John Cale S/D

He did a whole WW1-themed thing in Mesen (near Ypres, see your world war history books) last week - including a drastically reworked rendition of the Paris 1919 album. The title track featured, a review said (wasn't there myself), heavy dance beats. This is another song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowWwu0mOkA

Sounds like Terry playing on that, I don't have that CD, what's the credits?

It's Terry Jennings
I was just wondering if that meant that Terry named it Terry's Cha-Cha or if JC named it that

ah. thought it sounded like Riley.

Happy Holidays from @therealjohncale:
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJohnCale/photos/a.396741823724076.88645.249813671750226/820613624670225/?type=1&theater

But usually more action @johncalenews

(Hey there was at least one more LL pic of her and Cale, where'd it go)

"Projections in conjunction with John Cale's performance at the Whitney." Click it and see, whee! More on YouTube? Will check. Meanwhile:
http://whitneymuseum.tumblr.com/tagged/John-Cale

Not seeing him at the Whitney on YouTube so far, but here's a doc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkoidS2RtY

it's still there!?

Yes! I just kept overlooking your link; forgot about that & thought the pic itself was posted. Sorry!

Ooo, I need to watch that

John Cale ‏@therealjohncale 9m9 minutes ago

Team @therealjohncale pre-show #Pompidou Work hard, fry brain, have fun! #AbigailPortner #DustinBoyer #deantoniparks
John Cale and Deantoni Parks

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJB92F3WIAAGsD2.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJB9265WsAAMVBY.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJB91mKWsAARLuG.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJB92o_W8AEGpy0.jpg

She's got 3 legs.

Incredible how youthful the guy still looks

Music for a New Society is so brilliant-I can't believe it's been OOP for decades! It needs a vinyl/CD reissue ASAP

I've been plagued with a John Cale earworm so deeply embedded that I heard it in a dream and thought "wow this is the song that has been stuck in my...oh :-/"

The song: "You Know More Than I Know"

Hmmmm. From press release

M:FANS, a radical new reworking of one of John Cale’s most unique and lauded solo records, the 1982 masterpiece Music For A New Society, will be released on January 22, 2016 on Double Six / Domino. View the video for album track “Close Watch,” featuring Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman and directed by Abby Portner. Additionally, a fully re-mastered Music For A New Society will be available with three previously unreleased bonus tracks from the original multi-track recordings.

M:FANS explores the relationship between old and new, in terms of the sound and vision, and Cale’s memories of the experience, in terms of his life and the recording. Back and forth M:FANS goes, sampling the original, while creating brand new soundscapes, giving Cale the opportunity for closure on one of the most testing eras of his life, and a way to keep moving forward. Cale shares his thoughts on the reworking:

“Making any form of art is always personal to my mind. During the making of M:FANS, I found myself loathing each and every character written about in those original recording sessions of Music For... Unearthing those tapes reopened those wounds. It was time to decimate the despair from 1981 and breathe new energy, re-write the story. Then, the unthinkable happened. What had informed so much over lost and twisted relationships in 1981 had now come full circle. Losing Lou [too painful to understand] forced me to upend the entire recording process and begin again...a different perspective - a new sense of urgency to tell a story from a completely opposite point of view - what was once sorrow, was now a form of rage. A fertile ground for exorcism of things gone wrong and the realization they are unchangeable. From sadness came the strength of fire!!!”

With Cale’s current band (featured on his last studio album Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood) involved again, the new versions that constitute M:FANS are more fleshed-out, heavier concoctions, in line with his current electronic/chopped-up configurations

M:FANS and Music For A New Society will be released as a 2xCD package with both albums also packaged together on digital stores. Both albums will also be available on 12” vinyl, with M:FANS arriving on 2xLP. Music For A New Society comes with a download card of the three unreleased bonus tracks as listed below

glad that music for a new society is being reissued, not sure about the reimagining... but we'll see!

hmm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trotjp3yCPw

that was unexpected

I didn't really get into the nooky wooky album and I was hoping he would do something a little less busy (if that's the word) but I like the new close watch

And of course the reissue is great news whatever

Where is cale on the bacon continuum I wonder

guess he's still on the autotune kick. thought shifty adventures was decent, but i can probably do w/o hearing this one again...

I pretty much hate that rework but it's great to see him still looking fly as fuck

I like this "Close Watch" quite a bit.

in theory i like that cale is doing weird unexpected stuff at this stage in his career rather than just coasting

Video by Abby Portner, who he's been collaborating with lately, they did something together at the Whitney I think and maybe a tour? She's the sister of Avey Tare from Animal Collective, for what that's worth.

hmm, i heard a rumor that cale was collab-ing w/ animal collective some time earlier this year.

John Cale is not on the bacon continuum, don't even consider pursuing that angle
Even when his experiments are kinda goofy or ill-conceived he's still experimenting and he's still alive and super fly too so please.

haha, i'm not sure what the bacon continuum even is ...

lol I love john cale, it was an idle thought that I will happily abandon (although if it turned out he was bill murray people calling him things like "super fly" would be exhibit a)

ugh i only used that word because someone else used it upthread and i was furtively typing on my phone full of horror at john cale being spoken about that way
i have nothing but earnest reverence and there will be no bacon the end!

that rework is pretty pleasant as a new song but it completely loses the haunting feeling that's at the core of the orginal.

If they tour this I'm there

+1

Disagree that this version isn't haunting – they all are, tho I have a special place for the gothic rendition (replete with bizarre military bagpipe coda) on Music For a New Society .

One of the things I love about this song is that Cale seems to have written it very deliberately as some kind of modern standard (did he write it for Sinatra? can't remember), what with the style, the orchpop arrangement and, of course, the Cash quote. And while it was never really embraced that way outside of his own fanbase, the song has become very much a standard for him. This version plays as kind of a high concept remix, with the treated vocals and MPC/Burroughs-style cutups shifting the focus from the sentimentality of the much loved refrain to the bleak fatalism of the verses.

Anyway, I was a fan of Nooky Wood's songs and sound – will be interested in MFANS.

listened to this remake a couple more times and it's kind of growing on me! Caaaaale!!!
i think Cale did say at some point he wrote it w/ sinatra in mind ... i actually can imagine scott walker owning it in the 70s.

The Sinatra thing is mentioned in the liner notes to the island years iirc

Also the first time I heard the new version I heard the processed "never win, never lose" as "heroin, never Lou"

haha
think my fave version of "close watch" is the fragments of a rainy season solo performance ... his vocal there is perfect: "i still hear your voice at night / when i turn out the light / and try to settle down"

The Fragments versions are pretty much my favorite versions of all of those songs.

yeah i was thinking that as i was typing it:
think my fave version of "_________" is the fragments of a rainy season solo performance. that record is unbelievable.

It's the first piece of evidence I use in my argument that people dismiss live albums at their own peril.

Yeah, Fragments versions, in particular, of that song, "Dying on the Vine" and "Cordoba" are the definite ones as far as i'm concerned.

yep

Playing roundhouse & philharmonie de Paris in feb btw but dunno if that's mfans: the tour or just like, a show

this one too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTpiadDuA5o

Having overspent on poorly recorded bootlegs of solo Cale, I was thrilled when Fragments was released in 92. Saw him perform twice in 1988 and 1989, the first with Chris Spedding and the second solo, and was growing a bit desperate for a document of those stripped yet intense versions. "Dying On The Vine" is particularly definitive on this collection.

That ws the first Cale song I ever heard and I still think it's one of his v best. Hearing the original version ws a bit of a shock.