Next month, Oct. 27, will mark the second anniversary of Lou Reed’s passing, but his legacy lives on: on Oct. 30, Rhino will release a six-disc 45th anniversary edition of Velvet Underground’s Loaded, featuring three different mixes of the album, unreleased versions of tracks such as “Cool It Down” and “Sweet Jane,” a newly remastered version of the Live at Max’s Kansas City show from August 1970, an unreleased recording of a May 1970 club gig in Philadelphia, and other rarities. And the jam-packed box set is just the beginning of it. If you’re a fan of Lou and his wife and fellow creative dynamo Laurie Anderson, mark your calendars for the following.
“Habeus Corpus” by Laurie Anderson
Oct. 2 to 4, Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets, Upper East Side; installation Friday to Sunday, noon to 7 pm (tickets $15) and performances Friday through Sunday at 8 p.m. (tickets $45).
This promises to be the most exciting large-scale installation we’ve seen from a member of the downtown avant-garde since La Monte Young brought his Dream House to Chelsea. Inside the vast drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory, Anderson will, according to a release, create “a series of cacophonous events from anthropology and history, in which audiences confront diametrically opposing ideas, situations, and images. The result is a processional of consciousness where doubt, perception, and illusion are defined and redefined in equal measure.” If that sounds like it could go either way, you’ll probably want to hit the place up in the evenings, when there’ll be a performance and dance party with Omar Souleyman and a sonic collaboration between Anderson and Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs.
“Heart of a Dog” by Laurie Anderson
Oct. 21 to Nov. 3 at Film Forum, 209 W Houston St., nr. Sixth Ave; West Village.
Laurie Anderson’s filmic tribute to her late rat terrier, which premiered at Telluride last month and will show on HBO next year, promises to be a little more profound than Miley Cyrus’s song about her dead blowfish Pablow. Dedicated to the “magnificent spirit” of Lou Reed, the film starts with Lolabelle’s birth and, in typical Anderson fashion, ends up touching on everything from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to our post-9/11 security state (rat terriers are used to patrol boarders, after all). Anderson’s music (in the form of string arrangements, songs, and ambient electronica) is paired with animation, 8mm home movies from her childhood, and experimental imagery. Among the tales she shares is “A Story About a Story,” about breaking her back while high diving when she was 12, and defying the doctor who said she’d never walk again. She performed it at the Tibet House benefit in March.
Aidan Levy Presents Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed
Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Word, 126 Franklin St., Greenpoint
Victor Bockris’s biography of Lou Reed was published less than a year ago and a (still more?) “full, definitive” one is expected from Will Hermes. Still, Aidan Levy (a New York-based musician and music writer who has written for JazzTimes, The New York Times, and the Village Voice) is pitching in with his own attempt to capture the man of few words (at least, where journalists were concerned). The selling copy promises that the book — which draws on new interviews with collaborators, friends, and lovers — will explore the “lesser-known facets of [Reed’s] work, such as his first recordings with doo-wop group the Jades, his key literary influences, the impact of Judaism upon his work, and his engagement with the LGBT movement.” Hear all about it when Levy appears at Word.
