“I remember visiting [Ed] in Berlin where he had gone because there was the promise of a new magazine that was being started. People wanted him to be if not the editor, then one of the main editors. There was also going to be a radio show involved with it. It was just going to be a whole cultural centerpiece. And on that basis, he went to Berlin. And the magazine never happened. It really turned out be a European version of the Credence Clearwater Revival song ‘Lodi.’ He gets to Berlin and he’s stuck there for 10 years. He just couldn’t get out of Berlin. And we went to visit him once, my wife and I. And God… he just took us around the city. And we were not unfamiliar with it, we’d been to Berlin before but he just opened the place up. Took us on walks to interesting buildings, interesting parks and he knew the stories behind everything, and what these place were used for now, publicly, secretly and whatever it might be. And the same in Austin. And the same in France, in Montpellier, when he lived there for a while.”
Greil in conversation about Ed Ward, with Jason Gross in Perfect Sound Forever (part of an entire feature on Ward, including other interviews)
GreilMarcus.net 