Back in March when Lou Reed abruptly cancelled his Coachella shows, we bought him a domain name to match his excuse: UnavoidableComplications.com. Epistolary music business honcho Bob Lefsetz generously tried to help us to give Lou Reed his gift (“Try Tom Sarig at Esther Creative Group in NYC. Or his agent, Marsha Vlasic at ICM in NYC,” wrote Bob.) We contacted Corny O’Connell at WFUV (where Reed is a crown prince)–he didn’t know, but offered to contribute “Song for Cinder-Drella” for the new record, Unavoidable Complications. We tried to contact his enigmatic nephew–to no avail. We even posted on fellow Velvet Underground icon (and part-time Reed nemesis) John Cale’s FB page. (“So cool,” wrote one fan, “you’ve got to be able to give it to him.)
But we can’t. Turns out it’s damn hard to give Lou Reed a gift–even one that’s by definition virtual! Besides reaching out to wife/art star Laurie Anderson, what can we do? (There’s no Laurie Anderson outreach because a marriage is perhaps the only private link left in the world.) We know he was at SoHo House not long before the “unavoidable complications” cancellations. He was said to be looking good. We don’t want to know why he bagged the shows. We want to give him the domain name. (And we’re running into our own unavoidable complications trying to do it.) Warhol would have snapped it up. Where is Lou Reed?
