Lou Reed Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Damon Albarn has revealed that after Gorillaz’ divisive Glastonbury headline set in 2010, Kate Bush phoned to tell him it was “one of the best shows she’d ever seen”.Last night (February 23), Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett sat down for a Q+A session with comedian Alan Carr for Banquet Records, attended by NME.Taking to the stage at former-cinema-turned-nightclub Pryzm in Kingston, Albarn explained that “Glastonbury was very memorable because it was so different to any other performance that had been before us”.“We wanted to just be, and not do the normal schtick of ‘hello Glastonbury, how are you all feeling?’ We wanted to just do our thing,” he continued.Gorillaz were last-minute replacements for U2 who had to postpone their appearance after Bono injured his back. Albarn returned to the iconic festival with Gorillaz one year after topping the bill with Blur.“I realised halfway through the Gorillaz set that the audience had no idea who some of the guests that we were bring onstage were, because I wasn’t introducing them,” he said of the set that included the likes of Bobby Womack, Bootie Brown, De La Soul, Lou Reed, Happy Mondays‘ Shaun Ryder, The Fall‘s Mark E.

The Velvet Underground‘s ‘Loaded’ has been announced.‘Loaded (Fully Re-loaded Edition)’ is a new vinyl box set that includes nearly all of the music from its expansive 2015 CD reissue but comes with nine LPs boasting stereo, mono and “full-length” mixes of the original album.Demos, studio outtakes and live recordings also feature in the box set and several tracks will be available on vinyl for the first time.The £250 box set is available to pre-order here exclusively via Dig! ahead of its March 24 release. It’s limited to just 1,970 copies.‘Loaded (Fully Re-loaded Edition)’comes in a deluxe, foil-wrapped slipcase containing the vinyl, a poster of the album’s cover art, and an illustrated booklet with liner notes by Lenny Kaye that appeared in ‘Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition’.In addition to the nine LPs, the set also comes with four 7″s that reproduce the official singles and B-sides released from ‘Loaded’.The songs ‘Rock & Roll’ and ‘Who Loves The Sun’ both come in the generic record sleeves used at the time by Cotillion, the band’s label.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Back in the day (“the day” being the 1990s), Pavement became so typecast as a cliché-lambasting, anti-rock band that they never really got credit for what a great rock band they were — and, as their ongoing 30th-ish anniversary tour shows, still are. The stereotypical scrawny, bookish, indie vibe and image of the group’s early records had become so cemented that few seemed to notice how tight and accomplished they became after drummer Steve West joined the group in 1993. Although they always downplayed their ability to “rock out” and still do, when the band locks in on hypnotic grooves while singer-guitarist Stephen Malkmus plays solos with a Lou Reed-ish combination of soaring melodies and brittle squall (usually finishing with some self-mocking gesture), they can hold their own with virtually any rock band. On their later albums, that seasoning carried over to their songwriting, as Malkmus’ almost run-on melodies were delivered in a cleaner, sharper manner, as if he were no longer quite so embarrassed by how pretty or catchy they can be.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Considering their short lifespan and relatively slim discography, the Velvet Underground may be the most thoroughly excavated and documented rock band of their era: Nearly every studio and concert recording, acetate and demo has been scrutinized, digitized and optimized for the many awesome boxed sets that have been released since the world caught up with the group’s brilliance in the 1980s, a dozen-odd years after they split up. The foundation of that brilliance, of course, is Lou Reed’s songwriting, which combines a novelist’s gritty realism with equally confrontational rock music, but also includes soft, vulnerable songs like “Pale Blue Eyes” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror” — songs that are all the more poignant because you can sense, somehow, that the sensitive soul who wrote them isalso kind of an asshole.

Lou Reed performing ‘Men Of Good Fortune’ has been shared today (August 16) – check it out below.It’s the third preview of the upcoming collection, ‘Words & Music, May 1965’ – a new Lou Reed archive. It’s set for release on August 26 via Light In The Attic on what would have been the late singer-songwriter’s 80th birthday.This version of ‘Men Of Good Fortune’ features different lyrics and music compared to the song of the same title that eventually appeared on Reed’s 1973 album ‘Berlin’.Check it out here:Back in July, Reed‘s earliest known demo of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ was released.The 1965 take of the track was put to tape by the legendary singer-songwriter nearly two years before its release on his former band’s landmark debut album ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’.The rare demo finds Reed accompanying himself on guitar and while structurally it is the same as the album version, it is more than three minutes shorter.That followed on from an early demo of ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, which was shared in June.Elsewhere on the tracklist are previously unreleased demos including ‘Buttercup Song’, ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz’ and ‘Stockpile’.

EXCLUSIVE: Hari Nef (Transparent) is set to portray transgender icon and Andy Warhol superstar Candy Darling in the as-yet-untitled biopic penned by Transparent writer Stephanie Kornick. Deadline exclusively announced the project in 2019.

Lou Reed’s 1965 demo of Velvet Underground song ‘Heroin’ has been released, ahead of a new compilation of archival material to mark what would have been his 80th birthday.The track was recorded with John Cale two years before the release of the band’s debut album, ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’, and is around half the length of the final version.In an effort to gain copyright protection for the recording, Reed posted the tape to himself in an envelope that then remained sealed for over 50 years. It’s a myth that mailing work to yourself somehow instigates copyright protection, by the way, but that fact doesn’t seem to have harmed Reed at all.The release follows the demo version of ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, which came out last month.

Lou Reed‘s earliest known demo of The Velvet Underground‘s ‘Heroin’ has been released.The 1965 take of the track, which you can listen to below, was put to tape by the late legendary singer-songwriter nearly two years before its release on his former band’s landmark debut album ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’.It is the latest taste of the forthcoming ‘Words & Music, May 1965’, an archival collection which is set to be released on August 26 via Light In The Attic on what would have been the late singer-songwriter’s 80th birthday.The rare demo finds Reed accompanying himself on guitar and structurally, it is the same as the album version but it is more than three minutes shorter.It follows an early demo of ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, which was shared last month.The songs on the album were written by Reed and recorded to tape by his future Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale. Reed posted the tape to himself as a “poor man’s copyright” and it remained sealed in its original envelope for nearly 50 years.Elsewhere on the tracklist are previously unreleased demos including ‘Buttercup Song’, ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz’ and ‘Stockpile’.

Laurie Anderson has shared why the Lou Reed: Caught Between The Twisted Stars exhibition was nearly held in Texas but ended up in New York City instead.The archive, which chronicles the life and work of Reed through images, voices, and music from the star and his collaborators, will be hosted at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts starting today (June 9).Anderson, Reed’s widow, recently told The New York Times that she’d first selected the Harry Ransom Center in Austin for the exhibit, but decided against that plan after Texas Governor Greg Abbot, signed the campus-carry bill in 2015. The bill allowed people licensed to carry a handgun in Texas to carry a concealed handgun on university campuses.I called them up,” Anderson said, adding: “‘This thing we’ve been talking about for a couple years? It’s off.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor“It’s a little surreal, seeing my best friend’s face blown up so big,” says multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, gesturing to a giant photo of her late husband, Lou Reed’s, at the beginning of a media tour of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ stunning exhibit on the legendary singer, songwriter and Velvet Underground co-founder. It is open to the public — and free of charge — beginning Thursday (June 9).“We’ve been working for years to put this together,” she continued, “and I just wanted to say that it’s my dream to have [the archive of] this great poet of New York in the Public Library.” While she did not mention this during the tour, the archive was originally intended to join those of James Joyce, Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo at the University of Texas, but Anderson changed her mind after a handgun law allowing people to carry handguns on college campuses was passed in the state; the NYPL acquired much of the archive in 2017.

Lou Reed was the H&R Block of classic rockers: The man kept his receipts.In fact, “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars” — an exhaustive exhibit that opens at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on Thursday — displays just how diligent the “Walk on the Wild Side” icon was about retaining proof of his purchases. One of the showcased receipts is even for the studded dog collar he wears on the cover of his 1974 live album “Rock ’n’ Roll Animal,” which Reed — in true New Yorker fashion — bought from the West Village sex shop the Pleasure Chest.“His father was an accountant and taught Lou to keep receipts, keep records and all that sort of thing,” said curator Jason Stern, who was Reed’s assistant in his final years and now works with his widow, Laurie Anderson.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs part of the celebration around the late Lou Reed’s 80 th birthday, an album of his earliest demos — comprising a number of Velvet Underground classics recorded in 1965, along with several songs dating back to his college and teen years — will be released August 26 on Light in the Attic Records in partnership with Reed’s longtime partner Laurie Anderson.The album, titled “Words & Music, May 1965,” is the inaugural release from the Lou Reed Archive Series, and dovetails with the opening Thursday of an extensive Reed exhibit at the New York Public Library, titled “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars.” The album includes the earliest known recordings of such classics as “Heroin,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Iʼm Waiting for the Man” and several unreleased tracks. See the full tracklist below; listen to Reed’s 1965 demo of “I’m Waiting for the Man”:The bulk of the album is comprised of the 1965 tracks, which were recorded with the assistance of Reed’s future bandmate John Cale.

Lou Reed album will share never-before-heard material and early versions of some of the star’s most iconic songs.‘Words & Music, May 1965’ is set to be released on August 26 via Light In The Attic in partnership with Reed’s partner Laurie Anderson, in tandem with celebrations for what would be the musician’s 80th birthday.The songs on the album were written by Reed and recorded to tape by his future Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale. Reed posted the tape to himself as a “poor man’s copyright” and it remained sealed in its original envelope for nearly 50 years.The record will include the earliest known recordings of iconic tracks including ‘Heroin’, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ and ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’.

“Westworld” is adding a new face to its Season 4 cast — “West Side Story” star Ariana DeBose.The actress, who picked up the Supporting Actress Oscar earlier this year, has joined the HBO show as a recurring guest star. No details were immediately available about her character.She’ll join returning cast members Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Tessa Thompson, Luke Hemsworth, Aaron Paul and Angela Sarafyan.

Not everything is as it seems.

J. Kim Murphy HBO has released the first teaser for the upcoming fourth season of “Westworld,” revealing footage of the next installment to the science-fiction series.While the teaser had been under lock and key, HBO released the footage on Monday evening after a leak of the promotion surfaced online.Cryptically titled “It doesn’t look like anything to me,” the teaser unfolds to the rhythm of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” hinting at a not-so-perfect ordeal for its cast of androids.

The irrepressible Boy George opened up about his love of songs, his music, taking acting classes and Culture Club's upcoming tour on this morning's Sunday Brunch, on Channel 4. As well as British pop royalty, hosts Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer's guests included broadcaster, debut novelist and Lancashire lass Sarah Cox - and Hullraisers actress Leah Brotherhead.

Almost Famous, the stage musical adaptation of Cameron Crowe’s rock & roll film of 2000, has announced a Broadway arrival for 2022. With the current spring season just about over, that means fall.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Locarno Film Festival will celebrate U.S. musician, performance artist and filmmaker Laurie Anderson with its lifetime achievement award dedicated to creative pioneers.The prominent Swiss fest dedicated to international indie cinema will be feting Anderson with its Vision Award Ticinomoda, and screening her two feature-length films, “Heart of a Dog” (2015) which is dedicated to Lou Reed, and the restored 4K version of “Home of the Brave” (1986).Anderson will be given the award on Aug.

Johnny Rotten, Soo Catwoman and Siouxsie Sioux.She also attended several early Sex Pistols concerts and can be seen in Julien Temple’s The Great Rock & Roll Swindle, appearing on stage with the Sex Pistols during their first live television performance of ‘Anarchy In The UK’ in August 1976.Jordan will be played by Maisie Williams in Pistol, Danny Boyle’s forthcoming TV series about the Sex Pistols.Later in the ‘70s, Jordan managed Adam & The Ants and provided vocals on the track ‘Lou’, written about Lou Reed. She often joined the group onstage to perform the track, before she left the group in 1978.

Lou Reed and John Cale’s ‘Songs For Drella’ album has been found – and it’s coming to streaming.Lachman believed that the original negatives were long lost until he unearthed them while researching Todd Haynes’ 2021 documentary film The Velvet Underground.Now, Songs For Drella will be available to stream exclusively on MUBI in the UK and Ireland from April 17. The concert film shows former The Velvet Underground bandmates Reed and Cale perform songs from their song cycle tribute album to their former manager, Andy Warhol, who died three years prior to the joint album’s release in 1990.Lachman – known for his chief photography roles on several of Haynes’ films including Far From Heaven and Carol as well his own directorial work (Ken Park, In The Hearts Of Africa) – is noted in press material as producing an “intimate” and “minimalist” film portrait.“Lachman’s camerawork reflects the elemental, stripped-down qualities of the album, with close-ups beautifully conveying the deep, fractious history between Reed and Cale,” reads part of the concert film’s description.‘”Drella’” was a nickname used for legendary pop artist Warhol by Reed and Cale (the name is a synthesis of Dracula and Cinderella).

NME journalist Gavin Martin, who has died.The news was reported by Louder Than War earlier today (March 11). A cause of death has not yet been confirmed.Born in 1961, Martin was first published in the NME letters page when he was just 13-years-old before moving to London as a teenager to work at the magazine alongside Julie Burchill, Tony Parsons and Danny Baker.Martin wrote U2‘s first-ever NME cover interview in 1981 ahead of the group releasing their second studio album, ‘October’, later that same year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorOn the heels of legendary punk progenitors the MC5’s nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the group’s guitarist and co-founder Wayne Kramer has released two new songs and announced The Heavy Lifting Tour in May, all as a “reanimation” of the pioneering group, dubbed We Are All MC5.The tour begins with a special hometown show, celebrating the birthday of Detroit’s El Club, before moving on to the East Coast (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Brooklyn) and West Coast (Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego). Joining Kramer in the touring band will be singer Brad Brooks, drummer Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), bassist Vicki Randle (Mavis Staples), and guitarist Stevie Salas (David Bowie). “Nonstop touring, especially the last decade, I’ve come to understand that the music of the MC5 is as necessary as ever,” Kramer said.

Chris Willman Music WriterThe full lineup of exclusive titles for April’s Record Store Day has been announced, with the expected title from official RSD 2022 ambassador Taylor Swift. Her first-time release of a “The Lakes” single leads the way for hundreds of releases that range from a deluxe “Blue Velvet” soundtrack reissue and two John Williams 90th-birthday releases to rarities collections from Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed and David Bowie… and from unreleased jazz concerts by Charles Mingus and Bill Evans to vinyl reissues of albums by Prince, Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, Childish Gambino, Stevie Nicks, the Cure, Kacey Musgraves and Pearl Jam.This year’s RSD will be on April 23 — the weekend after Easter, and Tax Day, to lighten the load on religious or business conflicts.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor“The Velvet Underground” marks Todd Haynes’ first foray into documentary filmmaking, and with the film on the Oscar documentary shortlist, Haynes could find himself making the cut for best documentary feature come Feb. 8.

Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis have reunited for a live cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’.The two rock acts came together during Navarro’s Above Ground charity concert on December 20 to raise awareness and funds for mental health for people in the music industry under the MusiCares programme.The fundraiser concert featured a number of celebrated rock acts, including Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins, Slipknot and Stone Sour’s Corey Taylor, Billy Morrison

The Oscar-contending documentary The Velvet Underground, about the influential 1960s avant-garde rock band fronted by Lou Reed, has been praised as a “superb testament to a lost world that helped make our own.”

David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen, Sex Pistols and many more.Rock’s family confirmed the news in a statement on social media earlier today (November 19).“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share our beloved psychedelic renegade Mick Rock has made the Jungian journey to the other side,” the statement began.Photo: Nathalie Rock pic.twitter.com/I50ofDuO0r— Mick Rock (@TheRealMickRock) November 19, 2021“Those who had the pleasure of existing in his orbit, know that Mick was always so much more

Ellise Shafer administratorMick Rock, a legendary music photographer for artists like David Bowie, Queen, Lou Reed, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols and more, has died. He was 72.Rock’s death was announced via his official Twitter account on Thursday night.