Do you like Wagner/Hunter in Lou Reed's band? I don't!

Great live album and one of my favorite guitar duos. The guitar playing brought Reed's songs to a new level. Love the intro arrangement to Sweet Jane.

As a guitar nerd whenever I hear a Phase 90 pedal I think about that album the same way that I'll always associate the uni-vibe with Hendrix at Woodstock/Filmore East.

 

This take on "Rock Minuet" is fantastic, but I think there is a lot of ideological projection going on in this thread, when you and the others assault Lou for playing dirty and cheap "rawk" on Rock'n'Roll Animal, contrasting it with allegedly sublime lofty aesthetics of his other 70s projects.

I have recently grabbed Chicago, April 14, 1978 performance on "Hassled in April" euroboot, and if there is any definition of populist rawk, this could be definitely one of them. The aforementioned "American Poet" with a New York 1972 gig is very fine indeed, but hey, it is also a pretty straight-forward rock in the vein of Bowie's Ziggy years.

The only example I have heard so far, which detours from basic rock aesthetics comes from the 1976 tour ("Thinking of Another Place", Akron, Oct 23), where there is a fair amount of jazzy arrangements and stretch-outs. I would love to hear better sounding tapes from that period.

I still have gaps to fill in his live discography, particularly from 1974-75 shows, but I neither expect any early Velvet Underground's experimentalism nor the sophistication of his later solo years. As far as I know Lou was a rock'n'roll guy on 70s stages, which is hardly surprising given the "warm" reception of his bolder/experimental studio works by the elite of "sophisticated" music critics. And out of his 70s base rock formula live incarnations Rock'n'Roll Animal works the best for me, because it is the most interesting instrumentally. And it is damn hot too.

Was Wagner/Hunter lineup alien to Lou's aesthetics and concepts, as some of his fans want to see it? I do not know, but I would rather believe the man himself, who told in a 90s interview that it was a truly great band that deservedly won a lot of hearts. I think the same.

 

Nothing short of classic work destined to ring true for decades.

 

I don't doubt Reed's sincerity in making the music he wanted to make at the time he made it (although, as he said about Metal Machine Music IIRC in that '80s documentary, he was very serious about but also very high), I just don't think it reflects Reed at his most unique, characteristic, influential doing those things that only he could do and that made us think about rock differently. Nor do I think it's Reed at his best. It's like, say, when Stravinksy took up serialism in the '50s, this great innovator which such a strong personality of his own taking up someone else's idea late and, maybe making good music but not the best, most Stravinskian music of his career.

Also, for me personally, the RnR Animal and Lou Reed Live stuff, though it was stuff I grew up loving as a teenager in the '70s, is music I find I almost never return to anymore. I do hear it as an uncomfortable fit with the rest of Reed's work and find a lot of it -- like I mentioned the proggy take on "Heroin" to be just something I don't like very much, even though I have no issue with its craftsmanship (it's hardly "dirty cheap 'rawk'").

 

Rock & Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live are the ONLY solo albums I have by the man, so yes I like Wagner/Hunter

 

Me as well.

 

Yes, total mismatch for me as a listener, no matter what Reed's intentions were. Based on the cover (transgressive) I really wanted to like it. Nothing at all dangerous to the mainstream about the music itself though.

So sadly to say: It turned me off when I was 12 and found the cassette in the bargain bin; it turned me off through college and after; and it still turns me off - for the most part. I'm able to at least play it now! Maybe I'll do a 180 on it as I did with Ecstasy.

 

Love Rock & Roll Animal, and I especially enjoy the guitar intro to Sweet Jane. Was an FM radio staple when I was in high school.

 

hate it and i am a lou fan

 

Of course I love it...Lou remains Lou..nobody can do it better but Lou...we know that...

Vintage Guitar:You’ve done tons of session work for many of rock’s most notable talents. Let’s start with your tenure in Lou Reed’s band, sharing lead guitar chores with your longtime partner in crime, Steve Hunter.

Dick Wagner:That band definitely took Lou Reed into a different direction. Reed talks bad about the Rock and Roll Animal and Lou Reed, Live albums we played on, now. He puts that whole era down. Well, in every place we ever played back then, the press was always putting down Lou Reed and talking about the great guitars of Hunter and Wagner. He hated that! He came to us during the tour and made us stop playing to the audience and entertaining them because we were stealing his show. We didn’t mean to, we were just hot! We did a lot of great work together and I’m very proud of it. Playing guitar with Steve Hunter was one of the highlights of my career.

 

I think on the 2006/08 tours, Lou Reed admired Steve Hunter for what he does: play pure "rock guitar." Kind of like Earl Slick with Bowie. Can't remember if it was the Berlin show I saw at St. Ann's or one of the recordings, but in an unscripted moment, he paused the show to marvel at Hunter's playing and tell the audience, "now that's rock guitar." So there was a formalism to it, at least at that point. (I really don't know what was guiding his decisions in '73-74 -- some good, some bad.)

lol -- I don't think he was taking in too many carbs by the time of the Animal shows... (though he was a bit pudgy in the Tots era -- check the Berlin cover photos.)

 

You nailed the essence of Lou's music very well. I think this song was even better with Jane Scarpantoni on the cello though; her "solo" and interplay with Lou was mindblowing. She was on the 2003-2004 tours.

 

Wonder what vintage that interview is? Lou definitely talked warmly about Rock and Roll Animal in the 90s and onwards - just stating that it wasn't a band he could play guitar with, which makes sense.

 

Bowie asked Steve to play on the Diamond Dogs tour before he asked Slick. Steve was already committed and had to demur.