Lou Reed – PopWars

November 23, 2013August 14, 2019

Dreamin’

Marquee at Skylark Lounge in Rochester, New York

Nod stole the night at the Lou Reed tribute with their cover of “Run, Run, Run.” The trio, with Hugh Edwards on bass replacing Tim Poland for the night, tore it up.

Margaret Explosion rehearsed, via email, the last minute addition of “The Day John Kennedy Died,” the ACC version not Lou’s. We banged out a three song set, “Dreamin’,” “JFK” and “What Goes On,” and then backed D&C music critic, Jeff Spevak, on his version of “The Gift.” Hoping to get some good press for that.

We saw today as our last chance to get the leaves out of our backyard before the snow flew. Our neighbor has a leaf mulcher and plenty of space to pile up a mound of mulch so we raked the piles onto a tarp and hauled the tarp up to the road so he could do his thing with them. The payback comes once the leaves have decomposed when we bring our wheelbarrow down to his place for a load of rich black top soil.

Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby are back in town but this gig is a private one, tonight at Artisan Works. It’s a wedding reception of sorts for someone we don’t know so we’ll miss it.

I’m looking forward to the dark winter months. Time to get get caught up with all my silly projects.

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October 29, 2013August 15, 2019

Magic & Loss

I bought the banana album at Midtown Records. It had just come out and Tom Campbell and I were ogling the package. The purchase was made strictly on the basis of that cover. We peeled the banana right there in the mall. I had no idea what I was in for once I got home with the lp. It spooked me and attracted me at the same time. Little did I know at the time but this record had every essential ingredient of a masterpiece.

Still in mourning for Lou but these videos helped.

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August 6, 2011August 20, 2019

Purple Heart

I thought yesterday’s 4 Season’s post on “So Many Records, So Little Time” was cool but today’s was a sensation. Kevin posted Margaret Explosion’s “Purple Heart” What a way to start the day.

We took a long bike ride in the direction of Irondequoit Bay and wandered around in the dreamy little neighborhoods that overlook the bay. We stopped at a few garage sales and rode down streets with “No Outlet” signs on them. Perfect Day so far.

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December 14, 2009August 23, 2019

You Are The Figure

Duane had parked his car under a tree in Brooklyn (imagine that) and apparently pigeons like that tree so his car was covered with bird do do when we woke up. Fortunately he lives around the corner from Hollywood Lube & Wash, a 24 hour joint, so we took the car over and had them give it a bath. Chores attended to, we walked to the Ft. Hamilton subway stop and rode into lower Manhattan to gallery hop in Chelsea.

We spotted Bill Viola’s name on the door of a building on 26th Street and popped into a series of dark rooms filled with his l”Bodies of Light” videos. Our next stop was the David Hockney show of big bold paintings at Pace Wildenstein on 25th Street. There was a quote from Hockney on the wall that read, “I have taken to thinking of these recent canvases as figure paintings . . . you, the viewer, are the figure in them. If I was the figure in these paintings I would leave.

We continued to wander and found all sorts of fun stuff like the Warhol Polaroids of sports figures and a beautiful Bruce Davidson photo show. Before leaving Rochester, Brian Peterson had recommended a show by “Wallace Berman”, a friend of his Brian’s from his San Francisco days, so we tracked that show down. As luck would have it John Zorn, who had recorded a sound track to Berman’s 8 mm films was performing live in the gallery with Trevor Dunn bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The loose limbed Wollensen played with Bill Frisell at last years Jazz Fest. The film was projected on one of the gallery’s walls and the band set up facing the wall so they could play to the film. NY’s first couple, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, were seated in the front row.

We stopped at a green grocers on the way back and picked up a few things for as Duane termed it a “more hippy than Chinese” vegetable dish at Duane’s table and watched Duane’s and Howard Thompson‘s Suicide footage from Detich Galley in 02/02/02.

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October 11, 2009August 23, 2019

You Can’t Reheat A Soufflé

I could have put on the Velvet Underground box set that I bought, ripped and then filed away but I was still diggin my new turntable so I reached for the “The Velvet Underground & Nico” lp which I noticed is only labeled “Andy Warhol” on the front of the album. And then there is that tiny type up top that says, “Peel Slowly And See”. My copy has the upside down Billy Name photo on the back but it’s beat to hell and the banana skin is missing. I put it on and played the Dean & Britta Warhol Screen Test dvd without the sound. The scratchy VU vinyl sounded fantastic and then ultra-fantastic when Nico’s screen test came on.

Our Friday night was just beginning though. We hopped in the car to ride over to the Village Gate where Cuong Vu was playing with Rochester’s Ted Poor on drums. On the way the Velvets came on the ipod and transported us. Cuong had two bass players and all sorts of knob twisting (see photo above). They were too loud for the space and a little too muscular when stacked against the Velvets but they sounded great once we were inside the record store. They reminded me of those early jazz rock combos like Tony Williams Lifetime and John McLaughlin’s Devotion.

Antony appearing in Lou Reed's Berlin — Antony appearing in Lou Reed’s Berlin

Back home we put our latest Netflix selection on, “Lou Reed’s Berlin”. Lou’s guitar sounded amazing and there were some brilliant moments but Berlin was a pretty dreary lp the first time around and this monstrous production couldn’t disguise that. The Schnabel footage of models in heat was pure crap and the backup singer stole the show.

We cued up the extras a watched Elvis Costell interview Lou and Schnabel. Schnabel wouldn’t let Lou talk and when he declared that he and Lou were best friends we thought we saw Lou wince.

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December 24, 2007August 30, 2019

Metal Machine Christmas

We knocked off a quote for a website for a dance troupe in Detroit this morning. We had promised it last week but we never got to it. Peggi put the turkey in the oven and then headed out to pick up her mom. I watched for the little pecker to pop out. It’s a free range turkey that never ate meat. The label says it has 70% less fat. I don’t think of turkey as having much fat to begin with. We bought it at Palermo’s Italian Market on Culver.

Duane stopped by and helped me shoot a new batch of paintings. He works for Lowel Light in Brooklyn and he set up four Tota lights, balanced the white point and set up a manual exposure with his Sony Cybershot V3. They came out pretty good but it will take me a bit to crop them and adjust the levels. When work was done we kicked back with a dvd of a 2002 live performance of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. I have an 8-track of that thing out in the garage that I want to put on eBay some day. Peggi walked in with her mom. My brother and his family are in town from New Jersey and they are headed over here for dinner. My parents will be here too, so with Duane that will be eleven. We put the extra leaf in the table.

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