Lou Reed | The New York Observer

Poet Jim Carroll Left Behind Sad Punk Compatriots, Unfinished Novel

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:25:25 -0400

Jim Carroll, the legendary Manhattan poet and punk rocker, died of a heart attack on Friday, Sept. 12, at the age of 60.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 15, the day before a private funeral service for family and friends, some New Yorkers who knew Carroll shared their memories of him with the Transom.

“Jim was a true poet in anything he did,” said Lenny Kaye, guitarist and longtime collaborator of singer Patti Smith,...

Reed It and Weep: Legendary Lou, Velvet Underground Singer, Greets Groupies at Book Signing with Schnabel

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:54:44 -0400

Lou Reed, legendary frontman of the Velvet Underground, and Julian Schnabel, noted artist and filmmaker, were sitting at a rustic wooden table inside the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea on the evening of Thursday, June 25.

The two longtime friends were there for a book-signing and cocktail party celebrating the forthcoming release of Berlin, a new collection of photographs taken during Mr. Schnabel’s filming of a tour Mr. Reed did in 2007 to revive his...

Youssou Crazy! Documentarians Rally Around Senegalese Singer at Paris Theater

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:30:32 -0400

“I feel like the Benetton ads,” said filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, posing for photos with Senegalese singer Youssou NDour and fellow director Mike Nichols at a screening of her new documentary, Youssou NDour: I Bring What I Love, at the Paris Theater on Thursday night, June 4.

The film follows the recording and reception of Mr. NDour's Grammy-winning album Egypt. The album presents a peaceful side of Islam, fusing secular and spiritual traditions, and the timely screening...

Writers on Craic! PEN Festival Carries On Despite 'Freak Year'

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:04:41 -0400

“I think this year is just a freak year,” said the writer Salman Rushdie, during a wine-and-cheese reception at the Instituto Cervantes on Wednesday, March 25, to announce the lineup for next month’s fifth annual PEN World Voices Festival, “when just to be able to do it at all is an achievement—and especially to do it on this scale.”

Mr. Rushdie, who chairs the literary festival, which opens on April...

Itchy and Saatchi...Tribeca Swells (Gandolfini!) Protest Local Trash Project at Ad Agency Party

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:29:19 -0400

“Have you seen Jennifer Connelly?” a reporter for local CW affiliate WPIX-Channel 11 asked legendary rocker Lou Reed.

The 67-year-old former Velvet Underground frontman, clad in comfy running shoes, jeans and a gray sweatshirt, and standing with wife Laurie Anderson, simply shrugged and turned back to a video presentation that was playing—something about a big smelly sanitation facility fouling up the neighborhood.

“Come on, you should film some of this!” Mr. Reed...

Morning Memo: More Gossip Girl Romance; Jeremy Piven's Identity Crisis; Cipriani Scion Hides Out

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:39:34 -0500

Chef David Bouley forced his maitre'd to turn Lou Reed away from his new restaurant because he was wearing jeans and sneakers. [Eater]

Now that Taylor Momsen and Chace Crawford have been spotted making out, we're starting to think all these Gossip Girl hook-ups are some kind of PR ploy. [P6]

Jeremy Piven is getting a little sick of people confusing him with Ari Gold. [Gatecrasher]

Giuseppe Cipriani is hiding out abroad until his family's legal...

Lou Reed: Dance to My Rock 'n' Roll Station!

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:44:32 -0400

It's been a good month for Lou Reed. Just weeks after it was made public that the 66-year-old indie icon wed his longtime girlfriend, Laurie Anderson, Sirius Satellite Radio announced that Lou Reed will host a weekly show on Sirius' Disorder channel, joining other hosts for the radio network like Marky Ramone, David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter) of the New York Dolls, Martha Stewart, Eminem and Tony Hawk.

Lou Reed's New York World, as the...

Today at the Tribeca Film Festival: Lou Reed's Berlin; Leighton Meester Horror-Show

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:05:14 -0400

Everywhere at Once, Village East Cinema, 1:15 p.m.

can’t help but think that inspiration for Everywhere at Once must have been born during a late-night heavy-talking/drinking session…in this film photographer Peter Lindbergh and “experimental filmmaker” (uh-oh) Holly Fisher collaborated to “weave together a tapestry of images” using Mr. Lindbergh’s photographs and clips from the 1966 Tony Richardson film Mademoiselle starring Jeanne Moreau. Ms. Moreau narrates using a poem by Kimiko Hahn. Got it?

Donkey in Lahore,...

Morning Memo: Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson Make it Legal; Suri Cruise's $100,000 Birthday

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:08:11 -0400

Lou Reed secretly married his long-time girlfriend Laurie Anderson in Colorado on April 12 and then celebrated back here in New York with friends like Julian and Olatz Schnabel and Richard Belzer of Law & Order. [P6]

Barbara Streisand might be bailing out of participating in the celebration of Israel's 60th birthday because in addition to Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, Steven Spielberg, Rupert Murdoch and Natalie Portman, George W. Bush will also be attending. [P6]...

Tribeca Film Fest Announces Spotlights and Showcases

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:57:23 -0400

The Tribeca Film Festival just unveiled the line-up for its Spotlight, Showcase and Restored/Rediscovered sections, which include titles by Jose Padilha, Julian Schnabel, Harmony Korine, Guy Maddin and Tom Kalin, and world premieres from Peter Tolin and Adam Yauch. Director Julian Schnabel's new film Lou Reed's Berlin, a documentary about Mr. Reed playing his Berlin song cycle live for the first time at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, and Gunnin' for That #1 Spot,...

Stay Awake Stays Alive in Brooklyn

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:52:26 -0400

On April 2, St. Ann's Warehouse in Dumbo will present a concert celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Hal Willner's Stay Awake, the producer's classic 1988 interpretation of the Vintage Disney Songbook, Brooklyn Vegan reports. Mr. Willner revived the project last June at the behest of former Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker, who invited Mr. Willner to present it live for the first time at London's 2007 Meltdown Festival, which Mr. Cocker curated.

Hot Tickets: Gypsy, Lou Reed, Cyndi Lauper, Killing Joke

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:58:39 -0400

CONCERTS

Cyndi Lauper is bringing her True Colors to Radio City Music Hall on June 1 (and to Jones Beach on June 3), along with fellow new wavers the B-52s, Rosie O'Donnell, and the Indigo Girls, in a Logo channel-sponsored benefit for the LGBT lobbying organization the Human Rights Campaign. Icing on the cake: Queer Eye's Carson Kressley is hosting. [On Sale: Friday, March 14 at 10 a.m.]

From the "bands it's...

Moby, Byrne, Lou Reed to Speak Up! About Iraq

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:16:13 -0500

Hey, New Yorkers, where is your revolutionary spirit? Lou Reed, David Byrne and Blonde Redhead are wondering why our city of "visionaries" isn't rallying against the war in Iraq. Well they've got a solution: a SPEAK UP! concert in DUMBO.

"New Yorkers have always been visionaries," claims the release for SPEAK UP!, which will take place at St. Ann's Warehouse on March 18. "SPEAK UP is a way to begin to reclaim the...

Director Julian Schnabel Among amfAR Honorees; Marc Jacobs and Lou Reed to Present

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:15:37 -0500

New York artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, along with French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfield and Bobby Shriver of the (Product)RED Campaign, will be honored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) at the organization’s 10th annual gala on January 31, according to Variety. Presenters for the humanitarian fete, being held at Cipriani in midtown, include Marc Jacobs and Lou Reed (although the evening’s highlight may just be a special performance by none other...

Summer of 35mm! Bryan Adams, Other Rock Stars, Enjoy Photographing...Each Other

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:56:06 -0400

“Life is short. There’s no reason why you can’t love many different ways of creating,” said Vanity Fair and GQ photographer Mark Seliger at his 401 Projects gallery in the far West Village, where an exhibit called “Visions of Rock” debuted on Saturday, Sept. 8.

A black-and-white picture of Pink—topless (yikes!), arms raised high, shot by Bryan Adams—anchored the room. Other musician/photographers included Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Mick Fleetwood and Jakob Dylan.

...

Silverstein Throws Himself a Party

Wed, 17 May 2006 09:48:21 -0400

(www.suzannevega.com) You gotta give Larry Silverstein credit for making a big deal out of what others might just want to gloss over: finishing a building before anybody is ready to move into it. The opening ceremonies for 7 World Trade Center on May 23 will feature a midday concert with Suzanne Vega, Ollabelle and kids from PS 89 and PS 234. By that point, only Silverstein himself and his architects will have moved in....

High German Below Canal: Gutenbrunner Goes Gemütlich

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Blaue Gans Two Stars 139 Duane Street (at West Broadway) 212-571-8880 Dress: Casual Lighting: Soft Noise Level: High, but not unreasonable Wine List: Short, international, good Austrian vintages, plus beers on tap Credit Cards: All major Price Range: Main courses, $18 to $24 Hours: 11:30 a.m. to midnight “Don’t eat any more!” a young woman next to me on the banquette told the man sitting across from her. “I can’t help it.” He took another mouthful from a silver bowl on his table. ...

Iconoclast of Leper Island

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:00:00 -0500

One recent evening inside the velveteen cavern of Joe's Pub on Lafayette Street, a singer called Antony was sitting quietly at a grand piano, before an expectant, sold-out crowd.

An awkward, husky man with alabaster skin, made up in lipstick, a jet-black wig and a foppish Peter Pan cap, he peered into the darkness, listening to the bartender loudly chip away at the ice. "I feel like we're in a coal mine," he whispered to the...

Eight Day Week

Sun, 02 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday 28th

Hedwig gets hitched? Freedom to Marry , a nonprofit lobbying group for the right to gay marriage , gets not-so-straight couples to dance in the aisles at today's WEDrock benefit. Actor John Cameron Mitchell, of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, will preside. "It's just that when someone tells you that you can't do something , whether you like it or not, it's like, 'F*** you! And you call yourself a...

Reed Does Postmodern Poe; Quoth the Reviewer: 'Nevermore'

Sun, 09 Feb 2003 19:00:00 -0500

In a preface to The Raven and Other Poems (1845), Edgar Allan Poe boasted of the purity of his artistic ambitions: "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not-they cannot at will be excited with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations of mankind." Forget fame and fortune-poetry is a labor of love.

Flash forward 150 years...

Looking Back at Lou Reed's Blue Period

Sun, 14 Mar 1999 19:00:00 -0500

It's just a cultural quirk that Lou Reed's "official" photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, is also Monica Lewinsky's authorized shutterbug, a grouping no crazier then Mr. Reed performing at the White House last year when the intern-on-her-knees scandal was in full swing. What song did he play for Bill and Hillary, "Walk on the Wild Side"? How Mr. Reed must have identified with Bubba, both men the same age, both "growing up in public," to quote...