Detractors may view him as a world weary cynic or just a plain, miserable old sod but that would be to dismiss his incredible, creative bravery. Together with influential art rockers The Velvet Underground, Reed emerged from the 60's at a time when most bands were still singing about boy/girl love. However a pro-queer, anti-hippie Reed would pen tracks about drug addiction, paranoia, S&M and amphetamine psychosis, (Are you listening Rachel Stevens?) culminating eventually in his best known solo album, Transformer which featured a song about a smalltown transvestite looking for better things. (Walk On The Wild Side). He practically single-handedly invented art rock and without him everyone from Bowie to The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand would be unthinkable.



Lou Reed was born Louis Firbank on 2 March 1942 in Freeport, Long Island New York. After graduating from Syracuse University he joined the Pickwick stable of songwriters in 1964. To promote one of his songs, the local minor hit, The Ostrich, Pickwick assembled a house band which would include future Velvet Underground member John Cale. Reed and Cale resolved to continue working together. Recruiting Sterling Morrisson on guitar and Angus Maclise on percussion the foursome began performing on the avant garde New York circuit before becoming The Velvet Underground in 1965 at which time Maureen Tucker replaced Maclise. The band accompanied artist Andy Warhol's travelling multimedia show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. On their travels they met German art house chanteuse Nico, recruiting her for three songs on their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. With a cool cover featuring a peelable banana, the album was an astonishing mix of Cale's avant garde temperament ("We hated everybody," he said. "Our aim was to upset people, make them vomit.") and Reed's harsh street poetry on tracks like the druggy celebration of Heroin and Waiting For The Man.