A rare US first pressing cover for Lou Reed’s controversial 1975 album Metal Machine Music, autographed by Reed for Canadian music journalist Jeffrey Morgan.  Reed has signed a large cursive ‘Lou’, with the ‘ou’ inside the bottom loop of the ‘L’, adding ‘XXX! (X)?’ –likely his commentary on the album.  He signed the cover again, adding another ‘Lou’ over his neck.

Morgan explains in his accompanying letter of authenticity:

Soon after I began writing for CREEM, I was hired by Marty Herzog to become the editor of a free monthly small circulation music publication called Cheap Thrills which, literally, was Canada’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine.

Thus it was for Cheap Thrills that on March 18 1976, I first interviewed a 34-year-old Lou Reed who had come to Toronto to promote his eighth solo album in four years, Coney Island Baby. After the release of Metal Machine Music a year earlier, RCA felt that Lou had to smooth over that imbroglio by taking the extra step of seriously promoting his new album.

Having read Lester Bangs’ legendary CREEM interviews with the man over the years, I came to the table fully expecting a less than forthright conversation. However, much to my astonishment, Lou was willing to answer any and all questions in a sincere, friendly manner. During the course of our three hour lunch downtown at Trader Vic’s in the Hotel Toronto, Lou thoroughly discussed as many aspects of his life and art as time would allow.

After the conversation, I pulled the following album covers out of my bag for Lou to sign: The Velvet Underground And Nico, The Velvet Underground, Transformer, and Metal Machine Music, all of which he gladly autographed without hesitation.

When he saw the first Velvets album, Lou exclaimed: “Oh, you’ve got an original original with Eric Emerson on the cover. He’s dead. Y’know, I only have one of these.”

— Jeffrey Morgan

In Morgan’s 2021 autobiography Rock Critic Confidential, he notes that he again interviewed Reed in October 1976, and that because Cheap Thrills had a limited number of pages, only a small portion of his lengthy interviews were published.  Morgan’s book, however, devotes 16 pages to the full Reed interviews.

Having grown familiar with Morgan over their three hour lunch, Reed signed the album with his first name ‘Lou’.  The cover is in Near Mint condition.  The records are not included.

With Jeffrey Morgan’s emailed letter of authenticity and Recordmecca’s written lifetime guarantee of authenticity.

From Wikipedia: Jeffrey Morgan is a Canadian writer and photographer who is best known for being the authorized biographer of both Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop and The Stooges.

In 2021, New Haven published Morgan’s autobiography Rock Critic Confidential as a hardcover coffee table book containing over fifty years of Morgan’s writing and photography, with an afterword written by Cooper.

Morgan’s writing has appeared in Creem, Rolling Stone, The Detroit Metro Times, and Cheap Thrills. His book Rock Critic Confidential features his interviews, photographs and reviews of artists including Lou Reed, David Bowie, William S. Burroughs, Bob Dylan, Queen, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Kiss, Patti Smith and many others.