If you don’t love Lou’s “Street Hassle” you’re deaf or a miscreant. Or both.
Like most Reed albums, it’s flawed. The sound is muddy. Lou was fixated with a process called binaural recording at that stage and unless you’re blessed with binaural ears, the result is sonically awkward. The occasional song, too, is misguided (I’m looking at you, “I Wanna Be Black”.)
It’s Lou stripped of glam make-up and back on the mean streets. Edgy as fuck. Grimy and grim, speckled with self-loathing, it tells stories like only Reed can. It’s one of his greatest works in a confused and often confusing catalogue.
“Waltzing Matilda” is the album of the 1978 US tour to promote said album and it’s a live radio broadcast, spread over two CDs. Allowing for its origins - those radio tapes are usually compressed to the shit - it packs an aural wallop. Reed’s band is first class.
It’s a Big Band in all senses; two female backing vocalists and sax lend soul. Michael Fonfara is still around on keys. The band knows how to vamp - listen to the monstrous groove on “Gimme Some Good Times” and the eight-minute “Leave Me Alone”. Stuart Heinrich is on lead guitar and plays with fire, when given the space.
“Waltzing Matilda” is taken from two shows (Cleveland, April 26 and San Francisco, March 22), both of which have been available in trading circles. Naturally, these have been given the Easy Action clean-up treatment. Cleveland has the edge in balance and mix. Both gigs have their high points as far as performance goes. It goes without saying that the packaging is the usual Easy Action standard.
Despite the back-to-basics nature of the LP they were touring on, the arrangements are far from sparse. The songs come from the broader back catalogue and not just the current LP. The band is given ample scope to improvise - and they do. “Sweet Jane” recalls the balls-out bombast of “Rock and Roll Animal”. Heinrich’s tone is especially dirty on the version from the SF show, where he ably trades licks with Marty Fogel’s sax.
These are two shows to envelope yourself in. There are loads of high points. Like allusions to cops being in the house (during “I Wanna Be Black” of course.) “Satellite of Love” is playfully arranged, “Leave Me Alone” takes on fresh life in the live context, focussed and grim. Michael Suchorsky’s skittish drums lock in superbly. A funkified “Walk On The Wild Side” is a reminder that even a grump like Reed had to make commercial concessions to keep his audience, if not his label, happy. Hey, even a Prince of Darkness has to make a living.
At one stage, Lou dedicates “Glory of Love” to himself and then partner Rachel, a transvestite whose origins and end are shrouded in mystery. I might be wrong but Rachel was to be off the scene shortly after this tour. Probably something to do with his stated indifference to Reed’s music.
At one stage, in a truncated "Coney Island Baby, Reed breaks into a rap about his tour T-shirt, and then introduces his sidemen and women: "This is the first time I've introduced a band since the Velvet Underground. There's a reason for that. This is the first band I've had since the Velvet Underground. I'm real proud of it."
You only get one version of “Street Hassle” (from the Cleveland gig) but what a version it is. Thirteen minutes of sex, brutal indifference to death and off-handed junkie sleaze. Reed's wordy masterwork. Its writer is enamoured with his creation, even breaking into a loose clap along during the intro. The audience is already familiar with the punchline and reacts to all the rude bits.
Now why don't you all just slip away? If you don't get your hands on a copy, BAD LUCK.
