By Matthew Fritch, eMusic ContributorThe only thing to dislike about this 1972 live recording is its unimaginative title—and even that is an improvement from its previous moniker, American Poet. Whatever you call it, and it's no doubt had many… more »

John Cale

Photo: Shawn Brackbill

By Andrew Parks, eMusic ContributorLou Reed's least favorite person — his former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale — has announced a brief west coast tour with Cass McCombs. Set to touch down in Portland on December 4, it also… more »

Ty Segall

Photo: Annabel Mehran

By Andrew Parks, eMusic ContributorWhile the world may not need another reissue of The Velvet Underground & Nico — especially an expanded six-disc box set — there's no denying the inherent appeal of hearing guitar-toting psychos like Ty Segall… more »

By Karen Schoemer, eMusic ContributorJohn Cale is mostly patient and forthcoming while discussing his new studio album, the heavily electronic Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood, but every once in a while, when a question doesn't catch his fancy, he… more »

Can you read it?

By Jason Diamond, eMusic ContributorVia the always entertaining and smart folks at Dangerous Minds comes the best sixty five (plus shipping and handling) bucks you can blow on Etsy this week: An eye chart based off a a classic 1862… more »

By Lenny Kaye, eMusic ContributorShe rests amidst the solace of Grunewald Forest outside Berlin, surrounded by woodland quietude. Even here, off the beaten path, there are floral tributes carefully placed around her grave; a bottle of unopened wine, candles… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorAnyone who'd heard Transformer or Berlin knew Lou Reed had a flair for the dramatic. Anyone who'd heard the Velvet Underground was aware that he'd helped alter the vocabulary of rock and roll guitar without… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorOnce punk had reared its head and Lou's old neighborhood, too and he'd answered back with 1978's Street Hassle, Reed tried something a little less rough-and-ready. The Bells, from 1979, is all-over-the-place musically: it even… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorFrom 1976, Reed's most straight-up commercial album yet probably ever. The hooks on Rock and Roll Heart come surprisingly easy, though the opening "I Believe in Love" equates "good-time music" and "the Iron Cross" as… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorIn which Lou Reed meets his New York anti-doppelganger, Patrick Bateman, in a Totally '80s sweepstakes that's been largely lost to history. In truth, though, it's kind of a kick to hear Reed battling it… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorThe middle album of Reed's early-'80s domestic trilogy is the homiest. 1983's Legendary Hearts is far more workaday than its predecessor, The Blue Mask — most albums are, to be fair but it's the workaday… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorWow Lou Reed made an album that sounded like this? Well, 1974 was a weird time. So weird that this wildly arranged, horn-laced mlange went Top 10 and still sounds bracing today. Some Reed nuts… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorThis is like the opposite of Metal Machine Music: four pieces, two of them in the half-hour range, of music for tai chi and meditation, a practice Reed has followed for a few years. Formally… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorLou Reed was always in some sense fighting with his audience for the first 15 years of his career anyway, so of course there was an album devoted to it. There are sharp versions of… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorIn which Reed takes the best band he had as a solo artist Robert Quine on guitar, Fred Maher on drums, Fernando Saunders on bass to Verona and Rome in September 1983 and they all… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorNo one much liked Reed's 1980 album at the time even uber-fan Lester Bangs didn't have anything good to say about it. But time has been kinder to it than anyone thought, for the simple… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorAll of a sudden Lou Reed was middle-aged. He'd gotten married, had a house, was feeling both the weight of his past and lifted from being mired in it. He was happy, but not content… more »

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By Matthew Fritch, eMusic Contributor more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorMaybe it's a coincidence that three fabulous and endlessly eclectic DJ mix-CDs - John Peel's FabricLive 07, 2 Many DJ's As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2, and DJ /rupture's Minesweeper Suite - all came… more »

By Michelangelo Matos, eMusic ContributorBeing Lou Reed all the time can't be easy. Especially when Lou Reed is, despite his fixed legend as the glowering poetic soul of the New York rock underbelly, a mighty changeable man. Not just… more »

By Douglas Wolk, eMusic ContributorGlenn Mercer and Bill Million put together the band they called the Feelies in the mid-'70s. They were singer/guitarists who'd both started out as bassists, so they thought about everything in terms of rhythm. Their… more »