Exciting news to accompany this Track – those great people at Light In The Attic Records have a new archival release covering previously unavailable early demos of Lou Reed’s music from 1963-65. It’s called ‘Words & Music, May 1965‘ and it’s out in various forms from 26th August. There’s the double LP / Deluxe CD edition, there’s a digital delivery, there’s a basic kinda CD or Cassette version, a standard old LP version, an 8-Track version. Basically whatever format you want – except DAT tape ‘cos they ain’t cool yet – they have you covered. And if you’re a big ol’ Lou Reed fan then you can just go ahead and get ’em all.
Light In The Attic have been working with Laurie Anderson on this first major archival release, and yes, there’s going to be more to come. If you know Light In The Attic (and you really should) then you’ll know that they’ll do a job that is both extensive and superb in quality and design (this is not PR schpiel – this is heartfelt, Light In The Attic take re-issue to another level gawd bless ’em). For this release they’ve got Griel Marcus to do the liner notes and he captures the feel of these demos thuswise: “The poverty in these songs—the bathtub-in-the-kitchen you hear in their clumsiness, the fifth-floor-walkup you can hear in their defiance—lets you hear them, now, as chalk on a wall, not the markings that wash away in the next rain but inscriptions that somehow become part of the brick, even if in a year or two no one will be able to read them.”