song
and a thing because have an element to Lou Reed
is very harsh in his very abrasive and is very power cord driven
Sydney herein do that theme why how
nice done
she's I G
from
slack match I
0
of
do home
mom do
watch will do what up do watched
song GB
do
yeah
do
yeah
say
him
I see new readers legendarily said
am the Sony three chords in rock music and I'm trying to learn them
and that's common words by the way through this museum in you still see
links back to something light sweet Jane
or like something not vicious on the transformer album
and it is a kinda simplicity about it
here the way its vicious is in there right there I coulda gone divisions well
you know people so yeah all your songs sound the same that's why
okay to me out
in all a great blues players a min Bleus the Blues
that's it so you don't hear people say well you did one blues
now you're repeating yourself no one said that the muddy waters today
do
and
do this
didn't
on bond
by daughter
this
saying like
their brothers the Velvet Underground you could actually sit there
and I actually am you know
work at the song in about 10 minutes and then the lyrics are so amazing so you
memorize them
and you're off in a run around Britain with the guitar anybody should be able
to play these things
and if I could play you can play and this is
this is a nuclear physics this is
records %uh
on Greenlawn mom names
UK on blessings
reasons
do that seems
Saturday 12 fans
music do
others
do now is John's
counterpart day
he simply sat down and wrote what he saw
and he wrote white he wrote about the impact it had on him
the way he envisioned the people in front of him the way he envisioned
drug use sex arm you know taking
would insist in fact or everyday occurrences
which we don't comfortably talk about arm template society
or in mixed company he simply put them in song
he said it zillion times if this was a novels
nobody would have barked but because it was in popular music because it was in
three minutes songs that were heard on the radio
arm it was revolutionary it was disgusting it was.
all the things people said you know that was in the sixties and
even into the seventies you know people complain you know how you know what a
deviant this guy is
it was kinda revolutionary thing to think that
rock could have the same weight as literature
could have the same weight is a great piece of cinema and in a sense
but the were whole connection did was solidify all that
and then the velvets moved on beyond that really indulge in literary themes
that were you know kinda part iv:
you know the world you know
addictions perversity is salvation
themes as being on the edge
what it's like it's not just a song that you sing along to in a car
even though the velvet songs were also very catchy I
but they dealt with the real issues and I think that's what made them
very important to people who X or rock n roll
as a vehicle for intellectual thought
and emotional release when he talks about drug addiction
is not passing judgment on it he's not saying it's good or bad
is talking about the experience of getting through it
arm waiting for the man
on is about riding the subway
about going up to harlem about going through you know the urban jungle to to
score something that's not particularly good for you and the ad
you know that we're thrilling adventure plus
you know the obvious risk of life whether it's you know just getting on
the subway to go uptown
or to get this stuff and and put it inside your body
up to Lexington 125 to world's second
team out that the LifeWay from remember he wrote the stuff when he was very
young to
and he wrote it although that first term is credited as having been produced by
Andy Warhol
up than people think in some way the music was inspired by Andy
I think later music was but I think most the album was written before he ever met
Andy