Just a little rain and parts of the city go underwater, enough to make you wish you could wear a blue mask yourself. The Reed album was recorded in 1981, released in 1982, re-released in CD version in 1999, and bought at a bargain by this corner in 2001.
What was it that Reed said of the power of rock music? Twenty years later its impact on the listener should remain undiminished. We remember reading a review of it which came out in Rolling Stone, a rave to be sure, although for some reason it was never released here; the local distributors of the RCA label weren’t convinced about a walk on the wild side. So the truth is we never heard the album, at least not until recently, 20 years after it was recorded. Would our lives have changed course had we been able to hear it upon its first release in the early ’80s? The world was different then, but judging from the sound of The Blue Mask coming out of the rudimentary CD player’s speakers, not that different.
Tortured guitars that remind one of a monsoon madness, crisp bass lines as if weaving in and out of slippery traffic, drums that beat down the water-logged roof.
Reed pays tribute to his teacher, the poet Delmore Schwartz of "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" fame, right in the first cut, "My House."
The melody is not all that pretty, but the musicianship is compelling. And Reed could well be a purveyor of spoken word poetry, at times coming across like a rap singer, only that he was way ahead of hip-hop.
He has a song about his love for women ("Women"), as well about his battle with alcoholism ("Underneath the Bottle"). Danger seethes at every corner ("The Gun"), while one should never fear being out of tune when the guitars are loud and distorted enough ("The Blue Mask").
He may be reveling in his hard-won domestic bliss, but deep down we know that the artist is all too aware that such is a mere hiatus –an uneasy calm between storms.
Reed’s manner of recording the album is one worthy of study, as he lays down the instrumental tracks first, then overdubs the vocals almost like an afterthought. At times it seems he is even improvising the lyrics. Only "The Heroine" was recorded simultaneously with vocals and instrument – a lone acoustic guitar, a far cry from the trademark mayhem of the Velvet Underground’s classic "Heroin."
There is too ample space for American folklore in "The Day John Kennedy Died," and a riveting love song for his then-wife Sylvia which practically has us squirming in our seats in embarrassment. In this manner The Blue Mask almost sounds like a New York diary: almost too personal for comfort
One song in the CD, "Waves of Fear," played constantly in our minds while stranded somewhere along Boni Ave. near the municipio on a late Friday night, with dirty waves of flood water indeed fearfully lapping at the sensitive parts of the 20-year-old car.
We might not have known exactly what Reed was singing and so upset about, but it brought good old paranoia to an altogether different plane: hanging around an elevated Burger Machine outlet until three in the morning, with nothing but coffees and Marlboros to keep us warm, notwithstanding the small talk with the homosexual teenage chef on the night shift.
We stayed until the vultures, push-your-stalled-car boys had adjourned to buy their gin, and the jeeps became even scarcer as the clock crept into the wee, wee hours.
It was possible also that aside from Reed, a few lines from Borges seeped through: "The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street corner/ I have outlived the night."
There are other Reed albums worth mentioning, not the least of which is New York, a homage to the city of his affections. His work with the Velvet Underground should neither be bypassed, as it set the standard for a rock and roll that had the temperament of art but was never pretentious. The VU’s patron was the counter-culture icon Andy Warhol.
Reed himself confessed that he is basically a writer who just happened to pick up an electric guitar, stumbling on his stories as the notes were wrung out of the fretboard.