Lou Reed 1942 - 2013

Very sad to hear that Lou Reed has died at the age of 71.

I grew up with the music of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.   In my hometown of Dunedin in the 1980s The Velvets were acknowledged as the coolest band ever.  Despite being 15+ years old their music was a huge influence on most of the the local bands that we followed.   I owned several of their albums and listened to them frequently.

"The famous quote from Brian Eno that “only thirty thousand people bought the Velvet Underground’s début, but they all started bands” is not wrong; if anything, it is conservative, though we have to range over many albums to size up Reed’s impact. “What Goes On” gave us the Feelies; “Sister Ray” gave us Spacemen 3; the third, self-titled Velvet Underground album gave us Galaxie 500, and maybe a chunk of the independent rock music made in New Zealand during the late nineteen-eighties. "    Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker (link)

What I hadn't realized was that about the same time us kids in NZ were listening to his old music, Lou Reed took up martial arts and eventually studied Chen Tai Chi under Ren Guangyi, a disciple of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang.    He became an enthusiastic promoter of Tai Chi and composed music for Tai Chi and meditation.    Some people were surprised that he made it to 71 - although it turns out he did much less drugs than you'd think from his songs - but he publicly attributed his later good health and vitality to Chen Tai Chi.

In this interesting interview in Kung Fu Magazine (link), Lou Reed thoughts and experiences neatly parallel my own, although at a much higher level.   See also this article from Examiner.com (link). and these 2 videos Lou Reed and Master Ren at Sydney Opera House,   Lou Reed tai chi set to original music.

As an aside, another very popular band in my hometown was the Violent Femmes, an alternative rock band from Milwaukee.   It turns out that their founder and bassist, Brian Richie, became a shakuhachi player.  So that is two obscure hobbies I have in common with my former Rock Gods.