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Lou Reed, seen performing in 1997, wasn't as popular as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. But his influence on music is just as great. The founder of the Velvet Underground, which played often in Cleveland early on, explored themes and sounds that had been once unheard of in rock 'n' roll.
(Kevin Mazur/Associated Press)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Velvet Underground is the closest Cleveland has to a local band enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
That's thanks in no small part to Lou Reed, the Velvets' iconoclastic singer-songwriter, who passed away on Sunday. Reed was 71.
Reed will be remembered as the pioneer who introduced rock 'n' roll to the avant-garde. He was the lyricist who broke down taboos and insisted that rock 'n' roll tell the truth, even if it was a dark truth. He influenced generations of noise-mongering bands.
Rock 'n' roll would have never been the same without the him.
Cleveland will remember him for all that -- after all, that is what earned the Velvet Underground an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1996.
But Reed always had a special relationship with the city that went far beyond that. While the Velvet Underground had massive influence, it struggled in its time to attract an audience around the country.
Except in Cleveland.
"The Velvets called Cleveland their home away from home," said Larry Bruner, who ran La Cave, a legendary Euclid Avenue club that played host to the band often, in 1967 and '68. "They struggled to get shows anywhere else around the country, but they played 24 shows over the course of two years, and they were always so thankful."
The rest of the Velvets -- John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker -- were always talkative, remembers Bruner. Not Reed.
"He was stand-offish and wouldn't talk with you," says Bruner. "But as a musician, he was unique, doing something different from anyone else that had played La Cave."
Reed always had a fondness and managed to find time for one Cleveland lady, Sweet Jane Scott. Reed always saved a smile -- and many say he had few to spare -- for Scott, who covered Reed often during her 40-year run as a Plain Dealer music journalist.
“I must confess – I love Jane Scott,” Lou Reed once told The Plain Dealer. “When I was in the Velvet Underground in the '60s, Jane was one of the only people I can remember who was nice to us. . . . a very smart, guileless lady who loved music and musicians, and had unbiased attitudes toward the evolving culture.”
Many a Clevelander loved Reed. He had an acute influence on the city's much-lauded 1970s music scene, wielding great influence on Pere Ubu, the Dead Boys, Rocket From the Tombs and Peter Laughner.
"Peter was at all the Velvets shows, and they got to be friends," says Bruner, referring to the co-founder of Ubu and Rocket. "Those Velvets shows were very important to a lot of musicians."
One of them -- Jamie Klimek, of the pioneering band Mirrors -- turned Velvets live shows into legend. He taped performances at La Cave that found their way around the world on a number of stellar bootlegs.
Cleveland musician Nick Amster will never forget seeing the Velvets at La Cave in 1968.
"It was overwhelming and changed me deeply," said Amster. "I can't overemphasize how important Lou Reed is. The Velvets were the greatest avant-garde band that ever existed or can ever exist -- and there was no one more influential in rock 'n' roll than Lou Reed."
"The Beatles or the Stones or Bob Dylan had bigger social or economic impact," adds Amster. "But no one did more on an artistic level -- writing about subjects no one had written about before him, redefining rock 'n' roll as an avant-garde art form."
Without Reed, there would be no avant-rock, noise-rock, punk rock, new wave or no-wave.
But more than that, there would not be the sensibility, said Thurston Moore, who co-founded Sonic Youth and now plays in Chelsea Light Moving.
"Lou Reed, more than any other artist, was the calling card for all of us 1970s freaks to move to the city and live on the edge of expression and danger," says Moore, referring to New York's groundbreaking art and music scenes. "He was our youthful introduction to a Beat culture, Warhol glam and the subsequent nihilism of punk-rock alienation. God bless Lou Reed."
Amster was one of many attracted to New York, in part because of the milieu fostered by Reed. He saw Reed often and attended the Velvets show that would become the "Live at Max's Kansas City" album.
Amster continued to follow Reed's solo career and saw dozens of concerts. He traveled to Europe to see 12 shows the Velvets did, as part of a reunion tour in 1993. Over the years, he and Reed became acquaintances.
"We mostly talked about music, but Lou was always cool with me," said Amster.
He saw him for the final time on Sept. 19.
"Lou was going to the Cleveland Clinic," said Amster. "I assumed he was in for a check-up."
In May, Reed received a liver transplant at the Cleveland Clinic.
“I would like to thank the Cleveland Clinic and all of you around the world who have lifted me with prayer and wishes of love,” Reed said in a statement posted on his website a month after the operation. “Your support has buoyed me forever and I am deeply grateful. I am also really up and strong. Thanks to your spirit.”
Amster was leaving the clinic to attend a concert at the Beachland Ballroom by Pere Ubu when he saw Reed for the final time. Seeing Reed put it all full circle -- his impact, his relationship with the city, with music, with the world.
"I thought of all the shows Lou did in Cleveland and how important those shows were to me, but also for the Velvet Underground," said Amster. "And as I was heading out to the Beachland, I thought, 'There would be no Pere Ubu or hundreds, thousands of bands if it weren't for Lou Reed.' He was the man that, more than anyone, changed music and art."
Satellite's gone way up Mars. But his memory remains eternal, says Jim Jarmusch, the Cuyahoga Falls-born filmmaker who moved to New York in the 1970s to chase his avant-garde rock 'n' roll dreams -- in film.
"Lou Reed was our godfather. He was the Dark Prince of New York rock 'n' roll, poet, provocateur, iconoclast," says Jarmusch. "I feel a deep sadness at his leaving, a grayness falling over the city."
"But his many gifts to us are indelible and singular and striking," he adds. "Long live Lou Reed!"