Friday, June 29, 2007

To Lou Reed, with love

It's not so much that I enjoy Lou Reed's music these days: I enjoy reading about journalists trying to interview him. The latest in this long series comes from France, where Fabrice Pliskin detailed his own encounter in the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. Or rather, his non-encounter: The article is titled "How I Did Not Interview Lou Reed." (The maestro was hitting Paris with his live version of Berlin.) Pliskin received by email a screening questionnaire that included the following:

- Have you already interviewed Lou Reed? (Pliskin answers yes, and of course the experience wasn't altogether pleasant.)
- Do you own a copy of Berlin?
- How long will the article be? 1, 2 or 3 pages?
- Will we have total control over the photos?
- Will Lou Reed be on the cover?
- What kind of questions will you ask Lou?
- Are you a freelancer or a staff writer?

Cheer up, Fabrice: It could have been worse—you could have interviewed Lou Reed.

2 comments:

Minter said...

Smacks of someone who's over it, over the hill or overdosed. Love Lou Reed and his cranky attitude, BUT, you can't possibly sing brutally off note and be that AGAINST the public if you want to kickstart your career again... I didn't hear how the show went over here, but perhaps that's the message. Much ado about nothing? I attach a pretty ripping critique: http://tinyurl.com/2h5c7f

Elisabeth Vincentelli said...

Thanks for the link. At last, someone finally came out and said that Lou Reed sang off-key!