John Cale S/D

I'm not at all familiar with his other albums (the only other thing of his I've got is the "Seducing Down The Door" comp.) but I think "Hobo Sapiens" is wonderful - and it's making me want to explore the rest of his back catalogue further - I was thinking I'd probably start with either "Paris 1919" or "The Island Years"

I've been meaning to pick up Hobosapiens but haven't just yet, the 5 Tracks ep which came out a few months earlier is great though and if that's a taster of what the album will be like then it should be great.

x-post: The Island Years is the double album I mentioned.

This is actually the only Cale album I own. Did he ever do any other records like this one?

Paris 1919 is probably the next best to approach, it's gentle and accesible. Somehow I think it's nice to get this one in before going to Church of Anthrax / New Society, which if you heard them completely out-of-the-blue would sound like the flailing piss of a coked-up bag of bellybooze. Which they are. The secret is to learn to love the bag, and that takes a while.

The 80's ones, Carribean Sunset in particular, are shit. Think about it. It's a solo album from a 60's guy in the 80's called Carribean Sunset. More than any of the one's that were mentioned up to go for Fear next. It's got a fairly decent mix of material and the 70's bar-rock boogie is at it's least annoying. Slow Dazzle has it's highlights, as has Honi Soit.

Hobosapiens I still can't get into for some reason. It sounds like your old Geography teacher berating you from the next room about subways and somesuch. I'll reserve my opinion of that as I haven't quite listened to it enough yet.

S: Fear; Slow Dazzle: Guts; Paris 1919. (Fear, Slow Dazzle, Helen of Troy, and a few singles were reissued on a twofer called "The Warner Bros. Years" a while back, and it's the way to go.) Paris 1919 is very good indeed but I think "Slow Dazzle" is the greatest John Cale record, sort of brutalist Brian Wilson...

D: Vintage Violence (never liked it except for "Gideon's Bible"); all his '80s shit; all his '90s shit (I do like his last one but it's hardly essential).

I also have three CDs of his early noise stuff in NYC, nice room-clearing music but again hardly essential.

Honi Soit is an honorable attempt at a comeback around '81, and there are some nice moments, but by that time he had really started to lose his voice, and it sounds a bit stillborn. Worth getting for a few bucks.

Sabotage & Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Great for die-hard fans, but probably not for beginners.
John Cale is Alive - More accessible, but less good.

Walking on Locusts - I absolutely love this one, but no one else seemed to.

Mid 70s albums terrific, Animal Justice terrific (Hedda Gabler!!!!!), New Society terrific, most other stuff patchy, I am fond of Sabotage but never actually listen to it, Fragments is lovely but I get embarrassed listening to it for personal reasons, I would love to assert that Caribbean Sunset is good but I can't honestly remember anything about it, it's better than Artificial Intelligence though surely.

i.e. what everyone else said.

I was about to say. They need to fix the star ranking though!

Christgau is right; the "Peril" track "Days of Steam" does remind of the Ernie Kovacs theme.

Yeah that 'Island' comp really is terrific - all the hits and none of the shit (well, some) - glad someone mentioned 'Ski Patrol', a real fave of mine

Sabotage really is a fantastic noise thing on the rock-meets-avant-jazz tip.

Artificial Intelligence is getting way underrated here as pretty-pop.

But orchestral cale hits his peak, as far as i'm concerned, with "words for the dying" which is one of the few where the studio recorded versions so clearly top the fragments... versions.

I saw him live in a very small bar like 4-5 years ago, and it was wonderful. A lot like the Fragments of rainy day CD. All he had was a piano and acoustic guitar on some songs and vocals.

Did you see yourself in the audience?

http://www.ovationtv.com/

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Next Showing:
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I'm surprised how many people have cited Honi Soit. I love that record, even as weak as it is.

I recently watched the Drella video on the big screen again .. still fantastic... and the Cale songs are superior, but maybe that's just me being a little sick of Lour Reed.

I met a guy the other night who said he played the viola. I asked him if he'd heard of John Cale. He said no.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PLAY THE VIOLA AND HAVE NOT HEARD OF JOHN CALE???

BECAUSE IT'S A BIG FUCKING WORLD BIMBLE COME ON

All the same, folks in western countries who don't know Velvet Underground need to get with it, pronto. The end of the world is coming soon, there's not much time left. QUICKLY!

NEXT THING THEY'LL BE TELLING YOU THEY DON'T KNOW WHO PALL MACKNARTANEY IS!?!?!

Why is there not a beautiful 4 or 5 CD box set career overview? The _Seducing Down The Door_ 2 disc set is necessarily very stingy. There's so much to his career and lots of great rarities could be included as well!

yeaaaah I wanna hear outakes from Church of Anthrax and more live recordings from both the mid-70s and that beserko 78-79 period.

And if you give me half a chance, I'd do it now, I'd do it NOW, RIGHT NOW, YOU FASCIST!

So great.

DAMN RIGHT MAMA!

I just bought "The Island Years" and I can't believe my ears. I had no idea I'd like this that much. The likes of Coldplay only wish they'd done anything as good as "Ship of Fools".

Just don't understand how this CD could be as good as what I'm hearing.

"Fear Is A Man's Best Friend", too...it's weird cause I think I heard that song before years ago. Just fucking fantastic, man.

One of the songs where you can really see Cale's Beach Boys love.

xxpost yeah Gideons Bible is amazing

Won't you help me sneeze, I've caught a cold.

the opening track is so delightful, just a lovely Hello There wave from Cale
it was so unexpected!

For some reason my streaming service is obsessed with Gideon's Bible, when I shuffle stuff at random it always plays and its fine I like it but it does seem weird giving my listening habits that the algorithm has latched on to this particular song "oh dude loves Gideon's Bible let's play it again!"

on a side note
Am reading Whats Welsh For Zen and was not prepared for his neanderthal views of women and/or physical violence. Tough going. Obv the music stuff is interesting but his dispassionate telling of his marriages & his own truly awful behavior like he’s talking about a walk to the shops really does my head in.

yah hes a legendary asshole

annoyed at myself for going in wide-eyed but oh well

pray for me

he just killed a chicken & threw the head into the crowd

._.

it’s a selling point of the book that he talks about stuff in a frank matter of fact way but it was horrifying to read him describing smashing his gf’s teeth with a whiskey glass and then just sort of breezing on to the next anecdote

yeah horrifying

The chicken incident did result in a good, funny (assholish) song

There's a weird disconnect between the blithe way he describes some of his misdeeds, mostly from his alcohol and drug era, and the insightful introspection of other parts of the book.

The chorus on Gideon’s Bible from Vintage Violence is 4 stars

My favourite bit is the fadeout, with the viola coming in, like the end of a credit sequence in some forgotten urban 1970 movie.

Fans of "roots" John Cale should give a listen to his unloved 1996 album Walking on Locusts. It features one of his all-time best songs, "Secret Corrida" (which is more Leonard Cohen than Americana).

Just came across a good interview---didn't realize he wrote so much in the studio, and was so into improvising there---this part is striking as well, on VU gigs with the Mothers:

...the only reason Zappa was on those gigs was that Herb Cohen knew that he'd get all this publicity from Andy and us. The thing is about Frank, that was reinforced years after I saw him, is that he had a very acerbic wit, which was kind of enjoyable, but at the same time, I really can't say there was anything about his music or him that made me love music. There was something about him, I think it was a real deep-seeded anger and fury about being forced to learn music in the first place - there was a revenge factor there - but it made me very uncomfortable watching him. There was so much putting down of himself that wasn't pleasant. I lost the gleam of innocence that you get from somebody really enjoying a melody or a solo or anything like that. And he could rip off [play, not pilfer] all these incredible solos, and you knew the guy had tremendous talent, but there was never anything there that made me love music so I'd want to do it. The reason you're doing this is to show how people how exciting and enjoyable this is. It's a shared experience. People shouldn't be punished for sharing an experience.

Didn’t Zappa famously mock Nico from the side of the stage, pretending to play organ and making pained singing faces?

Oh worse than that, he went up on stage and actually played her organ and sang some moronic lyrics not much different from his usual output.

https://www.openculture.com/2017/06/andy-warhol-hosts-frank-zappa-on-his-cable-tv-show.html

He did play "All Tomorrow's Parties" when the BBC gave him a radio show to play his favourite music. Along with some other surprising choices (the UK Subs!) Zappa that is, not Cale. He was still an asshole though of course.

Right, forgot about that. The ATP part that is, not the other part.

Also that thing I posted brings up something I never thought about, comparing the different flavors of control that FZ and AW bring to the table and what may lie behind each.

Wiesbaden? John Cale, the lost years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24Ix6dDoNw

lol the mic came right off the cord, amazing footage

Fun fact, he had a real problem with cocaine. Who would have guessed?

Ha, did you read that James Young book?

Nico book? I haven't. I can only imagine.

It’s great. Very funny too.

Interviews where the singer confuses Wiesbaden with Darmstadt.

the first Fluxus concert was in Wiesbaden. Maciunas organized and Nam June Paik performed a Young composition, see around 3:50 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YibFHWZ66GQ

Ah right, I assumed he meant Darmstat, apologies to John CoCale.

He don't lie, he don't lie, he don't lie, CoCale.

The Bloat Years

#onethread he’s playing Pablo Picasso at the end of Tom’s clip

(insane that he goes right back to madly swinging another mic after the first one flew off)

I was trying to think who he looks like in that video and I've realized it's the landlord of a pub I drink in. Which isn't much use to anyone else.

New album in June!

https://www.dominomusic.com/releases/john-cale/poptical-illusion/exclusive-limited-double-lp

"Beethoven In The Old West" is the Cale-iest Cale song title ever.

Speedy for him!

Man I wish this dude would switch things up in the canned beats department.

Lol