Thirty years ago, a friend who had played in bands in NYC in the mid-1980s told me of an interesting phenomenon. At that time, Sonic Youth were rapidly ascending from the herd of underground, post-hardcore bands. Especially on these shores, Sonic Youth were a quixotic and enigmatic band: using alternative guitar tunings and songs that could shift from dreamlike to …
New Lou Reed Biography Offers the Ultimate Narrative of the Vicious NYC Rock Romantic
It’s doubtful that even Lou Reed liked all of Lou Reed’s music. That’s one takeaway from Lou Reed: The King of New York, the exhaustive and recommendable recent biography of Reed by Will Hermes. Along with Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and to a lesser degree, Bruce Springsteen, there is a tendency with certain artists to glorify every note, lyric and …