Lou Reed’s surprising archives: sex store receipts and football snapshots
nypost.comLou Reed was the H&R Block of classic rockers: The man kept his receipts.In fact, “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars” — an exhaustive exhibit that opens at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on Thursday — displays just how diligent the “Walk on the Wild Side” icon was about retaining proof of his purchases.
One of the showcased receipts is even for the studded dog collar he wears on the cover of his 1974 live album “Rock ’n’ Roll Animal,” which Reed — in true New Yorker fashion — bought from the West Village sex shop the Pleasure Chest.“His father was an accountant and taught Lou to keep receipts, keep records and all that sort of thing,” said curator Jason Stern, who was Reed’s assistant in his final years and now works with his widow, Laurie Anderson. “So I think that probably made its mark.”That Pleasure Chest receipt for $13.50 is among Reed’s personal artifacts that bring some of his downtown New York cool to Lincoln Center in the multimedia exhibit that runs until March.
And it’s certainly striking how much Reed stored over the years.At Anderson’s request, Stern and his co-curator, Don Fleming — an archivist who once played in the group Half Japanese with Reed’s former Velvet Underground bandmate Moe Tucker — began cataloging Reed’s vast array of artifacts shortly after his death, in 2013.
And when it came time to put the exhibit together, they got some help from Anderson.“Laurie was kind of like our barometer,” said Fleming. “We had a lot more stuff in it … maybe three times as much as is in there right now.
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