Lou Reed's last interview (very beautiful and deep)

I rank Lou Reed as a very important American Poet. I am unsure if Americans realize this, but your history is being made, just like Britain's was. These guys are your Shelleys, your Keats' and your Byrons. This is your now time. They are reflecting and at the same time moulding culturally. That is the purpose of all true art. They have taken poetry back to the music and back to oration. That is where it belongs again. Guys like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Lou have done this. They have taken poetry back to the common people, you and I, and made it relevant and accessible to us. It is worth overcoming certain prejudices and getting to know these dudes because they have vital intel for you. They did for me. It is a tradition we should continue, big time. We pay the price of prejudice and end up more ignorant than those we persecute and then they conquer us. That is the justice and "reap what you sow" of evolution. That is why I do not practice prejudice of any kind because I know I would be the one to be left looking like the biggest fool if I did do that with my short and precious, too good to waste LIFE. Penny Wise knows all about this. Perhaps prejudice is a technique evolution uses to get rid of its trash?

Lou has taught me a lot, especially later in life. It is now I am understanding Lou better than at any point previously. He is stripped down to his real self now for me because I have the experience to appreciate him. He sure looks #ing gorgeous to my eyes.

In this interview Lou tells us about sound. Any musicians out there LISTEN carefully to what Lou is telling you about your art. It will help; about bass particularly. I agree with Lou on all points he is making. I am a guitarist just like him. I spend most of my time with my acoustic, luckily a nice vibrant and bassy Gibson, but I have to get my KICKS making electronic music, too, where I can get way deep; "Way Down"!

Lou is right, too, about digital music. For a time it was a bit rubbish in sound quality, but now it has well taken over vinyl. Lou embraced the new age of digital and remastered all his albums before he died. He says that he cried when he heard them afresh. I agree totally with Lou. I shall not be joining this atavism of vinyl. It is for people who are stuck in the past like a needle on a worn out tune, polluting the world with plastic. It can't compete. Code is universal. Code could be beamed across the Milky Way and beyond. Vinyls can't be beamed much further than the garbage heap, all scratched up, just a few miles away and years down the line. It is WARPED logic like SCRATCHING your head.

All the artists that con you into vinyl really are doing it because they are wanting to make lots of cash and wanting to maintain their privilege over the rest of us, obviously because it can't be pirated very easily and can be MARKET CONTROLLED. They are the ENEMIES of real music for the people. They are elitists, stars who have fallen back down to earth like Lucifer, raging at their loss of stardom and glory, knowing their time is short. That is not music. That was killing music and monopolizing it. Look how crazily it has evolved since the advent of the digital dimension. It has spread out into a huge diversity of styles and ideas, market wise the home studio industry is booming and is making a lot more money than a few silly bits of plastic ever did. It is more egalitarian and resource shared than it has ever been in the whole history of humanity because of the DIGITAL AGE.

They charge a ridiculous amount for vinyl, too. I am not greedy about music. I don't mind anybody having my music for free because I do not do it for money. I do it for the LOVE of doing it, just like Lou. I am now just over fifty and my voice is better than ever. For some reason my voice improves with age and has not deteriorated. I learn new techniques all of the time. I am influenced by girl and guy singers. It is a great thing to have as an interest. I sit here alone with my SOUND. It is all I need.

Love and bless Lou and his memory. He has given me so much, especially of late. Listen to him carefully. A good entrance to his music is perhaps his "New York" album. It is very mature and down to earth, showing what rock can do when pushed to the limits of expression.

I could rattle and hum on about him ad infinitum so I better stop here.

Interview:



Track from New York album:



Trump is no "Strawman". He is not bought and sold. He is his own man and his country's, too. Contrary to opinion, neither is he prejudiced. Trump likes Jews as he demonstrated by his choice of lawyer, his friendship with the Israeli Prime Minister, having a Jewish son in law and letting Israel have Jerusalem as its capital witnessed by America. Like Lou, I sleep with my Gibson guitar. I sleep on top of it, lol, like Heathcliff did on Kathy's coffin in the Church yard. I have named it Amy.



Sorry to challenge your brains, but you are going to have lots more of it. It is wrong and evil to do what you do and you will be the ones to look like the most ignorant, disempowered low life in Creation, not I. I grow more intellectually powerful every minute of every day. I will scare you more and more with it.

Please bring some life back you dreary lot! You need to be dug up like Cathy's corpse to breathe some life back into you. The West has all the imagination of Mr. Gradgrind in Coketown right now. You need taunting out of it. Artists like Lou do that. They taunt us out of our ignorance. I am a great appreciator of taunting art.

Did you know that the two prophets who visit humanity just before Armageddon will "torment" the nations? Christ torments humanity and does not give people an easy ride even slightly. He was not the easy going liberal type, lol. Why do you think God has used the device of torment with prophets? I believe it is that you have to poke and prod humans into thinking and feeling sometimes.

All my knowledge has been gained from teachers who have tormented me. They did not give me an easy ride. They challenged me and made me think and grow.

The dudes amoung the very, very, very few creative originals who manage to actualize their souls into an art.

Lou makes Dylan seem like a poser.

Great thread, Revolution9. Lou was a genius. I read an interview with him when I was about 16 years old that was a game changer for me. He did not care one iota what anyone thought of him or his music. He took chances. He despised most interviewers and critics. He said it was a tragedy that critics could make or break artists. He had a scholar's grasp on the literary theme.

Another good interview. Many of the comments are from people who actually knew what Lou was like.

a reply to: Revolution9

Lou Reed is quite an inspiration for me. Some of his music speaks on such a deeper level. Truly a legend.

Two of my faves: