Biografia

Spent some weeks in a mental hospital in his teens, at his parents' insistence; his treatment included electroshock therapy and medication. Reed reflected on the experience later in songs, "Kill Your Sons" being one of them.

Influenced a large list of artists such as David Bowie, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Ian Hunter, R.E.M., Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, The Strokes and Julian Thome.

Produced the album Metal Machine Music in response to RCA Records' demands for a quick follow-up to his top-ten LP Sally Can't Dance. The hour-plus of electronic noise was almost buried as a classical release, but instead was promoted as a pop album. The resulting backlash nearly ruined the label and Reed's reputation; both later issued apologies, while the album remains a musical enigma.

Lived with Laurie Anderson beginning in 1995 prior to their marriage in 2008.

In 1958 a 14 year-old Reed was part of a doo-wop band called The Shades and recorded a single, "So Blue" b/w "Leave Her For Me". Alan Freed played the single on his show; Reed commented later "I got royalties of 78 cents.".

You can't beat two guitars, bass, and drums.

We had vast objections to the whole San Francisco scene. It's just tedious, a lie and untalented. They can't play and they certainly can't write . . . You know, people like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead are just the most untalented bores that ever came up. Just look at them physically, I mean, can you take Grace Slick seriously? It's a joke! It's a joke! The kids are being hyped.

[on colleague John Cale] I only hope that one day John will be recognized as . . . the Beethoven or something of his day. He knows so much about music, he's such a great musician. He's completely mad--but that's because he's Welsh.

Meditation doesn't have to be complicated. What I do is about as simple as you can get. You could just count the beads, one, two, three, with your eyes closed or open, whatever makes you happy. And no matter what happens, keep counting. I personally like it when I can feel that I'm actually moving the beads when I'm counting. And once you make it to a minute, see if you can do a minute-and-a-half. Eventually you can do it without the beads.

[2007, on the release of his album "Hudson River Wind Meditations"] It's geared up to help to you to focus. I call it centering. I use the music all the time. I leave it on all day because living in the city it has an intriguing ability to absorb the outside sound and kind of weave that into itself somehow. So a car horn or a fire engine--all this background noise - just somehow filters into it in a nice way. I'm not sure that I know why, but I know that it does that.