Never get out of the boat: lou reed

Showing posts with label lou reed. Show all posts

Monday, October 28, 2013

first thing you learn is you always gotta wait

In 1967 the biggest selling and most popular US album was 'More of the Monkees'. Extremely popular, millions of copies sold.

Also released in 1967 was The Velvet Underground's first album 'The Velvet Underground and Nico'.

The Velvets never troubled the top 100 album chart with this, or any of their subsequent albums, but nigh on every one of the brave souls who witnessed a Velvets performance or purchased the album went on to form their own bands or become painters, or artists of some description.

The 'influence' of the Velvets can still be felt as it permeated right through much of the important music from 1967 to this day. Although in 1967 no-one knew that they would be influential, their influence was only apparent after it had happened.

And looking at the long game the Velvets and Lou ultimately outsold the Monkees.

Lou's Transformer is as much an iconic punk document as anything else of the time, even though it's from '72.

In my first punky band as a teenager the bass player's art teacher force fed us Transformer, along with The Stooges 'Raw Power' and (somewhat out of left-field, it must be noted) The Mothers of Invention's Freak Out and bits of John Coltrane.

Later, as a young art student in 1984 my Velvets album was a permanent 'under the arm' fixture - as a signifier.

I also recall petitioning the art materials shop within the college to stock the first Velvets album, as an essential material for new students, along with their paints and canvas.

The true measure of 'influence' is what happens as a result of exposure to said influence.
How the idea propagates and what people do with the idea, over time.

Lou Reed. March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

there's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out

The majority of the readers of this blog seem to come from in and around the greater New York area and from broadly round that eastern part of the USA that has been the worst affected by Hurricane Sandy.

So this post is just a message of support from Boat HQ to all of you out there, hoping that the worst is now over and that everyone can shortly start to pick up the pieces and get back into the swing as soon as possible.

I recall listening to an interview with - quintessential New Yorker - Lou Reed that was being conducted in a mid town Manhattan hotel room.

In between questions the journalist commented that it was becoming hard to hear Lou's answers because of the noise of the traffic outside the window.

To which Lou Reed responded 'It's New York. What do you want me to do?'.

Knowing the stoicism of many of my east coast buddies, this week's events won't be too much of a problem.

Finally, and on a customer-service-as-marketing note, we were interested to learn from Business Insider that many of the major banks have agreed to waive a number of fees for customers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut through till Wednesday.

Citibank, Capital One, and Chase customers will pay no fees on many items including extended overdraft, returned Item and insufficient funds Fees, late fees on credit cards, and also loans, including mortgages until the the storm is over.