Well written, if not at times overwritten, account of Lou's life. There is good insight here as to what made Lou "Lou", that is to say, why he was such a hard person to know, and much of the time, more than merely "difficult." (The combination of forced, ongoing electroshock therapy to "cure" his homosexual tendencies as a teen and the quick devolution into drug use are good indicators of what started him on his journey into combative behavior.)

The adventures of the Velvet Underground, Lou's at-times tempestuous relationships with John Cale, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and Lester Bangs are all here, and we are reminded often that Lou didn't care about commercial or critical success. He just wanted to make his music his way.

The book is also fair in its take on Lou's later years, and how his relationship with Laurie Anderson, friendship with Vaclav Havel, and practice of Tai Chi softened him. I finished the book grateful for his artistry, hopeful that he was truly as gentle and spiritual as he seemed at moments in the latter portion of the book, and that he'd learned to extend some of that grace forward. Sylvia Reed, Lou's second wife, provides a lot of insights about Lou in the 80's, a time of great transition for him.

There's also attention given to Lou's songwriting, with analysis of many of Lou's songs and albums, from successes ("Transformer", "New York") to more questionable ventures ("Metal Music Machine" and the swan song collaboration with Metallica titled "Lulu"). More than any other aspect of a musician's memoir or biography, I love learning about what inspired songs, how they were created, and the mythos that surrounds the works.

Despite an exhaustive overview of Lou's life and career, the elements that was missing (for me) were more detailed, first-hand takes on pivotal moments, such as the breakup of the Velvet Underground (one day Lou was just driving down the Jersey Turnpike and decided he was done with the band, so says the book), the dissolution of the Velvet's reunion in 1993 (again, just attributed to "the reemergence of longtime tensions" without much detail), and Lou's final days and passing. These are very private occurrences, and ones unlikely to be uncovered by a journalist without access to Lou himself, who is, of course, gone. So, Levy does as good a job as possible cobbling these definitive moments together. I just wished to be able to find out more about these seminal events.

But then, perhaps more than anything else, Lou Reed was a cocktail of contradictions and mystery. So, kudos to Levy for helping me get to know someone who, I would imagine, spent much of his life trying to remain somewhat unknowable.

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Really enjoyed this book. I didn't previously know much about Lou's life, other than whet he shared through his music.

A lot of the book is devoted to analysing Lou's music, and by and large I think Aidan Levy gets it right. He's certainly opened my ears to nuances in music I've listened to time and time again for many years.

My only quibble is with the authors choice of phrasing. My vocabulary is at least average, probably a little above, but it often felt like the text I was reading had been needlessly filtered through a thesaurus, and there were times when I was confronted with too many unfamiliar words and simply glossed over them, though that didn't detract much from my enjoyment.

If you know Lou's music I strongly recommend this book. If you don't, take the time to listen. ( )

Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed by Aiden Levy is the latest biography of legendary punk rock icon Lou Reed. Levy has written for the New York Times, the Village Voice, JazzTimes, and the Daily Forward.

I remember hearing "Walk on the Wildside" on AM radio as a child. I had no idea what it was about or why the colored girls were singing. "Colored" was at the time still an acceptable adjective. But I was told not to sing bits of the song. I sensed there was something my eight-year-old brain was missing, and I was right. The radio was always playing when I was growing up and rarely was it ever turned down except when Lou Reed played.

Music stays with us our whole lives and I still listen to the groups and people that made an impression on my young mind -- Lou Reed, Patti Smith, The New York Dolls, and the Ramones. Growing up in Cleveland we had a progressive radio station, WMMS that kept Clevelanders listening to the best music in the nation despite the cities many other problems. The music had a lasting impression on me.

Lou Reed is the angry, non-melodic, speeding, crass, poetic, godfather of New York punk. That line pretty much summarizes Lou Reed. He pushed limits and saved rock and roll from corporate arena rock and disco. Levy takes the reader through Reed's entire life from childhood, to the Velvet Underground, through the solo years, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Dirty Blvd is heavy on detail and periphery information. The making of all the albums are covered in detail as well as almost a blow by blow account of the making of Le Bataclan '72, by far the most interesting story in the book. I did find myself a bit overwhelmed by details rather the story after "Sally Can't Dance" but held on because I really wanted to read about my favorite album "New York."

Several interesting points and people are presented in the book. I always thought of the Velvet Underground as a New York City band, but they were a Boston band, going to where they were the most popular. Although today, we wax about The Velvet Underground and their importance, they were never that popular when they were playing. The one person who impressed me the most in the book was Maureen Tucker, the drummer for the Velvet Underground. When most people are asked about the woman in the Velvet Underground they think of Nico and not Tucker who was the longest playing member of the band except for Sterling Morrison. Reed was difficult to work with and critical of others. He mocked Patti Smith’s Radio Ethiopia when it was released in 1976 with a who cares, I am radio Brooklyn. Interestingly it was Patti Smith who would later induct both The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed (posthumously) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Dirty Blvd. is a good biography of Lou Reed and those around him. I am a fan of Lou Reed and his work, but something was missing from this biography. It didn’t grab me the way I would expect it too. The writing is clear. The information is plentiful, but I felt myself trudging through it at several points. A good book but doesn’t quite live up to my expectations of a man whose death was noted even by the Vatican’s cultural minister in a Tweet. Perhaps it is more research project than a heartfelt biography. I will give Levy the benefit of the doubt and not let my personal feelings interfere with my opinion of the book.






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In Aidan Levy's Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed we are given a well-rounded look at the man and the artist. What makes this different, and in many ways better, than a lot of other biographies of artists is the attention to both Reed's personal life and his professional life. While a simple regurgitation of facts and stories about and artist can be an entertaining read it usually just scratches the surface. How someone approaches his art, the processes that result in different works as well as what those works are can tell as much as plain old exposition. The reader is tasked, however, with reading dynamically, which is to say to think about what a certain process means at a specific time in the artist's life and then draw conclusions from that. This biography requires work on the reader's part, the best kind of work, that which is done along with the writer to uncover nuggets of insight and appreciation.

This book is well researched and quite readable regardless of how engaged one chooses to be. If Lou Reed is already one of your favorites, this book will provide more background and a wonderful perspective on how the man and his music became impossible to fully separate from each other. If you know a little about Reed or want to know why he is so important to music, this book will reward multiple readings. I would suggest reading through and getting some overall appreciation of who and what he was (and wasn't). Then begin listening to some recordings and revisiting the book with the music fresh in your mind.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )