John Cale S/D

So grateful for John Cale's continuing presence

One night we managed to meet up for a benefit concert where I taught him a viola part so we could perform together.

i think i saw this! it was a benefit for columbia's wkcr at carnegie hall in 1979.
https://www.chisholm-poster.com/large/CL71352.jpg

what a time to have been alive

haha yeah but that thing was, like, 5 hours long. a little bit of minimalism goes a long way. totally cool to see bowie.

haha, I believe you

Cool to see Model Citizens on the bill, they'd have been fun I bet. They morphed into the Dance who were pretty good esp during the earlier stuff and are just now getting the reissue treatment from Sundazed of all people.

sad to say i don't even remember their set. either they got swallowed up by the hallowed hall and lost to memory or maybe i just missed it?

members of Model Citizens also went on to Polyrock with Glass playing on some of their records (and Cale produced the MC 7").

Yeah, their albums were also co-produced by Glass, with Kurt Muncasi: pretty good in that respect, also Glass's keys, but I don't remember the core group as having distinctive songs or performance styles. But maybe they'd sound better now, without any pesky Talking Heads etc. all over the place.

first heard them on RCA's Blitz comp (odd one with Bow Wow Wow, Sparks, etc.). like all 3 of their albums but haven't heard the ROIR cassette.

sorry to sidetrack from Cale. like the new track and very happy to see him back touring. last time I saw him (Desert Daze 2017) he was fantastic with a great young band. angry and bleak, opening with Hedda Gabler/The Endless Plain of Fortune/Rosegarden Funeral of Sores and then an especially dark and extended Heartbreak Hotel, before starting let some light in with Hanky Panky Nohow.

You know more than I know

No one listens to it
They don’t believe it
But it’s the only way for me

you know more than i know

that phrase should always command an exact response

Someone gave me a recording of Cale's Gluepot performance years ago, and it is so killer. Parts of the ChCh Show aired on Radio With Pictures, with Chris Knox doing his own wacko version of 'Streets of Laredo'. CC: @JokermenPodcast https://t.co/9ftxTOR1x5 https://t.co/f0CGh5LpFj

— Matthew Goody (@m_c_goody) August 24, 2022

retweet is by The Matthew Goody:

This week my upcoming book Needles & Plastic: Flying Nun Records 1981 - 1988 was sent off to the printers and I'm pleased to finally share the cover.@AUPBooks / @thirdmanbooks will release it this November. pic.twitter.com/iTh66fz7q0

— Matthew Goody (@m_c_goody) July 8, 2022

Via revival of primeval primavera Go-Between thread, followed an ancient doomandgloom GoB link (which didn't work) to a Sabotage tour link which does work: nicely narsty show w relatively mellower bits---

https://64.media.tumblr.com/638a33b146b176fcac8dbf5ff859f850/3f3144fda7db6f1b-76/s1280x1920/d7d11278611e1b65a45f704b6aa7d40d1a9526fc.png

Scroll down this page, past live Silver Jews link (which I haven't checked yet):

https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/352964735/he-lives-my-life-the-go-betweens-in-the-2000s

Domino just announced a new album will be released in January:

MERCY

20TH JANUARY 2023

For nearly 60 years, John Cale has been reimagining how his music is made, sounds, and even works. MERCY, Cale’s first full album in a decade, moves through true dark-night-of-the-soul electronic torment toward vulnerable love songs and hopeful considerations for the future with the help of some of music’s most curious young minds. Cale has always searched for new ways to explore old ideas of alienation, hurt, and joy; MERCY is the latest transfixing find of this unsatisfied mind.

1. MERCY feat. Laurel Halo
2. MARILYN MONROE'S LEGS (beauty elsewhere) feat. Actress
3. NOISE OF YOU
4. STORY OF BLOOD feat. Weyes Blood
5. TIME STANDS STILL feat. Sylvan Esso
6. MOONSTRUCK (Nico's Song)
7. EVERLASTING DAYS feat. Animal Collective
8. NIGHT CRAWLING
9. NOT THE END OF THE WORLD
10. THE LEGAL STATUS OF ICE feat. Fat White Family
11. I KNOW YOU'RE HAPPY feat. Tei Shi
12. OUT YOUR WINDOW

Nookie Wood was pretty fascinating. Cale has a singular gift with lyrics that tell an authoritative and engrossing story from the first lines; you feel you're being "communicated to" even if the literal significance of the whole is obscure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgwOid8vdwE

still kicking myself that I didn't go see him when he toured for Nookie Wood (which I think is pretty good).

I tried to see him on the Black Acetate tour but tickets were sold out when I got to the venue.

into "story of blood"

really curious about that actress collab

Jan 11:

Today, John Cale unveils “NOISE OF YOU,” the new single/video off his first new album in a decade, MERCY, out January 20th on Double Six / Domino. “NOISE OF YOU” follows last year’s “shimmering” (Rolling Stone) single “NIGHT CRAWLING,” and “STORY OF BLOOD,” Cale’s “haunting” and “otherworldly” (The New York Times) collaboration with Weyes Blood. Sensual and svelte, “NOISE OF YOU” looks to be uplifted by our most ordinary but transcendent mechanism – love – as Cale croons about waiting to hear a paramour’s footfalls on the stairs during an idyllic winter. The accompanying video, directed by Pepi Ginsberg, features rare and never before seen images of Cale projected across spaces meaningful to his storied career.

Of the track, Cale says: “I don’t tend to romanticize the idea of love. It represents ‘need’ and that’s not something I’m particularly comfortable with. When it gets ahold of you though - don’t let go - no matter how many times you mess it up!”

Of the video, Ginsberg adds: “I was so inspired by John’s relationship to process and collaboration and wanted to mirror his approach to art in this video for ‘NOISE OF YOU,’ which John describes as a love song. Setting out to make a ‘moving’ portrait of John, we have mapped images and video of John’s life over his former home of New York City, creating a conversation between past and present, reflecting the way that distant, and sometimes dissonant, voices can reach across divides of space and time to speak their own language of love.”

In conjunction, Cale announces a UK/EU tour. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.

John Cale Tour Dates:
(Rescheduled Dates in Bold)
Mon. Feb. 6 - Liverpool, UK @ Philharmonic Hall
Wed. Feb. 8 - London, UK @ The Palladium
Fri. Feb. 10 - Bexhill-On-The-Sea, UK @ De La Warr Pavilion
Sat. Feb. 11 - Birmingham, UK @ Town Hall
Sun. Feb. 12 - Cambridge, UK @ Corn Exchange
Tue. Feb. 14 - Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel
Thu. Feb. 16 - Karlsruhe, DE @ Tollhaus
Fri. Feb. 17 - Geneza, CH @ Festival Antigel
Sun. Feb. 19 - Frankfurt, DE @ Batschkapp
Mon. Feb. 20 - Dudelange, LU @ Centre Culturel Régional
Wed. Feb. 22 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Thu. Feb. 23 - Antwerp, BE @ De Roma
Sat. Feb. 25 - Hamburg, DE @ Kampnagel
Sun. Feb. 26 - Leipzig, DE @ Haus Auensee
Tue. Feb. 28 - Berlin, DE @ Verti Music Hall
Wed. Mar. 1 - Prague, CZ @ Archa Theatre
Thu. Mar. 2 - Vienna, AT @ Porgy & Bess
Sat. Mar. 4 - Wels, AT @ Stadttheater
Sun. Mar. 5 - Munich, DE @ Muffathalle

NY Times interview is interesting

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/14/arts/music/john-cale-mercy-velvet-underground.html?fbclid=IwAR3U8OgNzH7GB0NyYM88JFOdqfIFcIhoYpBAyNMhT4hQvr-RFBJjcjAYcLo&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

I suppose the idea of a Cale vaporwave album is fascinating.

I lasted two songs. Each of which was seven minutes long.

Love: hearing his voice again, the fact that he is still making music & trying new things
Don't really love: the canned sounding drums on the track I heard :( why?!?!?!

otm -- the programming is dullllll

yes this is surprisingly uncompelling, though there was one song that sounded like Cale doing the Blue Nile which I liked.

Been curious to check this one out, but I think the bump this morning convinced me to stick with streaming it first.

I like this album. I listened to the whole thing very loudly on a long road trip over night. It's a whole vibe. Smokey, night time, solitude. Kind of what I hope new Peter Gabriel sounds like as far as production/programming. Nothing sounds cheesy. He's got great taste in sounds.

agree. I’m enjoying it.

I'm not crazy about the backgrounding of female vocalists. You got Natalie Mering on board and you mix her down?

I'm looking forward to the Jokermen podcast episode on this (they've been going through every Lou Reed and John Cale album, and it's been revelatory for me as far as Cale).

Thanks for the tip. The Honi Soit episode is hilarious!

Wait what?

Meaning I need to listen to that

if any of you are on rateyourmusic, please find "vintage violence" and downvote baroque pop as a genre. what the hell are they thinking lol.

instantly my favorite album of the year, but i smoke weed and love laurel halo

^^New Borad Description?

New Brad Description

Lol

thanks for the laurel halo recommendation I have not delved there

This one I liked on first hearing g but it is the proverbial “grower”.

It's growing, yes. While I do not like many of the collaborators IRL, I like how it nudges the late Cale approach. The consistency of prickly tone and mood is a strength here, like Music for a New Society.

"Smelling like an old adobe woman..."

I put this thing together for Paris 1919's 50th anniversary — a good listen!

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/02/20/youre-a-ghost-john-cales-paris-1919-re-imagined/

sick!