For pretty much no reason whatsoever, I’m currently back on sort of a Lou Reed kick. Maybe it’s just a next phase of mourning since losing Bowie, I don’t know. In any case, I’ve been exhuming bits and pieces of his whole catalog, which is always kinda interesting. While arguably not quite the chameleon that Bowie was, Lou did record a pretty diverse collection of music.
Anyway, over the last few days, I’ve been listening to both the more celebrated lives albums -- Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and Take No Prisoners. As I expressed as much in this old post, while it may be heresy, I really don’t like Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal at all, as it’s basically just Lou musically apologizing for his earlier abrasive material and sucking up to the middle by giving his songs an arena-rock makeover, replete with big, noodle-y solos. It sounds more like Billy Squier than Lou Reed.
The flip side of that coin, of course, is Take No Prisoners, which was recorded a few short years later, and in a significantly smaller room (The Bottom Line on West 4th Street, instead of the Academy of Music on East 14th…later the Palladium and now a noxious NYU dorm with a Trader Joe’s on the ground floor). A pointedly less choreographed affair, Take No Prisoners pairs down much of the pomp and circumstance of Rock ‘N’ Roll Animal in favor of a breezy cabaret atmosphere, albeit one steeped in Lou’s manic, coke-amplified shtick.
But while it may refreshingly lack the bloaty rock heft of its predecessor, Take No Prisoners is pointedly flawed in other ways. As a time capsule-worthy glimpse into the thorny mindset of the Lou Reed of the late `70s, its positively priceless, but as a strictly musical experience, it’s something of a chore. Again, as pointed out in that old post, Lou’s singing – when he chooses to sing, that is – is labored and over-wrought. His stage-banter -- and there is lots of it -– ricochets from the paranoid to the absurdly profane to the erudite, but it is rarely lacking in sniffy contempt. Along the way, he butchers a few classics and wheels out a few unfortunate tracks (“I Wanna Be Black” foremost among them). Still, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t wildly entertaining. Again, as a document of its era -– let alone as candid an era of Lou’s own career –- it’s required listening.
In all fairness, there is one track on the album that pretty much redeems the endeavor’s arguable faults, that being the closing rendition of “Leave Me Alone,” which finds Lou and his band (finally) coalescing into a punkily propulsive unit and hitting the gas. Here it is, now.
I mean, this track more than excuses Lou’s wobbly vocals and litany of off-color remarks.
Not quite four decades later, the building that housed the Bottom Line is indeed still there, but today it’s a completely staid academic facility owned -– of course -- by NYU. That's it above, although I have no idea who took the picture or on what date. Note the legend on the sign, Live Music Matters! Not at this address, it doesn't. Not anymore.
Not being affiliated with NYU, of course, I’ve not stepped inside the new incarnation, but I believe the former performance area of what had been the bottom line is part of an auditorium utilized by tenured academics and preening millennials. I walked by it last week during a misty commute home from the office with Take No Prisoners blaring through my headphones. It’s hard to believe it’s the same place.
Peering into its windows, past the sleepy guard at the reception desk, I tried to project Lou’s ghost lurking contentiously somewhere in its whisper quiet corridors, but only spotted a few NYU students huddled around their laptops.
More about the Bottom Line on Flaming Pablum can be read here.
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