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Iron Ego in a Velvet Band

A new biography of Lou Reed charts the rise and fall of a rock & roll poet

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Transformer: The Lou Reed Story
By Victor Bockris
Simon & Schuster; 446 pages;
$25 cloth


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Reviewed by Nicky Baxter

It was just too good to be true; after a strained hiatus of nearly two decades, the Velvet Underground had reunited for a series of concert dates in Europe. And there was talk of an American tour. Could they bring the noise as they did long ago? It was February of 1993, and it felt like 1965 all over again. For better and worse.

The one immovable stumbling block, then as now, would turn out to be frontman Lou Reed and his planet-sized ego. Even as the band--violist/composer John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen "Moe" Tucker--played to ecstatic audiences and rave reviews in England, Amsterdam and Paris, old hurts were festering.

By the time the band arrived back in the U.S., the initial camaraderie had dissolved into bitter enmity, just like old times. Reed, the mean-spirited control freak, had once again dashed the band's hopes of re-establishing itself as the true punk alternative to the whiny '90s. It would be Lou's way or no way.

In Transformer, Victor Bockris' detailed account of Lou Reed's life and music, the unraveling of the Velvet Underground reunion is seen as inevitable--the result of a talented but self-destructive artist's inability to grow up. But what does one expect from a man who, at 17, was coerced by his parents to undergo electroshock therapy to cure his homosexuality and wild mood swings? A man who sublimated apparent Oedipal cravings by raging against his parents (especially his father) and, eventually, the world.

Ravenous for love and attention yet brutally rejecting all who offer those things, Reed the man turned out to be a waste of space; as an artist, however, he has made a lasting mark on pop culture.

What is remarkable about Bockris' unflinchingly candid biography is that we are drawn to the man even as we are repulsed by his human failings. We may not be able to fully relate to Reed's profoundly antisocial behavior, but we can understand it to some degree. Unflattering as Transformer is, a perverse kind of respect and appreciation is subtly apparent.

By the time Reed joined John Cale to form the Velvet Underground late in 1965, he was already an avid drug user, popping pills, dropping acid and, in Bockris' words, "bolting down enough booze to keep the Orange Bar [a Lou hangout] in business around the clock." At the same time, he was devouring the works of Kant and Kierkegaard as well as Beat poetry. When he was introduced to the music of Bob Dylan in 1963, Reed knew at once what he wanted to be: a rock & roll poet. The Velvet Underground was the perfect instrument to realize that dream.

Influenced by an unlikely combination of Cale's infatuation with the New York avant-garde and Reed and Morrison's love for doo-wop, this was no ordinary band. The Velvet Underground thrived on being different; "Heroin" and "Venus in Furs" were nothing like the blues-influenced rock of British-invasion acts or the easily digestible soul of Motown. Cale's droning viola reflected a fascination with composer La Monte Young and music from the Middle East; when pitted against the rattle and hum of Morrison's and Reed's dueling guitars, the resultant cacophony was eerily soothing.

Slicing through the tumult were Reed's mordant tales of his beloved New York's seedy side--deviant sex, the thrills and spills of drug addiction and alienation, all sung in a monotonic voice that managed to sound both world-weary and compassionate.

Five years after it began, the Velvet Underground fell apart, rent asunder by Reed, who alienated his mates by consistently insulting them, stifling their creative input and refusing to share songwriting and publishing credits.

In the ensuing decades, Reed's career as a solo artist has been spotty. But for every clunker, there's been a brilliant outing. Magic and Loss, recorded three years ago, and Songs for Drella, a 1990 collaboration with Cale, may not match the Velvet Underground's back catalog, but they are evidence of a tormented soul who can on occasion plunder his pain to make art that at its best expresses the beauty and terror of the human condition.

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