There's a story behind this picture- ever so blurry. On this particular evening, as Lou and I said hello and exchanged hugs+hellos, he turned to Mick Rock and said "Mick, in all the years Bebe and I have known each other, there's never been a photo." Mick then said, "well, let me remedy that." There's some others, too, but they are in a box I have yet to tackle since the move to Nashville. The sacred box... I treasure this photo and I loved Lou Reed. Always so nice to me from the moment I landed in NYC 1972- I've got Satellite Of Love on repeat in the house... many tears... a part of my soul... my youth and continued into my adulthood... Bye for now Lou- see you on the wild side!

I did not know Lou Reed personally though our paths crossed over many continents through the years. He immortalized my character in "Flesh" in a song that became an anthem for our generation and generations to come. I send my condolences to his wife Laurie Anderson and his family. Lou will forever be with us through the music left behind. He will be missed.

I remember meeting Lou Reed back in the late 70's... He was playing at Winterland in San Francisco.. I was hanging out with June Pointer backstage and it was packed with people.. He came and sat with us and we started chatting. He then invited me over to his room at The Miyako Hotel to hang out .. It was then that I met his trans girlfriend Rachel.. She was sweet but very quiet.. Tall and quite pretty... I remember that Nelson Slater was also there.. We lived in the same building but we really did not know each other that well.. So it was fun chatting with him...But it was Lou, that I was mesmerized with.. He reminisced about his days with playing with The Velvet Underground.. His relationship with Candy Darling... His friendships with Iggy Pop and David Bowie and so much more. .The sun was rising in the sky, when we finally bid our goodbyes... It truly was a magical meeting!

"WE HAVE COME SO FAR, TO BE HERE TODAY" - Tongue Fu were just getting ready to start our 2nd day at Porcelain Studios when we found out that Lou Reed died. I looked at the band as well as Andy Shernoff and realized that we lost a very important figure in Rock N Roll. It was a surreal experience. Terribly sad, however it honestly fueled us to deliver a great performance in the studio. Seriously..something trickled down and inspired all of us yesterday in that room. Lou Reed was one of those artists that crossed into Rock, Punk, Goth, Folk, Pop - ALL of it! As for TONGUE FU, we have been having such a productive session with Andy. I still can't believe we are recording with Andy. Damn...I still can't believe Tongue Fu even exists!!! When we recorded the vocals to a Tongue Fu song called "New Year's Eve in Old Times Square", I had goosebumps. A strange sensation. "But when you're digging the Garden of Eden, empty shovels just keep on feeding, broken hearts in old Times Square" - For Lou Reed...

I want to say something very personal. There but for fortune go I. Heroin is not cool. It's no surprise to those who really know me that most of my friends used and paid for it with their lives. R.I.P. to Lou and all the others

Everyone should know , that he was in great Pain and Discomfort ... for the last few years. Well , as I stated , after seeing him in New York two weeks ago , I knew he was Fighting For His Life , and it was not a Social Occasion !!! ... It WAS one more lesson from the Master ,: "Never let anything keep you from SHOWING UP." !!!!... His participation at the John Varvato's Book-Signing with Mick Rock was a lesson in COURAGE !!!... And he got to see :" STEAM AGE TIME GIANT" , the follow-up to WILD ANGEL !!!

Lou Reed R.I. P. A man that always Walked On The Wild Side....... Its all about the music.

Yes, another hero of mine gone.. I used too do Sweet Jane and Waiting For My Man back in 1976 with my band the Wild Boys. A big influence on my song writing*

I never knew Lou Reed personally and he never knew me personally, but his music and his lyrics knew me, they understood and kept me warm on some horrible sick cold nights, kept me smiling and laughing through falling tears and painful times, had me partying all day and night with friends and, kept me breathing through the stench of suffocating society when I felt alone, judged and scared out of my mind.
"Satellite's gone way up to Mars" - Satellite of Love... RIP Lou Reed

“Lou Reed is derelict and a faggot,” my dad said to me when I offered to share the Lou Reed album I’d just gotten as a birthday gift from a friend with him. I was fourteen, the album was Berlin, and it took a while to grow on me. It didn’t have the poppy hooks of the Bowie and Ronson produced Transformer, the sweet, slow-peeling wonder of The Velvet Underground & Nico, the last-ditch effort to write just under a dozen hits that made Loaded, or the groundbreaking weirdness that gave us White Heat/White Light. Berlin had a sense of melancholy and danger that I think crystallized Lou’s creativity. The sweeping tickle of piano keys on “How Do You Think It Feels,” will always send a chill up my spine. “The Kids,” and “The Bed,” will always make me tear up because of how well they flow into each other. I’d listen to Eater’s cover of “Sweet Jane” to remind myself that fourteen year olds could kick ass, I’d spend hours scouring the internet for a version of “Heroin” I hadn’t heard yet, never once thinking that having someone’s body of work at my fingertips was anything less than my right as a music lover.

Things got really trippy when I met Joe D’Allesandro (Little Joe) and Jayne County online through Punk Globe. I went straight into a world of people whose photographs I’d been clawing at. I knew from the first time I read about Max’s Kansas City, Warhol’s factory, and a dirty, glittering New York that my dad had only driven past in a taxi cab that these were my people. I told myself I’d get to interview Lou Reed one day.

I had one opportunity to meet Lou this past year. Of course, I had no idea he’d be there. Laurie Anderson was having her dress rehearsal with Kronos Quartet in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at University of Maryland. My professor and friend, Johnna Schmidt invited me. Laurie and Kronos Quartet’s show was nothing short of sensory immersion, absolutely mind blowing. As the lights went up, a figure in a green jacket with a mop of curly black hair stood up. “Holy shit,” I said to Johnna, “there’s Lou Reed!” Johna went to get the car and I made my way over to him. Thanks to the carpeted steps of the theater and my gimpy little legs, I couldn’t get to him before he walked out. I wanted so badly to shake his hand and pick his brain. But then again, I’ve met my share of rock legends. I’m lucky enough to have a Kim Fowley interview in November’s Punk Globe. I hugged Sylvain Sylvain once after a long conversation, interviewed Cheetah Chrome and Richie Ramone, and am a regular contributor to the same magazine as Jayne County is. Even after all that, I miss the hell out of someone I almost met.

Lou Reed’s energy in his songs and art have been woven through my dreams and the soundtrack to my life as far back as I can recall. Some of it I didn’t even know was him. As I discover more and more about Lou Reed from some of the memories our friends have shared about when they saw him, where they saw him, what he did and how they were changed by him, I am floored. While I never saw him perform live, we did share a mutual love for music, film, photography and Edgar Allan Poe.

I respect and am inspired by the way he passionately blurred lines with music, film, acting, art, photography and poetry. He made as many criticized albums to match each album that met with commercial success, an influence in many ways to not do what everyone – and I mean everyone and ANYONE – expects of you. Just do your thing. Brian Enos famous quote that while the Velvet Underground's debut album only sold 30,000 copies, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band…” captured the impact that any of the many artists I know would want to leave behind no matter what their craft. While for the majority of my life I only knew him by the Velvet Underground, and some of his more famous collaborations, it wasn’t until recently I realized his humanitarian side with his contributions to charities, foundations and benefits, his meditative side with his devotion to Tai Chi and recordings of ambient music for meditation or even his contributions to albums by Gorillaz and Metric. I was amazed to read that he did Tai Chi right up until within the last hour of his death. That’s how I want to go when it’s time - fighting with grace, power and peace. … Rest In Peace Lou Reed…

This past week, the world didn’t lose another rock star. We lost a poet and an artist who just happened to play guitar. Lou Reed once said: “I don’t believe in dressing up reality. I don’t believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.” And that pretty much sums up his life and career. Love it or hate it, the sound of The Velvet Underground was the perfect representation of Lou Reed. Their albums sounded like they were recorded in a dark, dingy basement in the middle of the night on borrowed equipment and borrowed time; lyrics pulled from far out in the atmosphere; their instruments all tuned in the shadows. The music and vocals were fragile in their beauty and eloquence and despair. The first album with Nico sounded like nothing that had come before it - lost and vulnerable; but also with a strength and ultimate sense of purpose... Lou already chronicling his struggles with drugs in songs like Heroin and Waiting For The Man - “feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive”… ‘Black Angel’s Death Song’ sounded like it could have been written by Bob Dylan with a Tennessee bluegrass band drunk on moonshine. Lou Reed was always searching for some kind of transformation, whether through drugs, spirituality, or the sexual deviance of the dirge-like Venus In Furs. Venus was a kind of sound nobody had done before - especially in the peace and love mid ’60s. Beautiful poetry, drug-laced vocals, dissonant guitar chords, and jolting stabs of violin. Closing your eyes and listening to that song feels like you’re watching a mad artist throwing his paint across a canvas.

By their second album - WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT - the vocals still sounded like the vulnerable, stream of consciousness poetry of someone finding their way through a dark, drug-fueled urban landscape; but the band was also more confident and aggressive. The music of Sister Ray, Here She Comes Now, The Gift, and White Light all sounded like they could have been a template for The Stones Exile on Main Street that was released 5 years later. My favorite album by the Velvets will always be ‘LOADED’ from 1970. The album was beautiful from start to finish. The cool street vibe and great melodies in Cool It Down, Rock & Roll, and Sweet Jane. The driving Head Held High and Train Round The Bend. My favorite ‘country’ song of all time Lonesome Cowboy Bill.. And there were two of the most beautiful slow songs ever recorded by the band - New Age and Oh! Sweet Nuthin’ - both written by Reed and sung by bassist Doug Yule. ‘Ocean’ (another one of the bands great songs) was written for this album, but didn’t make the cut and was released years later. To me, this record (the last studio album Lou Reed recorded with the band) was the Velvets at their best. Strong musicianship, great melodies, and complete stories in these songs. They had that amazing ability to build a whole world and tell its’ story in four minutes - much like The Kinks. This album was a departure in many ways from the Velvets of the past. Loaded actually sounded hopeful at times; and showed Lou with a sense of humor that was hard to find on earlier albums.

Lou Reed’s solo years lasted from 1972 right up until yesterday (October 27, 2013). Like the Velvet Underground, I didn’t connect with all of his stuff during that period; but the stuff I did connect with will be with me for a long time. The songs he wrote that really got inside my head don’t sound like anything else on the planet except for Lou Reed. TRANSFORMER had Walk On The Wild Side, Satellite Of Love, a new version of Ocean, and Perfect Day: "Just a perfect day, You made me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, Someone good…” There was Busload Of Faith from NEW YORK; Blue Mask and The Gun from THE BLUE MASK album. STREET HASSLE and the junkies nightmare/fever dream Real Good Time Together. The Bed from the BERLIN album is one of my favorite Lou Reed compositions. A simple, sweet, sad song reminiscing about a partner’s suicide. Nobody could ever sing this song like Lou. It’s hard to listen to today without my eyes filling with tears.

The songs of Lou Reed were sad and hopeful at the same time; ugly and beautiful all the way through; resigned to a world of perfect imperfections. He was always searching for transformation while never promising to have the answer. And knowing it was allright. It was allright. IT WAS ALLRIGHT!! R.I.P. Lou Reed. Thanks for everything ~

"I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.” ~ Lou Reed