I listened to Lou Reed's "New York" album yesterday for the first time in a couple of years. [Great CD, but that's not the point.] I know Reed generally plays a tele and the guitar sounds on this record sound like a telecaster. What I'm wondering is if anybody knows what amp(s) he used to make the recording. I LOVE the tones, and for the most part the sound is very natural and I suspect for the most part just guitar into amp. Anybody? PS-Interesting that he takes a swipe at Rudy given that the record was recorded in '89 or '90.
I'm a big Lou Reed fan and think he's a very underrated as a guitar player. I've seen him a bunch of times in person and on video and he's played all kinds of different guitars from stock and custom Strats, to a Danny Gatton Tele, to guitars by MJ (http://www.mjguitar.com/mjguitar.html). And I've seen him play out of everything from Peavey Bandits (when Robert Quine was in his band) to Soldanos, although IIRC he has been sticking with the Soldanos for a while now. He also usually has a big Soldano Surfbox unit on top of his amp and a huge effects switching floorboard.
Soldano website says the SLO came out in 1987. Wikipedia says the company started in 1986. The information superhighway is a beautiful thing.
Oops. Did a little more surfing and what I thought was an MJ may in fact be a Bolin, which has a similar headstock design. This site has a bunch of Lou Reed gear info, but I don't know how accurate it is. Lou strikes me as a gear hound who is always trying different things, so it is probably hard to pin down exactly what he might have used on a specific occasion.
Sounds like the amps Mike S. did for him-I played Lous' rig at Mikes old shop on Melrose (probably '90??) when he was next to "Spotlight Tattoo" (Talk about one stop shopping....). The intro to "Busload of Faith" on a good system is like being in the room:AOK
Shoot - I saw him on that tour, but I can't recall what amps he was using. Pretty sure he wasn't using a tele live. Sorry I'm not much help...
I went to the show for that tour and he made a point of showing off his rig and stating that he had "stepped up to a rack" at least for the live show. I don't remember a tele but something strat shaped.
