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remembered in somber 'Songs for Orella' LAURENCE DUFFY tively-tuned , may accotmt for commissioned by the the sparse accompaniment ofguitar, The 's closing ~ Production Manager the lack ofpublic awe that the Velvet Academy of Music last year as a keyboards and viola. ..Hello, It's Me'' reads like a think­ Underground so richly deserve. tribute to , the now­ There is a ccinstant grey tone to ing man's Mike and the Mechanics The music of the Velvet Under­ But when, after twenty years, two legendary painter and former guru, the album, as we are never left to song. without the children's choir. ground, while not immediately ap­ members ofthe Velvet Underground of . The forget that it is a requiem for War­ Reed regrets his silence; but~serv~ parent to those who grew'up in the record an album, you 'II excuse me purposeofDrellawas togiveamore hol. The minimal production leaves his judgement--"Ypu hurt ·.Ple late Seventies and the Eighties, lurks for being pleased. lasting tribute from those who knew vocats out in front, in contrast to where it hurt I didnrt laugh/Your always in the background of that Added to this is the fact that it is the man than was available from the much of the Velvet's dense arrange­ diaries are not a worthy.. epj~.'' era's music. an album about, for arid devoted to trivial bitching of the Warhol Dia­ ment. or lack thereof. is n~ '(elvet Bands as diverse as the Cowboy Andy Warhol, who reserved his ries, published shortly after his Towards the end of the album. an Underground ~bum-the . ~­ Junkies, who made "" place in Lar heaven (or Valhallar), death, although the public like to even. more somber note is struck, as tion is too good, although the· ar­ their own on their • •Trinity Ses­ when he suggested that hear this type of media-friendly in "The Dream" Cale reads what rangement is sometimes similar. It sions" album, and , write a song with the line "she's celeb-bashing, as 's appear to be a passage from the also affords little toone whofmds an whose eh, interesting Jive cover of busy sucking on my ding-dong." "" will testify. diaries. hour of Lou Reed's granng vocal .." was adequately Now the cynics among you, and I The album traces Warhol's ca­ ''Lou Reed got married and and John Calc's mutant Welsh ac­ swnmed up by Ian Curtis, who de- know you're out there, will suggest reer, from his humble beginnings in didn'tinvitemelmeanis it because cent more than a little ~epressing. . clared ••Youshouldhearourversion iliat this album is a cheap attempt to , in Reed's familiar pithy be thought I'd bring too many What it lacks mvariety and t:arehy of •'" have been heav­ cash in on the old reunion fad of last style, backed with deceptively jolly people'l .. .I saw him at the MTV melodies, however, it Jnak:es· up in ily influenced by the Velvet's work. summer, or a tacky effort at making piano ("I'm no Dali coming from show, he was one row away and he sincerity. - Because of their anonymity, us forget that Lo~ Reed did That Pit~Sburgh/No adorable lisping Ca­ didn't even say hello." The album stands as an honest, therefore, you could be forgiven for cover of "Soul Man," you know, pote-My hero!"). The picture is one of a dying unflatteringly realistic pOrtrait of passing over a 1968 Velvets album the one which made evexyone wish Through the days in , Warhol abandoned by the people he the artist., and although Lou Reed in deference to ''Nothing Compares that Will To Power had done it in­ Warhol's studio, to his made famous, and the guilt felt by would probably be the last to admit 2 u.~· This, coupled with the diffi- stead. shooting, the story is told, much of it Reed and Cale about their treatment it, is a very sentimental remem­ . culty of sampling John Calc's crea- Songs For Drella--A Fiction was in the fust person. and usually with of him. brance of a lost friend.

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