Re: [Harp-L] Re: Superstars in pop/rock music

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

On May 27, 2007, at 6:51 PM, shockley wrote:

> Joe Leone wrote:
> Lou Reed? I'm entitled to an opinion, right? I don't see how he  
> manages to
> feed himself.
>
> I never thought much about Lou Reed either way up until a few years  
> ago when
> i started getting into drugs a bit and hanging with a lot of drug  
> people.

 I couldn't DO that. When I left home at 17 3/4 because my parents  
wouldn't let me get a driver's license, I was a hobo and didn't have  
the money. I pushed hod, chipped brick, even picked cotton. Then I  
went into the navy (seebees), became a salvage diver and drugs  
(combined with the pressure) would have killed me. Then I worked  
construction and while I would have LIKED to experiment with drugs, I  
was too chicken, yellow, cowardly, whatever. That and I have  
absolutely NO will power and would have wound up a crack-w***e.

I once tried some Hashish and lost 2 days out of my life. Very very  
scarey for someone like me (a control freak).
 Then I became a state trooper (don't hold that against me...it was  
only a job) and (ironically) my lack of a drug associated past  
actually made me eligible, (imagine that), Along with a great civil  
service score

> Then around that time, coincidentally, a friend sent me, out of
> the blue, a Lou Reed CD with Waiting For The Man and Heroin on it.

Yeah, I find tunes like 'Heroin' and 'Cocaine' to be quite  
interesting. I always thought 'Put a 41 mag in my Mouth' would be a  
good song title. My friend Mike did that once..................once.

> I was pretty much hooked, but then, again by accident, I came  
> across a DVD on Ebay
> from the PBS American Masters series, a documentary on Lou Reed  
> called Rock
> n Roll Heart. That was it. Next two years nothing sounded like  
> anything if
> it wasn't Lou Reed.

Actually, there were a few things Lou did that I kinda liked. As to  
whether I would PAY him to sing, I don't know about that. I thought  
Boz Skaggs was ok, but I was never enamored with any of the acts from  
the Bay Area. I guess I was paying too much attention to the Jazz  
Messengers, Young-Holt Trio, Horace Silver, Clark Terry.

Although I DID like the "Gratia Morte".

He!!, I didn't much care for the musicians from the west coast  
either. Jerry Mulligan, Chet Baker.

> Not even Dire Straits. No color. No feeling. Pale.  I
> probably watched that DVD a couple hundred times.

Dire Straits I like.
> "She wants me to hit her with a stick
> But all I got's a guitar pick"

See, hitting girls with a stick is not my bag.
> "When I see you come
> Baby I just wanna run
> Far away"

Now THIS is closer to my life. Females and I have always been Sodium  
and Water.
> Some subtle hardly noticable chord changes in a studio version of  
> Rock n
> Roll that used to make me do summersaults. I can't even hear them  
> anymore.
>
> An amazing jazz thing on the DVD with the coolest drums and sax,  
> Lou doing a
> cigarette romance between lyrics. Middle Class white boy meets mean  
> streets
> fascination. Romance. Art.

Or delerium.  lol
> Before I ever knew I liked Lou Reed my favorite guitar solo was  
> from a live
> Sweet Jane version.

Whereas I like Django Rheinhardt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Wes Montgomery,  
Los Indios Tabaljares.
> One of the hookiest lines living in my head was
>
> "There's nothing happening at all
> Not at all"

God, I wish I had been you. MY head is like an overstuffed burrito.  
Stuff goes in and never comes out. I will probably die of a brain  
tumor from all the garbage I have stored in there and can't get rid of.
> Lou Reed. The coolest, most relaxed voice I think I know. The  
> raspiest. Has
> to be on anyone's raspy top 10. Definitely my top 3, and to be  
> honest, I
> would have to pick him.
>
> Electroshock treatment at 17 (Lou)

Oh boy, sounds really peachey
> How can you not like Walk on the Wild Side (other than for the  
> reason you've
> heard it too many times)? doo da doo, da doo...

I do a tune with a similar name. It's called 'TAKE a Walk on The Wild  
Side'. My version was popularized by Jimmy Smith on B3 Hammond. Tough  
to do at a convention as it needs about 10 pieces to even remotely do  
it justice. That and a B3 player with hands that actually work..

> Rhetorically speaking of course.
> Some things are just not going to appeal to some people.

Gee, I'm so sorry. How can I make it up to you?  :)
smokey-joe

> I love Lou.

I'm up with that.  :)
> Shockley
>
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