An arch songwriter with a penchant for telling tales of drug abuse, transsexuals
and prostitutes, Lou Reed reigns as the grand old bard of New York's seedy
underbelly and a key influence on everyone from David Bowie to My Bloody
Valentine to The Strokes. After dabbling with garage psychedelia, avant garde
films and Andy Warhol - while front man of seminal art rockers The Velvet
Underground - Reed signed to RCA and fled to London to record eponymous debut
Lou Reed (1972), mainly made up of unreleased Velvets tracks. His glam-tinged
second album Transformer (1972), co-produced by D...