When I read that Lou Reed and others were staging concerts of his infamous 1975 fuck you to RCA, Metal Machine Music, as if it was truly a piece of avant garde modern classical music—as Reed claimed—and not just speedfreak manipulated feedback, I thought this sounded like a terrible idea. After seeing a YouTube clip of one of the performances and reading Dangerous Minds pal Skylaire Alfvegren’s eyewitness report, I’m thinking this looks like a must-see the next time it gets performed in Los Angeles:

Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is often blamed for spawning the ear-throttling genre collectively known as noise. While musique concrète, city traffic and various 20th-century avant-garde composers were Reed’s inspirations as well, his 64-minute monsterpiece was largely improvised, and the fact that anyone — in this case, CalArts professor of Composition and Experimental Sound Ulrich Krieger (with help from Luca Venitucci) — would take the time to transcribe it into sheet music is both baffling and historic.

In the program, Krieger stated that “Metal Machine Music is a missing link between contemporary classic music and advanced rock,” and, hearing an even number of rock and orchestral elements in it, he figured out how to transpose Reed’s reel-to-reels and detuned guitars to the instruments of his own outfit, Sonic Boom, as well as those of the California E.A.R. Unit, an orchestral repertory ensemble which has been in residence at REDCAT since 2004.

Sans conductor, and with the music written in time notation, the musicians’ eyes darted frantically to a digital timer (a method first employed by John Cage in the ‘60s). MMM came across as far more musical than it does on disc; the transcription was madly inventive. Never had a trumpet player broken such a sweat onstage, nor had a tuba packed such a Mac truck wallop. Distinct bits stood out among the wash, which sounded like the inside of a barb-wired sea shell. Stringed instruments were amplified with pickups and microphones, and the rapidity of movement shredded bows. One viola player was so convulsive it looked as though she was going to fall out of her chair. Styrofoam was mic’d; velvet stretched like a trampoline and assaulted with lengths of heavy chain served as percussion. The effect — what an amplified pile of writhing nightcrawlers on amphetamines might sound like — was bliss or torment, depending on the lobes, an unholy din, an avant-horror movie score, hairraising in that maniac-around-the-bend kind of way. And like the music in Hell’s dentist’s office, it was uncomfortably soothing.

Read the whole thing here.
 

 
Above: Excerpt from Asphodel’s release of ‘Metal Machine Music’ performed by ZEITKRATZER.

“Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music may be the most misunderstood work ever created by a popular musician. The original two record set, released in 1975, was mostly noise: feedback squalls, amplifier hums and the tortured screech of electronic gadgets. Directed by Reinhold Friedl, the 11-member ZEITKRATZER ensemble from Berlin gave Reed’s album a thorough listen and and Ulrich Kreiger, the group’s saxophon transcribed the sounds to create an acoustic music score for their ensemble to play live.”

Below: An excerpt from the original Metal Machine Music:
 

To be utterly blunt—I think it’s shit. It is not even comparable to coming out and saying, ‘Self Portrait’ is your favorite Dylan album, because, at least, SP has actual music. The king has no clothing, don’t kid yourself. Metal Music remains the unlistenable crap Lou Reed originally intended it to be. That Reed won’t even admit it says more about Reed then it does to the idiots who are trying to make it into something else.

“You don’t need to call it music if the term offends you” - John Cage

Stellar, Richard. Of course, Lester Bangs wrote *the* definitive meditation on “Metal Machine Music” (http://www.rocknroll.net/loureed/articles/mmmbangs.html), a pants-wettingly howlarious paean to the most mind-rapingly brutal piece of noizak ever made. To read it while listening to MMM at age 14—-younger Dangerous Minds readers, take note—-is to have your neural net permanently rewired without the cost or risk of psychoactive alkaloids. Sample excerpt: “Under my blacklight presidential campaign poster of Hunter Thompson, I bolt upright in repose, my rifle casually draped cross my lap, listening to MMM and dreaming of My Lai as starring Fritz the Cat…”

Alvy Singer: Ok, so don’t listen to it. Who’s putting a gun to your head? Or is it that you get pissed off that people like what you don’t?

And can we please drop the “emperor has no clothes” analogy once and for all? God, that cliche is more grating than Metal Machine Music is to humourless dinks like Alvy Singer.