Lou Reed (vocals, guitar); Robert Quine (guitar); Fernando Saunders (bass, background vocals); Doane Perry (drums).
Recorded at RCA Studios, New York, New York in October 1981. Produced by Lou Reed and Sean Fullan.
A slow burn and a party for one, best savoured if you can provide your own brittle kindling. And a measure of pure, cobalt contempt. There are seven open doors straight in front of you; only one mirror. Enjoy.
▼ LOU REED: THE GUN from "Blue Mask" LP (RCA) 1982 (US)
▼ LOU REED: THE BLUE MASK from "Blue Mask" LP (RCA) 1982 (US)
PURCHASE BLUE MASK
6 comments:
Hrm... I've not listenened to either of these yet, but they ar DLing and going into tomorrow's rotation...
What caught me is... This pic reminds me so much of a "Roling Stone" piece on Lou, from prbably the same era of this album, but the RS illustration was almost like a caricature of Lou... But (in my mind) looks like it was based on this photo. Right down to the toothpick.
Am my brain-container making un-judegements? Or is that familiar?
I think I need to troll through RS cover shots to (ar)rest my brain about it...
I'll check back in with song abrage-ments.
Well. This pic from a web trawl; I think from a piece on eye surgery, believe it or not, although I wouldn't swear by it.
Since you mention it, I do recall seeing an illustration/caricature of Lou resembling this - from the 90s ? I think it may have been 'Mojo' and not 'Rolling Stone', but again I wouldn't take an oath on a bible. It's not uncommon for illustrators to base a piece on a photograph; the photography may even have been commissioned to that end as opposed to a live sitting, or an illustration from memory.
"Blue Mask" is a fine album, dripping with vitriol and disgust - self-contempt and otherwise. It is not an LP I dip into regularly, and is from that later era I am not wholly familiar with. These two songs illustrate my mood perfectly at the time of this post.
I think I will play the Blue Mask when the family is choking down Christmas dinner this year. "The man's got a drumstick/He knows how to use it."
You wouldn't want to see Lou emerge from a tent in the morning in the midst of the Canadian wilderness any more.
Ha, yeah; people squabbling over the wishbone and hoping for the best. Suicide by chicken-wing or murder by hot roast potato. I nearly choked to death on one of those one year, although I tend not to participate in extended family get-togethers. You would be surprised at how many people profess to have no working knowledge as to the Heimlich manoeuvre.
I am picturing the silhouette of Lou against a clear blue sky. The rifle barrel gliding up from the tent flap behind him as he fits the stock into his shoulder and carefully takes aim...
hands down ... "The Blue Mask" is one of Reed's finest from any any period.
Just finished reading James Atlas's "Delmore Schwartz : The Life of an American Poet" - Schwartz being one of Lou's mentors and fondly regarded as evidenced on the opening track of "The Blue Mask" - fine read about a writer I never would have trolled across had it not been for Reed.
love when those links to links happen happily ...
Hey, mr. K; good of you to blow in from way out in the pacific.
I agree with you on "The Blue Mask". It took me a long time to come to that conclusion.
I have never read Delmore Schwartz. Something else I need to remedy.
Thanks.
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