Reetoxa raises a glass to Lou Reed on the glorious rock ’n’ roll rush of ‘Dancing With Lou’

For Reetoxa mastermind Jason McKee, Lou Reed wasn’t simply another name in the record collection. Discovering Reed’s solo work at fifteen cracked open an entirely new way of thinking about songwriting, where nothing had to be softened, censored or made more respectable for anyone else’s comfort.

Taken from Reetoxa’s second album ‘Soliloquy’, ‘Dancing With Lou’ turns that teenage awakening into a gloriously loose, swaggering rock ’n’ roll number built to move. McKee wanted something raw but danceable, and the song hits that sweet spot with real confidence.

The musicians around him only amplify that feeling. Peter Marin of JET brings punch and drive on drums, James Ryan adds guitar, and Kit Riley locks everything down on bass, giving the track a muscular backbone without stripping away its sense of spontaneity.

McKee first encountered Lou Reed’s solo material in 1995, when grunge and alternative rock were dominating the landscape. Hearing ‘The Blue Mask’ was enough to shift his entire perspective. Suddenly, songwriting could be intimate, provocative, funny, uncomfortable and completely uncensored.

The fact that he later met Reed during the Ecstasy tour only makes the whole thing more satisfying. So nervous that Reed had to steady his arm while signing a poster, he eventually got the kind of fan moment most people would never forget. That poster now hangs framed on his wall, and ‘Dancing With Lou’ feels like its musical counterpart.

Here, Reetoxa has taken a formative teenage memory and turned it into something loud, loose and brilliantly alive. ‘Dancing With Lou’ is the sound of one artist thanking another for teaching him how to be fearless.