The Power Of Positive Pinball

What’s left to say about Lou Reed?

Better yet, what’s left not to say about Lou Reed? Most of the really important things have already been said by Lester Bangs, in these very pages; his “Dead Lies The Velvets Underground” of May ’71 was the first really intelligent article I read about my (at the time) favorite band, and of course he never really stopped writing them—at least until his series of confrontations with Lou took on almost historic connotations, and by then the Velvet bandwagon was already overloaded with latecomers who, by their very lateness, missed the band’s timeliness. And it was a shame.

Of course L. Bangs should have pounded out a Velvet Underground/Lou Reed unauthorized bio rather than a more lucrative Blondie quickie, but then that’s his business. But if anybody has more obviously exorcised their personal demons through writing than Bangs has, particularly about Lou Reed, I’ve yet to read them. Conflict after well-documented conflict, those two are probably sick of each other, and maybe that’s the way it should be.