Hell in Queens, The Last Hours of Lou Reed

Would you follow Lou Reed if he hadn't been in VU? As a lyricist Lou reached a new level post-1988. I think he's a better songwriter in this post-1988 period than he was in the sixties. Musically his 70's stuff somehow falters because he stopped playing lead guitar, and he suffered creatively by drinking too much. But once he gave up the booze and took up the guitar again everything was back on track for one of the greatest songwriters on the century. I say give 'How Do You Think It Feels?' a go in the Animal Serenade album and you'll know exactly what the VU would've sounded like had they stayed together through to the 2000's. —Post by Wick Pick » 28 Jan 2018

LOU REED: You know, when you say, “us and them mentality,” it was no joke, and it was every last centimeter with those people. DAVID FRICKE: You generally felt like you were outcasts. LOU REED: No that we were such outcasts. I'm just a songwriter but they were very stupid. I’ve always hated businesspeople. DAVID FRICKE: White Light/White Heat was considerated aggressive sound. LOU REED: It’s aggressive, yes. But it’s not aggressive-bad. —Interview to Lou Reed by David Fricke (December 8, 2009), New York Public Library

Rock icon Lou Reed was treated extensively with the drug Interferon before his death, a top American pathologist has revealed. However, contrary to music industry gossip, the rock star was not HIV-positive, according to Dr Michael Hunter. Instead, he was taking the drug to try to combat the liver disease Hepatitis C, which he contracted from dirty needles while injecting heroin early in his career. Dr Hunter is set to present his findings in a new episode of television documentary series Autopsy: The Last Hours of Lou Reed, which broadcasts in America, before being shown in the UK later this year, the Sunday Express reported. According to Dr Hunter, Reed had also hid a dark secret from his teenage years, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he underwent controversial electroshock therapy. Reed was given electroshock therapy aged just 17 because of mental illness - at New York psychiatric hospital described as 'Hell in Queens'. Lou’s sister explained that their “blazing liberal” parents were simply acting on poor advice from a doctor, who’d told them extreme measures might improve his “depressed, weird, anxious, and avoidant” nature. There is also a picture from Reed’s high school yearbook, which ran with the caption “Tall, dark-haired Lou likes basketball, music, and naturally, girls.”

As well as injecting heroin, Reed drank alcohol, chain smoked and was hooked on amphetamines, a potent nerve stimulant. To bring himself down, he took the prescription drug Thorazine. Dr Hunter said: 'The combined effect of this cocktail of uppers and downers would have caused a build-up of toxicity in Lou's liver.' But most significant of all was Reed's Hepatitis C and Dr Hunter said: 'Lou's medical records show that as far back as the early 1960s he was treated for hepatitis. What we know now is that over time, hepatitis C destroys liver tissue, causing scarring and creating the right conditions for cancer.' Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

“All the books about me are bullshit,” Lou Reed once said, when asked about Victor Bockris' biography. In a breezy tone, Reed’s first wife Bettye Kronstad writes of the five-year period, 1968-1973, between the end of the Velvet Underground and Reed’s third solo album Berlin. Kronstad makes an effort in Perfect Day to contextualize what’s happening with their personal life with the goings-on of Reed’s career. But at its most interesting and tragic, this book serves to inject the well-worn myths of Lou Reed the legend with humanity, and offers an insider’s perspective to Reed’s losses of personal control, his fears and anxieties, particularly during the Transformer era. The Velvet Underground have influenced artists of every stripe including filmmakers and one in particular, Todd Haynes, who signed up to direct a documentary about the pivotal group. Much like David Bowie and Iggy Pop themselves, “Velvet Goldmine” is heavily indebted to The Velvet Underground and everything they spawned. Elements of Lou Reed’s upbringing are used in the Iggy Pop character played by Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Bowie/Marc Bolan composite has a lot of Eno in him and Meyers’ band in the movie is called Venus in Furs, named after a momentous Velvet Underground song. In short, everything that influenced “Velvet Goldmine,” was essentially influenced by everything the VU wrought beforehand.

The announcement of Haynes' documentary was made official and perhaps more importantly, the doc is being made with the participation of Polygram Entertainment and Verve Label Group, the record labels that control The Velvet Underground’s music. So, there should be no shortage of music, behind the scenes footage and perhaps rare gems that have barely been seen or discovered. Look, everything I really love in music is kind of a six degrees of VU separation; almost all roads always lead back to Reed and co’s group. According to Deadline, the doc will “trace multiple threads leading to the band’s formation and their impact on music and global culture” and so it’ll be interesting, at least for VU dead heads, to see how much Haynes’ doc starts before the formation of the group and the period that pre-dates Andy Warhol and their first record. Additionally, and very critically, the doc has received the support of the very-selective John Cale and Laurie Anderson, the artist and partner of the Velvet’s late Lou Reed. Source: theplaylist.net