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Title details for Transformer by Victor Bockris - Available

Transformer

The Complete Lou Reed Story

by Victor Bockris
ebook
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'A triumph' – Time Out Transformer is the only complete and comprehensive telling of the Lou Reed story. Legendary songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed passed away on the 27th October 2013, but his musical influence is assured. Now discover the true story of the Velvet Underground pioneer in this update of Bockris's classic biography. Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story follows the great songwriter and singer through the series of transformations that define each period of his fifty year career. It opens with the teenage electroshock treatments that dominated his memories of childhood and never stops revealing layer after layer of this complex and often anguished artist and man. Transformer is based on Lou's collaborations with the hardest and most romantic artists of his times, from John Cale, Andy Warhol, and Nico, through David Bowie, Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson and the ghost of Edgar Alan Poe. Rippling underneath everything he did are Lou's relationships with his various muses, from his college sweetheart to his three wives (and one drag queen). Leading Lou Reed biographer, Victor Bockris – who knew Lou throughout the Rachel Years, from Rock 'n' Roll Animal to the Bells – updates his original biography in the wake of Lou's death. Through new interviews and photos, he reveals the many transformations of this larger-than-life character, including his final shift from Rock Monster to the Prince Charming he had always wanted to be in the twenty years he spent with the love of his life, Laurie Anderson . Except with Lou, you could never really know what might happen next... Including previously unseen photographs and contributions from Lou's innermost circle and collaborators that include similarly esteemed artists such as Andy Warhol and David Bowie, Transformer is as captivating and vivid a read as befits an American master.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 23, 2014

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780007581900

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780007581900
      • File size: 7364 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 29, 1999
      Bockris, biographer of William S. Burroughs and Andy Warhol, presents a detailed portrait of former Velvet Underground frontman Reed. Born in 1942, the only son and eldest child of a Jewish middle-class family from Long Island, Reed still harbors resentment toward his parents for having raised him in a suburban lifestyle, according to Bockris. An ``outsider'' fueled by a desire to belong and to control, the singer developed, then destroyed, relationships with his mentor Warhol, former bandmate John Cale and glam-rock superstar David Bowie. A bisexual and former speed addict, Reed is accredited to be the godfather of punk. Though the author relies on too many cliched phrases, he provides insight into the private life that led Reed to create many of rock's memorable songs, including ``Heroin'' and ``Walk on the Wild Side.'' As a bonus, Bockris concludes with a 1979 episode in New York City when he introduced Reed to Burroughs, an amusing anecdote in which the writer assured the rocker that ``it is not very often that a writer will have to actually make it with his publisher in order to get published.''

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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