LOU REED: NO MORE HEROES, BUT PLENTY OF RESPECT

One of the words mentioned most often in regard to Lou Reed's work is honest so I may as well start this story with a confession. I met Lou Reed once before I talked to him on the verge of Street Hassle's release. It was in 1972; a small and devoted bunch of us rock 'n' roll crazies had taken over our college's concert committee and our inauguraral presentation wound up being Reed's very first gig as a solo artist. It meant, a lot to us that he was going to play two nights in the enchanting Millard Fillmore Room on the campus of the University of Buffalo. The one and only time that I'd seen the Velvet Underground live was during their final glorious stand at Max's Kansas City two summers previous, and that show affected me more than any other concert I'd ever seen before.

And now here he was in town. The day after the first show, a few of us wandered over to his motel room to formally meet him. As we walked in, I noticed that he had the local daily newspaper spread out on the bed, open to the page that included a rave review of the show the night before; a rave review that I had written. I felt a bit awkward about telling him, as we were introduced, that the by-line belonged to me, but I was really just so dumbfounded at finally meeting him that it seemed the only way to break the ice. But Lou just looked up, shoved the paper away, and mumbled, "Yeah, always nice to get good press" in a voice that seemed so condescending that I was just flattened. We spent about five excruciatingly long minutes in his room, with hardly a word more said by anyone, and then we left. Throughout the weekend, Reed was curt to the point of obnoxiousness with just about everyone he met. Yet I stood in the back of the hall watching him play the second night with that very first new band of his, those kidsv from the suburbs. He was so nervous, uptight, rigid and tentative onstage, that a whole slew of thoughts crowded my mind concerning an artist's relationship to himself and his audience. If the Lou Reed we'd met was not one tenth as interesting as the Lou Reed we'd been idolizing on record for all these years, did it take away anything from our feelings about his work? Moreover, if the Lou Reed I was seeing that night seemed to be light years away from the Lou Reed I'd been overwhelmed by that night at Max's, did that affect my opinions of that previous work? When I realized that the answer to both questions was no, it occurred to me that I had never before really thought of my favorite rock stars as human beings, and that assuming that they were like their songs was something I'd be doing little of from that day on. I guess I was growing up.