The wild side of Lou Reed
LOU REED A LIFE
by Anthony DeCurtis (John Murray, $38) Reviewed by Greg Fleming
Although he wrote a song insisting he was just an Average Guy — “Average in everything I do/ My temperature is 98.2” — Lou Reed was anything but and that’s made clear in this excellent, wellresearched biography. Brilliant, sensitive, cruel, cantankerous, controlling — Reed was the definition of the Difficult Rock Star.
DeCurtis first met his subject in an airport in 1995. Reed recognised him asa Rolling Stone writer who had reviewed his album New York six years’ earlier .
Reed said: “How many stars did you give it?” Four. “Should have been five.” DeCurtis doesn’t make too much of his personal connection to Reed but his rock journo contacts enabled access to many of Reed’s key collaborators — getting interviews from David Bowie before he died, Reed’s first two wives and fellow journalists and record company staffers who had the misfortune to be assigned to Reed.
One, Jeff Gold, describes dealing with Reed as a “Me burger with I sauce” experience.
“It was all about Lou. Lou did what Lou wanted to do on Lou’s timetable.” While DeCurtis does a creditable job with the Velvet Underground material, the book really comes alive when detailing Reed’s solo career and his descent into speed addiction and his life in the erotic underworld of 70s New York. DeCurtis gets to the heart of Reed’s troubled relationship with a street-hustling transvestite called Rachel, to whom Reed dedicated one of his most romantic songs, Coney Island Baby; “Reed . . . found in her someone whose secret life rivalled or . . . even exceeded his own.”
DeCurtis points out how Reed was ahead of his time on gender issues — although once Reed got sober in the 80s he would identify as heterosexual.
Fans will love the details DeCurtis’ research has uncovered — when he drank, Reed preferred Johnnie Walker Red to expensive bottle of single malts and after his wedding to Sylvia Morales the party hit a pinball arcade.
More significant is an anecdote by journalist Howard Bowman. During an interview in 1992, Bowman accompanied Reed to an ATM in New York. Inside, a homeless man was sleeping, which enraged Reed — the poet of urban decay — and he went into the branch, complained to the manager and had him removed.
Despite Reed’s contradictions and polarising nature — he could go from selfaggrandisement to self-loathing in a heartbeat — DeCurtis makes a strong case for his work. Not only the celebrated Velvet’s output but also records such as The Blue Mask, Berlin and The Bells from Reed’s oft-maligned solo career.