LOU REED 'SWEET LOU - WALKING ON L.A.'s WILD SIDE' LIVE 1976 TOUR RARE NOT TMOQ

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LOU REED 'SWEET LOU - WALKING ON L.A.'s WILD SIDE' LIVE 1976 TOUR RARE 'COLLECTOR' RECORD SIMILAR TO TMOQ & PIGS EYE 

LOU REED "SWEET LOU: WALKING ON L.A.'s WILD SIDE" LIVE: 12-1-76 ROXY THEATRE ~ HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES LABEL: UNITED RECORDS LR-01 RELEASED: 1989(?) MATRIX: (etched)): [long scratchout] E3-A/B [long scratchout] BARCODE: 0 441180 6
CONDITION:  VINYL: EX-   JACKET: VG++ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've been going thru my massive vinyl record collection this month and pulling out some LPs that I thought that someone else would want for their collection. I've been collecting records for over 40 years and it's time to pass some of them on to the next generation of collectors.
This week on EBay I am offering up this fantastic, clean copy of 'SWEET LOU - WALKING ON L.A.'s WILD SIDE' a 'Collector' record of a club show during the 1976 tour.
This classic small club show was recorded live during the west coast leg of the short, fall 1976, 'Rock and Roll Heart' Tour at L.A.'s legendary Roxy Theatre. The show was recorded live, then edited for airplay, and broadcast by L.A.'s KMET FM Rock radio station. I believe this 'collector' LP is taken from that broadcast.
This was eventually released in the 'Grey Market' as 'Winter at the Roxy,' but many Lou fans claim that the original, earlier pressed, 'Collector' records actually sound better overall. There were Private tapes recorded from the Broadcast available that were in much better condition than the archived tapes that the 'official' versions were eventually made from years later. The tapes used for 'Winter at the Roxy' sounded old, tinny and had drop-outs.
For this performance at the Roxy, Lou knew it was being recorded for a future broadcast and he was on his best behavior. The band plays loose and spontaneous, but great, and they sound like they're having a blast. Reed himself is in a fun and playful mood, occasionally goofing on the lyrics and interacting with the audience.
Lou and the band go off into frequent jams, which give the material a more exploratory feel that nicely sets it apart from some of Reed's other live shows around the same period.
It also has a different feel to his other live stuff, circa 1975/76. It's jazzier in style, no hard guitars, and loads of saxophone floating over it and through it. Dickie and Steve's shredding guitars were gone by this point in Lou's career.
The loose, extended improvisations make this record worth a listen and worth owning for serious Lou Reed fans.
I got to see Lou in November at the Palladium in New York on this same tour, about a month earlier. Same band, no Don Cherry, and a similar set list, but generally much tighter songs. I  remember he did a fantastic version of 'Berlin' that night and his trademark 'Heroin', complete with his fake 'tying off' stunt.
~~~~~~~~~~ The band on this tour was the same great band he would use for his next record, 'Street Hassle' in 1978. Lou called this band the 'Everyman Band' and it was made up of:
Michael Fonfara ~ Keyboards, Marty Fogel ~ Saxophone, Bruce Yaw ~ Bass, Michael Suchorsky ~ Drums, and Lou on Guitar, Guitar Synthesizer and Vocals. On a couple of Los Angeles area shows, including this one, Don Cherry sat in on Pocket Trumpet.
The songs on this Live 'Collectors' record include:
Sweet Jane I Believe In Love Lisa Says Kicks She's My Best Friend Coney Island Baby You Wear It So Well Claim To Fame Vicious Circle Walk On The Wild Side
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This great, dynamic, live set captures the former Velvet Underground front-man and his current band, working through a 10 song selection of some of his finest songs he had released up to that point in his career.
It's a very unique, hot show. All killer, no filler. 
This show is from a great, but unappreciated, period in Lou's career when he was trying to find his niche, after the great 'Rock & Roll Animal' period and before his fantastic 'New York' period. 
It has songs from his 1975 album, 'Coney Island Baby' and his, then, brand new album 'Rock and Roll Heart' plus some 'classics' from earlier in his career. Musically, it is extremely cool and extremely weird.
One of my personal highlights is when the band stretches out and goes a little nuts on a long, loose version of "Kicks." It's got a great groove, a furious and frenetic pace, but also allows the band to open up and explore a bit. Don Cherry's horn weaves seamlessly in and out of the song while Lou spews out his crazy, stunning vocals.
The extended version of 'Walk on the Wild Side' is over 10 minutes long and, like the released version, makes great use of the horns and the overall energetic, loose vibe of the show.
It has a great version of 'Lisa Says', a song written during the Velvet Underground years, but not officially released until Lou's first solo album in 1972.
As this tour was promoting his new LP, 'Rock and Roll Heart', he plays a few songs from that record as well. Lou does rare performances of 'I Believe In Love' and You Wear It So Well.' Later in the set he does a terrific, bluesy, smokey, version of 'A Sheltered Life', a song that was rarely performed live, even during the '76 tour.
There's a hip, swinging version of "Sweet Jane" and a terrific performance of "Coney Island Baby" , one of my favorite overlooked Lou Reed songs. The song is in the middle of this record, but Lou closed most of his 1976 shows with it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This was recorded during Lou's Fall 1976 Tour, promoting 'Rock and Roll Heart', his 7th solo album. On this tour, Lou was in his leather jacket, cropped blonde hair, street punk phase.
Like most Lou Reed live shows from the mid/late 1970s – it’s loose, casual, heavily improvised and somehow simultaneously a mess and glorious at the same time. Classic Lou Reed.
Several of these tracks are stretched out in performance and include compelling, extended vocal and instrumental improvisations. They illuminate Reed’s affinity for jazz, and particularly for horns. There's some loose, free sax and trumpet all over these tracks, and they sound so much better because of it.
There are some moments of heartfelt insight and beauty here, but there are also plenty of the classic Lou Reed moments that suggest defiance and discord. 
If you’re a Lou Reed fan, you’ll really enjoy this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To the casual Lou Reed fan, having Don Cherry, the legendary Free-Jazz trumpeter, sitting in on this show would seem odd, but anyone who closely followed Lou's career knows that Lou was aware of, and very familiar with, Don Cherry since the early 1960s, when he used to see Cherry playing with Ornette Coleman in the NYC clubs.
Lou famously called his college literary magazine 'Lonely Woman Quarterly', named after the opening track on Coleman's 1959 recording 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' featuring Don Cherry.
The story goes, that when the band flew into LA for their west coast gigs, they were waiting around for a limousine and Don Cherry just happened to walk by. Lou's sax player, Marty Fogel, knew him and struck up a conversation. Lou asked Cherry to play with them that night at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, which he did, and a week later, he sat in at the Roxy show. Small world.
Free jazz pocket trumpet icon Don Cherry adds his trademark incendiary honks and bleeps over Reed's iconic lyrical narratives and really adds something special to this show.
After the Roxy show, Cherry and Lou went out club-hopping on the strip. There's a great version of 'Heroin' done at a club on the strip, around this time, on the 'Between Thought and Expression' box.
~~~ Some fans comment that Lou doesn't play a lot of Guitar on this album. Yes and No. At the start of the show, especially in the opening jam, he plays some blazing guitar.
Later into the show he switches over to one of his newest and latest toys, a guitar/synthesizer patch, that makes his guitar sound more like a keyboard than a traditional electric guitar.
Picture 'Metal Machine Music' sounds. Grinding, screeching, schizophrenic noises and 'solos'. They sort of get blended in with the keyboard sound and the horns. Lou was very 'experimental' with his music during this period.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As mentioned, this show was from the late 70's when Lou was trying to find his place in the music world.
What Lou learned from his mentor Andy Warhol was 'careermanship': making yourself such a commanding media figure that even when your latest work isn't top-notch, people will still be intrigued by the 'image' and check it out. Lou made a 50 year career out of what he learned from Andy.
The great albums 'Transformer' and 'RNR Animal' created an image of Lou Reed in the public's eye that was just a small subset of what a truly great artist he was. He accepted that image, but was not happy with it, and was trying to break away from it during this period of his career. Lou's big appeal to many fans was his unwillingness to kiss up to a fanbase, always changing, always evolving, sort of like his pal David Bowie.
Lou lived many different lives in the '70s. Most of them pretty bleak. For many of those years he was a pale, thin, drug-ravaged artist trying to find his place in music. He spent most days competing with Keith Richards as the rock star voted most likely to die next.
In an interview during this '76 tour Lou said: "I created Lou Reed. I have nothing even faintly in common with that guy, but I can play him well. Really well."
This record captures Lou at a great, experimental period in his long career. A great 'collector' record that belongs in any Lou Reed or classic Rock collection.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ Even after his passing, Lou’s music continues to fascinate and captivate audiences around the world. He was a fine songwriter and observant street poet. Lou Reed was one of those musical geniuses that seemed to come out of nowhere, completely original, who had important things to say, about real topics, that forced people to listen. 
Reed’s success, and his overlooked importance to Rock music, lay not in record sales, but in the influence he had on the direction of music in the late 60s and 1970s.
Lou's early 1960's band, Velvet Underground were one of the most influential bands ever. The Velvets, through Lou's lyrics, said everything other bands were forbidden to say and even some things other bands never imagined. They showed that most anyone with a guitar, a few chords and something interesting to say, could do just that. 
"The first Velvet Underground record (only) sold 30,000 copies in the first five years," Brian Eno once said. " (but) I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!"
Lou Reed was always an influential artist. His life was a long walk on the dark side. He wrote about subjects that others wouldn't dare to, and he opened the door for other artists to do the same. Lou's music allowed bands to come out from the 'safety' of the charts and create new, engaging music that was both honest and challenging. The punk and New Wave movements of the 1970s and '80s are all deeply indebted to Lou Reed.
His music wasn't about Girlfriends, Peace, Love and Community, like much of the popular music back then, it was about survival and real life, about daily adventures, the violent rhythms and the urban disconnectedness of the shadowy city streets. 
Not since Dylan had a songwriter so radically expanded the territory of rock lyrics. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lou was a true New Yorker and loved the city. I was a teen growing up in New York during the late 70s as well. Lou Reed's New York City became the hippest place on the planet for a while in the late 1970s. I fell in love with Lou's dark dangerous music and the whole New Wave scene exploding around the city back then. I grabbed up as many records as I could from that 'scene' back then.
Few fans also realize that Lou had a deep love, and a deep knowledge, of all types of music, and was a big vinyl collector himself. As a teen, I actually ran into him, twice, digging for obscure records in the same Village record shops I used to frequent in the late 70s and early 80s. He was amazingly respected by the people on the street and in the shops; just another guy, one of the collectors, and left alone to dig thru records. Nobody dared bug him or ask for an autograph or anything 'uncool' like that.
In his later years, Lou would finally mellow slightly. He performed at the White House, had his writings published in The New Yorker, had a PBS documentary made, and finally won a Grammy in 1999. Lou Reed's body finally had enough. He died of liver disease in his beloved New York on Oct. 27, 2013.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CONDITION: I tried to show good hi-resolution photos of the cover, labels and vinyl in my pictures. I purchased this copy used at a Manhattan record show back in the late 80s, nearly 35 years ago. I've taken great care of it since.
VINYL: The vinyl looks great. Clean and Bright. I'll say conservative EX-, no scuffs, scrapes or hairlines. Visually fine. Each side is one long unbanded track. What looks like a 'scratch' on side 2 at 8 O'clock is actually a hair. Sorry. Didn't notice it till listing the photos.
I tried to show some close-up pictures of the vinyl to show how good it looks. I'm sure you'll be happy with it.
LABELS: This is pressed on custom blood red labels with silver lettering. The labels are clean and bright. No marks or damage. The spindle holes are still sharp and clean, suggesting minimal playing and careful handling.
JACKET: The Jacket is in decent condition. It's made of thin cardboard and there are some creases in the corners, but not bad. I tried to show details in my photos. Overall a decent jacket and a great 1976 Era picture of Lou on the cover.
This has been sleeved and stored properly for years, and is still in decent shape. Clean and bright. Spine is fine, no ring wear, no seam splits. You can see from my pictures it's quite nice. The only 'flaw' is some 'creasing' to the original jacket.
This is a great record to add to any Lou Reed or classic Rock collection. A relatively rare 'Collector' record that doesn't turn up for sale often and it's a real gem. I'm sure you'll love it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ** NOTE: I'm selling this rare 'Collector' record "AS IS" and "NO RETURN". It's rare and as described and I'm sure you'll be very happy with it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m recently retired and downsizing and letting go some gems and rarities from nearly 45 years of vinyl record collecting. Check out the many other fantastic 45s and 33s coming soon to my page!
All records have been carefully evaluated and graded by me. I visually inspect all records under bright light, personally gently clean them with a soft cloth and then, if unsure, play them on a modern high-end turntable to get a true picture of condition. Please look at all the high-resolution pictures I added. They are all my own and are of the actual record being sold. The pictures are part of the description and can show small details, label variations, and condition better than I can put into words. 
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THANK YOU for looking and reading if you got this far.  -- JOHN