Before the black leather, the Andy Warhol connection, and the “Walk on the Wild Side” bassline, Lou Reed was just a kid in the 315 trying not to get kicked out of Syracuse University.
He didn’t exactly fit the “student-athlete” mold. Lou was an English major who spent more time at the Orange Bar on Crouse Avenue than he did in the library.
Poetry on Crouse
Lou sat in the back booths with his mentor, a poet Delmore Schwartz, drinking and talking about how to write songs that felt like novels. Lou didn’t experience Syracuse through classrooms but through bars and backroom conversations.
The Ghost of the Orange Bar
The Orange Bar is gone, but that same “outsider” energy is still vibrating in the local scene today. You just have to know where to look.
“Too Weird”
He fronted a band called L.A. and the Eldorados, a group that played frat parties until they were inevitably banned for being “too loud” and “too weird.”
There’s even the legendary (and mostly true) story of him getting booted from the ROTC program after allegedly holding an unloaded gun to his superior’s head. He wasn’t a rebel without a cause; he just had a different rhythm than the rest of the city.
Static on the Hill
Lou hosted a show on WAER (a Syracuse radio station) called Excursions on a Wobbly Rail. He played free jazz and doo-wop that the faculty hated so much they eventually gave him the boot.
The DNA of a Legend
Lou Reed graduated in 1964, but the DNA of his sound—the grit, the honesty, and the “wild side”—was distilled right here in Syracuse.
Who’s the Lou Reed of 2026?
We’ve mapped the current underground stages and the artists currently making “too weird” music in our directory.
-> Explore the Syracuse Scene Directory
Sources & Further Reading
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The Syracuse Archives: Lou Reed’s undergraduate history and band records (1960–1964) are preserved via the Syracuse University Archives and The Daily Orange historical records.
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The Radio Firing: Documentation of Reed’s “Excursions on a Wobbly Rail” and his dismissal from WAER is verified by station heritage reports and interviews with former staff.
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The Literary Connection: The relationship between Reed and Delmore Schwartz at the Orange Bar is a central theme in Transformer: The Lou Reed Story (Victor Bockris) and Reed’s own 1982 lyrical tributes.
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Musical Origins: The formation of L.A. and the Eldorados and the initial drafts of “Heroin” and “Waiting for the Man” are documented in NYS Music and the Onondaga Historical Association.