“Lou Reed was a true rock n’ roll-animal. It was obvious he was a genius. They startet a beat going, and he would be doing lyrics. Just like that. Like: Hey Baby …“
Tony Conrad, Københavns Hovedbibliotek, 2012
Han spillede rock n’ roll med John Cale og Lou Reed i gruppen The Primitives, før de dannede The Velvet Underground. Han spillede violin i Theatre of Eternal Music – musikgruppen, der lagde grundlaget for amerikansk minimalisme. Han var en pioner inden for strukturalistisk film. Han studerede musik i Darmstadt. Han boede et år i København.
Vi taler om den amerikanske komponist, musiker og filmskaber Tony Conrad. Hans navn dukker op alle de vigtigste steder på den amerikanske kunst- og musikscene i 1960’erne.
I april i år gik han bort. For fire år siden optog jeg en samtale på Københavns Hovedbibliotek mellem Tony Conrad og den danske forfatter Lars Movin.
Her kan man høre, at Tony Conrad også var en fremragende historiefortæller.
Udsendelsen blev sendt på internetradioen The Lake den 24. april 2016.
Tekst fra The Lake
New York video artist, composer, and violinist Tony Conrad passed away on April 9th 2016. A pioneer of both structural film and drone music.
In 2012 he visited Copenhagen for the event “2 Days of Minimalism Delirium”, and during his stay he did a live interview with Lars Movin at the Copenhagen Main Library where he talking about La Monte Young, Velvet Underground and his early experiments with the violin. His unfortunate death gave new reason to revisit this interview and turn it into a radio program which, by the way, is introduced in Danish by Lars Movin, but Tony Conrad of course speaks in English throughout.
Recorded and edited by Simon Leth Stolzenbach