Lou Reed. The name just conjures up memories of some of the best music of all time, both with the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist. So he's probably sitting in his mansion, sipping champagne through a caviar-encrusted straw(??). Not a bit of it. Just like most other elder statesmen of rock he is still very much active, as he proves with a new musical venture and two UK shows this April to showcase the new sound.

The new "old" venture is a musical unit called the 'Lou Reed Metal Machine Trio" (MM3), based on recreating the sound of his 1975 album 'Metal Machine Music', with new music, noise and soundscapes incorporating rock, meditative and industrial and much more (to hear a few samples check out www.loureed.com/metalmachinetrio). The trio features: Lou Reed - Electric/ Processed Guitars/ Mini Continuum (touch-sensitive MIDI controller), Ulrich Krieger - Saxophone/ Electronics and Sarth Calhoun - Live Processing/ Continuum Fingerboard.

It sounds like a fantastic project, and you could be part of the live experience as he plays The Junction, Cambridge on April 17th before playing the o2 Academy in Oxford the following night. Tickets costing £25 (plus booking fees) are on sale now.

Sounds like a total bargain to see a living legend that after all these years is still hard to pin down to any one genre. So get there and you may just have a perfect day. I shouldn't have made you Reed that.

Update

The inevitable London date has just been added for 19th April at the Royal Festival Hall. Tickets go on sale Friday 29th Jan at 9AM, costing £40 + booking fee.