falconwhit wrote: ↑19 Jul 2025 20:44
very briefly, the story goes like this (from what I understand and if memory serves me well):
around 68 (?), Lou lives in a loft mid-town, record some tapes of guitars tuned to one note feedbacking though piggybacked amps.
(you need to play MMM at half speed to hear the guitar tones)
fast-forward 74 (?), Lou now is a star, gets gifted a couple of tape machines (a 4 track and a 2 track) by the head of the label.
He digs out the original tapes and then starts to build on them - presumably over a number of endless nights on speed
Copies the original tape onto the 4-track (presumably) and does overdubs (more squeals and noises, tremolo units, etc), changes tape speed, plays stuff backward, etc.
He then copies/pastes bits in different place (i.e. it's not a long improvisation, but proto sampling / flying in fragments in various places - hence the "permutations" he mentions on the liner notes)
He also inserts very short snippets of random stuff (somewhere there's a bit of Beethoven's fifth - I heard it when I played the tape backward a zillion years ago in a studio)
He then "mixes" the result - outputs the result onto pure stereo (hard left/right - nothing in the center).
Once he's done, he believes he's done a brilliant piece of work (out-competing Cale, Revolution #9, or what-not).
After the entire world laughs it off as a piece of crap, he backtracks and starts claiming he did it just to piss off the label - ahah.
But, considering the amount of work he put into this, that was not the case.
He then follows that with Coney Island Baby, not what one would do if you had wanted to antagonize your label.
Among other things, I think there's a connection between MMM and some of Warhol's movies (Empire, Sleep, etc.)
Then, the reactions of critics and the public are worth a chapter in themselves - between those who took it (or tried to take it) seriously (Bangs, Elliot Murphy, etc.) and the majority who thought it was a prank.
(In early 76, I went to the local record store and bought either a VU or Lou Reed record, and the store clerk pointed to MMM on the wall right behind the counter and said "you know this? It's the worth thing ever, you don't want to buy it, ah ah"
And then, crazier still, someone deciding a few decades later to interpret it live with a chamber orchestra
The liner notes and the cover on their own are the best packaging Lou Reed ever got for a solo record
As I said, I think there's enough material there for a small book...
