Kim Gordon: Lou Reed was rock's first great antihero

Lou was the first real antihero in rock. As a 14-year-old hearing the Velvet Underground for the first time, I acted out the lyrics to a song about heroin when I didn't even know what it was. But I thought it was cool and I knew it was different than anything I'd heard before. Lou went about self-destruction and creation with the same exploratory innocence of a 14-year-old girl rebelling against a role she doesn't want ... won't accept ... to be a conventional boy, to be a conventional girl ... With Lou's death I feel a certain panic that the same innocence that comes with any urge to make something and get lost in it along the way has left with him, leaving the rest of us feeling way too adult.