I’ve been a massive Lou Reed fan ever since I was 12 years old and heard his breakthrough solo Transformer album for the first time. Not long after that, I heard the Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ and I was hooked.

Lou’s esoteric aspect

For the past few years I’ve been writing about Lou, going deeply into those aspects of his life and work that his biographers skim over. It began when I started researching his deeply rooted interest in the esoteric and embodied consciousness.

The first real fruit of this was a long article I wrote for Ugly Things magazine. My piece, Chasing the White Light: Lou Reed, the Telepathic Secretary and Metal Machine Music, was satisfyingly well-received. Laurie Anderson, Lou’s wife, mentioned it the liner notes to Lou’s recently reissued Hudson River Wind Meditations album.

Of my piece, Laurie said ‘It’s a very deep dive into some of Lou’s interest in transcendentalist thought, Alice Bailey, [and] the esoteric and the spiritual in the late 60s. Wonderful research! And what a story.’

Now I’m writing about Lou’s Metal Machine Music for a book about this magnificently divisive album to be published in 2025, 50 years after it was released. 

Illustration by Gabriella Kiss.