Just one song tonight, but it’s a doozy.
The Beachnuts
Cycle AnnieÂ
I’m browsing through some crates at Jerry’s today when Jerry pulls out this record.
He recently bought it in a bulk sale. He gives it to me and tells me to give the last track a listen. Â The song is something called “Cycle Annie” by a group calling themselves The Beachnuts.
As I drop the needle on the record I’m thinking to myself, “Why the hell does Jerry want me to listen to this?” I go to Jerry’s a lot, he knows my musical tastes. If it doesn’t have a synthesizer on it or if it isn’t by a 90s rock band, I’m usually not interested. So why the hell does he want me to hear some silly surf-rock song from the late 60s?
As the song starts I quickly realize why, it’s because “The Beachnuts” are really Lou Reed. This is a pre-Velvet Underground Lou Reed recording. Jerry said he’d knew I like it because I like “weird shit like this.”
He knows me well.
Needless to say, I bought the record (for five bucks) and immediately dove into the Internet to find out more about the song. Turns out that this wasn’t the first record that “Cycle Annie” made an appearance on. While Out Of Sight! originally came out in 1967, most of the songs on it were originally on another album called Soundsville, which was released two years earlier in 1965. Â That entire album was co-written by Reed, and featured another song with him on vocals, “You’re Driving Me Insane.”
It’s crazy how much both “Cycle Annie” and “You’re Driving Me Insane” sound like other Lou Reed songs from that era, even if they are a little more polished and “pop.” If the lyrics to “Cycle Annie” were changed to be about a junkie rather than a biker, it would have totally fit on a Velvet Underground record. I’d give anything to ask Lou about this song now, but given what a dick he is to interviewers who ask him legit questions, I’m sure he wouldn’t take kindly to that. Of course, that kind of makes me want to do it even more. How could he be ashamed/embarrassed by this song?
I mean shit, It’s better than Lulu.
Tags: Lou Reed
Hi there. I just have to tell you that your blog makes me so happy. I’m from Pittsburgh and have been living in LA for 12 years but I used to spend many a lazy Saturday afternoon hanging out at Jerry’s so your tales about all the treasures you find there take me back to the 90’s when a rare 12″ for $3 would make my whole day. Thank you.
I know you’re younger than me, but I’d like to think you were aware of this gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkXxFCu7kPI
Hey…don’t settle for walkin’…
HA!
They totally used the wrong Lou Reed song I guess.
I’m sure you know this already, but Reed also plays guitar on other tracks on this album – I have a copy of “OUT OF SIGHT” as well, rescued it from a dollar-bin couple of years back and was blown away when I realized there was old Lou Reed material on here.
Lou Reed would be a dick to anyone about anything. Case in point: the Velvets’ 1993 reunion shows where he acted like he was too cool to care about remembering the words to some of the songs he wrote or even singing into the microphone properly (thankfully John Cale & Maureen Tucker took their partss seriously enough during those shows to compensate for Lou’s pouty diva-tude).
Yeah, okay, he could be a dick on interviews…and he could be so damned prissy before, during , and after a gig, too…
But he was good. And he drew audiences.
I don’t know who reads this, or if anybody does, but this past weekend, Saturday I believe, Lou Reed died.