The first time I met Lou... by Rufus Wainwright

The first time I met Lou I was terrified. It was when I was a bus boy at the Lion's Head Restaurant on Sheridan Square in NYC in the early 90's. I was working the brunch shift that fateful day when one of the waiters called in sick and presto, I was instantly promoted and flung into the circus of hung over diners. Initially I was excited to move up the ladder, but my joy was short lived: my first ever customer would be Lou Reed. I will never forget it. That hair, those eyes, and I believe a white blazer with rather accentuated shoulder pads (not a look he had for long). After sheepishly approaching his table I timidly requested his order to which he emphatically stated that in no uncertain terms he would have "French Toast with NO BUTTER". It was a serious New York moment (especially since in Canada one would never dream of eating French Toast without butter!) and the experience was immediately tatooed onto my memory. We later became great friends and admirers of each other's work and I, as well as countless others, owe him so so much in terms of forming real and true artistic sensibilities. He basically taught the world how to NOT compromise." NO BUTTER!" Such a loss but at the same time, such gain. Still, that very first memory I will cherish since although it was a rather short and simple statement, here we go again: "French Toast with NO BUTTER!", it could have been a soliloquy from Hamlet or a Puccinni Aria: I had just met fucking Lou Reed! 

RIP. 

X,

Rufus.

So You Want To Be A Writer...

...unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

excerpt from a Charles Bukowski poem

Bandcamp...

Htio bi da me volis...

uspio sam se u jednom periodu dovesti do ekstremnog stanja, stadija mentalne bolesti i izvesti tu emociju do krajnje ekstenzije. u tim rubnim područjima straha i osamljenosti riječi su vrlo jednostavne, vrlo precizne, vrlo bazične jer u takvom stanju nisi sposoban ništa drugo ni misliti ni reći ni objašnjavati niti previše metaforizirati. TO je ispalo iz mene. samo od sebe. da, u pet minuta. mislim pritom na refren jer sam siguran da kad pričamo o „htio bi da me volis“ pričamo ponajprije o refrenu. nešto kasnije pustio sam y pjesmu. i kako to često biva, lirski objekt rijetko je oduševljen svojom ulogom. imam osjećaj da su ljudi puno sretniji i slobodniji ako ih se ne zarobi u songu. nekako ta činjenica više opterećuje i gnjavi nego usrećuje. vjerojatno se ni sam ne bih osjećao komforno da ni kriv ni dužan završim u pjesmi. što da se radi s tim, kakva je korist?

Dubravko Ivanis (pipschipsvideoclips)

On The Loose In Sydney... by Karl Hyde (Underworld)

...slept all the way from Melbourne to touchdown in sweet spring heat, balmy even. Strolling through Sydney with the band, taking time, coffee & italian cuisine in the bay, feeding on sunlit laughter. Street artists & techno didge jammers sell $10 CDs to tourists as an old ghost with a trumpet tips his hat to no one, drifting through the holiday crowds. Another Charlie Chaplin hangs off another lamp post, mannequin simulations for weekend snappers who’s children jump & squeal when he suddenly moves. The markets are piled high with bright things, hand made artefacts under canvas. Bar bands beat out precision rhythms, mimicking genres for the nostalgic, whilst romantics gather in ex-pat bars to sway to songs from the old country. The puppet shop has gone the way of the fruit bats we also came in search of, but parrots still infest the evening trees with the celebration of their cacophony. We play, ‘guess the flavour of the liquorice’ waiting at the waters edge for the projections to start up on the sails of the Opera House & when they do the crowd cheer & begin to snap between mouthfuls of wraps & coffee. We drift away into the night like lovers, tired & lagged, smiling as we catch one another’s eye to see a light shining there that only genuine happiness could have ignited. A beautiful city on a beautiful day, Sydney, see you at the Opera House tomorrow...

The future of Random Access Memories...

"...you never know, but my guess is that people will be listening to Random Access Memories a decade hence, just like we’re still listening toDiscovery now. You’ll forget the YouTube interviews with the collaborators, you’ll forget the day they announced the suits, you’ll forget the day the “Get Lucky” snippet leaked, you’ll forget every rumor, you’ll forget the “SNL” commercials. But the record will remain, something that channels the past but sounds like little else right now, an album about rediscovery that's situated in the constantly-shifting present..."

taken from Pitcfork review, 2013

David Bowie and Lou Reed chatting...

I was once in a studio with him and Lou Reed, and I saw them in the kitchen and just had to sneak in to hear what they were talking about. Lou was saying that he was going to Africa and David said, "The thing is, you go to these places and you forget the climate's changed. I bought a bowl and by the time I got home it had cracked." It was the least esoteric conversation I could imagine between Lou Reed and David Bowie.

Tim Pope, video director