Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 433] Lou Reed: The Hidden Purpose Behind Metal Machine Music with David Holzer

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[EP 433] Lou Reed: The Hidden Purpose Behind Metal Machine Music with David Holzer · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: He's a bit like a kind of wrestling heel. And
0:02
Speaker 1: sometimes it was real, sometimes it wasn't. A friend of
0:05
Speaker 1: mine said he could never trust Lou Reed after he
0:07
Speaker 1: saw Lou Reed playing wearing shoes and not motorcycle boots.
0:11
Speaker 1: We have this idea of Lou Reed, the rock and
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Speaker 1: roll animal, the leather guy, the miserable, surly, aggressive guy.
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Speaker 1: And he was infinitely more than that, but he created
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Speaker 1: that persona. We're totally booked. Rock and roll! Wow! I
0:26
Speaker 1: think I'll leave you to your reading. Little hand says
0:28
Speaker 1: it's time to rock and roll.
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Speaker 2: Rock and roll! We are totally booked. Welcome back to
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Speaker 2: Booked on Rock. Conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders. Revealing
0:42
Speaker 2: the stories behind classic rocks, greatest songs, albums, and artists.
0:46
Speaker 2: I'm Eric Senech. Thanks to everybody who supports the podcast
0:49
Speaker 2: on Patreon. Backstage Pass members get every episode in audio
0:54
Speaker 2: and video completely commercial free. along with early access to
0:57
Speaker 2: new episodes. So if you'd like to grab the backstage pass,
1:00
Speaker 2: it's just $ 5 a month. You click the link in
1:02
Speaker 2: the show notes or just go to BookedOnRock.com. Now onto
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Speaker 2: our show. Lou Reed was never afraid to challenge his audience,
1:11
Speaker 2: but few releases tested listeners quite like his notorious 1975
1:16
Speaker 2: double LP, Metal Machine Music. In Lou Reed, Metal Machine Mystic,
1:21
Speaker 2: David Holzer, takes a fresh look at this once-revolved record
1:25
Speaker 2: exploring how Reed's spiritual beliefs and search for something deeper
1:30
Speaker 2: may hold the key to understanding one of the most
1:32
Speaker 2: mysterious works of his career. David, welcome to the podcast.
1:36
Speaker 1: Welcome, Eric. Thanks very much.
1:38
Speaker 2: You were a Lou Reed fan for decades, but you
1:41
Speaker 2: avoided Metal Machine music until 2017 because you believed it
1:45
Speaker 2: was an unlistenable prank. What changed when you finally listened
1:50
Speaker 2: to it?
1:51
Speaker 1: Well, I listened to it because I was writing for
1:54
Speaker 1: a yoga and meditation magazine, mindfulness magazine. And I interviewed
1:58
Speaker 1: Lou's friend, the photographer Mick Rock, who kind of blew
2:01
Speaker 1: my mind when he told me that it was Lou
2:04
Speaker 1: who turned him on to Kundalini yoga. And I couldn't
2:07
Speaker 1: imagine the rock and roll animal doing yoga. But as
2:11
Speaker 1: part of my research, I had to listen to Lou's
2:14
Speaker 1: Hudson River Wind Meditations album from 2007, which if people
2:18
Speaker 1: haven't heard it is absolutely terrific. And that led me
2:21
Speaker 1: back naturally to metal machine music. And I was no longer,
2:29
Speaker 1: I could stream it for a start. So it was
2:33
Speaker 1: no longer a question of committing my Saturday job money
2:36
Speaker 1: or my pocket money to a record that had these
2:38
Speaker 1: reviews saying that it was a terrifying, unlistenable prank and
2:42
Speaker 1: avoided at all costs. And I could listen to it without,
2:48
Speaker 1: a commitment other than time really, and maybe peace of mind.
2:52
Speaker 1: So that's what changed.
2:54
Speaker 2: He was coming off the success of commercial success of
2:57
Speaker 2: rock and roll animal and Sally can't dance and critical
3:00
Speaker 2: success as well. What drove him to release something as
3:03
Speaker 2: confrontational as metal machine music in 1975? Well, he wasn't
3:07
Speaker 2: coming off critical success. It wasn't, it was commercial.
3:11
Speaker 1: Commercial. It's amazing. And I've, People have questioned me on
3:14
Speaker 1: this and I've treble checked, but Sally Can't Dance remains
3:18
Speaker 1: Lou's biggest selling American album. It was a top 10
3:22
Speaker 1: album in the American album charts for something like 12 weeks. So,
3:28
Speaker 1: you know, he was, in one sense, it achieved what
3:31
Speaker 1: he thought was his due, which was to be a star.
3:36
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he wasn't being taken seriously.
3:40
Speaker 1: So in the same month that Sally came out, 1969,
3:44
Speaker 1: the live Velvet Underground album, which introduced a lot of
3:50
Speaker 1: Americans in 74 and a lot of British people in
3:53
Speaker 1: 78 to what the Velvet Underground sounded like live after
3:58
Speaker 1: John Cale had left, after Nico had left. And it's
4:01
Speaker 1: an amazingly powerful, terrific record. So that came out in
4:05
Speaker 1: the same month as Sally Can't Dance. And very hip
4:09
Speaker 1: rock and roll critics for Cream Magazine and so on
4:13
Speaker 1: was saying, listen to this, don't listen to Sally, because
4:17
Speaker 1: Lou is a parody of himself. And he was obviously
4:21
Speaker 1: very frustrated by that. He was tired of his new fans.
4:26
Speaker 1: There were various quotes talking about people kind of coming
4:29
Speaker 1: up to him and saying that he was the reason
4:30
Speaker 1: they took drugs. He was tired of being compared to
4:34
Speaker 1: John Cale as the most avant-garde member of the Velvet,
4:39
Speaker 1: so that John was avant-garde, Lou wasn't. very similar to
4:43
Speaker 1: the John Lennon and Paul McCartney situation with the Beatles.
4:47
Speaker 1: You know, Paul McCartney was always frustrated that Lennon was
4:49
Speaker 1: regarded as the avant-garde hip one, and he wasn't. That
4:53
Speaker 1: irritated Lou as well, quite justifiably, because he was into
4:58
Speaker 1: drone noise, electronics, all of those things, kind of independently
5:05
Speaker 1: of John. John may have introduced him to Lamont Young,
5:08
Speaker 1: but Lou was tuning his guitar's all strings to the
5:12
Speaker 1: same note, before we met John. So he had a
5:16
Speaker 1: lot to prove, I think. He was making money, but
5:22
Speaker 1: he was spending like a sailor on shore leave and
5:25
Speaker 1: fighting with his management, fighting with RCA. So he was
5:29
Speaker 1: spending money, but he didn't have money. He had a
5:30
Speaker 1: terrible contract. He was being regarded as washed up and
5:35
Speaker 1: a parody by the critical press. And I think that's
5:41
Speaker 1: what caused him to engineer this Vogue fast where I
5:45
Speaker 1: can't think of anybody else who went from really loving
5:47
Speaker 1: their album to publicly really hating it. I mean, we're
5:51
Speaker 1: talking about Sally here.
5:53
Speaker 2: Are you a fan of that album?
5:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, more and more. And I love Kill Your Sons.
5:58
Speaker 1: I think Kill Your Sons is brilliant. And I think
6:01
Speaker 1: that some of the lyrics are very, very tight, very
6:05
Speaker 1: neatly done. Billy, Sally can't dance itself. Some of it's
6:09
Speaker 1: Filla on We and Ride Sally Ride. But, you know,
6:14
Speaker 1: I interviewed Steve Katz, who was the producer, and he
6:17
Speaker 1: was very clear. He said the stated intention was to
6:20
Speaker 1: cover all the current musical bases from 75, 74. Sorry.
6:25
Speaker 1: You know, funk, light, acoustic, Alice Cooper type heavy metal
6:30
Speaker 1: with Kill Your Sons. And it's by no means my favorite,
6:35
Speaker 1: but it's by no means a bad album.
6:37
Speaker 2: He was influenced, Lou, by beat writers, Allen Ginsberg and
6:40
Speaker 2: William Burroughs. How did their ideas about rebellion, experimentation, and
6:44
Speaker 2: spirituality influence his music?
6:46
Speaker 1: Obviously, people are focused on his lyrics. I've made the
6:50
Speaker 1: connection between Walk on the Wild Side and Waiting for
6:54
Speaker 1: the Man in particular and the subject matter of William Burroughs.
6:58
Speaker 1: And in terms of lyrical honesty, I think you can
7:01
Speaker 1: draw comparisons between his lyrics and Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish and Howl,
7:06
Speaker 1: for example. But in my book, I talk about the
7:09
Speaker 1: influence of the beat writers on his music, and William
7:15
Speaker 1: Burroughs in particular. Lou was very interested in the notion
7:19
Speaker 1: of sound as a means of altering consciousness in the body,
7:25
Speaker 1: just like Burroughs was. Sound to heal, but also sound
7:30
Speaker 1: to cause discomfort. And I've lost count of the number
7:33
Speaker 1: of people that tell me that they... They would play
7:36
Speaker 1: a metal machine music at the end of parties to
7:38
Speaker 1: get rid of unwanted guests or to freak out their neighbors.
7:44
Speaker 1: But Lou had that attitude. You know, he was a
7:45
Speaker 1: child of the 50s, a child of rock and roll,
7:48
Speaker 1: a child of the beat writers growing up in suburban
7:51
Speaker 1: Long Island, having been born in New York and wanting
7:57
Speaker 1: to rebel. A kind of like, you know, Marlon Brando
8:00
Speaker 1: in The Wild Ones saying, what are you rebelling against? Well,
8:02
Speaker 1: what do you got? Lou was, I think, like that.
8:06
Speaker 1: And he stayed a fan of the beat writers all
8:08
Speaker 1: his life.
8:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listened to all of the album because I
8:12
Speaker 2: knew reading the book and getting ready for this interview,
8:14
Speaker 2: I knew I have to listen to this. And I
8:18
Speaker 2: don't know how to describe it, but I listened to
8:20
Speaker 2: it and part of me was like, oh man, I
8:23
Speaker 2: want to stop this. And the other part of me was,
8:25
Speaker 2: I don't want to stop this. And there was something,
8:27
Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't describe it. But if you're
8:30
Speaker 2: listening in with earbuds and you're hearing things and you're
8:34
Speaker 2: not sure what exactly you're hearing. I mean, is it
8:37
Speaker 2: all guitar feedback?
8:38
Speaker 1: It's heavily processed guitar feedback. Bounced, I think, between three
8:44
Speaker 1: tape recorders with Lou dropping in little guitar melodies over
8:49
Speaker 1: the top.
8:50
Speaker 2: Okay.
8:50
Speaker 1: Sort of dubbing them in in a very primitive way
8:52
Speaker 1: because he was using his tape recorders and he was
8:55
Speaker 1: using a Marantz preamp, which allowed him to mix a bit.
8:59
Speaker 1: But it's all like that, although the four pieces do vary.
9:04
Speaker 1: People have said it's the same piece four times, two
9:07
Speaker 1: and four, four is two played backwards, three is one
9:12
Speaker 1: played backwards. It's actually not true. They're all different. And
9:15
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough, I was very lucky enough to
9:18
Speaker 1: have the help of the Lou Reed Archive, who sent
9:22
Speaker 1: me demos from the archive of Metal Machine Music. And
9:27
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Because the myth is, of course, that
9:30
Speaker 1: he recorded it all to 16.01 seconds. And you hear
9:34
Speaker 1: these kind of outtakes that go on for 17 and
9:39
Speaker 1: a half minutes. And he cut it where it sounded best.
9:45
Speaker 1: So it was a very considered piece of work and
9:49
Speaker 1: heavily processed.
9:50
Speaker 2: I think about in the 90s, those books where if
9:52
Speaker 2: you looked at it long enough, an image would pop out.
9:55
Speaker 2: I thought maybe there's something in here that he wants
9:58
Speaker 2: us to hear. That's what I was thinking. Maybe that's
10:00
Speaker 2: what kept me hooked because I listened intently now that
10:05
Speaker 2: I read the book and I'm thinking maybe there's something
10:07
Speaker 2: here he wants us to listen to. But I didn't
10:09
Speaker 2: think about four as a reverse of two, but I
10:12
Speaker 2: noticed four is different. It ends differently. And there's some
10:18
Speaker 2: There's certain like guitar squeals in there that have some
10:21
Speaker 2: kind of a melody to it. And you try to
10:24
Speaker 2: discern what it is that maybe he's trying to tell us.
10:27
Speaker 2: Maybe he's not trying to tell us anything at all.
10:28
Speaker 2: I think that's the question, right? The big question.
10:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like all great art, you know, it's, is this
10:35
Speaker 1: an absolute work of genius or am I going mad?
10:40
Speaker 1: You know, and especially if I've listened to it about
10:43
Speaker 1: a thousand times, I would estimate. So, I've been through,
10:47
Speaker 1: am I hearing things in there that aren't there? For sure.
10:50
Speaker 1: You know, you get to, you start to wonder, am
10:52
Speaker 1: I hearing voices? You know?
10:55
Speaker 2: Or is that a mouse I hear? It's like a
10:59
Speaker 2: little squeal.
11:00
Speaker 1: And seagulls, a very common one.
11:03
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.
11:05
Speaker 1: But that's, I was lucky enough to talk to a
11:06
Speaker 1: guy called Stuart Hurwood, who was Lou's guitar tech. And
11:11
Speaker 1: he said that seagull noise is when pickups, feedback and overload.
11:19
Speaker 1: And it's quite common from that kind of music, you know,
11:22
Speaker 1: because obviously metal machine music is, if not unique, very
11:26
Speaker 1: unusual in rock and roll. It isn't in avant-garde music,
11:31
Speaker 1: which is an important point. But there are noises in there.
11:35
Speaker 1: Unlike the melodies, first of all, you wonder, did you
11:38
Speaker 1: hear it? You know, and then you listen again and
11:41
Speaker 1: you think, yeah, I did hear it. And now I
11:42
Speaker 1: hear a different one. And it's really... really, really rich,
11:47
Speaker 1: I think, if you want to keep listening to it.
11:50
Speaker 1: And it's also very important to know that you can adjust,
11:54
Speaker 1: if you adjust the volume levels, I've listened to it
11:58
Speaker 1: in a professional studio as loud as my ears could stand,
12:02
Speaker 1: not on headphones. I've streamed it at just walking around
12:08
Speaker 1: making cups of coffee, quiet level. And the sound changes,
12:11
Speaker 1: and that's a feature of the fact that it was
12:13
Speaker 1: recorded in a very big room, in a loft that
12:17
Speaker 1: Lou was living in in the late 60s. And there's
12:21
Speaker 1: another great myth, because Lou was a brilliant mythologizer who
12:24
Speaker 1: never let the truth get in the way of a
12:25
Speaker 1: good story, that it was recorded in an apartment in
12:29
Speaker 1: 63rd Street in New York. And as far as I
12:32
Speaker 1: can establish, it may have been processed in that apartment,
12:36
Speaker 1: but it was recorded a long time earlier when Lou
12:40
Speaker 1: could make a huge racket in a former warehouse in
12:44
Speaker 1: the garment district and not be disturbed.
12:47
Speaker 2: Who's Alice Bailey? She becomes an important figure in a book.
12:50
Speaker 2: Talk about her. What did she teach? How deeply did
12:53
Speaker 2: Lou embrace her spiritual ideas?
12:55
Speaker 1: She was a spiritual teacher who lived in the 20th century,
13:00
Speaker 1: who was originally English. She was allied to the theosophists,
13:07
Speaker 1: Madame Blavatsky, who believed a kind of mixture of Hinduism mysticism, Christianity,
13:14
Speaker 1: a sort of amorphous blend of different things, but she
13:20
Speaker 1: had her own take on it. She believed in a
13:23
Speaker 1: cosmology that involved us all being kind of governed by
13:28
Speaker 1: certain types of celestial rays. She believed that the universe
13:34
Speaker 1: was a body with, I think, the Earth as its
13:37
Speaker 1: head or something like this, or You know, she professed
13:42
Speaker 1: to believe it, or she used it as an analogy.
13:45
Speaker 1: Lou would go down to her monthly moon meditations in
13:49
Speaker 1: New York and take it pretty seriously. He went down
13:52
Speaker 1: there for years and he read her books. Now that
13:56
Speaker 1: could have been because he was speeding like crazy, because
14:00
Speaker 1: they're really unbelievably hard to read. But it's common knowledge
14:06
Speaker 1: in the kind of velvet underground obsessive community He was
14:10
Speaker 1: interested in Alice Bailey. White Light, White Heat is partly
14:16
Speaker 1: a kind of pay-in to the effects of channeling healing
14:20
Speaker 1: white light as well as speed. And there are various
14:25
Speaker 1: songs where he references Alice Bailey's teaching. But nobody until
14:30
Speaker 1: me had really, as far as I know, had asked
14:32
Speaker 1: the question, well, why did he do this? And the
14:35
Speaker 1: book teases out the notion that it was because Rock
14:39
Speaker 1: and roll was his religion. And he saw rock and
14:42
Speaker 1: roll as redemptive. And he saw his purpose, at least
14:47
Speaker 1: at a certain time in his life, as waking up
14:51
Speaker 1: his fans through rock and roll to a kind of
14:55
Speaker 1: deeper purpose in life.
14:57
Speaker 2: One theory was that it was an FU to RCA.
14:59
Speaker 1: Well, I think as people have pointed out to me,
15:03
Speaker 1: as I agree, a great work of art can be
15:05
Speaker 1: several things. And there's no question that he was very
15:11
Speaker 1: annoyed with RCA. His own fault, really, because he'd signed
15:15
Speaker 1: a contract before the first solo album, which was really
15:21
Speaker 1: unsuccessful when he didn't have a reputation that was very
15:26
Speaker 1: disadvantageous to him. And so when he started making really
15:30
Speaker 1: good money with Transformer and with the live albums, he
15:36
Speaker 1: wasn't getting what he thought was his dues. but the
15:39
Speaker 1: story with RCA is much more complex than that. You know, they,
15:43
Speaker 1: they wanted to put the album out on Red Seal,
15:46
Speaker 1: their classical imprint, which he rubbished, but on one, on
15:51
Speaker 1: one level, that could have been the perfect place for it.
15:53
Speaker 1: It was where Stomo Yamashitu, uh, released his sort of
15:59
Speaker 1: semi-classical album in 75 as well, which did very, very well. Uh,
16:05
Speaker 1: It could have been the right thing to do. We
16:07
Speaker 1: don't know because it didn't happen that way. But it's
16:10
Speaker 1: important also to remember that he released Coney Island Baby
16:15
Speaker 1: after Metal Machine Music the same year on RCA. And
16:19
Speaker 1: it went to 41 in the US album charts. So
16:23
Speaker 1: he didn't torpedo his career at all. And he didn't
16:28
Speaker 1: permanently sour his relationship with RCA. I think RCA had
16:32
Speaker 1: more of a measure on him that he liked to think.
16:37
Speaker 1: I think they knew more what they were dealing with.
16:41
Speaker 1: And he liked to characterize them as people who didn't
16:44
Speaker 1: and people he could bully or people he could mislead.
16:49
Speaker 1: So I think part of it was giving the finger
16:53
Speaker 1: to RCA, giving the finger to his management. But it's
16:56
Speaker 1: only one reason in a whole complex of many reasons
17:01
Speaker 1: why he made it.
17:04
Speaker 2: Interesting that he did rebound, because does it hold the
17:08
Speaker 2: record for being the most returned album in RCA history?
17:14
Speaker 2: Within a few weeks or less than a week, people
17:16
Speaker 2: were returning it?
17:17
Speaker 1: I think it shipped originally 100,000 copies, which was very respectable.
17:22
Speaker 1: And I think by the end of three weeks, the
17:25
Speaker 1: vast majority of those had been returned. And people genuinely thought,
17:31
Speaker 1: some of them, that they got a kind of faulty copy.
17:35
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand. And I spoke to one guy who
17:38
Speaker 1: said his friend got it twice. He got it, played it,
17:42
Speaker 1: thought there's something wrong here, bought it back, got another one.
17:45
Speaker 1: It was exactly the same. And then he just kept
17:47
Speaker 1: it and gave up on it. And now, of course,
17:50
Speaker 1: it's pretty hard to find. It's a very valuable record.
17:54
Speaker 1: But of course, you then get into the whole thing
17:56
Speaker 1: of the cover and what a brilliant piece of misdirection
17:59
Speaker 1: the original cover was, that it suggested that it was
18:04
Speaker 1: along the lines of Rock and Roll Animal, you know,
18:07
Speaker 1: that you're going to get Lou, the Rock and Roll Animal,
18:10
Speaker 1: live and unleashed, volume two, with the great liner notes
18:16
Speaker 1: that with that wonderful, my week beats your year, you know,
18:20
Speaker 1: which is one of the greatest kind of snotty put
18:23
Speaker 1: downs you can possibly imagine. And Thurston Moore, who's fantastically
18:27
Speaker 1: helpful to me and wrote a foreword, said, you know,
18:31
Speaker 1: he saw that cover and he thought, wow, this is
18:33
Speaker 1: the rock and roll animal Lou Reed in all his
18:36
Speaker 1: kind of snarling glory. Here we go. And then he
18:39
Speaker 1: put it on and it became ironically even more important
18:44
Speaker 1: to him than if it had been a live Lou
18:47
Speaker 1: Reed album.
18:48
Speaker 2: Bob Ludwig, he was the mastering engineer. What did he
18:52
Speaker 2: reveal about Lou's commitment to this album?
18:55
Speaker 1: He just mastered it. He didn't engineer it. Lou did
18:59
Speaker 1: everything by himself. He wasn't in a studio. He was
19:02
Speaker 1: at home with his tape recorders, his Marantz preamp, and
19:06
Speaker 1: his guitars. Bob, who gave me an interview, a very
19:11
Speaker 1: rare interview. I don't think he's spoken on the record
19:15
Speaker 1: to the extent that he spoke to me. And it
19:16
Speaker 1: was important for him specifically to say Lou was very serious.
19:22
Speaker 1: He took it very, very seriously. You know, he was
19:25
Speaker 1: expecting a madman, I think, because Lou's reputation preceded him.
19:30
Speaker 1: And he got this very sensible guy who wanted to
19:33
Speaker 1: make a really good piece of work. And they remained
19:36
Speaker 1: lifelong friends. I think it was the first work that
19:38
Speaker 1: he did for Lou or with Lou. And they were
19:41
Speaker 1: friends together. Towards the end of Lou's life, Bob went
19:44
Speaker 1: with him to pick out, I think, microphones or amps
19:47
Speaker 1: or something like that. And Bob got it because Bob
19:52
Speaker 1: had worked with Xenakis, an avant-garde electronic composer who Lou
19:57
Speaker 1: had been listening to. And to Bob, it was, okay,
20:02
Speaker 1: this is a perfectly respectable piece of contemporary classical music.
20:05
Speaker 1: It just so happens it's in rock and roll. And
20:08
Speaker 1: it's not Springsteen. or Led Zeppelin, or the other people
20:12
Speaker 1: that Bob had worked with.
20:14
Speaker 2: You discovered some of the previously unheard work in progress
20:16
Speaker 2: tapes in the Lou Reed archive. What do those reveal
20:19
Speaker 2: about how he developed the finish album? How different is it,
20:23
Speaker 2: or is it similar?
20:25
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. It is. But what's revealed is
20:28
Speaker 1: that it meanders on. So you've got a minute here
20:31
Speaker 1: or there, a couple of minutes, where it maybe loses
20:35
Speaker 1: focus and kind of dribbles a bit, whereas The four
20:40
Speaker 1: chunks are very intense and very concentrated. And it's like,
20:44
Speaker 1: here we go. You know, it's very like a rock
20:46
Speaker 1: and roll record, really, in the way it's pitched. You've
20:48
Speaker 1: got the kind of rumble akin to a bass. You've
20:52
Speaker 1: got the high-pitched noises over the top, which would be
20:55
Speaker 1: like a lead guitar or even vocals. You just don't
20:59
Speaker 1: have a beat. You don't have drums and you don't
21:01
Speaker 1: have a voice. But I didn't discover it. I have
21:05
Speaker 1: to stress it was the Lou Reed Archive. who really
21:09
Speaker 1: discovered these things, Don Fleming and Jason Stern, are brilliant archivists. And,
21:16
Speaker 1: you know, they're doing an incredible job with the Lou
21:19
Speaker 1: Reed Archive under, you know, Laurie Anderson set the archive up.
21:23
Speaker 1: And they're behind, with Light in the Attic, this terrific
21:27
Speaker 1: series of reissues of demos and Ray Lou Reed stuff.
21:32
Speaker 1: And so they were saying to me, you should listen
21:34
Speaker 1: to this. You know, it will kind of blow your mind.
21:39
Speaker 1: And it did. Well, truly, it transformed. Because what's astonishing
21:44
Speaker 1: to me is the way people trot out the myths
21:50
Speaker 1: of metal machine music. And okay, now it has a
21:53
Speaker 1: constituency of people who love it, who take it very seriously.
21:58
Speaker 1: But it's incredible. It still appears in internet top 10
22:02
Speaker 1: lists of the biggest career disasters. You know, that and Lulu.
22:07
Speaker 1: there's one internet listicle where metal machine music is at
22:11
Speaker 1: number one of the worst career torpedoing decisions, and Lulu's
22:15
Speaker 1: at number 10. I mean, how many artists can say
22:17
Speaker 1: they got into that twice? I don't think any. Exactly.
22:23
Speaker 1: And the jury's still out on Lulu, of course, but
22:27
Speaker 1: there's a growing number of us who really, really admire
22:30
Speaker 1: metal machine music and take it very seriously.
22:34
Speaker 2: The book is called Lou Reed, Metal Machine Mystic. David Holzer,
22:37
Speaker 2: the author. So it's four sections with a beginning, build,
22:40
Speaker 2: and resolution. And that's what you really found through listening
22:44
Speaker 2: to this. And do you feel he deliberately structured it
22:47
Speaker 2: that way?
22:48
Speaker 1: I think there's a narrative to it. I think it's
22:51
Speaker 1: not as straightforward as there's a beginning, a middle, and
22:56
Speaker 1: a resolution. I think you kind of impose that on
22:59
Speaker 1: it because there are four parts, or I do. I
23:03
Speaker 1: notice differences between the sections. that you know too it
23:08
Speaker 1: really gets going for me but maybe that's just because
23:12
Speaker 1: I'm getting used to it you've got to accept like
23:14
Speaker 1: with any kind of real avant-garde piece of piece of
23:17
Speaker 1: art that you might be making sense of it in
23:20
Speaker 1: a way that maybe it doesn't make sense but of
23:24
Speaker 1: course you have a resolution because you've got that that
23:27
Speaker 1: great noise at the end of the locked groove you
23:31
Speaker 1: know which which goes on forever unless you take the
23:35
Speaker 1: needle off the record But on the CD and DVD versions,
23:39
Speaker 1: it goes on for two or three minutes. So it
23:44
Speaker 1: does finish. And, you know, it starts with this rumble.
23:50
Speaker 1: But Lou said you can put the needle on the
23:52
Speaker 1: vinyl version down any way you want and listen to it.
23:56
Speaker 1: And I think that's almost true. But I don't think
24:02
Speaker 1: that's getting the best of the album. I think it's
24:04
Speaker 1: actually much better. if you can stand it, to listen
24:08
Speaker 1: to the whole thing in one go. I think you
24:11
Speaker 1: get much more out of it if you do that.
24:13
Speaker 2: I know that he had talked about his fascination with sounds,
24:16
Speaker 2: but he also had a fascination with electricity, right?
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. I put together this thesis, and I freely admit
24:25
Speaker 1: it's mine. And it's based on certain things he said,
24:30
Speaker 1: but I stitched it all together. And people who loathe
24:33
Speaker 1: The psychoanalysis of artists might absolutely hate it. But to me,
24:39
Speaker 1: if you think about it logically, he's a child guitarist
24:44
Speaker 1: in the early 50s. And if you've ever had an
24:47
Speaker 1: electric guitar and an amp, when you discover feedback, you think,
24:51
Speaker 1: my God, this is horrible. My God, this is wonderful.
24:55
Speaker 1: And he had electroconvulsive therapy at the age of 17.
25:00
Speaker 1: So he had very good reason to be terrified. of electricity,
25:05
Speaker 1: but also fascinated by it. Alice Bailey regards electricity as
25:12
Speaker 1: kind of part of a cosmic force. He said that
25:19
Speaker 1: receiving ECT was where he got interested in electricity. He
25:23
Speaker 1: said the Velvet Underground were all about electricity. In the
25:27
Speaker 1: early 70s to mid 70s, Frankenstein was, you know, a
25:32
Speaker 1: cultural motif. for rock and roll bands, for TV, for
25:39
Speaker 1: late night movies. When Lou was caricatured on the cover
25:44
Speaker 1: of Punk Magazine, it was as Frankenstein. On the cover
25:48
Speaker 1: of Transformer, he looks like Frankenstein. And when he returned
25:55
Speaker 1: to the methodology of metal machine music in 2003, with
25:59
Speaker 1: fire music, although I think he'd been experimenting all along,
26:02
Speaker 1: he just didn't put it on record. He had been
26:06
Speaker 1: doing Tai Chi for at least 10 years, maybe 20 years.
26:12
Speaker 1: So he was fascinated. If you've ever done any kind
26:14
Speaker 1: of body work like that, I mean, have you? I've
26:19
Speaker 1: practiced yoga for quite a while.
26:21
Speaker 2: No, I've never done that. I remember one person trying
26:26
Speaker 2: to put me under hypnotherapy, and it didn't really do
26:30
Speaker 2: much for me.
26:31
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. But you get into moving energy around. Yeah.
26:37
Speaker 1: And you get very sensitive to energy. And those practices
26:41
Speaker 1: are about directing energy. And Tai Chi is very much
26:45
Speaker 1: about aligning and directing energy to where you need it
26:50
Speaker 1: in your body. And Lou's guitar style, which doesn't make
26:55
Speaker 1: sense unless you think of it in the light of
26:58
Speaker 1: whether my theory is right or wrong. Have you heard his...
27:03
Speaker 1: horrific cover of Salisbury Hill, the Peter Gabriel song. No,
27:07
Speaker 1: when was that? It was on a tribute album to
27:10
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel. And it's a horrible noise. It's a truly
27:16
Speaker 1: horrible noise. But when you think about, well, Lou, either
27:20
Speaker 1: he was being perverse or his guitar style was directing
27:25
Speaker 1: energy through sound, through the guitar. And I think there's,
27:28
Speaker 1: I cover this in the book, This magic moment, his
27:31
Speaker 1: cover of the Doc Pomas song that Doc Pomas and
27:35
Speaker 1: Mort Schumann wrote for the Drifters, Lou's guitar in that,
27:38
Speaker 1: this beautiful kind of surging drone, I think suggests that
27:44
Speaker 1: he thought about playing guitar as a means of shifting
27:48
Speaker 1: energy for himself and perhaps for listeners. So electricity, from
27:57
Speaker 1: the time he was a child, from the unfortunate situation
28:01
Speaker 1: of having ECT through his whole life as a recording artist,
28:08
Speaker 1: fascinated him. And of course, feedback is kind of pure electricity.
28:15
Speaker 1: And when he listened to Feedback, Stuart told me he
28:18
Speaker 1: was like a five-year-old kid. He just loved Feedback.
28:24
Speaker 2: There was an experience in 2002 that changed his relationship
28:28
Speaker 2: with the album. Ulrich Krieger transcribed metal machine music for
28:32
Speaker 2: the Berlin-based experimental ensemble. Is it Zeitkratzer?
28:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I pronounce it. All right.
28:39
Speaker 2: He joined them for a live performance. Talk about that,
28:41
Speaker 2: how that had changed his relationship with the album. What
28:43
Speaker 2: was it like prior to that?
28:45
Speaker 1: Well, I think he fought his corner. He started defending
28:53
Speaker 1: the album as early as 76, talking to Lenny K.,
28:57
Speaker 1: who was at that time, well, I think still is
28:59
Speaker 1: a journalist as well as being the Patti Smith bat.
29:03
Speaker 1: And he said, no, I was deadly serious about it.
29:07
Speaker 1: And he jammed with his band, certainly in the late 70s,
29:13
Speaker 1: on stuff that sounds very much like metal machine music.
29:18
Speaker 1: So he didn't abandon it and he defended it. But
29:22
Speaker 1: what happened when Ulrich approached him to say, I've transcribed this,
29:29
Speaker 1: and Ulrich is a very serious avant-garde musician, and Zeitkratzer
29:33
Speaker 1: a very serious contemporary classical ensemble, and Lou resisted. giving
29:42
Speaker 1: them his blessing for a long time. They had to
29:45
Speaker 1: really persuade him, and then they sent him a demo,
29:47
Speaker 1: and he thought, okay, and then he really got behind it.
29:51
Speaker 1: But he said initially, you can only do one or
29:54
Speaker 1: two pieces because he was frightened. that the audience were
29:57
Speaker 1: going to rip it to shreds and rip him to shreds.
30:01
Speaker 1: And then he went, and I think maybe hearing the
30:04
Speaker 1: first part performed by Zeitkratzer, I think Ulrich said, Lou said, okay,
30:11
Speaker 1: I'm going to play before. Maybe he heard the rehearsals
30:15
Speaker 1: and he could hear how powerful it was because it
30:17
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily powerful to hear it played on acoustic instruments.
30:23
Speaker 1: It's very, very, very impressive. And Lou was up for it.
30:28
Speaker 1: And he performed. There was a standing ovation. And then,
30:34
Speaker 1: like I say, in 2003, his response to 9-11 was
30:38
Speaker 1: this fire music where he employed quite a lot of
30:43
Speaker 1: the strategies of metal machine music. And from then on in,
30:48
Speaker 1: you know, he started playing drone music. He started incorporating
30:52
Speaker 1: drone music. In his music, it's often the most interesting
30:56
Speaker 1: part of his music, he started playing with Laurie and
30:59
Speaker 1: John Zorn. He demoed Lulu, the earliest versions of Lulu.
31:08
Speaker 1: Junior Dad from the Lulu album, I don't know if
31:10
Speaker 1: you've heard that, I think dates to 2007.
31:14
Speaker 2: That's on Lulu?
31:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:16
Speaker 2: Because I listened to Lulu once, maybe twice, and I just...
31:20
Speaker 2: I wanted to get into it. You know, I could
31:22
Speaker 2: revisit it again, but I just wasn't connecting with it.
31:28
Speaker 2: But was that Metal Machine Trio that you're referring to?
31:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, he then played with the Metal Machine Trio. Yeah,
31:33
Speaker 1: he formed the Metal Machine Trio with Ulrich and with
31:36
Speaker 1: a guy called Saf Calhoun.
31:37
Speaker 2: Okay.
31:40
Speaker 1: I think maybe around 2010, 2011. I can't give you
31:44
Speaker 1: the exact date off the top of my head, but
31:46
Speaker 1: he'd been playing with Zorn and Laurie before that. And
31:50
Speaker 1: he'd been improvising for quite some time. And it's debatable
31:55
Speaker 1: whether he'd had enough of writing lyrics. I don't know.
32:02
Speaker 2: I wonder what the guys at Metallica think of metal
32:05
Speaker 2: machine music. Do you know?
32:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're aware of it. They must be.
32:08
Speaker 2: Because that's what I'm curious, the people in the industry,
32:11
Speaker 2: his fellow musicians, his contemporaries, what they thought of it.
32:16
Speaker 1: The most famous, of course, is... first and more uh
32:22
Speaker 1: there are various noise artists and there's a very good
32:26
Speaker 1: couple of albums uh on sony called power to consume
32:31
Speaker 1: which attributes to metal machine music where you get a
32:34
Speaker 1: sense of the noise artists who've who've covered it who
32:38
Speaker 1: were inspired by it uh i think uh sonic youth
32:43
Speaker 1: is kind of the only rock band that has sampled
32:45
Speaker 1: it you know it's i spoke to uh or I
32:51
Speaker 1: exchanged emails with a hip-hop producer called Elucid, who is
32:55
Speaker 1: a great admirer of it. He's never sampled it, but
32:58
Speaker 1: he really admires it.
32:59
Speaker 2: Brian Eno, I would think.
33:00
Speaker 1: Well, Eno claimed that it came out the same month
33:04
Speaker 1: as Discreet Music in 75. It didn't. It sounds good,
33:08
Speaker 1: but it didn't. But it came out in the same year.
33:11
Speaker 1: And I think Eno is right to say that they're
33:13
Speaker 1: part of the same impulse towards immersive soundtracks, you know,
33:18
Speaker 1: that and ambient music. The one that I tried desperately
33:22
Speaker 1: hard to find people in the industry who really loved it.
33:27
Speaker 1: Stuart Hurwood told me Paul Weller, who is better known
33:32
Speaker 1: in the UK than in the US, but still known
33:34
Speaker 1: in the US.
33:35
Speaker 2: Just did an episode on him. There's a great book
33:38
Speaker 2: on him.
33:39
Speaker 1: Oh, right. Who's the least likely guy you'd imagine to
33:42
Speaker 1: be a metal machine music fan. Likes it, listens to it,
33:46
Speaker 1: likes it. I can imagine. Iggy pop being a fan.
33:49
Speaker 1: And I can imagine people playing at full blast before
33:52
Speaker 1: going on stage, you know, uh, especially if they're a
33:56
Speaker 1: confrontational act.
33:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like there are more musicians than maybe
34:02
Speaker 2: we even think that appreciate it because again, they think
34:05
Speaker 2: from an artist standpoint, they're thinking differently than maybe the
34:08
Speaker 2: average person who's not a musician or not an artist.
34:11
Speaker 2: If you're an artist, that stuff that you appreciate more.
34:14
Speaker 1: Well, I think the fact that Lou truly didn't compromise
34:20
Speaker 1: with that. I think at other times in his life,
34:22
Speaker 1: he said he didn't compromise when he really did. And
34:25
Speaker 1: I don't think he was consistently a rebel, but I
34:29
Speaker 1: think with metal machine music, there was no safety net.
34:33
Speaker 2: Right.
34:36
Speaker 1: Everybody else, no disrespect to them that have come afterwards.
34:39
Speaker 1: They're either a small enough band that they're not going
34:42
Speaker 1: to lose their audience if they experiment like that, or
34:45
Speaker 1: they have a reputation. for making noise music, and so
34:49
Speaker 1: people kind of expect it from them. With Lou, you know,
34:53
Speaker 1: you had Sally Can't Dance, you had Rock and Roll Animal,
34:55
Speaker 1: you had Transformer, you had Berlin.
34:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, huge cojones, as they would say, right? Yeah.
35:02
Speaker 2: He had some guts. Yeah, I mean, that's courageous to
35:05
Speaker 2: do in that business, in that industry where you could
35:07
Speaker 2: be just cut off quickly, you know?
35:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe he was, as he said, he was very,
35:13
Speaker 1: very stoned.
35:16
Speaker 2: That had something to do with it too, right? Yeah.
35:18
Speaker 1: I mean, he had a ferocious speed habit at that time,
35:22
Speaker 1: let alone anything else. And he was chronically alcoholic. But still,
35:27
Speaker 1: I think that he still had huge cojones, as you say.
35:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the sincerity of it, in the book,
35:36
Speaker 2: Lou's Guitar Tech, Stuart Hurwood recalls Lou saying, I feel
35:41
Speaker 2: healed in the drones when referring to his chemotherapy. So
35:45
Speaker 2: he took it very seriously.
35:48
Speaker 1: And he knew something. You know, in that world, you
35:53
Speaker 1: have gong baths and things like that, which are using
35:58
Speaker 1: sound to heal you. And you might be able to
36:01
Speaker 1: tell me, but I cannot think of another artist that
36:06
Speaker 1: has taken that kind of risk. And I cannot think
36:09
Speaker 1: of another mainstream artist who's explored the effect of of
36:15
Speaker 1: sound on the body to that extent. I just can't
36:18
Speaker 1: think of them. They might be out there, but I
36:19
Speaker 1: can't think of them.
36:20
Speaker 2: But certainly none that are in the public spotlight.
36:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:26
Speaker 2: You know, like you said, maybe somebody underground, but I
36:30
Speaker 2: don't think anybody comes close.
36:32
Speaker 1: And I think people in the underground are... The thing
36:35
Speaker 1: that's really important about metal and machine music, or one
36:37
Speaker 1: of the things, is it sounds like nothing else in
36:40
Speaker 1: rock and roll. It doesn't date, you know... You listen
36:44
Speaker 1: to these two tribute albums, double albums, and there's some
36:48
Speaker 1: fantastic stuff on there. But it doesn't sound like metal
36:51
Speaker 1: machine music, which is very interesting.
36:55
Speaker 2: I'm so curious when this book comes out. November 19,
37:00
Speaker 2: the book comes out, I believe.
37:02
Speaker 1: In the UK.
37:02
Speaker 2: In the UK.
37:03
Speaker 1: And in the US.
37:04
Speaker 2: March next year. I'm curious, and as these interviews, I
37:08
Speaker 2: listened to your interview recently with, and I subscribed to it,
37:13
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to remember now which one. Yes, word
37:16
Speaker 2: in your ear. I'm sorry, word in your ear. As
37:18
Speaker 2: people listen to these interviews that you do and read
37:20
Speaker 2: the book, I'm curious as to the numbers of streams
37:24
Speaker 2: and people that even purchase it. I think that would
37:27
Speaker 2: make you happy to see people at least give it
37:29
Speaker 2: a chance.
37:31
Speaker 1: I would be very, very happy because I think... You know,
37:35
Speaker 1: a guy called Aidan Levy, who wrote a very good
37:38
Speaker 1: biography of Lou Reed, and one I think of Pharaoh
37:42
Speaker 1: Sanders or Sonny Rollins, I can't remember which, very kindly
37:46
Speaker 1: gave me a blurb for my book, who said that
37:49
Speaker 1: it's kind of up there with Finnegan's Wake as a
37:51
Speaker 1: work of art, Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, you know, and people
37:55
Speaker 1: have compared it to Jackson Pollock. You know, it's a
37:59
Speaker 1: serious work of art, you know, and I think people
38:07
Speaker 1: should at least listen to it once and at least
38:10
Speaker 1: take it seriously. And I think also that at a
38:14
Speaker 1: time when rock and roll is repeating itself so much,
38:20
Speaker 1: when it's very hard to think of rock and roll
38:25
Speaker 1: bands who are doing something different and new, it's not
38:29
Speaker 1: to say they're not great, But they're not taking chances,
38:34
Speaker 1: real chances. You might be able to give me examples,
38:38
Speaker 1: but I can't think of them. To actually say, come on,
38:42
Speaker 1: this is what rock and roll can be. And I
38:46
Speaker 1: use rock and roll advisedly because it's a rock and
38:48
Speaker 1: roll album. It's pure rock and roll. And as I
38:53
Speaker 1: say in the book, it started me back on going
38:57
Speaker 1: into record stores kind of all over the world. looking
39:01
Speaker 1: at noise records, listening to stuff that really challenges me.
39:06
Speaker 1: And I'm 65. And I feel about rock and roll
39:11
Speaker 1: music the way I felt when I was 11.
39:13
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting? And it helped to, for you personally,
39:17
Speaker 2: confront years of personal anger. You write about that in
39:21
Speaker 2: the afterword. What did this album give you that maybe
39:24
Speaker 2: conventional music couldn't in that sense?
39:27
Speaker 1: It gave me a soundscape. and it gave me a space.
39:32
Speaker 1: And I think it worked on me in a way that,
39:38
Speaker 1: you know, there's all this stuff about brain waves and
39:42
Speaker 1: different frequencies affecting your brain in different ways. And I've
39:45
Speaker 1: done a lot of meditation and all that kind of thing.
39:47
Speaker 1: And I know that it works. And I think it's
39:51
Speaker 1: pitched at a certain level that it creates a space
39:56
Speaker 1: where you can contemplate yourself and your emotions. And I
40:01
Speaker 1: think it also releases. Lou was notoriously a very, very
40:08
Speaker 1: angry person. One description of that album calls it a
40:13
Speaker 1: howl of rage. I don't know if that's right or not.
40:17
Speaker 1: It sounds good, but I don't know if it's right.
40:19
Speaker 1: But for me, it liberated me to express a lot
40:23
Speaker 1: of accumulated anger that ordinary human beings have. But, you know,
40:29
Speaker 1: I'm a middle-class Englishman of a certain age taught to
40:32
Speaker 1: repress anger.
40:34
Speaker 2: I think, again, people should be open-minded, listen to it.
40:38
Speaker 2: It's now, especially nowadays, where you can at least access
40:40
Speaker 2: it without, you got Spotify, you can listen to it.
40:43
Speaker 2: I think it's on YouTube, I'm assuming.
40:45
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube, but it's not a great version. But
40:50
Speaker 1: the version on Spotify is very good. And I think
40:53
Speaker 1: now with Spotify, you know, with all of the material
40:56
Speaker 1: we have, there's criticisms of Spotify about compression and things
40:59
Speaker 1: like that. But if you've got a good system that
41:02
Speaker 1: you're playing it back through, I listened to it. When
41:05
Speaker 1: I listened to it in the recording studio, you know,
41:07
Speaker 1: state-of-the-art recording studio, I listened to it on Spotify. And
41:11
Speaker 1: it was extremely powerful.
41:13
Speaker 2: Right. I listened to it on Spotify as well. And
41:16
Speaker 2: this is the reason why I love books on rock
41:19
Speaker 2: and roll this is the type of topic of course
41:21
Speaker 2: it's fascinating to read about albums that are commercially successful
41:27
Speaker 2: popular of course but this type of story is fascinating
41:32
Speaker 2: you know what what inspired somebody to make an album
41:37
Speaker 2: like this it comes out november 19 in the uk
41:40
Speaker 2: like you say and then i'm looking here on amazon
41:42
Speaker 2: march 2nd in the u.s so people can pre-order it
41:46
Speaker 2: if they want for the U S but if you
41:49
Speaker 2: live in the UK, you can pick up a copy
41:51
Speaker 2: very soon. It's coming out on the 19th. You gotta
41:54
Speaker 2: be excited.
41:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm, I'm thrilled because it's kind of, it was
41:57
Speaker 1: a labor of love. Sure. You know, it was finished
42:00
Speaker 1: before I got an agent and a publisher or two publishers.
42:03
Speaker 1: My agent's fantastic. Got me two publishers very quickly. Um,
42:07
Speaker 1: at the start of this year, you know, so I
42:10
Speaker 1: was writing it because I was obsessed with it and
42:13
Speaker 1: it's my first music book, you know, um, And so
42:18
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely thrilled. And the first review, people like you
42:23
Speaker 1: have been very, very kind, which I really appreciate. The
42:25
Speaker 1: first review was a very good review in the English
42:28
Speaker 1: Record Collector magazine. You know, other reviews might not be
42:32
Speaker 1: so complimentary, but I saw myself as opening up a debate.
42:41
Speaker 1: You know, I would love it if people found things
42:44
Speaker 1: that I didn't find. You know, there's a kind of,
42:48
Speaker 1: that there was a level of Lou Reed. I mean,
42:50
Speaker 1: scholarship is, it sounds a very pretentious word to apply
42:53
Speaker 1: to rock and roll music, but you know, you look
42:56
Speaker 1: at the industry of Dylan books, the industry of Bowie books,
42:59
Speaker 1: the industry of Beatles books. There are 10 biographies of
43:03
Speaker 1: Lou Reed. We've got enough biographies of Lou Reed. They're good,
43:07
Speaker 1: but we should be ushering in an era of Lou
43:11
Speaker 1: Reed scholarship where people look at metal machine music. They
43:15
Speaker 1: look at specific aspects of, and periods of his career
43:20
Speaker 1: and say, what was he doing? What was going on? And,
43:24
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very, in the book, I go into
43:27
Speaker 1: technology and I'm not a technical person at all. But
43:32
Speaker 1: Lou Reed was treated very unfairly by journalists in his
43:36
Speaker 1: lifetime who found his discussions of technology unbelievably boring. And
43:43
Speaker 1: it's true, I think, that he would wind up journalists
43:46
Speaker 1: by talking for hours about the kind of microphones he used.
43:50
Speaker 1: But he's the kind of artist where the amp he used,
43:55
Speaker 1: the pedals he used, the microphone he used, the sound
43:58
Speaker 1: of his albums, it was all very, very important. And,
44:03
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how many Lou Reed albums
44:06
Speaker 1: you've listened to, how steeped you are in Lou Reed,
44:09
Speaker 1: but even if they're throwaway, musically and lyrically, they always
44:13
Speaker 1: sound great.
44:15
Speaker 2: I've been listening more and more of his work, but
44:17
Speaker 2: I can't say I've listened to his complete body of work,
44:20
Speaker 2: which is actually exciting for me because now it's something
44:23
Speaker 2: I can tackle and get into. Yeah.
44:26
Speaker 1: Whereas someone like me who's listened to it for more
44:29
Speaker 1: than 50 years, why it was a blessing to get
44:33
Speaker 1: so deeply into metal machine music. I'd listen to the
44:35
Speaker 1: lyrical stuff so much that you know what it's like
44:39
Speaker 1: with an album. You get so that you love it
44:41
Speaker 1: with all your heart. But you don't need to listen
44:43
Speaker 1: to it because you've heard it so many times. And
44:47
Speaker 1: with the lyrics, yeah, there are nuances in the lyrics
44:51
Speaker 1: that you pick out. And every time you hear a
44:53
Speaker 1: great Lou Reed lyric, you notice something different. But to
44:58
Speaker 1: listen to a piece of work where there are no
45:00
Speaker 1: lyrics and you're kind of in strange territory is extraordinarily exciting,
45:09
Speaker 1: I think.
45:10
Speaker 2: Can people reach you online, David?
45:14
Speaker 1: Through my publisher um i i would i would like
45:18
Speaker 1: it if people read the book first i mean you
45:20
Speaker 1: reference word in your ear and there's also a classic
45:24
Speaker 1: album uh i come on it's classic classic album something
45:28
Speaker 1: or other i did two podcasts they're both great and
45:31
Speaker 1: i the like yourself the people were fantastic because they
45:35
Speaker 1: completely put put me at my ease it was having
45:37
Speaker 1: a conversation with another fan really which for those of
45:40
Speaker 1: us that love rock and roll, is just about as
45:42
Speaker 1: good as it gets. But the comments, and I don't
45:46
Speaker 1: blame people because they hadn't read the book, and in
45:50
Speaker 1: the US they couldn't, they can't read the book, were
45:54
Speaker 1: trotting out, in some instances, the same old myths and
45:58
Speaker 1: the same old objections to the book. Because, of course,
46:02
Speaker 1: they haven't read the depth of my research and they
46:06
Speaker 1: haven't read that the claims I make are backed up
46:11
Speaker 1: And so there's a fair element of don't be so stupid.
46:14
Speaker 1: It's terrible. Or it was only to piss off RCA,
46:18
Speaker 1: you know, which is missing the point about my book
46:22
Speaker 1: pretty considerably. But like I say, I don't blame people
46:25
Speaker 1: because they haven't read the book. Yeah. As much as
46:28
Speaker 1: you love Dylan, for example, you know, the people who
46:31
Speaker 1: are compared to Dylan or Bowie, maybe Neil Young, Leonard Cohen.
46:38
Speaker 1: I can't think of them anymore. being as interested in
46:42
Speaker 1: sound that that that's it for me not just taking
46:46
Speaker 1: a risk but really being i don't know enough about
46:49
Speaker 1: dylan to know whether he's really into the sonics of
46:52
Speaker 1: of his albums all in a cone really bowie made
46:56
Speaker 1: low in 77 but you know he he had a
46:59
Speaker 1: chart here there were songs with lyrics um short snappy
47:04
Speaker 1: pop songs on that album as well as drone and
47:07
Speaker 1: ambient sounding.
47:08
Speaker 2: Stuff He's an, he was an enigma. I know at
47:12
Speaker 2: the radio station that I worked at, this is before
47:14
Speaker 2: my time, but one of the jocks there told me about,
47:16
Speaker 2: he came in to do an interview one morning and
47:18
Speaker 2: it was just one word answers. And then between commercials,
47:21
Speaker 2: the DJ was like, look, man, if you don't want
47:22
Speaker 2: to be here. And he's like, I really don't. He's like, well,
47:27
Speaker 2: then you can go. And Lou Reed's like, all right,
47:29
Speaker 2: see ya. And he got up and left. I mean,
47:30
Speaker 2: that is Lou Reed. That's him.
47:34
Speaker 1: It is. But I think that he's a bit like
47:37
Speaker 1: a kind of wrestling heel. You know, the bad guy.
47:41
Speaker 1: Was it David Hepworth who spoke to a Mark Ellen?
47:44
Speaker 2: Oh, yes. David Hepworth. Thank you. David I had on
47:46
Speaker 2: the show was just amazing. And it was such a
47:49
Speaker 2: great episode. Yeah, I had David on.
47:51
Speaker 1: It was fantastic. But Mark interviewed him on, Mark interviewed
47:55
Speaker 1: Lou Reed on British television on a show called The
47:57
Speaker 1: Old Grey Whistle to the Best. And he said, before
48:02
Speaker 1: the interview started, Lou was amiable, chatty, easygoing. And then
48:08
Speaker 1: the minute the camera started rolling and Mark started interviewing,
48:11
Speaker 1: the one-word answers came out and he made Mark feel
48:15
Speaker 1: so unbearably uncomfortable. He wanted the ground to open up
48:17
Speaker 1: and swallow him. And I think he was doing that
48:20
Speaker 1: to say, okay, you know, I'm going to make memorable interviews.
48:24
Speaker 1: I mean, he was very influenced by Andy Warhol in
48:26
Speaker 1: that respect. And I think he... had a chip on
48:32
Speaker 1: his shoulder about journalism because he was not a very
48:35
Speaker 1: good journalist when he tried and he'd studied journalism. But
48:39
Speaker 1: I think that he created a persona and he stuck
48:45
Speaker 1: to it. And sometimes it was real, sometimes it wasn't.
48:49
Speaker 1: The amount of stories you read about people who, when
48:52
Speaker 1: he relaxed, he opened up to them and was kind
48:57
Speaker 1: of amiable. And there's so many stories in my book
49:00
Speaker 1: of Lou as a really nice guy, a really thoughtful, kind,
49:05
Speaker 1: thoughtful guy. Yeah.
49:07
Speaker 2: I think once the narrative is set, you can't really–
49:11
Speaker 2: either you run with it or you're fighting against it
49:15
Speaker 2: for the rest of your career and life.
49:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, especially when it's a business built
49:20
Speaker 1: on image. Yeah. And, you know, how many of them
49:25
Speaker 1: that you can think of really do break their image? And,
49:31
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, there's a story. I live part
49:34
Speaker 1: of the year in Spain and Lou came over to
49:36
Speaker 1: play with the Metal Machine Trio. And when he had
49:40
Speaker 1: his photography exhibition and a friend of mine was his
49:43
Speaker 1: driver and Lou stayed in a hotel and he got sunburned.
49:47
Speaker 1: And he was, my friend picked him up, the driver,
49:50
Speaker 1: and he was sunburned with like floral Bermuda shorts on.
49:55
Speaker 1: And you think Lou Reed, the guy that only ever
49:58
Speaker 1: appears dressed in leather from head to foot, never sees
50:01
Speaker 1: the sun, you know? And of course he was a
50:04
Speaker 1: human being who loved the ocean. It's like everybody else.
50:08
Speaker 1: but he'd made this image for himself. You know, another
50:12
Speaker 1: friend of mine said he could never trust Lou Reed
50:15
Speaker 1: after he saw Lou Reed playing wearing shoes and not
50:18
Speaker 1: motorcycle boots. You know, we have this idea of Lou Reed,
50:24
Speaker 1: the rock and roll animal, the leather guy, the miserable, surly,
50:28
Speaker 1: aggressive guy. And he was infinitely more than that, but
50:32
Speaker 1: he created that persona.
50:36
Speaker 2: Schaffner Press, right? Is that where people should go?
50:39
Speaker 1: It's Schaffner Press for the American version, yeah.
50:41
Speaker 2: I can put the link to Schaffner Press up there.
50:43
Speaker 2: Any others?
50:44
Speaker 1: Please do, yeah. Speak to Jawbone. Speak to Schaffner. I've
50:48
Speaker 1: got a website, but it's under construction at the moment.
50:52
Speaker 1: But if you speak to them, that's the way to
50:55
Speaker 1: do it. And I'll be doing more interviews for the U.S.
51:00
Speaker 1: as well.
51:00
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm looking forward to that.
51:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of them I did for the Philosophical
51:05
Speaker 1: Research Society in Los Angeles. And some people who were listening,
51:09
Speaker 1: it was one of those ones where they could contribute
51:12
Speaker 1: questions and observations. And it's great because people get really,
51:15
Speaker 1: really into it.
51:16
Speaker 2: David Holzer, thank you for coming on this show.
51:19
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Eric. And thank you. And thanks for a
51:23
Speaker 1: great hour of my life or whatever it's been. I've really, really,
51:26
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it. And I really appreciate that you took
51:28
Speaker 1: the time and the trouble to actually read the book
51:31
Speaker 1: from start to finish. It's much appreciated.
51:42
Speaker 2: That's it.
51:43
Speaker 1: It's in the books.