Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Shindig! JULY 2024 - by Sarah Gregory

LEAVING IT UP TO YOU

Think of John Cale and visions of Lou reed and Andy Warhol come to mind. But the Welsh musician/composer is so much more than just an ex-member of The Velvet Underground. Not only has he created some of the most exciting and innovative music spanning rock, classical and the avant-garde, he's produced more seminal underground music than you can shake a stick at. Sarah Gregory follows Cale's musical passage through the post-Velvets years.

"I saw him live with a rock band about the time Vintage Violence was released and he was incredible," the late producer-musician Steve Albini told Melody Maker. "At the end of his set, he climbed the lighting rig while balancing a tray of cold cuts from the dressing room and dangled, hanging from his heels, while he threw salami at the crowd. When the tray was empty, he crumpled the aluminium into a wad the size of an apple and bit off a mouthful, chewing it while he babbled into a microphone which he somehow maintained control of."

John Cale's tenure as musical pioneer in The Velvet Underground came to an end in 1968 when he was unceremoniously booted out by Lou Reed, who, in his quest for a hit, had grown weary of the Welshman's avant-garde approach to songwriting. Navigating the post-Velvets wilderness, Cale embarked on a double life as an A&R man and producer for the leading lights of the New York underground, including The Stooges, Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith and Nico. It was also during this period that Cale started to find his feet as a solo songwriter and performer of distinction.

As tempting as it is to begin this article with a potted history of Cale's time with The Velvet Underground, it's a story that's already been told many times - a sentiment shared on Twitter by the man himself. "Alright yes, The Velvet Underground... good, next!" And it's no secret that Cale is notoriously forward- looking. Anyone who's been to a Cale show will know that his classic songs are chewed up and spat out - given a total reworking to the point where they are near unrecognisable. Not to their detriment incidentally. "I think it's high time that was thrown out, that concept that you have to do what's on the record," he told Issue magazine in 2016. "Because you really do new stuff anyway to keep your sanity... you want to switch it up."

So, when Cale left the VU, he never really looked back - his classical avant-garde background having instilled in him the constant need for subversion and adventure. "One of the healthy diseases the avant-garde teaches you is don't do anything that even resembles what anyone else does," he told Cian Traynor in 2012. "Don't even think about it! You'll be laughed out of the club." And from the off, he was drawn towards the transgressive. "Take Paik's [Korean artist and founder of video art] 'danger music'," he told The Guardian in 1971. "One of the pieces was an instruction that the performer had to climb into the vagina of a live female whale." He similarly recalled an early concert by experimental musician Cornelius Cardew. "Open the lid of the piano without making any sound audible to yourself. And if you did, you should start again." Schooled at Goldsmith's, where he dabbled in similar shock-art tactics - he screamed at a plant until it died - Cale took his experimental fervour to New York where his performances would include hiding an axe behind the piano and then demolishing the table in front of him. Lucky enough to study under avant-garde composer Xenakis, he then moved onto to work with La Monte Young as part of The Theatre Of Eternal Music with drone at the epicentre. "We hungered for music almost seething beyond control - or even something just beyond music," said fellow composer Tony Conrad. "A violent feeling of soaring unstoppably, powered by an immense angular machine across abrupt and torrential seas of pounding blood." And anger is certainly at the heart of much of Cale's early music. While he has the power to write some of the most heart-wrenching, emotionally innate melodies, there is also a rage that seems to be persistently smouldering and which from time to time reveals itself. "Contradictions coalesce naturally around the man," said Mick Gold. "From King's College Chapel psalm settings to screaming at plants till they died."

Cale's debut album Vintage Violence appeared on the shelves in 1970, marking the beginning of his push and pull with his classical background - a penchant for the symphonic while grappling with the desire to enter the pop world. And for a first effort Vintage Violence isn't half bad. Having assembled a bunch of musicians including guitarist Garland Jeffreys, an old friend from the New York scene, Cale put forward some of the hallmarks that came to characterise his future musical landscape - the heartrending Amsterdam, the melodic effusiveness of Gideon's Bible and the lush Big White Cloud - the latter-day aggression yet to surface. But it wasn't quite the album that Cale had hoped for. "I was self-conscious of my vocals and the gimmicks being pulled, which did not help the way the songs appeared," he told Martin Hayman in '73. The cover image of Cale is telling. "I was masked on Vintage Violence," he told Creem a year later. "I didn't realise at the time, but the cover tells you that. You're not really seeing the personality." Still, who is he to judge. Mark Williams of Melody Maker called it a "'song' album shrouded in elusiveness, a work of Hitchcock-ean mysterioso quality", while Geoffrey Cannon maintained that "throughout the album, his voice sweeps from visions to dreams".

Cale being Cale, the next album saw him going back to his safe place - the avant-garde. And who better as partner in crime than Terry Riley; he of minimalist I masterpieces, A Rainbow In Curved Air and In C and a pioneer when it came to looping, repetition, tape music. "John [McClure of CBS] felt classical musicians should be involved on the rock side more," Riley told Anil Prasad. "So, he talked to John Cale and I about doing something together. He knew we had played together previously with La Monte, so he felt it would be a good fit." At this point Cale was straddling his music-making career with his day job at CBS, where he was working on quadraphonic versions of albums. "John plays bass, harpsichord, piano, guitar, viola and organ; Terry Riley plays piano, organ and soprano sax," said Geoffrey Cannon of Church Of Anthrax. "[Cale] can manipulate moods of space, horror, irony, with a delicate precision, and then put a melodic line in." But he was left disappointed when, after recording, Riley swiftly lost interest. "John Cale and I had a lot of disagreements about the album, including the way it should sound and the way the material should go," Riley told Prasad. "It all fell apart, and I ended up leaving New York because of it. I felt like I was starting to have a nervous breakdown over this album." It took a year for Church Of Anthrax to see the light of day, but critical response was not unfavourable. "It will be compared with The Soft Machine's music," said Cannon. "It's far superior to them, and much more disciplined and thought-out than the music of Amon Düül II, the German band I'd rate higher than the Softs."

And not put off, Cale launched into his second pseudo-classical work just a year later - with mixed results. "Broadly speaking, The Academy In Peril is Cale setting out to write a symphonic piece, implementing the talents of The Royal Philharmonic and then seemingly becoming stricken with whimsy," said Mark Williams in '72. "The result, it has to be said, is a musical hotchpotch." That the album is somewhat schizophrenic is undeniable. Ron Wood s rifting on The Philosopher, the jazz break of Days Of Steam contrasts quite starkly with 3 Orchestral Pieces: Faust/The Balance/Captain Morgan's Lament performed with the Philharmonic and the atonal modern classicism of Brahms. But nothing represents this surreal dichotomy better than Legs Larry At Television Center, on which Cale's viola vies with the mildly irritating overdubbing of said member of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The Academy In Peril was promoted as Warner's first classical release - something most purists would strongly disagree with.

By this point, Cale had moved to the west coast, assuming the role as an A&R man. "When I was with Warners, it was a question of running around looking for bands," he told NME'S Paul Rambali in '77. "There's a lot of energy. They're coming out the walls." He was also making film soundtracks with storied producer Joe Boyd, which also explains how he ended up on Nick Drake's Bryter Layter. But then Cale's work with other artists had always been almost as important as his own.

Before he had even set foot in a studio for his own work, Cale had produced two masterpieces: Nico's The Marble Index and The Stooges' eponymous debut, both in '69. Technically, Cale didn't produce The Marble Index - he just did the arrangements - but given that the appointed producer Frazier Mohawk and Nico were tucked away snorting heroin, it gave Cale a chance to flex his producer muscles, which he did with aplomb. The Marble Index is a line in the sand when it comes to European avant-garde and modern classical music and acts as the gateway to so much underground music that followed. The Stooges was released the same year and although Cale's production didn't actually make the final cut - it was mixed by Iggy and Jac Holzman instead - his musical contributions are nailed on throughout. "I just took the band into the studio, and we did it as quickly as I would do anything with a young punk band today," Cale told Jane Suck in '77.

The years that followed saw Cale produce Nico's Desertshore in '70 and The End in '74 - the pair continuing their combative but wholly fruitful approach to working together. "On my albums we were like two lovers even when we weren't lovers," said Nico. "You can hear it in the arrangements - we are fighting for our own satisfaction but pushing for each other's as well." This is a familiar story, more so with his female counterparts, perhaps. "He's a fighter and I'm a fighter, so we're fightin'," Patti Smith told Crawdaddy of their time working on Horses. "Sometimes fightin' produces a champ." He produced Jonathan Richman, Squeeze, Happy Mondays - to name but a few. He played on even more - Mike Heron, Eno, Julie Covington. In amongst it all, Cale made a few albums of his own.

And Warners finally got what they wanted when Cale released his reassessed masterpiece Paris 1919 in '73. Harking back to his debut, it rests on a "normal" album structure, while remaining wholly ambitious in grandeur and aesthetic. It encapsulates everything that Cale does so brilliantly - symphonic pop-rock (Paris 1919), winsome and lush balladry (Hanky Panky Nohow, Half Past France), epic musicality (A Child's Christmas In Wales), only Macbeth sounds rock-oriented. And the entire album is underscored by an intellectual scrutiny that delves deep in to 20th Century Western civilisation referencing the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Dylan Thomas, Segovia, Graham Greene, even Enoch Powell. Accompanied by a host of top musicians, including Lowell George of Little Feat and Wilton Felder of The Crusaders, Cale passed on production duties in favour of Chris Thomas (Procol Harum and Pink Floyd). "You need someone else to take over the responsibility," Cale told Mark Williams of Melody Maker at the time. "You need an objective ear. It's easy for me to listen to someone else and tell them what's wrong but as far as my stuff's concerned it's a dead loss." Martin Hayman of Sounds called it "a brilliant and indispensable album", while Mick Gold contested that "Paris 1919 has more humanity and humour than anything I've previously associated with Cale." It was also a hit with the new guard. "The fact that such an enchanting summertime lilt of a record, packed with joy-inducing melodies and provocative lyrics, so blissfully imaginative, should be as flagrantly ignored as his earlier, less accessible material," said punk artist Vivien Goldman, "must have been a source of grave depression and worry to John."

Cale didn't really tour much after the VU broke up and it wasn't until '71 that he first got a band together. He was decidedly non-plussed at the time. "We need a band. There's one that might help us... Traffic," he told Rolling Stone. "I worked with Stevie Winwood once in a studio. I was outrageously drunk. He kept plinkin' away and I yelled at him." Chris Spedding had nothing but praise for the live Cale. "Perhaps the most exciting live band I've ever played with. John was very challenging and inspiring to play with. He works very hit and miss, though. You don't get a chance to craft a finished thing. It's a bit like painting a picture by throwing paint against the wall and seeing what sticks. Very effective on stage, but quite frustrating in the studio." And there's no doubt that as the decade went on his live performances, replete with hockey masks and chicken blood, became increasingly out of control. But there's one particular gig from this time that has gone down in legend: June 1, 1974.

John Cale was signed to Island in '74 by Richard Williams. "You wanted them to be enthusiastic about John Cale in the way that they were enthusiastic about Bob Marley or Traffic," he told Mike Barnes in 2015, and Cale's first act for Island was a live performance with fellow label mates Nice, Kevin Ayers and Eno. Cale ended up playing Heartbreak Hotel, later to become a mainstay of his touring show, but this gig ended up being notorious for Ayers having slept with Cale's wife, Cynthia - one of Frank Zappa's Girls Together Outrageously - the night before.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, Cale's short time at Island Records was incredibly prolific with three albums released in just over a year. And while the ballads were still firmly part of the mix, these records ushered in a new level of anger and vitriol, in no small part due to a significant alcohol and coke habit.

The first in the Island series was probably the most heralded. Fear was recorded in the summer of '74, and as part of the Island stable, Cale was joined by Eno on synth and Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera on guitar. Eno, ever the one for a challenge, enjoyed working with Cale, something he would return to do on more than one occasion. "[Cale is] one of the few people who's relating himself to what goes on outside music," he told David Sheppard. "The range of his references is so wide. It can be quite difficult to understand him at times because he can be talking about something perfectly seriously and suddenly, he'll refer to, say, The Wild Bunch, as an example of what he means." Interesting analogy given that opening track Fear Is A Man's Best Friend sees Cale violently pounding the piano up until the song's maniacal climax. "It's about paranoia. It's not the sort of thing whether you say it's true or false, it's more a dialectic you can take or can't take." The lyrics indeed speak volumes. "Standing waiting for a man to show / Wide-eyed one eye fixed on the door." Gun, featuring a two-man guitar solo from Manzanera and Eno, is similarly dark. "I picked up a doctor, he's good with a knife. Says anaesthetic's a waste of his time." But then Cale always manages to turn the tables with the haunting beauty of an Emily or Buffalo Ballet. "Cale has the voice of a chameleon," said Mick Gold. "He can adapt to the disco-funk of Barracuda, the balladry of Ship Of Fools, the middle- of-the-road singalong Orgy... at least five songs on this album stand equal to the best songs of the '70s."

Hot on the heels of Fear came Slow Dazzle - released just six months later. "The first track... is so excellent that I played it eight times before I could bring myself to continue," said NME's Max Bell. The track in question is Mr Wilson about the elevated genius Brian Wilson. Cale pays homage to both the harmonic bliss and production brilliance so inherent within The Beach Boy's work while supplying his own uniquely and emotionally rich experience. "It's the harmony, it's so full blooded and sweet," Cale told The Wire in '96. "Lou [Reed] and I both loved those songs. And Pet Sounds was a mindblower. With Manzanera (but no Eno) on board again, Chris Spedding joined the ranks - the writing on show tipping the balance in favour of the disenchanted and the cynical.

I'm Not The Loving Kind and even Taking It All Away bring some melody; there's the doo-wop waltz rhythms of Darling, I Need You and the rock of Dirty Ass Rock And Roll. But the overriding feeling is one of a musical slap - the most memorable tracks being Guts and Heartbreak Hotel. The former tells the Cale-Ayers story and features the scathing opening line, "The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife!"; the latter is one of the more radical Elvis covers.

Footage of a drug-addled Cale crawling on the floor ripping up the floor tiles at Rockpalast gives some indication of how he interpreted this classic. "Heartbreak Hotel - and ostensibly the set - ends with Cale going down on his mic, before dragging it with him under the piano to really get down to it," said NME's Chris Salewicz of Cale's concert at Amsterdam's Paradiso in '75. "It's at this point that the corpulent Cale ceases to remind me of some liberal rugby teacher with an ample supply of angst." And that's notwithstanding his The Gift like offering, which tells the tale of The Jeweller who's eyes morph into a vagina. Vivien Goldman felt that the added hostility in his writing actually detracted from his message. "All the furious thrashing about of Guts doesn't equal the horror of John murmuring, 'the anaesthetic's wearing off' on Paris 1919." And this sentiment was even more unforgiving when it came to Island album number three, Helen Of Troy. "It sounds as if John's given up," said Goldman. "He's flabby, a hideous degeneration from the springing muscle of his earliest solo stuff."

There could be some truth there as it wasn't long after the making of this record that Cale slipped off the radar somewhat, acrimoniously parting ways with Island and not releasing another studio album for six years. Helen Of Troy was made while he was working with Patti Smith on Horses, after which he completed the album in eighteeen-hour shifts. However, Island in their wisdom decided to release the unfinished article while he was off on tour. "It could have been a great album," said Cale. "The trouble was that Island had their own ideas of what that album should sound like. They wanted to include songs I don't particularly like, but it was also an impertinent assumption on my part that I was capable of managing myself." It's probably unfair to say that this is the weakest of the three Island albums, containing as it does I Keep A Close Watch, re-recorded for Music For A New Society seven years later and The Ballad Of Cable Hogue - two ballads that are up there with the best of Cale. There's also the rather fine cover of The Modern Lovers' Pablo Picasso that somehow seems to suit Cale more than it ever did Richman with its "Picasso never got called an asshole" refrain. After all, a Cale album never fails to produce at least a few musical gems.

By the time he left Island, Cale went deep into the underground eventually emerging as an unspoken punk mentor - touring with The Boys and Generation X. Loved by some, mocked by others. His shows becoming increasingly chaotic and unpredictable, alcohol and coke fuelling the legend. Cale didn't really slow down until the mid-'80s and the birth of his daughter, when satsumas and squash became his drugs of choice. But his genius was always lurking close to the surface.

"If you're going to try and be like Dylan Thomas you don't really need to make sense all the time, but the noise will really get you through. A lot of thunder."

Ship Of Fools: The Island Albums is out on July 26.