Photo Credit: Joseph Quever.

Jesse Malin has been building and nurturing the music scene in the five boroughs for over forty years. He is essentially the New York Mayor of Rock and he makes friends wherever he goes. Through the decades he’s played countless benefit shows and spearheaded more than a few efforts to try and get help where it’s needed. He embodies the idea of community through music so naturally we’ve had a long and rewarding relationship with him at WFUV. Eighteen months ago, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him without the use of his legs. All the compassion and empathy that he has shown throughout his career is now coming back around in the form of a tremendous new tribute album and a pair of benefit shows coming up in December that will be his first time on stage since then.

It was an honor to visit Jesse in his East Village apartment and create a one-hour radio show to celebrate the new collection, preview the concerts – featuring full sets from him and his band – and get an update on his situation. It was a rare opportunity to have a freewheeling conversation that touched upon everything from spitting ketchup Gene Simmons style at a talent show in Whitestone to being at the Saturday Night Live performance of Fear to having Bruce Springsteen congratulate him on a good review in Rolling Stone to combing through lyrics at a kitchen table with Lucinda Williams. At the same time we got to play some of his great tunes and hear some of the marvelous new interpretations of his songs. Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin does what great tribute albums do: It’s a reminder of a lot of great songs and an introduction to a bunch of new versions of them. See you at the Beacon Theatre on December 1st and 2nd.

Jesse Malin radio show on 90.7 FM WFUV – Broadcast 9-10p on 10/14/24
Links below give you the whole show with music and conversation in 2 parts

OR cherry pick below…
Click link to hear song, Click play to hear each interview segment

“Room 13”    Jesse Malin    3:57    Sunset Kids     2019

“New York Comeback”    Lucinda Williams    4:14    Stories from a R&R Heart    2023

“She Don’t Love Me Now”     Bruce Springsteen    3:28   Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Queen of the Underworld”     Jesse Malin    3:53    Fine Art of Self Destruction    2003

“Before You Go”    Jesse Malin    3:46    Sad & Beautiful World   2021

“Brooklyn”   Dinosaur Jr.    4:01    Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Sally Can’t Dance”     Lou Reed    4:13    Sally Can’t Dance    1974

“Turn up the Mains”    Mosshart Morello Gang    3:41     Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Cycles”     Rickie Lee Jones    3:19    It’s Like This    2000

The quintessential New Yorker will not be erased!  Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed’s companion since the early 90s and wife from 2008 until his death in 2013, spearheaded the effort to present his complete archives to the NYPL in March.

Lou Reed became synonymous with New York personifying its street smarts, experience, skepticism, and most of all, its cool.  His songwriting was unflinching in its depiction of gritty urban life full of drugs and sex.  New York and its inhabitants were often characters in his songs.  He immortalized the old factory crowd in his most popular song chart-wise, Walk on the Wild Side from the David Bowie produced Transformer in ’72.  He mythologized the city’s seaside resort in the Lower Bay with the song and album Coney Island Baby in ’76 and saluted Brooklyn’s signature beverage, the egg cream, with the opening track on Set The Twilight Reeling twenty years later.  On the New York album from1989, Reed turned his extraordinarily keen eye on the five boroughs like never before; lovingly devastating the town in a brilliant song cycle mixing actual characters like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan with fictional characters like Pedro at the Wilshire Hotel. 

Born in Brooklyn on March 2, 1942 – Lou spent the first nine years of his life in Kings County before moving to Freeport, Long Island at the age of nine.  Lou’s sister Merrill, who spoke at the press conference last Thursday, wrote this excellent article that disabuses some of the misconceptions about his childhood.   He graduated Syracuse university in ’64 and met John Cale in NYC where they hatched The Velvet Underground.  Soon The Velvets were featured in Andy Warholâ€s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events.  In ’67, while the summer of love flowered on the west coast, The Velvet Underground and Nico debut album came as from another world. You likely know the quote attributed to Brian Eno that everyone who heard it started a band.  Lou Reed is as inspiring as ever and his archives are safe with NYPL.

Here’s some more with Laurie Anderson who confesses to, at one point, thinking Lou was British as well as re-enacting operas with him!

The Quintessential New Yorker will not be erased!  Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed’s companion since the early 90s and wife from 2008 until his death three and a half years ago, spearheaded the effort to present his complete archives to the NYPL.

Lou Reed became synonymous with New York personifying its street smarts, experience, skepticism, and most of all, its cool.  His songwriting was unflinching in its depiction of gritty urban life full of drugs and sex.  New York and its inhabitants were often characters in his songs.  He immortalized the old factory crowd in his most popular song chart-wise, Walk on the Wild Side from the David Bowie produced Transformer in ’72.  He mythologized the city’s seaside resort in the Lower Bay with the song and album Coney Island Baby in ’76 and saluted Brooklyn’s signature beverage, the egg cream, with the opening track on Set The Twilight Reeling twenty years later.  On the New York album from1989, Reed turned his extraordinarily keen eye on the five boroughs like never before; lovingly devastating the town in a brilliant song cycle mixing actual characters like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan with fictional characters like Pedro at the Wilshire Hotel. 

Born in Brooklyn on March 2, 1942 – Lou spent the first nine years of his life in Kings County before moving to Freeport, Long Island at the age of nine.  Lou’s sister Merrill, who spoke at the press conference last Thursday, wrote this excellent article that disabuses some of the misconceptions about his childhood.   He graduated Syracuse university in ’64 and met John Cale in NYC where they hatched The Velvet Underground.  Soon The Velvets were featured in Andy Warholâ€s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events.
In ’67, while the summer of love flowered on the west coast, The Velvet Underground and Nico debut album came as from another world. You likely know the quote attributed to Brian Eno that everyone who heard it started a band.  Lou Reed is as inspiring as ever and his archives are safe with NYPL.

Here’s some more with Laurie Anderson who confesses to, at one point, thinking Lou was British as well as re-enacting operas with him!

Gorgeous Gift Boxes For 2016 Holidays – December 6, 2016

Another year almost in the books and a fine crop of holiday box sets has emerged.   These creatively and lovingly packaged collections are anchored by knob turning prowess that has this timeless music sounding better than ever. 

The Bad Boy box, curated by label head Harve Pierre, is comparatively bare bones.  Its makers eschewed oversized packaging and souvenirs while delivering a definitive history of the influential label founded by Sean Puff Daddy Combs.  You get five discs and a good little book that tells you crucial information on the eighty tracks presented and an essay by Michael Gonzalez.  The set leaves no doubt to Bad Boy’s hip hop legacy while making a case for the R&B artists on the roster as well.

How did the Badmotorfinger album swell to a seven disc collection!  It’s overkill of course but, with a box fronted by a battery powered spinning logo, it’s hard not to be endeared to this kind of indulgence.  As with the Soundgarden, the Temple Of The Dog 25th anniversary is being celebrated with various formats and levels of frivolity.  Regardless of how nuts you want to go, a pair of outstanding albums worthy of the attention.

Entombed in some kind of super sexy case that if pleasing to the touch, you can choose between sixteen Lou Reed CDs or six albums.  The CD set covers 1972 to 1986 beginning with his first self-titled effort after leaving The Velvet Underground album and ending with Mistrial.  This period includes some of the material Reed is best known for as well as some that will be of interest only to hard core fans.  Exhibit A in the latter category being Metal Machine Music.  However, when considering an artist of Lou Reed’s stature, I’m thrilled to have copies of relatively lesser titles like Growing Up In Public and Legendary Hearts that were meticulously remastered by the man himself.  On the vinyl front, arguably the most essential half dozen albums of the Aritsta/RCA era are offered in a box encouragingly titled Volume One: Transformer, Berlin, The Blue Mask, Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, and Rock n Roll Animal.

Lastly, one can only marvel at the tremendous trove that is Pink Floyd: The Early Years 1965-1972.  It sets a new standard for luxury in a box set while offering a fascinating, multi-dimensional experience that shows the pre Dark Side evolution of Roger Waters and pals.  It’s glorious!

Most of the video is from the outstanding American Masters documentary directed and produced by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders in 1998: Rock and Roll Heart: Lou Reed.