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Ideally, what Lou would’ve wanted us to do right now would be to get a bin liner, kick his mortal
remains to the curb, and just wait for an NYC garbage truck to come along and compact them
without a second thought. But what Lou Reed also would’ve wanted was for people to have a
healthy disregard for the wishes of dead rock gods. So it’s in that spirit that we’re going to add a
bit more to the heap of reasons why he was a more interesting, more engaged figure than you'd
ever imagined – hopefully at least some of which will be new to you.
HIS TRANSSEXUAL LOVER WAS PANNED BY REVERED MUSIC CRITIC, LESTER BANGS
While Bowie’s flirtations with bi-sexuality often came across more as art statements, Lou Reed’s
ambi-sexual private life was a lot more, well, gay. In the 1980s he was a regular at the anything-
goes NY gay bar Ninth Circle. In the mid-70s, he took up with a transvestite-transsexual (no one
seems quite sure which), called Rachel/Tommy. They stayed together for four years, despite
having spectacularly little in common. “Rachel was wearing this amazing make-up and dress
and was obviously in a different world to anyone else in the place,” recalled Reed of their first
meeting. “Eventually I spoke and she came home with me. I rapped for hours and hours, while
Rachel just sat there looking at me saying nothing. At the time I was living with a girl, a crazy
blonde lady and I kind of wanted us all three to live together but somehow it was too heavy for
her. Rachel just stayed on and the girl moved out.”
A vampish half-Mexican Indian, Rachel reportedly had no idea of Lou’s reputation, and had no
interest in his songs. Instead, she was some kind of smiley, shiny counterweight to whatever else
was going on in Lou’s career at the time. Rachel is alleged to have died in the early 1990s, but
even now, despite all the VH1 Behind The Musics and Hunter Davies types poring over Reed &
The VU, and despite being photographed by Mick Rock and a regular at Max’s Kansas City, next
to nothing is known about this post-gendered cypher. Lester Bangs later deeply regretted
describing her in print as: ”Long dark hair, bearded, tits, grotesque, abject… like something that
might have grovelingly scampered in when Lou opened the door to get milk or papers in the
morning.”
BUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH BANGS WAS PERHAPS LESS PERSONAL AND MORE
PROFESSIONAL THAN THE WRITER ALWAYS MADE OUT
Guitarist Bob Quine remembered going round to Lou’s house to tell him that Lester had
asphyxiated after a night on the cough syrup. “When I told him that Lester died, he didn't believe
me. That marked the end of my friendship with Lou Reed because he said, ‘That's too bad about
your friend.’ But then he launches into a 45-minute attack on Lester. He's an egomaniac and
that's the way he is and that's why he has no friends. If you're not a yes man, you're not his
friend. He respected the fact that I wasn't a yes man, but ultimately I had to go. He mentioned the
article in Creem when Lester describes Rachel. He says, ‘Do you understand, Quine? This is a
person I was close to. And he is calling her a creature.’”
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