rambling thoughts - sweet jane

I had the ipod on shuffle this morning and after a couple of very pretty but very noodly Michael Brook instrumentals I was suddenly blasted with “Sweet Jane” – the original from Loaded.

 

After years of hearing umpteen Lou Reed live versions of varying quality (surely this must be the song that Lou Reed played live more than any other?), it’s wonderful to be reminded of how damn good the original actually is. And this was the ‘proper’ mix that was put out in 1970 - recent issues of Loaded have of course restored the ‘heavenly wine and roses’ section – Lou was allegedly furious when this was edited out without his permission, though I think it was the right decision to lose that bit, as it makes the song so much punchier.

And what a song – Lou actually sings pretty well, that twinkling intro is delightful (although it was apparently nicked from another, unused, song), That Riff is just brilliant, and the whole thing is given a bright commercial shine by the producers that Lou claimed to despise so much. Quite reasonably, the rest of the Velvets were extremely happy with Loaded, with Sterling and Doug both on record as saying that the VU had never sounded better and that it was only Mr Grumpy Reed who had any issue with it. And it does sound good - it's clearly miles away from the seedy grime of the first couple of VU albums, but the brighter, more positive sound of Loaded really works so well. The Velvets still sound like a band from the New York streets, and they have not been turned into, in any sense, a clean cut pop band, but it's genuinely good to hear the Velvets so clearly and so well produced.

 

There's a (surprisingly for the VU) hopeful and upbeat sound to the whole song. The lyrics are terrific too - one of the best of Lou's vignettes, the characters of Jack and Jane are finely and swiftly sketched - one's in a corset, the other in a vest, you figure out which is which... they are saving their money, sittin' there by the fire, the radio playing, and you can hear Jack say...

 

"Sweet Jane... oh.... whoaaa" 

 

It's such a perfect chorus. Positively joyful, a shout out of hope and love. For all his contrary ways, and his professed love of the avant garde, Lou Reed was rarely better than when he wrote straightforward, simple, catchy rock and roll songs. And "Sweet Jane" is one of the best there is, from anyone.

 

 

legendary gigs - bataclan 1972

There are some gigs that have attained legendary status, and not always for musical reasons. The final Ziggy Stardust gig, the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club etc etc. Shows that are frequently talked about, written about, and are thus given a reputation that perhaps they don't always deserve.

 

In January 1972, Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico gave a joint performance at the Bataclan club in Paris. At the time none of these musicians were terribly well known, especially in Europe, and it's only with hindsight that this partial reunion of the Velvet Underground has gathered almost mythical status.

 

Oddly no-one seems very sure as to why this gig actually happened. It was Lou's first live performance since he left the Velvets at Max's Kansas City in the summer of 1970. And it was John Cale's first performance since he'd left the Velvets two years before that! 

 

With Lou sporting a big afro and playing acoustic guitar, John on viola, piano or 12 string acoustic, and Nico on her trusty harmonium, someone had the sense to film this show (though I've never seen the footage), and the audio has been bootlegged for years before a semi official release about 10 years ago.

 

Trouble is, the semi official CD runs too slow. Way too slow. Some time ago I created my own corrected version by increasing the speed by about 10%. Now it's a decent listen. The slow CD sounded like all three were doped up to the eyeballs - and while that was quite possibly the case, even Nico never normally sounded quite that sllllooowww…

 

The show opens with just Lou and John on a sprightly "Waiting For The Man" with John playing a rather jaunty piano. He stays at the piano for the first ever performance of "Berlin", which Lou would record later that spring for his first solo album. Then we get "The Black Angel's Death Song", not as scary as the original, a bit slower too, but the required scratchy, maddening viola is well to the front. "Wild Child" follows, another premiere, with both Lou and John on guitars.  Then "Heroin" - the viola is back, droning menacingly throughout the song, just as it should be. A really good version. 

 

Then it's John's turn to take centre stage. "Ghost Story" is a cracking song, and this solo performance is excellent. Then two oddities "The Biggest Loudest Hairiest Group Of All" is a funny look at the misfortunes of a rock band, quite possibly the VU… Cale rarely does strum along folky songs but that's basically what this is. The audience even claps along good-naturedly - you never got that happening at VU shows! Then "Empty Bottles" which he wrote for Jennifer Warnes. A nice Paris 1919 style ballad, but not terribly remarkable. 

 

Finally, here's Nico. The boys strum and sing backing vocals on "Femme Fatale" - lovely performance. Then Lou sits himself down on a stool at the side of the stage to watch Nico at the harmonium while John accompanies on the viola - "Frozen Warnings", "No-One Is There" and a stunning, as always, "Janitor Of Lunacy". They wrap up the show with all three on a delightfully sweet "I'll Be Your Mirror" and an oddly ragged encore of "All Tomorrow's Parties". 

 

It's all very interesting, but overall it's not the most satisfying of gigs. At times it's clearly badly under-rehearsed, and occasionally rather lacklustre. This may be a little surprising considering who's playing, but perhaps not so surprising given that this was the first gig for many years for both Lou and John. It may be a legendary show, that wonderful near Velvets reunion, but as is frequently the case with legends, the truth of the matter is sadly rather less exciting. I've not listened to this gig for a good many years, and I doubt it'll get played again for a good many more. 

 

It's a bit daft really, but I'd never get rid of this recording as it's yet another one of those that I'm really glad I've got. Even if I don't play it much.

white light / white heat - velvet undergound

Well, the new White Light / White Heat remaster. What a noise!

 

As expected, it's a mixed bag. With very little previously unheard material to work with the surprises are few and far between. 

 

I'll start off with the live set from the Gymnasium in April 1967. Most dedicated VU fans will already have this, as it's been bootlegged for years. The sound quality, to these ears, isn't noticeably any different from my existing bootleg, so it's ok sound for 1967, but is still rather harsh. Sadly there are still a number of minor volume fluctuations - these must've been on the original tapes, but it’s odd that these haven't been smoothed out. It's not much, I'll probably do it myself in CoolEdit, so it's a little annoying that they've not been dealt with properly. And the new version also misses out some of the between song tuning and silences, which makes the Velvets sound a little more polished on stage due to the lack of protracted gaps. The only real difference between the boots and the new version is the inclusion of "The Gift", which to my knowledge has never appeared on any of the boots. Sadly, it's just the instrumental, and isn't actually all that interesting on it's own… 

 

The Stereo version of WL/WH sounds, to me, to be the same as the master prepared in the mid 1990s for the Peel Slowly And See set, which is the one used on subsequent issues. To be honest, there's so little to work with in terms of polishing the sound that it must be virtually impossible to make any sonic improvements to the murk and distortion that was laid down in 1967. And to do so, kind of misses the point. But the stereo disc offers some nice surprises towards the end. 

 

The bonus tracks, those remaining Cale-era tracks familiar from Another View and VU in the 1980s are much better than on previous releases. These are all labelled 'original mix' and this confirms what many had long suspected - that the VU and Another View tracks had been quite extensively remixed to prepare them for release back then. You can immediately hear the difference on "Guess I'm Falling In Love". Still only an instrumental, but the version here is now obviously part of the WL/WH sessions, rather than the much cleaner, bouncier mix that we have on Another View. The 80s mix gave it that drum heavy 80s plastic sheen. Not here - it's all scuzzy and sweaty and far more exciting. And how good is that fuzzed up guitar! The differences on the two versions of "Hey Mr Rain" are less obvious, the viola is a bit higher in the mix, and "Temptation Inside Your Heart" sounds pretty much the same as before to me, but "Stephanie Says" is remarkably different. Some of the viola work sounds different and some of the backing vocals are very different, not as sweet, with different lines and harmonies, to the extent that I wonder if the VU version had received some fresh overdubs in 1985? There's an alternative mix of "I Heard Her Call My Name" which has differences in the instrumentation levels, but nothing too significant. It's labelled as a different take, but it's clearly just the same version that we're all used to, albeit with the rhythm track boosted and the skull splitting guitar a little less lethal. Finally we get a 1968 Cale version of "Beginning To See The Light" which is interesting, though it's a bit lacklustre and nowhere near as good as the finished version recorded at the end of the year with Doug Yule. 

 

The Mono disc contains the mono single mixes of the title track and it's b-side "Here She Comes Now", and you'd have to have better ears than mine to identify what makes them different from the mono albums mixes. We have the vocal version and the instrumental version of "The Gift" which are simply the discrete tracks mixed to mono. The story on it's own sounds very strange, and it really misses the music track. But it's good to hear the grinding backing track on it's own (though I had the story running in my head the whole time!). But the album itself in mono is terrific. I really didn't think this would be so good. I like the weird stereo effects on the original album, the way that voices fly in and out, the split on "The Gift" etc etc. But there are vagaries in the mix, and some elements get a bit lost over there or over here. In mono there's none of that. It hits you between the eyes and like Marsha's sheet metal cutter, it goes right through the centre of your head. There's not much in the way of different instrumentation like you sometimes get between stereo / mono mixes. But the sheer power of the band comes through loud and clear - well not that clear, it's a horrible mess of noise, but you know what I mean. The initial rush of the title track has never sounded better. "The Gift" works better than I thought it would too. The vocals on "Lady Godiva" aren't quite as distracting in mono - I seemed to focus more on the music, and what a mesmerizingly dreamlike track it is. "Here She Comes Now" - here's an odd thing. The percussion is much clearer in mono - to be honest I'd never noticed the percussion before - it's there on the stereo mix of course, but I'd never paid it any attention. Here, it's much clearer, and it's very good. Mo was a much better drummer than people ever gave her credit for. Side two though is the absolute bizniz. "I Heard Her Call My Name" is an amazing track anyway, but in mono it seems so much more relentless than ever with That Guitar firing out of the speakers to decimate your ears. In stereo you can hear where it's coming from, in mono there's nowhere to hide, it just attacks you from everywhere, all at the same time. If you look up the word relentless in the dictionary then you ought to be pointed towards "Sister Ray". My goodness, what a song. Again, as with "I Heard Her Call My Name", it's absolutely vicious. The song almost collapses under the strain of  Cale's organ slugging it out with Lou's guitar in sort of Godzilla v King Kong battle to the death. But, astoundingly, "Sister Ray" staggers on to survive 17 solid minutes of distortion and utter hell. The fearsome crackling that underpins much of the music on the this album points to the sheer amount of volume that the band were using, and it genuinely gives the impression that the equipment was actually on fire and burning up! 

 

So, the box set is good, but it's very expensive for just 3 cds, and I wouldn't say it was really worth the money. There is a two disc version, the stereo disc plus the live set - not the mono disc, which in my opinion, is probably the best part. 

 

Finally, some random thoughts about the creation of "The Gift". Stick with me on this and see what you think. Since the very beginning it's been acknowledged that "The Gift" came about when Lou's story was married to an instrumental called "Booker T". All Velvets fans know this. In 1990 John Cale issued the album Paris S'Eveille which contained a track recorded at the Gymnasium in April 1967. This was the first time this tape was known about, and came from Cale's personal archive. All very exciting, except that the track, called "Booker T" by Cale, is clearly not the same tune as on "The Gift". With this new issue of the whole Gymnasium gig we can see for the first time that the show begins and ends with two longish instrumentals. The end track IS clearly the same tune as on "The Gift" and the opening one is the one called "Booker T". But, perhaps, when Cale was preparing Paris S'Eveille he dug out his old tape and used the wrong instrumental - ie: perhaps the track now labelled "The Gift" on the live show was in fact referred to as "Booker T" by the Velvets at the time, and the opening jam was actually called something else. Certainly the closing instrumental would not have been called "The Gift" at this early stage as we are months ahead of Lou's story being attached to this music. So could the confusion actually all be down to Cale mislabelling or misremembering the title of an instrumental jam? 

 

This was the last release that Lou Reed had a hand in creating. Seems somehow fitting that it's such a stunning mess of noise, distortion and leakage. And that's stunning in its most literal definition ie, it actually stuns you. There's very little else you can do while WL/WH is playing. Although having said that - the instrumental track for "The Gift" is great for walking to - perfect tempo for a decent stroll. 

 

But on the whole it's an overwhelming album, hard and harsh and nasty and unpleasant and violent - it has a similar effect to the Stooges' Raw Power as it basically grabs you by the throat and pins you to the wall. It's also very very loud. WL/WH is an assault on the senses. This is rock music, or whatever you want to call it, at it's most violent and most extreme. By quite some distance.

 

 I hope that we get a 45th anniversary issue of the third VU album. There is already the regular mix and the 'closet' mix, plus I'm sure there's a mono version out there. It would be great if all the VU / Another View tracks could be included too, especially if they are as sympathetically restored as the ones here. I would guess that the 45th anniversary releases would end there as Loaded was on another label, and anyway, is there anything else that wasn't already on the Fully Loaded reissue from a few years ago? 

 

What I would love would be a decent reworking of the VU 1969 Live double album. I wonder if the masters could be found? Even back in 1974, when this set was first compiled, a large number of the tracks were taken from acetate discs, which had been created some years earlier as back ups, rather than from the actual tapes. So maybe the original tapes had been lost 40 years ago? Who knows, but it would be superb if a decent reissue could be created from this stuff. If only, if only, if only... 

the velvet underground and nico

A bit late to the party I know, but I've been listening to The Velvet Underground And Nico - the umpteenth reissue with all sorts of bonus tracks...

And this time, just to confuse everyone, there's a double disc, just like the last double disc from a few years ago, but with different bonus tracks. AND there's also a Mega Sized Box Set with the Valleydale Ballroom gig from November 1966, the original recordings from Scepter Studios in April 1966, and some tracks from a rehearsal, one of the very first with Nico, recorded at the Factory in January 1966. Add to this the mono and stereo versions of the album, plus the single versions and Nico's Chelsea Girl album and you have a Mega Sized Box Set containing an awful lot of stuff that we’ve all bought many times before. A sneaky FLAC download has revealed that, as I thought, there’s only a small amount of stuff that is strictly ‘new’.

Let’s start with the fabled Scepter Studios acetate. These are the first recordings for the album. And so it’s been treated a bit like the Holy Grail for VU fans. Apart from "Sunday Morning" which was recorded much, much later, pretty much the whole album was recorded at Scepter in mid April 1966. Tom Wilson apparently later oversaw a new mix of these tracks which is what ended up on the album, but essentially the Scepter Acetate IS the debut album, just hissier and less clear. Three tracks originally taped at Scepter were totally re-recorded for the album a month later - "Heroin", "Waiting For The Man" and "Venus In Furs" – which means that the Scepter versions are new to my ears, but otherwise listening to a de-clicked, de-hissed recording is not worth the effort when the pristine Mono version in this box set gives you mostly the exact same tracks. The only other difference is that "European Son" on the album was edited down from the nine minutes plus version recorded at Scepter, but do you really need three more minutes of guitar noise? I certainly don’t.

FWIW the original Scepter versions of the re-recorded songs are inferior to the remakes and clearly the Velvets made the right call in re-recording these songs. AND, a couple of the ‘alternative’ tracks on the Stereo disc are actually the Scepter recordings nicely remastered and mixed into stereo (so we have the longer "European Son" and the un-used "Heroin" as bonus tracks for example, even though they are also on the Demos disc but in Mono and less clear!)

So, basically, apart from a couple of tracks the Scepter acetate is a bit of a wash out.

The January 1966 rehearsal is quite good fun, and is surprisingly good quality, but ultimately it’s the Velvets mucking around and jamming with the only notable track being Nico attempting to sing "There She Goes Again" and proving conclusively that she’s entirely wrong for that track. But really, how often will you want to play these songs? A couple of times perhaps, but that’s it, they’re not that interesting. .

The Valleydale Ballroom gig is the only complete Exploding Plastic Inevitable gig, and one of only a couple of live recordings where Nico sings with the band. The gig is bookended by two lengthy half hour improvs which feature Nico wailing tunelessly at times. "It Was A Pleasure Then" on Chelsea Girl was an attempt to capture some of this free-form improv style. But if, like me, you are one those people who finds even eight minutes of tuneless warbling to be irritating, then "Melody Laughter" and "The Nothing Song" will drive you to despair. The rest of the gig finds the Velvets playing most of the debut album, and they play it competently, but that’s about it. It’s surprisingly low key, everything is professional and very very safe. No surprises at all, with virtually every song sounding just like the record. So again, how often will this get an airing? Not often. Plus, despite the best efforts of the audio restoration boffins it’s still a fairly ropey audience recording from 46 years ago, so it’s never going to sound that good. This show has been booted loads of times over the years and it sounds better now that it ever has; it’s perfectly listenable, but it’s still muffled, muddy and murky.

Chelsea Girl sounds good though – cleaner, sharper than my now very old CD, and I’d not got the Mono version of the VU&N album before, which is very sharp and some songs undoubtedly sound better in Mono, with some noticeable mix differences too.

So, the Mega Box Set actually includes very little that is genuinely new and worth having especially if you've already bought the VU&N album many time before. If you've not already got this record, then where have you been since 1967? Go out right now and get the double disc version. It's the best it has ever sounded and contains the Scepter / rehearsal material for good measure. 

  

lou reed in the 1970s

I recently played a couple of Lou Reed albums from both ends of the 1970s and came to the conclusion that pretty much everything Lou did during that decade was astounding, one way or another, and the pretty much everything he's done since has been decidedly underwhelming. OK, so that's perhaps a huge generalisation, but that's what generalisations are, sweeping and frequently unfair. But in this case, it's true.

After Lou left the Velvet Underground in August 1970 he decided to leave the music business altogether. But a spell working in his dad's office convinced him that a settled-down life wouldn't work, and besides, he was still coming up with songs at a rapid rate.

After some legal shenanigans Lou ended up with a record deal on RCA. Lou Reed - the imaginatively titled first solo album from early 1972 contained a bunch of reworked Loaded out-takes which were remarkable only because they were all vastly inferior to the original Velvets versions. To be fair “Ocean” was pretty good, though the various Velvets' takes of this are miles better. But the new songs were good - “Going Down” is lovely, and “Wild Child” has a real spark. An interestingly patchy album, and one that oddly has not really dated too badly. 

The big one followed. Late in 1971 David Bowie had also been signed by RCA, and he'd made a big deal about saying what an influence Lou Reed had been. The success of the Ziggy Stardust album convinced the RCA suits that Bowie had the magic touch, and, after the less than positive response to Lou Reed, it was decided that David should produce Lou's next record. In fact much of the production of Transformer was carried out by Bowie's guitarist, Mick Ronson, who also contributed the stunning string arrangements as well as playing guitar and piano. Transformer is a strange little record - on the one hand it has stone cold Lou Reed classics like "Walk On The Wild Side", "Perfect Day" and "Satellite Of Love" all of which sound just as fresh today as they did 40 years ago. But on the other hand there are a number of rather pedestrian rockers, such as "Wagon Wheel", and the truly bizarre, tuba-led "Goodnight Ladies". Whilst Transformer is often hailed as a peak of Lou's career, it's hard to see it as little more than a few decent songs, a few ok songs and a whole bunch of luck, being in the right place at the right time, with that year's hot new act behind the desk. It's not really part of the glam rock scene, despite being lumped in due to the Bowie connection, and, crucially, beyond a handful of shows where Lou slapped on the make up, he didn't embrace that scene at all. Lou's next move was something that no-one would have foreseen. He decided to create a concept album, a film for the ears he claimed. And it was to be a double album too!

But when Berlin was released it had become a simple single record, and it received a hugely negative reaction, which had a massive impact on Lou's relationship with the press for ever more.   

In the spring of 1973 Lou had recorded over an hour's worth of material for Berlin, but due to record company pressure he and producer Bob Ezrin were forced to edit the song cycle down to a more acceptable 45 minutes or so. Much of the orchestral work overseen by Ezrin was lost, many of the songs were trimmed, but the core of the album remained, and it wasn't pretty. In describing Caroline's journey from carefree socialite to suicidal junkie, Lou had indeed crafted a film for the ears, but it was a squalid, shocking film. There are moments of pleasure - the giddy whirl of the first "Caroline Says...", the inebriated swagger of "Lady Day", but by the time we reach side two it's despair all the way down until the astonishing redemptive chant of "Sad Song" which to my mind is nothing less than Caroline's departure from this earth to a better place. It's an extraordinarily brave set of songs, and a set which would be unbelievably depressing had the songs not been up to the job. But they are. Every one crackles with invention and cleverness and melodic twists and turns that absolutely grab the listener from the very beginning, and hold your attention to the very end. And just like with a good film,or an absorbing novel, the attentive audient is able to make it through the dark horrors of "The Kids" or the utter blanked out despair of "The Bed" because we have been drawn into the album and are desperate to know how it will end. It's extremely clever, literate, and above all, adult song writing, of the kind that Lou had been promising since the very beginning of the Velvet Underground. It's exactly the sort of continuation of songs like "Waiting For The Man" or "Heroin" that he should have been writing. “Caroline Says II” has that killer line, which Lou delivers so brilliantly - "You can hit me all you want / but I don't love you anymore". It's devastating writing. The level of numbed out pain present in that line is so awful. It's a terribly sad moment on a deeply emotional album.

But it was because it required the audience to think, to get involved, to use their emotions, to invest time and effort in the album, that it received terrible reviews. "The worst album by a major artist for many years" was one headline. Today this is baffling. There is a grown up audience for grown up music but back in 1973 pop music was fluffy ephemeral glam nonsense, and Lou's idea of a good record was nothing like that of anyone else. It went out of print for many years because RCA had no incentive to press a second run. Lou, of course, loved it, just as he always cites Metal Machine Music and The Bells as his favourites, perversely and precisely because they are so unrepresentative of his usual work. 

It's odd that Lou has never tried to restore Berlin. Maybe the missing parts are gone for good. Although it's still a fabulous album, and beautifully produced too, it would be fascinating to hear what it might have been.  

But the controversial reviews didn't bother Lou at the time as by mid 1973 he was starting his lengthy detour into hard drugs, and so little of anything bothered him at all. He played the Rock 'n' Roll Animal tour throughout Europe and the USA during the autumn and revelled in the madness of the tour. The final show was recorded and was released in two halves as Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live over the next couple of years. Both are cracking albums. Nearly 40 years on this is still what live albums should sound like. It's such powerful music. There might be some very obvious bum notes at times and Lou fluffs words all over the place, but it's a great crowd, and the band give such energetic performances. The twin lead guitar attack of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner is phenomenal and the melodramatic organ flourishes in songs like “Heroin” work incredibly well. Lou's singing is a bit variable at times but it fits with the music, which also wobbles alarmingly in places. Despite this being one of the last shows on the tour the drummer still has a real problem with the opening of “How Do You Think It Feels” - he can't seem to get that intro right. But so what? It's a storming album, a faithful account of a great concert.

Lou was on a slippery slope into serious drug dependency and wouldn't be this fired up on stage for many years. The next few years saw some amazing gigs and but also some truly terrible concerts, characterised largely by Lou raging around haranguing everyone in sight, or else virtually catatonic, being carried on stage and plonked in front of a mic. I have an interesting tape of a 1974 Australian show, which has an incredibly powerful “White Light / White Heat”, and a very weird “Heroin”, all spooky church organ effects, but Lou sounds seriously ill. Really not on this planet at all. The final number is a very odd acappella “Goodnight Ladies” that frankly would have scared the audience into going home...

In 1974 he recorded Sally Can't Dance which became one of his biggest selling albums. Lou found this incredibly amusing as he reckoned that his input into the record was minimal. Perhaps his next album would be an even bigger seller if he wasn't on it all, he wondered. Sally Can't Dance continues with the expansive Berlin sound, but with rather more obviously commercial appeal. The songs were snappier and catchier, though lyrically Lou was at his acerbic best, thus damning almost all the songs from ever being top forty hits.  

The mid 1970's were a terrible time for Lou on a personal basis - the drugs, his bizarre relationship with 'Rachel' - yet he continued to tour. In 1975 his drug habit was apparently so bad that he actually missed a few shows - the gigs continued with guitarist Doug Yule filling in for Lou. The audiences must have been pretty stoned too - allegedly no-one noticed...

Yet musically, even when it doesn't quite work, this mid 70’s work is always fascinating. There's a level of intensity that's missing from many of his other albums, and a sense that anything could happen. There's a tangible feeling of danger, of being on the edge, of listening to something created by someone you really wouldn't want to know...

Coney Island Baby is a very strange album. Ostensibly commercial, slickly produced, with catchy light songs – “Charley's Girl”, “Ooooh Baby”, “The Gift” (which is a really funny song, though it's a wonder it doesn't sink under the sheer weight of its hysterical self referential irony). But then you get the title track, which lyrically is fabulous and very personal and beautiful. Then there is “Kicks”. Possibly the nastiest song Lou had committed to record at this point. It's dreadfully violent and dispassionate, and the use of the party chatter, which slides in and out, is very disconcerting.

Rock'n'Roll Heart is another odd album. Even more lightweight than CIB, but often the songs have a dirtier, grimier side – “Temporary Thing” is very unsettling. “You Wear It So Well”, which is one of my favourites, has a definite air of desperation about it - the singer doesn't sound quite in control. The recent cd version of this version is one of the few cd remasters to have drastically improved the album. The weedy thin sound of my vinyl has been replaced by a crunching bassier ambience, which hugely improves the whole thing.

I have a great bootleg of a 1976 show with trumpeter Don Cherry guesting. Many songs are extended into jazzy jams and although they don't always quite come off, and the free jazz element of Cherry's playing doesn't always fit with the basic rock'n'roll of songs such as “Sweet Jane”, it's still a fascinating and thrilling set. The version of “Kicks” at this show really, er, kicks...

Street Hassle is possibly the oddest of the lot. The basis of nearly all the tracks is live recordings from a show in Germany in early 1977 where Lou played loads of new songs to a bemused German crowd. Some were played twice to ensure a good recording. Some of these tracks, “Leave Me Alone”, “I Wanna Be Black”, “Dirt” had been knocking around for a few years, but once the basic tracks had been weirdly overdubbed, the songs changed considerably. Others, like the totally out there version of “Real Good Time Together” took just the throbbing guitar part as the basis for the song and for Lou to put his vocals over. The full band was harshly faded in half way through. The vocal overdubs remind me of “Lady Godiva's Operation”, in that various levels and mix settings have been used to a disconcerting effect. However, throughout all the weirdness it sounds as if Lou is having great fun. Admittedly it’s a perverse sort of fun as the songs are mostly unpleasant, one chord dirges, with some tuneless harsh singing plonked on top. “Leave Me Alone” is especially hard to get through. Then there is the title track. A song of beauty and grace and delicacy. Totally out of place amongst the grime. One of Lou's most poetic lyrics, a story from the streets, and some unusually personal lines. Later live performances would significantly lose all the stuff about how 'she took the rings right off his fingers...' which at the time Lou candidly said was all true.

In early 1978 a residency at The Bottom Line in New York gave us the fabulous Take No Prisoners. Such a shame more recordings of these shows haven't been released. I love the Stereo Binaural sound on this album. It gives the live band a presence that really leaps off the turntable. The stories, the jokes, the fast snappy put-downs. And the music too. What a great band, able to twist and turn along with Lou's random deviations and flights of fancy. A wonderfully stirring “Coney Island Baby” is one of my favourite Lou tracks - that long ending is beautiful. An amazing “Street Hassle” is another highlight, as is the opening “Sweet Jane”, which kicks harder than any other version I've heard.

1979 - The Bells. Which I love. Can't totally explain why, but there's a great atmosphere on this album - the Stereo Binaural sound probably helps too. “City Lights” is delightful. “Stupid Man”, another of my all time favourite Lou songs, is such an infectious track. Side two is the real meat of the album. “All Through The Night” repeats the “Kicks” trick, by mixing in dialogue and chatter, though thankfully this time the lyrics aren't as scary. The repetitive sax riff is very strong, it really works. “Families” is another oddly personal and very very sad song - again the riff is unchanging which allows you focus on the impassioned lyrics more. Lou sounds on the verge of tears at a couple of points. “The Bells” - a great, if flawed sound poem. Allegedly the whole thing was improvised, including Lou's vocal. The early part of the song is a mess of sounds, guitar synths and trumpets, all descending chords and doom - but it does seem to come together at the vocal section. It's not perfect, bum notes are everywhere, but if this had been polished it wouldn't have sounded anywhere near as good.

A live set from Berlin 1979 contains an even weirder live version of “The Bells”. And some very extended songs – “I'll Be Your Mirror” runs to 12 minutes.... “Waiting For The Man” to nearly half an hour!

The final album this band produced was 1980's Growing Up In Public - a neat selection of short sharp mainly acidic songs. Lou had just met Sylvia who inspired a few rather soppy songs (“Love Is Here To Stay”.... for goodness sake...), and Lou stopped drinking. A few songs stand out – “How Do You Speak To An Angel” is wonderful, and “Standing On Ceremony” is great too, with Lou in character as a parent snapping - 'Please take your hat off!'

After this Lou cured all his addictions, and fully dried out, revamping his life and his band. The next album would be the superlative The Blue Mask, which basically set the template for all following Lou Reed albums - 2 guitars, bass, drums, all recorded crisply with the emphasis on the precision of the sound at the expense of the mood and feeling. The Blue Mask is truly great, but each subsequent album repeated this formula with diminishing returns. Occasional deviations (drum machines on Mistrial, infrequent uses of sax on Set The Twilight Reeling) didn't really alter the fact that the songs generally were weaker, and the interest level was decreasing.

Today it's apparent, to me at least, that The Blue Mask is the last thing of any great value that Lou worked on. There were little successes, such as the John Cale collaboration Songs For Drella, where the old spark returned, but in general Lou's work over the past 30 years has, for me, been progressively duller and less involving. Shame really.

white light / white heat - the velvet underground

White Light / White Heat is one noisy album. I remember first hearing it around 30 years ago and it was the very definition of 'mind blowing'. It was recorded around the same time as Sgt Pepper, but is the polar opposite of the Beatles' magnum opus.

Annie Nightingale played “The Gift” on her Sunday evening show, in stereo, (the spoken word story coming entirely from one speaker, the grind of the music entirely from the other) and I was enthralled.

But even with the bizarre introduction of “The Gift” I doubt I was ready for the whole album. The first side was weird enough – I knew the title track from the straight-ahead rock versions that Bowie did in the early 70’s, but the Velvet’s original is nothing like that. It’s just under three minutes of distortion and a brilliant mess of speed influenced madness and truly dreadful acoustics. The track creates a heavy oppressive mood, mainly via the compressed and distorted recording itself.

“The Gift” - that bizarre story of Waldo Jeffers mailing himself to his girlfriend totally captivated me and the grunging music powering along on it’s own in the other channel was amazing. John Cale's laconic delivery only adds to the otherworldliness of it all.

“Lady Godiva’s Operation” – a sinister song containing some bizarre vocal effects. The plan was to have Lou, Sterling and John take turns with alternating lines, but to have each line dovetail smoothly with the next. However, technical difficulties meant that each vocal ended up differing and jarring weirdly with the others - it's these disquieting changes in tone and volume that actually give the song its unique edge, but it was purely accidental.

Side one with the lovely “Here She Comes Now” – a thankfully peaceful and dreamy two minutes which does nothing to prepare the listener for side two.

“I Heard Her Call My Name”. the frantic but basic rock'n'roll strum of the verses is trampled to death by the frightening wall of noise that Lou's guitar creates! After the comment ‘And then my mind split open’ the shrieks and squeals of Lou Reed’s ‘solo’ are surely some of the most incredible and totally 'out there' sounds ever recorded. It's tremendously exciting, utterly terrifying, deafeningly hideous and brilliantly played - all at the same time.

And then you get 17 minutes of “Sister Ray” - the word relentless is by far the best one to describe "Sister Ray". It powers along like an unstoppable locomotive, instruments rise and fall depending on the who turned their amps up the most, Cale's organ actually burns itself out at one point as if utterly exhausted by trying to keep up. At the root of it all is Mo Tucker's rock solid drumming. She had such an assured sense of rhythm and an unerring ability to keep an absolute beat. This makes "Sister Ray" a great song for listening to on an iPod - the relentless beat makes you march along at quite a pace (which has surely got to be good for you). All that distortion and leakage and organs burning up and screams of feedback are just a fabulous bonus.

There’s a great story about the recording of this song. The Velvets plugged in and the engineer tried to set the levels. Lou told him -

“Turn everything right up to the max.”

“OK,” was the doubtful answer from the engineer, “but how long is the song?”

“No idea, we’ll just play until we’ve had enough.”

So they did. 17 minutes later one of the most distorted songs ever recorded was done. And it brings to a close an album that is quite unlike any other album, before or since.