Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side

WATCH THIS FULL SCREEN TO GET THE FULL EFFECT.

The story behind the music, and what became of that grand circus of flamboyant characters...

I used to think (as did we all) that the song was about taking drugs, and had somehow slipped through the BBC censorship net. It was a huge surprise to discover what the song was *really* about!

This video was created for a Music Production course I did at STC all of a decade ago.

The course taught us how to be record producers, and was huge fun. At the end we were meant to hand in a ten thousand words essay, but I asked if I could instead submit an interactive CD-ROM. This was cutting edge technology at the time! I used Adobe Premiere and Macromedia Director. My PC was so slow back then it would only work at 12fps, so that's why some of this plays back a bit jumpy, but I think it gives it a nice retro look.

I thought I'd lost all the source files, so it was great to find them on an old hard drive, and have the opportunity to re-purpose it for the internet.

The video snippets were gathered from TV programmes I'd recorded to VHS over the years about Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. Particularly helpful were an excellent BBC Arena, and the 'Classic Albums' edition on Transformer.

Although it's presented here as a wide screen video, the way it originally worked was that when you inserted the CD-ROM the PC screen would go blank, and a series of video windows and menus would start to play, change shape, and move around the screen. I loved making this, particularly the fact that I wasn't bound by any traditional video 'frame' . Great fun. You MUST watch this full screen to appreciate the effect!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Andy Warhol
• holly woodlawn
• candy darling
• joe dallesandro
• jackie curtis
• Joe campbell
• nico
• edie sedgewick
• velvet undeground
• warhol factory
• Sid Vicious auditions
• Teenage Zombie Movie
• WOTWS

[Thibalt91]

Hello, can I have the name of the woman at 1:44 please??

[KarelBata]

@Thibalt91 edie sedgwick

[stratts123]

This is brilliant!

I was going to ask i you knew what had happened to Joe campbell.

[KarelBata]

@stratts123

He died 2 October 2005 at his home in Forest Knolls, Marin County, California, with his companion of 29 years, Stanley Jensen, at his side.

[Francis56B]

***** BRILLIANT! Great piece of editing. Right on the beat, and a joy to watch. You did that 10 years ago? Hard to believe.

So, who was Sugar Plum Fairy?

[KarelBata]

@Francis56B Glad you liked it!

Best I knew back then was that? Sugar Plum Fairy was a slang term for drug dealer.

It turns out to be Joe Campbell -

In 1955, aged 19, Joe met Harvey Milk, and they lived together for 7 years. Another lover, Oliver "Billy" Sipple, an ex-Marine, became famous for thwarting an assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford!

Later Joe Campbell starred in Warhol's My Hustler as the "Sugar Plum Fairy",? a dealer competing for the affections of a "Dial-a-Hustler"!

[drewlambert]

Happy birthday Lou!

[erikerik666]

Even when she was giving head.

[jacksons1950]

That bass line is so damn good

[EthanEternal]

'Little Joe, never once gave it away"...mmm...ah, girls and boys alike all loved Joe...

Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson...interesting...

[RAMLIA1]

Superbe!

[codestud3]

i've lived it.

[GamesPointHD]

@Thibalt91 WTF JUSTIN BIEBER?? xD