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Lou Reed’s keynote: Take a walk on the dry side
“I feel like Tony Soprano and his shrink,” producer Hal Willner told South By Southwest keynote speaker Lou Reed Thursday morning at the Austin Convention Center. “So last time we were talking about your anger toward your mother…’” Willner had to try to do something to loosen up Reed, the former Velvet Underground member and indie rock godfather who’s been famously cranky since he was, oh, 4 years old.
But with the guidance of Willner — a friend and sometimes collaborator — Reed relaxed into what turned out to be a freewheeling conversation about Julian Schnabel’s film of his “Berlin” show, the lousy sound of MP3s and the mysteries of songwriting.
“I’ve never understood how they get written,” Reed said. “If I knew, I’d have ‘Son of Wild Side’ and have an island in the Caribbean or something.”
He did, however, say he was inspired by writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, fusing gritty themes onto songcraft. (Perhaps Mr. Reed should check out the new Beats exhibit at UT’s Ransom Center.)
“I saw an opportunity to write about things that thematically no one was anywhere near,” he said. “It was an empty continent.”
Reed seemed at times to dwell on perceived slights and failings — where “Berlin” wasn’t or won’t be staged, which of his albums were out of print and the reviews that his drug- and jealousy-soaked 1973 suite received on its release.
“Worst album ever made,” he deadpanned (there was a lot of deadpan). “Most depressing album ever made. ‘Berlin’ was used in a lawsuit against me by management to show why I shouldn’t handle my own affairs.”
Reed, who’s been chasing the perfect guitar sound his entire career, also got wound up about digital music.
“With MP3s, you have a very bad sound,” he said. “The tradeoff is you have a lot of them available to you and they sound bad … It’s like technology is taking us backwards. It’s making it easier to make things worse.”
(Photo by Jack Plunkett/Associated Press)
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