The Velvet Underground released ‘White Light / White Heat’ 55 years ago this week. Lou Reed later rightly described it as “the Statue of Liberty of punk.”

Here’s what we’ll be packing way in the back of our luggage – way, way in the back – before our fateful seafaring journey.

Lou Reed’s live ‘Animal Serenade’ delivered the goods 15 years ago this week, but – gasp! – in an elegant, almost cerebral fashion.

Over the years since Lou Reed released ‘Metal Machine Music’ in July 1975, many others have followed him into noise, distortion and atonality.

You hear this Velvet Underground classic as never before, without its now-familiar street-tough attitude, to say nothing of its insouciant gait.

When mashed, these two albums can cause hearing loss, insanity and/or death.

Richard Barone, the ex-Bongos leader, imbues this Velvet Underground gem with a newfound sense of sad reverie. Whereas the nihilistic Nico, on the original 1967 version, stood apart from the conviviality, a distant observer, Barone finds the nostalgia, the very real need for attachment in the Lou Reed lyric. YouRead More

Aram Bajakian had spent the last couple of years touring with the late, great Lou Reed, but this guitarist’s own music had been taking a walk on the wild side well before that. You May Also Like: Aram Bajakian – Dolphy Formations (2016) Dálava – The Book of Transfigurations (2017)Read More

For non-musicians, the creative process can be something of a mystery. The composer has all of that training about melody, harmony, scales, time signatures, and chord progressions — and out of that the musical ideas are born…somehow. The truth is that while the process can indeed be opaque (sometimes evenRead More

Peter Gabriel, always one for the theatrical, released a double-album of interpretive music this week in Scratch My Back … And I’ll Scratch Yours, with mixed results. You May Also Like: When Peter Gabriel Suddenly Decided to Open Up on ‘Us’ Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta, Pat Mastelotto, David Torn +Read More