It has been advised that during my annual regress file to the stockholders, posted right here final month, I overlooked in all 5 thousand phrases to ever as soon as point out why Metal Machine Music is a great album. So right here, mainly in mild of Coney Island Baby, are the motives:
If you ever idea remarks turned into the first-rate issue that ever came about to the guitar, well, Lou simply bumped off the guitars.
I realise that any fool with the device should have made this album, which include me, you or Lou. That's one of the essential motives I find it irresistible a lot. As with the Godz and Tangerine Dream, now no longer simplest does it convey you in the direction of the artist, however someday, god willing, I might also additionally get to do my very own Metal Machine Music. It's all peoples tune, besides.
When you awaken withinside the morning with the worst hangover of your lifestyles, Metal Machine Music is the first-rate medicine. Because whilst you first get up you are probable so fucked (i.e., nevertheless drunk) this is would not even clearly harm yet (now no longer like it is going to), so that you need to placed this album on straight away, now no longer simplest to clean all of the crap from your head, however to put together you for what is in shop the relaxation of the day.
Speaking of clearing out crap, I as soon as had this pal who could say, "I take acid as a minimum each months & JUST BLOW ALL THE BAD SHIT OUTA MY BRAIN!" So I say the equal issue approximately MMM. Except I take it approximately as soon as a day, like nutrients.
In his super liner notes, Lou asserts that he and the opposite speedfreaks did now no longer begin World Wars I, II, "or the Bay of Pigs, for that matter." And he is proper. If absolutely everyone took amphetamines, all of the time, absolutely everyone could apprehend every other. Either that or in no way pay attention or trouble with the opposite son of a bitch, due to the fact they had all be too busy spending 3 days drawing psychedelic strains round a bit of steno paper till it is absolutely black, writing eighty-web page letters approximately meaningless occurrences to their mothers, or developing MMM. There could be no extra wars, and peace and concord could reign. Just believe Gerald Ford on pace- he may appear a few glimmer of personality. Or Ronald Reagan- a blood vessel in his snapping-turtle lips could straight away burst, possibly ridding us of that cocksucker. As is widely known with the aid of using now, JFK loved everyday injections of Meth and nutrients from satisfied croakers. 'Nuff stated. Hey won't have absolutely finished anything (besides the Bay of Pigs- wait a minute, Lou hasn't been doing his homework), however he had fashion and a triumphing smile.
I even have heard this report characterised as "anti-human" and "anti-emotional." That it's far, in a experience, seeing that it's far tune made extra with the aid of using tape recorders, amps, speakers, microphones and ring modulators than any set of human fingers and emotions. But so what? Almost all tune nowadays is anti-emotional and made with the aid of using machines too. >From Elton John to disco to Sally Can't Dance (which Lou would not realise is one in every of his first-rate albums, exactly due to the fact it is so cold) it is automatic system manufacturing line shit into which the human coronary heart enters very hardly ever if at all. At least Lou is in advance approximately it, which makes him extra human than the relaxation of these MOR dicknoses. Besides which, any report that sends listeners fleeing the room screaming for surcease of aural flagellation or, alternately, getting bodily and traumatic your medicines to the factor of breaking the rattling issue, can infrequently be accused, as a minimum in consequences if now no longer unique innovative man-hours, of missing emotional content. Why do humans were given to peer films like Jaws, The Exorcist, or Iisa, She Wolf of the SS? So they are able to get beat over the pinnacle with baseball bats, have their nerves wrenched whilst electrodes are being stapled to their spines, and usually brutalized as a minimum each as soon as ever fifteen mins or so (the time among the face falling out of the lowest of the sunk boat and that they guy's bit-off leg hitting the lowest of the ocean). This is what, nowadays, is normally understood as entertainment, as fun, as artwork even! So they have got loads of nerve touchdown on Lou for MMM. At least right here there is no fifteen mins of bullshit padding among brutalizations. Anybody who were given off on The Exorcist need to like this report. It's honestly some distance extra ethical a product.
Charisma. Lou's been slipping of late, however for individuals who don't forget and apprehend the Myth, the Legend-i.e., he turned into an logo of absolute negativism- MMM has extra aura than a cage complete of porcupines has quills.
All landlords are mealymouthed bastards who could permit the ruins of Pompeii fall to your four-poster earlier than they had raise a finger. They deserve anything they get, and MMM is the all time assured rent breaker. Every tenant in America need to very own a duplicate of this album. Forearmed!
My puppy land hermit crab, Spud, who occasionally is going for days at a time curled up inner his shell in a nook of the cage so that you gotta take a look at to peer if he is dead, likes MMM a lot. Every time I placed it on, he comes out of his shell and begins offevolved crawling thankfully across the sand and mountaineering the bars. It is, in fact, the simplest time I ever see him get any exercise. Either that or he is dancing. 10. I were instructed that Lou's recordings, however maximum in particular this item, have grow to be a form of mystery cult amongst teenage intellectual organization inmates all throughout the nation. I were instructed similarly that the ones youth who've been subjected to electroshock remedy revel in a selected affinity for MMM, that it reportedly "soothes their nerves," and is in the end a form of anthem. If every body obtainable studying this is aware of any extra approximately this phenomenon, please get in contact with me straight away.
I performed it for President Idi "Big Daddy" Amin of Uganda whilst he flew me and Lisa Robinson over there to interview him for upcoming cowl articles in Creem and Hit Parader, and he definitely cherished it. I gave him a duplicate, and now with the aid of using unique edict he has it piped thru the Muzak vents of ever supermarket (all thirty-5 of them) and health practitioner's ready room (all 8) in his extraordinary nation, in order that the residents there can be stimulated to ever fiercer heights of patriotism for his regime and all that it stands for. He desired to claim it the Ugandan countrywide anthem, however I instructed him that I could have to test with the American teenage surprise vets first, and being a wise, fair, graciously diplomatic politician, he of direction straight away assented, after which, genial host that he is, whisked us off to peer a lifestyles more than one snuff movie completed sans cameras and celluloid. "We cannot come up with the money for them," he explained. "And except, the subsequent time you've got got a hanging verbal exchange with Paul Simon, you could tell him that the theatre isn't clearly dead."
I assume that, on this time of recession/despair and with the entire tune commercial enterprise tightening its belt, it's far genuinely considerate of Lou to reduce recording prices as a great deal as MMM have to have, mainly whilst you recall the stupefying self-indulgence of so a lot of contemporary rock "masterpieces" with their overproductions so baroquely lavish all of it turns to tinsel. Only James Brown, I assume, strategies Lou's success right here in phrases of sheer financial system and minimum reserving of pricey studio time. MMM is absolutely, some distance from a few nihilist rampage, one massive WIN button. Or extra exactly, seeing that it's far a report set.
And why this is, of all Lou Reed albums (and the man's songwriting prolifigacy is certainly astounding. "Just lock Lou in a room for an hour," Dennis Katz instructed me as soon as, "and whilst you permit him out he is were given fifteen new songs!" The purpose why he continues on recording antique Velvet Underground outtakes he wrote upwards of a decade in the past is that he is saving all his first-rate new stuff for 863 LPs to be released, one each months, after he dies, assuming that he ever does. "I'm now no longer gonna permit the ones bloodsuckers rip me off and tarnish my reminiscence like came about to terrible Jimi," he confided to me as soon as over Schaefer's drafts at McSorley's. "My fanatics will in no way get much less than A+ quality, as my pal Bob Christgau could placed it, and except it is pretty probably that I will stay forever, due to the fact me and a few health practitioner buddies I hold out with simply located that there is a mystery, heretofore unknown aspect in methamphetamine which retards the getting older process.
So theoretically if you could get and simply maintain taking pictures these things, you can stay for the relaxation of human history, that's why we are doing a little resynthesizing experiments to peer if we are able to convey this positive aspect a touch extra into the foreground of the compound. I assume it is referred to as atropine. It's been round for a protracted time, the Indians knew approximately it however identified withinside the face in their canine race inferiority it might be extra ethical to neglect about approximately it and publish themselves to extermination with the aid of using white Europeans, who had been the simplest ones with the technological knowhow to extract the uncooked chemical and refine it right into a shape you could prepare dinner dinner up and shoot. But besides it's in which you bought that Ponce de Leon commercial enterprise, and his simplest hassle turned into the fucker, being a dumb spic, obviously had no concept the way to put together it in any powerful shape. So absolutely everyone concluded it turned into a fantasy and forgot approximately it till I got here along, and efficiency is my center call. So now you could permit your readers in at the little mystery that now no longer simplest am I the toughest, baddest, maximum well-hung stud in display commercial enterprise, which absolutely is simplest due to the fact in 1973 I went to Sweden and had a transplant so now in preference to a cock I were given a horse docs syringe, now no longer simplest that however there is a rattling appropriate danger I'm even gonna reduce that punk Cagliostro at his very own riffs and stay forever.
Of direction, you in no way can bargain unexpected circumstances, aircraft crashes and the like, that's why I were given those 8 hundred albums withinside the can simply in case. There's all styles of stuff, like one is I rewrote my very own model of Rigoletto, you recognize that opera with the aid of using Scriabin, besides it is set on this Puerto Rican leather-based bar in which all of the clients are amputated on the thigh and rolling round on those little carts on wheels. They maintain seeking to have punchouts, besides their carts maintain bumping and that they cannot attain every other. So they were given very frustrated. I sang all of the elements myself, and I stole all of the lyrics off antique 'Lucas Tanner' dialogue, however no one will observe the distinction due to the fact I made the tune salsa and it is so fucking loud you cannot listen any of the phrases. But I'm now no longer gonna placed that out simply yet. They'll ought to wait some time for that. What my subsequent album is gonna be is the follow-as much as Metal Machine Music, which sounds precisely the equal besides it is gonna be a idea album approximately all these things I turned into telling you earlier than approximately getting older and a 5-report set in a gold embossed container with a guide inner proposing blown-up Polaroid SX-70s of me tying off, hitting up, sterilizing my works with alcohol after which going out Christmas purchasing for Andy and all of the children at Bloomingdale's and the Pleasure Chest, in which the final percent is me modeling a cock ring on my horse geezer.
I expect with the aid of using that point the overall public could have grown ears and gotten hip sufficient to comprehend Metal Machine Music, so this follow-up, which I'm gonna name Triumph of the Will, could be the first-rate-promoting LP of all time and people ratfucks in Chicago can suck my asshole at the side of that little blob Elton John who should use a few pace nearly as terrible as Leslie West however cannot have any of mine, due to the fact as I assume it turned into Pat Ast stated in that suitable evaluation of Coney Island Baby withinside the Soho Weekly News 'I even have visible rock's destiny and its call is Lou Reed'"), a double album, you ask? Simple- the 2 discs are, in line with Lou, symbolic of tits ("There's in no way extra than ," he explained), to suggest that this is, albeit mechanized, a completely horny album designed to reduce in closely on the recent Barry White market.
Everybody is aware of that capsules are available sexes. Down are feminine, pace is masculine. Down make you all best and candy and pliant and tenderized with E-Z Bake, while pace makes you competitive and visceral and forthright and a actual take-rate form of guy/gal. (Makes no distinction due to the fact all human beings are the equal intercourse, besides albinos. It is the medication that, obviously, decide the gender of the being.) So which one you are taking whilst you arise withinside the morning simply entails whether or not you wanna be Donna Mills or Joe Don Baker that day. It's absolutely your prerogative.
Similarly, Coney Island Baby, great and certainly heartfelt as it's far, is a downs LP. Not putdown involved- Lou's favourite antique Velvet songs had been constantly the ballads, and he is were given a proper to get candy on himself. Love is silt. Anybody who has ever taken Quaaludes and wound up loving the relaxation of the human race a lot they ended up in mattress with a human turnip is aware of that. The lyrics are higher than any Lou-nee Tunes in some time, however now no longer that now no longer seeing that Transformer have so a lot of them been explicitly preoccupied with the, er, ah . . . "gay" scene. Which honestly cannot be stated of CIB's instantaneously predecessor. Me, I like intercourse with vegetables, however I nurse this lingering paranoia that someday, a few drunken night, I might also additionally get a radish among the sheets and find out it is homosexual. Thus I sense threatened with the aid of using Coney Island Baby, simply as I sense threatened with the aid of using Valiums, Tuinals, Seconals, Quaaludes, and Compoz. Metal Machine Music, at the contrary, reinforces my experience of myself as a man. Under my blacklight presidential marketing campaign poster of Hunter Thompson, I bolt upright in repose, my rifle casually draped pass my lap, paying attention to MMM and dreaming of My Lai as starring Fritz the Cat. So fuck downs, keep away from Coney Island Baby like men who put on inexperienced on Thursdays, and maintain it (your fist) up tight.
