Review of The Signal and the Noise
In Science magazine, Ben Campbell and I have a review of Nate Silver’s book, The Signal and the Noise. Briefly…it was good for people wh...
Lou Reed, 1942-2013: Shut the door!
The Velvet Underground was one of the first really interesting bands I listened to. They are simple, but amazing. I learned about them around 1982 in an interview with R.E.M., who revered them. Also, my house at Caltech had a rock band composed entirely of physics majors, who only did V.U. covers. This was within their skill set.
Founder Lou Reed was a monument. He had a liver transplant in May. Today the news comes that he has died. He leaves behind the equally interesting performance artist and composer Laurie Anderson, who he married in 2008.
You may know other songs. Here is one I liked quite a lot, partly because of the background chatter. Shut the door!
Update: the embedded ad is for “Weaning off Percocet.” That’s perfect.
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My favourite VU song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzaifhSw2c
(Reed’s lyrics, referencing Von Sacher-Masoch; the drone–which makes this song so interesting musically–is clearly Cale’s work, though).
vicious you hit me with a flower, you do it every hour. baby you’re so vicous
i remember my hall mate in the dorms playing the above song over and over. simple chords, amazing lyrics.
Sam,
You got it right! Reed was a visionary poet and a great entertainer.
The performed songs rarely mimicked the vinyl. It was the timing, stance, and ‘attitude’ that evolved. Saw him 7 or 8 times in the at the Paradise in Boston and he never disappointed.
The good news is that he lives on through our children. I heard my 17-year old son listening to ‘Sunday Morning’ the day he died.
I loved his incredibly angry late 80s solo album “New York.”
Ugh, now I have this urge to hear Mrs. Miller singing VU hits.
There’re going to be people around enjoying his music for quite a while.