This was my introduction to the world of Lou Reed back in 1972. I'd read about him from interviews in Melody Maker and the New Musical Express with David Bowie. But no one I knew had Velvet Underground records and neither did the local record shop. I'd have to wait a few years for those and a world of second hand shops and Monash Records with their large heavy cardboard sleeve cut outs.
But it started here with this song suddenly being played on the local radio station 3AK. And it was so different and other worldly. Almost like jazz. And what was he singing about? He was taking us to somewhere else. Somewhere a little more dangerous and not really anything to do with the bright sunshine of the Melbourne suburbs.
So we played this music at night or with the shades down often adding a stick of incense to the mix. My friend lent me a kind of spinning light like you would find on the top of a police car. I'd have that going and fairy lights from our Christmas tree hung on the wall. And I'd always prop the album cover up against the record player. As if to announce what was playing.
Transformer was massive. The first real party I went to. One where you had to cross town. To Carlton all the way from Nunawading. Where there were lots of people you didn't know. And the girls looked exotic. This album was playing as I walked in. The whole album. Another world.
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