Thank heavens for going off script.

In terms of mass media (what's left of it anyway), we live in such a heavily scripted era -- everything managed, sanctioned, picked over, obsessed upon; it makes the 1950s look like a time of cultural hedonism. But at a recent (April 16) taping of the new, Elton John-backed TV show (remember TV?) Spectacle: Elvis Costello With ..., scripts were checked at the door.

What else would one expect when you get Elvis Costello interviewing Lou Reed? And then, for good measure, getting Lou's best friend, artist/director Julian Schnabel, up on stage for a wide-ranging, not ready for prime time (fitting, as the whole thing took place in the fabled NBC Studio 8H where SNL has held court all these years) rumble.

Elvis is a good interviewer and host. He's smart -- but you could already tell that from his songs. Hearing two major songwriters going at it about their craft is bracing. And Lou Reed, if anyone's got stories, he does.

Lou was a little out of it at first. But as the conversation wound on, from memories of songwriter/boxing fan/gambler Doc Pomus (both Costello and Reed wished to whatever version of God they worship they had been able to come up with a song like "Save the Last Dance for Me") to tales of writing hot-rod songs for Pickwick Records, Lou warmed up. By the time Schnabel got out there and started riffing on Lou's Berlin album, the envelope was pushed. To say the least. And it sunk in -- here were three guys who didn't have to kow-tow to anybody. As contrived as Schnabel's appearance feels, it works. He is, truly, out there. As is Lou. The conversation ranged, widely, from the artistic inspiration for the shot of Bauby on the platform in the sea in Diving Bell and the Butterfly (off script) to the right way to play the riff of “Sweet Jane” to Elvis's eating habits when he was living with his first band, to gentrification and Brooklyn rock. In short, daring. Fascinating.

This was not "edgy" in the marketing sense. When Schnabel described how Lou Reed came over to his apartment and grasped his dead father's hand "while it was still warm," it was in a whole new realm.

And after all this talk, nobody in the room, or Elvis, wanted to stop, Lou Reed and Elvis Costello played two duets that should be preserved for eternity. The lithe Reed, almost frail, assumed stolidity, strength and force; the powerful, ample Costello became lithe and supple. Song one: an elegiac, acoustic guitar and piano (Steve Nieve jet-fresh from Paris helping out) version of Reed's "Perfect Day," and a blistering, two-electric-guitar version of his "Set the Twilight Reeling" that was unquestionably the finest rock being played on our planet at that particular moment. When Reed turned his fuzz box on, well, he showed why as a bandleader he could be called the Duke Ellington of rock. He started, built, and ended each song with Duke-like perfection, timing, that took one's breath away.

But the moment that lingers is when Schnabel, impromptu, recited the complete lyrics of "Rock Minuet," from Reed's album Ecstasy, channeling Lou Reed and Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg - even Walt Whitman. And Lou mouthing the words, at his side, his eyes closed. The first line: “Paralyzed by hatred and a piss ugly soul.…”

Big, big stuff. One only hopes some of the manic craziness will live when the pieces are put together and it runs (on Sundance Channel in the fall, Channel Four in the U.K.). I, for one, will tune in to see. – Ken Krimstein

Mr. Krimstein is a writer, cartoonist, father, and grump who lives in New York City. So there.