The enormous Studio A, with its stained-glass windows and marvelous live sound was the main calling card for the facility, but the more intimate Studio B downstairs-like “A,” equipped with a Neve console-was also a popular recording destination, and perfect for Reed’s small-group, no-frills approach. The room Lesser had in mind was Studio B at Mediasound, one of the most famous and busiest studios in Manhattan since it opened in 1969 in a former Baptist church of West 57th Street.
I said, ‘I think I have a room in mind that sort of duplicates your space, and I think we can get it to sound like you’re talking about.’” He had no amplification of his voice there. I’ve been trying for years and years to reproduce this sound.’ I took a note in my brain of what it sounded like, of what kind of amp he was using, how far away he was sitting from his amp and the size of the room. At one point he said, ‘Jeffrey, how come my records never sound like this? I love the way I sound right in this room, but never sounds like this in a studio. So with just a guitar and a little amp, he played and sang early versions of these songs. “Of course I was thrilled to go, and he took me into the room where he wrote most of his songs his getaway. We got to talking and discussing our philosophies of recording, and then he invited me out to his workspace, his writing studio out in Northern New Jersey. “Lou was looking for someone to work with in New York, and at the time he wanted someone who was clean and sober-and I filled that role, too. He had met Reed earlier in the year on a session for a Ruben Blades album. “Way before we started recording the album, I got a call from Lou through a mutual friend,” comments New York engineer Jeffrey Lesser, whose stellar career as an engineer/mixer/producer up to that point had included albums with such diverse artists as Kool & the Gang, The Strawbs, Pat Travers and Barbra Streisand. “Trying to do something with two guitars, bass drums with all the technology that’s around today-all the synthesizers and all the instruments you could bring in-it’s hard to resist the temptation.” “It’s a very, very simple record,” Reed told MTV’s Kurt Loder in 1989. Nothing is allowed to intrude on Reed’s powerful words. The arrangements throughout the album are stripped-down-elemental-with very few overdubs or effects.
“That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says.” Stressing the notion that all 14 songs on the album were thematically connected, Reed urged in the liner notes that New York be listened to in a single hour-long sitting “as though a book or movie.” “Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I’ll piss on ‘em,” Reed spits.
“Dirty Boulevard” contrasts the life of Pedro, a downtrodden denizen of a cheap hotel “where no one dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything,” with movie stars arriving by limo at Lincoln Center. My favorite “middle period” Lou Reed album is unquestionably 1988’s New York, source of this month’s Classic Track, “Dirty Boulevard.” Though it doesn’t have a central story, as Berlin did, New York’s songs are all vivid and at times hard-hitting portraits of the city and its people, from street hustlers, to poor working stiffs, to rich folk and celebrities. But he made vital, uncompromising music throughout his career-you’ll find genius on Street Hassle (1978), The Blue Mask (1982), Magic and Loss (1992), Ecstasy (2000), the ambient very un-Lou-like Hudson River Wind Meditations (2007), and nearly everything in between. Of course he’s best-known for the music he created during the first 10 years of his career: leading the immortal and influential Velvet Underground during the late ’60s, and on such early ’70s solo triumphs such as Transformer (which contained his most famous song, “Walk on the Wild Side,” covered in Classic Tracks in December 2008), the brilliant and underrated concept album Berlin, and the crunching live disc Rock ’n’ Roll Animal. Okay, it wasn’t always the most flattering portrait of the city-no carriage rides in Central Park-but it was always honest and true the dark underbelly rendered in frank minimalist poetry. Few songwriters have captured the spirit of New York City better than the late, truly great Lou Reed.