GLR January-February Supplement 2024

Poet of a Generation and Its Misfits is undocumented, so one is unable to check, for example, on the source of a misstatement within a quotation. What’s more, much of the writing is syntactically sloppy and badly punctuated. Finally, I’m troubled by Byrne’s failure to understand the guiding principle of McNally’s life and the humanity of his art. All through his career, McNally was at pains to stress the equal importance of every person in the human community. (“We’re each special. We’re each ordinary. We’re each di vine,” Joshua teaches his disciples in Corpus Christi .) Yet riff ing on the title of the musical A Man of No Importance (2002), Byrne has titled his biography A Man of Much Importance . McNally had a healthy ego and could resent slights, as anyone who provoked his anger knows. But ultimately he was com mitted to maintaining the difficult balance between applauding individual accomplishment and celebrating the community of equals.

A S A WRITER and commentator for Rolling Stone and NPR, Will Hermes has zestfully illu minated the zeitgeist of various musical movements, placing them within their historical and cultural settings. His lat est book is an examination of the compli cated genius of Lou Reed, the drug-taking, gender-bending avatar of the leather, goth,

fired Warhol. After the group’s second re lease, the jazz-inflected White Light/White Heat , went nowhere, Reed kicked Cale out of the band. The remaining members sol diered on for two more studio albums be fore Reed finally left in 1970. Over time, these early records have achieved cult status, their songs covered by David Bowie, Patti Smith, R.E.M., and

J OHN R. K ILLACKY

LOU REED: The King of New York by Will Hermes Farrar, Straus and Giroux 529 pages, $35.

glam, and punk music scenes. Many books have been written about the legend, but Lou Reed: The King of New York maywell be the definitive biography. Hermes provides a detailed catalogue raisonné of Reed’s early Velvet Underground albums and examines his later record ings, including the David Bowie-produced Transformer ,which featured “Walk on the Wild Side” as well as recordings that were ignored at first (but now venerated): the operatic “Berlin,” the nihilistic “Metal Machine Music,” and the politically charged “New York.” Reed’s early life was undistinguished. Growing up on Long Island, he played doo-wop in a high school band. In his first year at NYU, he had an emotional breakdown and underwent electroconvulsive therapy. It’s not clear whether he was treated for depression or for being gay. He was an unreliable source about his own history. Researching the biography, Hermes found the musician often changed stories about his past de pending upon the audience. In 1960, he transferred to Syracuse University, where he met guitarist Sterling Morrison and con tracted hepatitis from dirty heroin needles. After graduation, he quickly thrived in New York’s avant-garde scene, performing at happenings with Morrison, along with John Cale droning on his viola and Moe Tucker playing drums. The group called themselves the Velvet Underground. The quartet fell into Andy Warhol’s demimonde, with its drag queens, starlets, sex, drugs, and all forms of artmaking. Warhol offered to produce the band’s album but insisted that the German model Nico join the group as their chanteuse. Warhol got top billing on the front cover via his (now infamous) silkscreened photograph of a banana. The Velvet Underground & Nico were only billed on the backside of the album. Because of its dissonant sound and transgressive lyrics, the record gar nered little radio play. Within a year, Nico was out, and Reed John R. Killacky is the author of Because Art: Commentary, Cri tique, & Conversation . January–February 2024

Cowboy Junkies, among others. Reed once joked with Brian Eno that, although sales for these albums were meager, “everyone who bought a copy started a band.” During the ’70s and ’80s, Reed’s perpetually shapeshifting musical output (and provoca tive personas) made him the godfather of indie/alt rock. While

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