Happy 80th Birthday John Cale

Friday's Fun Is A Free Playlist - and music chat...

John Cale turned 80 this week. Here’s something we should celebrate. A living legend. An avant-gardist who crossed over towards the mainstream, made music as part of one of the most influential groups of all time, produced several of the most important pure rock’n’roll records of the late 1960s and 70s and had an idiosyncratic, often brilliant solo career too. I love John Cale. I’ve been a fan for 30 years or so. He’s one of my true musical heroes.

Someone wrote this piece about him turning 80.

And I wrote something about him a while back which I’ll share parts of here…

I was a fan of Lou Reed first, then The Velvet Underground and then Cale. Truth be told – and I don’t mind admitting it because a) I was young b) there was no internet then – for a while I thought John Cale and J.J. Cale was the same person. I was 12 years old; digging the fact that J.J.’s originals of After Midnight and Cocaine were so much cooler than the famous versions by Eric Clapton. And I thought he’d been in The Velvet Underground too.

It didn’t take long to notice the vocal differences between the laidback bluesy troubadour and the art-punk experimenter. The geographic differences added to the vocal timbres too; one an Oklahoman, the other a Welshman. It didn’t take long to confirm that the J.J. Cale that strummed on the porch, a beer in reach was not the John Cale that flailed at viola strings, produced pioneering punk and made a series of amazing albums as a singer/songwriter that could never be pigeonholed into one of the convenient singer/songwriter mouldings.

So, it was from The Velvet Underground that John Cale emerged as both a producer and solo artist. And what an incredible run he had from 1968-1978. There have been magical moments since then – my first real understanding of Cale outside of the Velvets was his collaboration with sparring partner Lou Reed for the Andy Warhol requiem, Songs For Drella.

Cale might have seemed to go away for a while then bob back up with something worthwhile (1996’s Walking On Locusts, 2003’s Five Tracks EP and HoboSapiens album; 2005’s blackAcetate). He hasn’t released a new album in over five years, he hasn’t made a record of all new songs in a decade. But I liked his last album of original songs (even if it had a ridiculous title).

There was a rum 1980s. But it seemed that most people who had been making music since the 1960s struggled through the 1980s. It was, in many cases, the drugs catching up; paying them back. That’s certainly a fair accusation to level at Cale anyway. And there are one or two songs on those 1980s albums – as with Reed and the rest – that still stand up. Look closer, listen again, there are one or two whole albums that are pretty fucking magical actually. Cale didn’t have himself together at all in that decade but he was still making some pretty great music.

It’s worth mentioning that Cale was an experienced improviser and player – immersed in the avant-garde – before he joined the Velvet Underground. In so many ways he was the band’s musical muscle. His work with and tutelage under the likes of John Cage and La Monte Young showed a young musical mind that had been shaped far from the mainstream. (See Theatre Of Eternal Music for more).

Cale was only with the Velvet Underground for the first two albums – but he is such a crucial component. His spirit weighs heavy on the band’s output. We got to see that (and hear directly from him) with the recent Apple+ documentary.

And then he embarked on his solo journey –  his discography barely even nods to The Velvet Underground, certainly not in the way that Reed’s (or Moe Tucker’s for that matter) does.

A case could be made for John Cale as a vital influence, an intriguing voice and important musical component outside of the VU if he never made a solo album. Cale would go on to offer soundtrack albums, music for Andy Warhol’s films and shows, theatre pieces and this stunning set of idiosyncratic solo albums that we’ll get to shortly. But he would be worthy outside of the VU for his producer credits and credentials.

Cale produced seminal punk/punk-influencing albums The Stooges (by The Stooges), The Modern Lovers (by The Modern Lovers) and Horses (by Patti Smith). He also worked with Nick Drake, Sham 69, Squeeze and stuck by the old VU ingénue/siren Nico – creating the correct sound-castles for her watery voice to tease and then punish.

Later on he would help Alejandro Escovedo regain his audience with The Boxing Mirror.

And that is just some of the material Cale worked on and some of the artists he nurtured, fought with and created music with and for.

In 1970 Cale released Vintage Violence, described by many as a folk-pop album or, I prefer, a baroque-pop album – check out Gideon’s Bible or Amsterdam. Amazing songs, pop songs that were never meant for the chart; 45 years on they still sound glorious, smart and, well correct.

But Cale was not going to be typecast as some singer/songwriter – so he followed Vintage Violence with Church Of Anthrax, a collaboration with Terry Riley. The only song with lyrics is The Soul Of Patrick Lee. The rest of the tunes are instrumental: jams, strays, loose odds and ends. The Protege gives you an idea. It’s worth a listen – Riley and Cale both claimed it was unfinished or under-realised. It’s worth hunting out for the gems included.

Just over a year later and The Academy In Peril had Cale riffing (so to speak) on his classical training. I bet Aphex Twin (among many others) was listening. (Cf. King Harry)

Paris 1919 (from 1973) features members of Little Feat helping Cale to realise his vision. It’s back to the baroque-pop, but with a twist. The band of session players can’t be ignored (Child’s Christmas In Wales).

Things turned darker with Fear in 1974 – the start of a very fine and brutal trilogy of albums where Cale got his punk sneer on and let his psyche hang out; dangling it in the faces of his audience. The opener, Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend, sets the tone – it’s a punk-song for piano.

Then there’s Barracuda and Gun. That’s punk with a noir-ish diversion. These songs are dark, possibly evil; almost always beautiful in their raw construction, their ability to take the listener somewhere. To a new place. There’s also the superb song title, The Man Who Couldn’t Afford To Orgy.

Just six months later Slow Dazzle featured Cale’s ominous transmogrification of Heartbreak Hotel; I’d argue now that this was a pioneering cover-version. The band has Chris Spedding and Phil Manzanera on guitars; Brian Eno (Cale and he have collaborated often) is in the mix. There’s plenty of killer Cale originals here, Guts has about the best opening line a bitter revenge-song could have, “The bugger in the short sleeves f**ked my wife”. (The ‘bugger’ in question? Kevin Ayers, apparently).

Later that same year there was another new album, Helen Of Troy. It’s one of my absolute favourites – John Cale was unhappy with it; the album was released without his consent. It features his masterful ballad, I Keep A Close Watch; his cover of Pablo Picasso (well, The Modern Lovers had borrowed enough from Cale’s earlier group) and with the title song Cale was showing he could match David Bowie and Lou Reed and was arguably more consistent than either of them at this point in time.

The first compilation of these fine solo works, Guts, was released in 1977. In 1979 there was Sabotage/Live – a live set from CBGB’s featuring all new material. It’s an incredible decade of work when you remind yourself that Helen Of Troy was (apparently) unfinished because Cale was finishing off Patti Smith’s masterpiece. At other times he was working with Nick Drake, Eno, Nico, The Modern Lovers, Kevin Ayers…

John Cale has been a leader from the fringe – a bassist, pianist, composer, guitarist, arranger, producer and viola player. A musician who, at his best, was fearless in his determination.

I travelled to Auckland to see him perform live in late 2007. He only played one Velvet Underground song. That was fine by me. I liked that. I like that he’s never rested back on that. He did the collaboration with Lou Reed (superb) and the VU reunion (worthy for its time). He’ll play a song or two from the past now – but he’s moving forward. I’m sure there’s another good album (or two) in him. But it wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t. As he showed in (reasonably) recent years he’s capable of revisiting his material and turning it on its ear, draining out something brand new as a result.

In fact, I thought more about that lucky chance to see him live. Definitely one of the most special gigs I’ve been to – as much for who it was and what he represents as for what I saw on the stage that night. Seeing Chris Knox and Roger Shepherd in the audience beaming meant as much to me as any of the notes I heard from Cale’s electric viola.

There is so much – as surveyed above – from one decade of his artistic life. There’s also a fascinating and frank autobiography, What’s Welsh For Zen?, which is a triumph of both style and content. This is a good companion biography too. And of course there’s so much more to mention, all of this just skims the surface and provides some touchpoints from a magical decade or so.

I write all of this and my favourite – fall to my knees – John Cale song comes from that alleged ‘difficult decade’ of the 1980s. So technically I can’t really include it here. But I have to. It’s just a thing of absolute beauty. I marvel at this every single time.

So Happy 80th John Cale. Absolute living legend.

Now, a bit of housekeeping – Substack now has an app. So check that out. It might change things for you. No more emails bugging you but the same delivery of the content you love and subscribe to. It’s brand new and I’m loving the app already. (A bigger plug for this at the bottom of today’s newsletter)

And of course – Friday means a playlist that has nothing to do with John Cale. Plenty of Cale music up there for you, so here’s a bunch of songs he didn’t have anything to do. But maybe he'd like some of them. Actually, he probably wouldn’t…but I hope you do. This is A Little Something For The Weekend Vol. 55

Happy weekend all…for those following the newsletter and aware that we have Covid in the house we are very much on the mend, thanks for messages and comments and calls and offers to drop food and things. We’re doing fine and nearly all recovered.

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