Lou Reed’s song band

Lou Reed’s song band was the touring group Lou Reed used for his song repertoire, as opposed to instrumental projects such as Metal Machine Trio.

I joined in 2008, playing the Continuum Fingerboard and processing the other musicians live, and I was still in the band for the 2011 European tour.

The invitation

Lou invited me. Lou made all those decisions, but yeah, Lou invited me, and he wanted some fresh sounds. He wanted me to modernize the sound of what we were doing.

I processed and sampled the various instruments on stage, and played the Continuum.

Lou’s imagination

Tony Diodore once said that I was Lou’s imagination, when he wanted to just have some wild sound or some completely different kind of sound. That was what I brought. Tony joined the band in 2011.

The first version

The first rehearsals were at SIR in New York in April 2008. The band around Lou was Rob Wasserman, Kevin Hearn, Mike Rathke, Steve Hunter, and Tony “Thunder” Smith. We started in the Northeast, went south by bus, played Beale Street in Memphis, and came back to New York. That run is the spring 2008 U.S. tour.

By the 2011 European tour the band was eight people, with Tony Diodore and Aram Bajakian on guitars, Ulrich Krieger on saxophone, and me running multiple Pacas. The dates are on Sightings.

The creditSarth Calhoun, Continuum Fingerboard and live processing through Kyma, in Lou Reed’s touring band from the spring 2008 U.S. tour through the 2011 European tour. Credited “electronics & continuum” on Lou Reed Live at Lollapalooza 2009.

My account is from an interview on August 25, 2026. The 2008 rehearsal and route are from the Lou Reed papers and contemporary listings.