Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson & John Zorn: The Stone, Issue Three (2008) rambling, links and youtubes!

Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson & John Zorn: The Stone, Issue Three (2008)

I need to tell ya that I admire the fuck out of Lou (not that he would give a fuck) for doing shit like this. [aside: is this going to become a swearing post mofo?] I also listened to Lou's Hudson River Meditations (2007) and thought..."cool...lou's doing meditation music...and as meditation music goes this sounds nice" and listened to it once and haven't listened to it a second time...maybe in 5 years...this baby with the missus and zorn I find more exciting
and lively...
the thought of a bunch of Lou Reed snobs in Montreal booing the shit out of this trio laying the smacketh down on some avante-garde electric classical jazz experimental shit makes me laugh...it's like all the people now loving Metal Machine Music (1975) when it's the same piece of music as it always was but in revisionist history it gets a second chance to be re-evaluated and maybe we missed something the first time?? Yeh, right - what they're really saying is that it's now SAFE to like Metal Machine Music. This brings me to the next section:

I have seen Lou Reed 4 times

1) I was very drunk and JK and I got kicked off the bus once we hit T.O and then after more drinks we decide to sneak to the front since we had blah seats, so we get to the 6th row drunk as fuck not sneaking past anyone as the bouncer comes to see our tickets and we politely and drunkenly give him the tickets and say we'll move if anyone comes for these seats and he - amazingly - lets us 2 drunken & pilled up idiots from Hamilton sit 6 rows from Lou...my friend passed out and missed most of the show...I stayed awake and had a good time as Lou was hot playing with Robert Quine on guitar. We then drank more and made our way home barely catching the last bus back to Steeltown.
(Massey Hall - Toronto, ON "Legendary Hearts" tour 1983?)

2) I got pretty high and drunk watching Lou play at Kingswood where we drank beforehand and some went on rides and some of us stayed at the bar...drinking...we went in and saw Lou playing lead guitar & belting out Mistrial shit and it was the least memorable of Lou's shows...it was ok and I was ok and that doesn't make for an exciting kind of story
(Kingswood - Toronto, ON "Mistrial" tour)

3) I was very depressed sitting with a girl I had a crush on (well, I wanted to fuck her) and we were good friends when friendship wasn't enough for me - [aside: it's just as well, though!] - and went to an empty hallway while Lou was belting out primo New York-era shit & I wrote poetry alone...this act of stupid depression did not help me get laid...or write very good poetry!
(Roy Thomson Hall - Toronto, ON "New York" tour 1990?)

4) I met the woman I love and all was going well as I kept my drinking "somewhat" under control...hmmm, that is until Lou showed up in Detroit!...we thought the show wasn't licensed, so I downed a few beers fast at the bar beforehand and made it to the show and it was a licensed event!! oh oh...I drank and drank and Lou seemed miserable and the cloud above my drunken rock star aspiring head got darker and darker and the beers kept putting out any last vestiges of sanity...the show ended with some surly Lou covers and I staggered out of the show and proceeded to shout obnoxious things at passersby - in front of the woman I love - and then for some reason I decided to let the golden river flow into the streets of Detroit and then we got to the car and self pity took over and I was almost weeping with apologies at my stupidity being as pathetic as possible, so I soon learned my lesson and stopped drinking [aside: and smoke an awful lot of pot instead!] - and we ate subs and safely left the United States to our home turf of Chatham, ON.
(State Theatre - Detroit, MI "Ecstasy" tour 2000?)

So you see besides being drunk & pilled, drunk, depressed & very drunk at Lou's concerts I still think the man is a genius and I love his music and he's maybe top 10 (definitely the velvets) and this album just adds more admiration to the Lou Reed stew. I would have loved to have seen the lou-laurie and john concert sober and a little high and sit there digging the notes and - * sigh * I do miss seeing live shows...

I should also mention that I've recently started listening to Zorn and I need to explore more and more and apparently there is a LOT more! I really liked a couple of his Bar Khokba albums. I think he sounds great playing with Lou & Laurie & in some ways he may even be the leader of this, though I can't imagine anyone (even Zorn) telling Lou to do something he doesn't want to do.

LINKS

Hey, What's the sound, look at the downloads crashing round - Elegia Eterna!

A negative perspective on The Stone.

Brooklyn Vegan on Lou, Laurie & John getting booed in Montreal.

Lou Reed's home page

John Zorn web site

Laurie Anderson's home page (hum...I didn't really say anything about L.A. I've been cool to her in the past, but she sounds great here - I love her violin playing and maybe it's time to re-evaluate her work.)

Lou, Laurie & John in Montreal 2010...judge for yourself.



Some classic John Zorn with Naked City - Live!



I love this song and it's a great (though) short version!


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