Lou Reed passed away on Sunday, October 27th. I found out over a lovely birthday breakfast with four of my closest friends. The message came as a text based alert from a popular music news site. My initial thought was “That’s a bummer, but not unexpected.” Then I started really thinking about Mr Reed. His music, and more specifically, the music of The Velvet Underground has had a huge influence in my life. I still listen to “Sister Ray” in it’s entirety at least once a month. I once had a dream where I met Lou backstage at a Nine Inch Nails concert, and he told me that he was a big fan of mine, and how excited he was to meet me. He was also shaving his own head at the time. I thought that my perfect mate would be a woman that thought that our perfect first dance at our wedding would be “Pale Blue Eyes.”
Well, as you know, we are currently in the thick of all things SXSW related. It was a bit shocking to find out that the lead singer of one of the acts that I was excited to see had passed away on the first day of the festival. Alex Chilton, of Big Star was a highly influential musician that has played a very big role in my musical growth through the years.