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"I must be dumb coz I know I ain't smart, but deep down
inside I've got a rock 'n' roll heart." Lou Reed - Rock
'n' Roll Heart.
Lou
Reed changed pop music - fact. Before Lou there were sweet
harmonies and 'boy meets girl' lyrics. After Lou, there was
noise and songs about drug addiction, S&M, transvestites and
the dark side of life. Or at least that's what this documentary
would have us believe, and on the whole it's right - Lou turned
music upside down and showed us its dark underbelly.
Lou
Reed: Rock 'n' Roll Heart contains some excellent footage,
some great interviews and in the process outlines a career
that is nothing if not interesting. At times Lou went a little
too far down the into the darkness - he became what he wrote
about - but his reportage from a world we'd be uncomfortable
to visit offers his listeners an excellent view of a way of
life and its characters that most of us would rarely if ever
experience.
Of course, Lou Reed's most important work was with the Velvet
Underground and there's plenty on this disc for fans of the
band, including interviews with John Cale and Moe Tucker.
There are also characters from the New York scene of that
time (the mid '60s) who all help to paint a picture of what
the band was like - noisy, confrontational and self-absorbed.
And brilliant.
Sadly,
the solo half of Lou's career isn't as dynamic despite a variety
of albums that run from the sublime - New York, Berlin
- to the ridiculous - Metal Machine Music, Take No Prisoners.
That said, there's not a dull moment or a wasted interview
to be found on this disc - the whole documentary is fascinating
from start to finish.
My
principal gripes are the way the documentary skips over Lou's
drug taking, his varied sexuality (there's no one left to
shock so why be so coy?) and his 'difficult' personae. There
is also no mention of why Cale left The Velvet Underground
and there are no contributions from his replacement, Doug
Yule.
But
it's hard to gripe too much when most of what's here is of
such high quality.
Anthony
Clark
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