Transformer

by Victor Bockris

  Through all the chaos Rachel looked on protectively, always making sure there was enough coffee ice cream and Marlboros. Rachel, to whom the title song on Coney Island Baby was dedicated, had proven more than dependable during the siege of the Gramercy Park Hotel. She was increasingly prominent in Lou’s public life, appearing in photo spreads in rock magazines and constantly at his side whenever he went anywhere, affording Lou the silent admiration of a dog. An inscrutable, stone-faced Indian, she was undoubtedly the most comfortable of his live-in loves, largely perhaps because she offered him complete devotion with no strings attached, no demands other than the pleasure of his company—just like in a movie. With new resolve, Reed professed: “All the albums I put out after this are going to be things I want to put out. No more bullshit, no more dyed-hair, faggot-junkie trip. I mimic me better than anyone else, so if everyone else is making money ripping me off, I figure maybe I better get on it. Why not? I created Lou Reed. I have nothing even faintly in common with that guy, but I can play him well—really well.”

  ***

  Coney Island Baby’s release in January 1976 brought Reed artistic acclaim and commercial success. Once the album was out, Reed was ready to return to the fray with what he considered his “strongest album, bar none,” along with a newborn will to sustain his drive. “This time I’m gonna do it right,” he said, “and everybody knows it. Coney Island Baby was a statement of renewal because it was my record. I didn’t have much time, and I didn’t have much money, but it was mine. Saying ‘I’m a Coney Island baby’ at the end of that song is like saying I haven’t backed off an inch, and don’t you forget it.”

  The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. “He meanders through his own solo twilight movie examining whatever catches his eye … [describing] the aridity which T. S. Eliot recorded in The Waste Land,” wrote Mick Rock. “He has epitomized New York for fellow artists and media observers both in his lifestyle and in his art. Chronicler of the shadow world, the deviants, the drug limbo, the concrete jungle, he is the poet laureate of that city [New York].”

  “New York is the most exciting, vibrant, vital … energy giver and energy taker,” Lou rapped to a friend that year. “I mean, isn’t it interesting the way New York is becoming the place all of a sudden? I’m from New York, I’m Jewish. Like Flo and Eddie once described me, ‘Oh, Lou, you’re just a typical fast-working little Jew guy from New York.’”

  “Evoking Genet decadence … Warhol chic, European ennui … [his work] is expressed cinematically by Martin Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah, novelistically by William Burroughs,” wrote James Walcott in the Village Voice. He is “a master, narrator, short-story writer at heart,” wrote Larry Sloman in Rolling Stone. “There’s a little of lots of people in Lou … Jagger, Warhol, lots of Lenny Bruce,” wrote Jack Garner.

  “I have seen rock’s future, and its name is Lou Reed,” wrote Pat Ast, a Warhol superstar, in New York’s SoHo Weekly News.

  But to some Lou appeared to be veering away from the hard-core music he had been associated with. Peter Laughner, the lead singer of Pere Ubu, wrote a scathing review of Coney Island Baby: “The damn things starts out exactly like an Eagles record! And with the exception of ‘Charlie’s Girl,’ which is mercifully short and to the point, it’s a downhill slide.

  “Finally there’s ‘Coney Island Baby,’ just maudlin, dumb, self-pity: “Can you believe I wann’d t’play football for th’ coach? …’ Sure, Lou, when I was all uptight about being a fag in high school, I did too.”

  “As a Velvet, Reed was at once plaintive and biting, but gone solo he chose a monotone with a punk’s lip and a snob’s delivery,” wrote Georgia Christgau in the Village Voice. “Perhaps he was making an elaborate, five-record joke of his own mangled reputation (a dull fellow), or was hoping to cash in on his own great line, ‘Of course you’re a bore, but in that you’re not charmless.’ He didn’t. Although his singing on Baby still drives the uninitiated from the room, I find an occasional inflection in the difference between a long-playing joke and a sincere effort, as I do his decision to take his hands away from his face and play guitar again. Maybe this boyfriend Rachel has been a good mirror.

  “Since Reed is a self-professed liar who claims that a two-record set of feedback noise is his masterpiece, his work defies committed analysis, especially a Pollyanna analysis like this one. That he has become a lazy songwriter, repeating images like ‘two-bit friends’ and bottles of wine, I am sure. But even if he’s replaced inventions with gimmicks (the chapel bells opening “Crazy Feeling” are a bit much), it’s comforting to know that Reed has been going on doo-wop runs ever since “Candy Says,” in 1969. At least he’s interested again. His ability to create mind-blowing rock songs is probably gone, but so what. Reed’s been showing up at CBGB’s a lot lately. In the audience.”

  This time, Lou Reed defended himself vigorously: “they’re not what people think of as archetypal Lou Reed songs, but they forgot on the first Velvets album “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “Femme Fatale:” I’ve always liked that kind of stuff and now you’re going to have a whole album full of it. The Many Moods of Lou Reed, just like Johnny Mathis, and if they don’t like it, they can shove it.”

  Coney Island Baby came out the year gay liberation crossed into the mainstream. Once again, Lou’s paean to a drag queen, the title song, became the sound track of the moment. It caught the gay spirit that was everywhere taking over the parade of New York City and offered redemption via love. But it was overshadowed by Dylan’s Desire, which came out in the aftermath of the groundbreaking Rolling Thunder Review, and David Bowie’s Station to Station, which won Bowie hundreds of thousands of votes in the “Who’s more important, Bowie or Reed?” contest. Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe and the Rolling Stones’ Black and Blue were other gold records that year.

  Coney Island Baby marked the end of Reed’s commitment to RCA. It was Lou’s most commercially successful album between Sally Can’t Dance (1974) and New York (1989), reaching No. 41 on Billboard’s LP chart. Yet, despite good record sales and Lou’s success during the first four years of his solo career, he now reportedly found himself in debt to RCA to the tune of $700,000. Figuring that he would never make money as long as he remained with the label, he decided to shop for another record company.

  “Then, I got a call from Clive Davis, the ex-president of Columbia Records now heading a new label, Arista, who had a reputation as a champion of the artist over the corporate man,” Lou remembered. “He said, ‘Hey, how ya doing? Haven’t seen you for a while.’ He knew how I was doing. He said, ‘Why don’t we have lunch?’ I felt like saying, ‘You mean you want to be seen with me in public?’ If Clive could be seen with me, I had turned the corner. I grabbed Rachel and said, ‘Do you know who just called?’”

  Clive Davis had just begun his new Arista label, but he and Reed had known each other for some time. “Lou and I were friends prior to the business relationship,” Davis recounted. “I remember touting Bruce Springsteen very strongly to Lou, and Lou had never seen Springsteen. We went down to the Bottom Line [in 1975 during Springsteen’s famous summer run]. At the end of the performance I remember Lou saying, ‘Look, he’s good.’ But he was not turned on, at the time, by what he felt was the rather tame imagery that was being evoked. I’ll never forget that Lou took me on a tour of Manhattan the likes of which I’ve never had. It was an amazing experience. Seeing Lou Reed’s world was a very revealing, very eye-opening situation. We were friends during this period when he was dissatisfied with his existing label. He called me and said, ‘I see where you’re going with Arista, I see what you’re doing. Would you be interested in signing me?’ The lawyers got together and we worked out a deal.”

  Declaring that he was now back in the saddle, Lou signed a contract with Davis. Asked by Lisa Robinson, “So what do you think Arista will do for you that RCA didn’t?” Lou replied, “Sell records.” Eager to follow up on the success of Coney Island Baby, and recharged by the relationship with Arista, Lou immediately
went back into the studio to record his next album. Originally titled Nomad, it would be released as Rock and Roll Heart.

  It looked as if all the factors were set up to create a successful record. Lou had a good band; Davis was fully behind him; his audience was growing; his relationship with Rachel was more stable than any other he had had since college. They were even talking about renting or buying a house in the country.

  Clive Davis was well known for taking a hands-on approach with his artists, particularly when it came to picking hit singles. He told Lou he could make him a million dollars if Lou would let him do a little work on the title song for Rock and Roll Heart. “He wanted to sweeten it up,” recalled Reed, “horns or strings or something. [He argued] that the song had potential to really be radio-worthy if we just did that to it.” Though he recognized Davis’s talent, Lou turned his suggestion down flat. “I’m a control person,” he repeated. “I fought so hard to get things to the point of having that control that I wouldn’t relinquish it. He said, ‘You’ll be there. Nothing will be done without your approval.’ ‘Nah.’ I’m like a brick wall sometimes.”

  Lou ended up writing most of the album in the studio: “I had a couple of songs before we went into the studio, but they changed. The rest I wrote in the studio. It’s much more fun that way. No, it isn’t expensive because I’m very quick. It took twenty-seven days to record that album, including mixing. It took as long to mix as it did to record. I just had the basic progressions, of two or three chords, but no lyrics.”

  Lou threw himself completely into the songs. To keyboardist Michael Fonfara, Lou’s longest-term musical collaborator during the 1970s, “it was like Method acting.” Fonfara and the rest of the studio band soon discovered Reed’s fresh determination during the recording sessions, where he turned out to be a rigid taskmaster. Lou would present each new song to the group once. Then Fonfara would rehearse the band until they knew the song and had the right arrangement for the vocal.

  Feeling particularly comfortable and connected to the music, Lou picked up his guitar and played lead on the album for the first time since he broke up with the Velvets: “On other albums I let other people do what they liked; this time I got serious and played what I liked. Every track. There’s lots of very dumb rock-and-roll songs on it, but then I like dumb rock and roll. It’s very hard to find a dumb guitar player and a dumb piano player, everyone’s so much into being technically together. But I fit the bill, because I play very stupid.”

  This gave him the distance to reflect objectively on his work while remaining a part of it: “This may sound perverse, but it helps keep me out of the way so whatever it is that people call creative talent can come through. It keeps the more esoteric aspects of my persona, if not exactly anchored down, at least available to anyone who wants to check them out. I don’t have anything to do with it, I just have to let it have its own way. I think I’ve kept out of the way on this album more successfully than ever before. I know what I’m doing. I always look so crazy and disorganized, but I’m not.

  “It’s very hard to find someone who can play dumb on a nice rock-and-roll song. But I can play really dumb piano. And I write songs with only two chords in them. Like ‘Banging on My Drum.’”

  Beneath the surface buoyancy, however, all was not well. Throughout the summer of 1976, during an unexpected drought in the amphetamine market, Lou was scrambling to find a doctor to write a prescription for Desoxyn. The drought brought on depression, inactivity, and bone crushers.

  After finishing the record, however, Lou managed to muster the energy to produce an album, called Wild Angel, by a friend of Lou’s at Syracuse, Nelson Slater. “That was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Reed commented. “RCA released it to about three people, I think. So no one very much noticed it. I think we sold six copies.” The critics who picked up on it singled out a track called “We” as a great showcase for Reed’s production talents.

  Lou was so broke at this time he rarely had $10 in his pocket. He was going to lectures on Warhol’s films by Ondine and looking for speed connections. Part of his problem, he said, was his incipient honesty. “This is the worst period I’ve seen,” he told one friend, “and it’s not going to get better.” A short reprieve came when he made a connection in July with a doctor who wrote him a prescription for Desoxyn. In the autumn, Lou and the band were gearing up to go back on the road in what he described as “that savage jungle called America. Rock and Roll Heart will be backed with a tour, a fully fledged attack, a seething assault, I call it germ warfare.” With drugs boiling on his stove, Lou rehearsed for the Rock and Roll Heart tour. Unfortunately, the prescription soon ran out and he found himself on the ropes once again.

  John Cale, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and David Byrne on stage at the Ocean Club, 1976. (Bob Gruen)

  The tour preparations were nearly as chaotic as being on the road. Mick Rock was on his way over to shoot the cover and design the stage and lights. Lister came round on several occasions. Lou’s lawyers warned him that his lifestyle could be detrimental to his case against Katz. There was no way the lawyer could see it sitting well with the people in the halls of justice.

  Rock and Roll Heart, released in October, was a disappointment. It received lukewarm reviews and sales. “Certainly don’t bother with this record unless, that is, you’re the kind of person that gets off on watching paint dry. Come to think of it, Rock and Roll Heart would make the perfect background music for that,” wrote Nick Kent in New Musical Express. “Rock and Roll Heart is very well produced,” Reed said in his defense. “I produced it. My records are for real. But that song—‘Believe in Love’—coming from Lou Reed is supposed to be a very strange statement. One kid said to me he really liked the lyrics on ‘Banging on My Drum.’ And I said, ‘But there are no lyrics,’ and he said, ‘Frustration.’ I thought I’d written a song about fun, fun, fun … But apparently not. Rolling Stone said that song was about masturbation, so that just goes to show.”

  RCA capitalized on the publicity by issuing a greatest-hits package, Walk on the Wild Side, notable for its cover Polaroids of Lou and Rachel. It included “Nowhere at All,” a gritty outtake from the Coney Island Baby sessions, which sounded the way the Hunter–Wagner band would have if they had been let loose in the studio.

  Lou was scheduled to tour the U.S. and Europe through December. Over the previous couple of years, Reed had assembled the most durable band of his career, the Everyman Band, led by the keyboard player Michael Fonfara, the lone survivor of the band that had cut Sally Can’t Dance back in 1974, and saxist Marty Fogel, with Michael Suchorsky on drums. The bass player, Ellard Boles, aka the Moose, was a mountain of a man who became one of Lou’s loyal companions through the end of the decade. “The other concerts don’t count,” Reed explained. “This is the first time I had total control. I’ll be taking the same bunch of clowns I worked with on the album. I want to make some kind of a show of it. I didn’t want the usual horseshit with opening acts and light shows and all that stuff. None of the dates will be played in very big halls; it’s all three- or four-thousand seaters with hopefully a week of shows in New York City at a small theater. It’ll be for those people who care. Hopefully the more bestial or vitriolic rock fans will be kept out. I’ll be picking up from where I left off before I was so rudely interrupted; which spans a good degree of time.

  “But this time I’ll be coming in at a higher level with no dark glasses. It’ll be as close to me as you’ll ever get. As close to me as I’ve ever gotten. I want to junk a lot of that old stuff that people seem to get off on.”

  Bert van der Kamp interviewed Lou prior to his tour in Holland:

  “I found him very sympathetic and a very sensitive guy, but I was very surprised that a year and a half later he didn’t seem to recognize me. I asked him and said we spent all these hours together and you showed me your poetry and all this, and he said to me, ‘Well, I must have been in a good mood then.’ He was acting like he had never seen me. This was in 197
6. So I used a word to describe him that I had seen in print before. This was a word invented by Arthur Koestler, which he used to describe Bobby Fischer, who was sensitive as a mimosa towards his own feelings but towards other people’s feelings he was like an elephant. So I used the word mimophant, and I started using that word for Lou. He was the sensitive guy who was easily hurt, but otherwise he would act like he was trying to hurt other guys.”

  He was accompanied by Rachel, who acted as a minder-cum-manager. “Rachel is very interesting,” Lou said. “Doesn’t react very much, but full of great quotes. The other day it was, ‘If you’re gonna be black be black, but don’t give me no shades of gray.’ Rachel has looked after the money and kept me in shape and watched over the road crew. At last there’s someone hustling around for me that I can trust.” She was a good supporter for Lou, loyal, reliable, and protective. What Rachel lacked, however, was the sharp eye that Lou needed to calm his paranoia. He complained to his friends that Rachel couldn’t spot gangsters in crowds.

  Despite poor sales for Rock and Roll Heart, Arista supported an extensive tour, which Lou kicked off in style. Performing in front of a band of forty-eight TV sets and accompanied by the surprise addition of Ornette Coleman’s trumpet player, Don Cherry, Lou gave one of his most satisfying shows in years. Gone was the shambling rocker of 1975, replaced by the elegant jazz singer of 1976.

  The Everyman Band perfected dynamics. They would sometimes quiet down to the point where the audience could hardly hear them at all, leaving Lou on his own, knowing that when he was ready, they could explode.

  Lou had chosen a compelling new image with the care of a woman selecting an outfit for a night out. In place of the black look with leather and sunglasses, he appeared in tight blue jeans, high-heeled black boots, and a long-sleeved sweater that covered his arms and hugged his ribs. His only prop was the occasional cigarette from behind which he threw baleful glances into the audience like darts.