31/03/2019
A Certain Ratio (with Peter Hook) - Heart and Soul
A Certain Ratio (with Peter Hook) - Heart and Soul
Annabel Lamb - Once Bitten - 1983
Annabel was exposed to all the music of that era are a very early afe: "I knew everything about the sixties and was very annoyed that when I got old enough to participate the scene was all over." From an early age she knew she wanted to be a musician. She learnt the piano, religiously copying her favourite songs note for note from the radio and her big sister's records. Since then she's been a session singer and musician for the likes of Toni Basil and Tina Charles but it's only since her marriage failed that she's been able to have the adventure she's always wanted.
Her highly acclaimed debut album, Once Bitten, behind her she assumed she was on the right road for success. However after the chart success of her cover of the Doors classic Riders on the Storm, her follow-up album , the Flame didnt score aswell. The years that followed saw her releasing 6 more albums for A&M Records, BMG/RCA, Polygram and, most recently, BMG label Red Rooster where she released her currently last album "Flow". During the writing and recording of "Flow", Annabel began a close association with cowriter and producer Dave Dix (producer of Black, Alison Moyet and Melanie Garside), and under his influence and guidance, "Flow" was produced. As well as her recording and touring career, Annabel has co-written songs with many other artists and songwriters, she also writes short stories and is working on her first novel, and performs regularly at London's prime singer songwriter venue The Kashmir Klub.
The Venus In Furs - Baby's On Fire
The English musicians who played under the name The Venus in Furs on the soundtrack were Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, David Gray, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay.
Peter Laughner & The Finns - Baby's On Fire (Brian Eno Cover)
From '' Baby's On Fire / What Goes On ''
Label: Singles Only Label -- SOL-218-7
Format: Vinyl, 7", Red
Country: US
Released: 1992
Tracklist
A Baby's On Fire
Written By -- Eno
B What Goes On
Written By -- The Velvet Underground
Guitar -- Peter Laughner
Recorded live by Tim Wright, Cleveland, Summer 1974.
From the forthcoming LP "Take the Guitar Player for a Ride"
(a compilation of recordings by 'Peter Laughner and friends' on which 'Baby's On Fire' is credited to 'The Finns' for whom this was the 'one' live performance. 'What Goes On' did not appear on the album)
------------------------
"Baby's on Fire" is the third track on English musician Brian Eno's 1973 debut album, ''Here Come the Warm Jets''.
It is an example of the predominantly glam/art rock style Eno employed at the time, praised for its guitar solo by King Crimson founder Robert Fripp.
Writing and recording
Eno recorded "Baby's on Fire" during the Here Come the Warm Jets sessions in September 1973 at Majestic Studios, London, where he had previously recorded the majority of his earlier material.
The track was produced by Eno, who handled production and mixing duties on the bulk of the album's recording, and was created with musicians Simon King, Marty Simon, Robert Fripp, Paul Rudolph, and John Wetton.
The song is a bizarre fantasy about a photography session involving a burning infant and unthinking, laughing onlookers.
Live recordings of the song have appeared on various Eno recordings, the first being June 1, 1974, performed with Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Ollie Halsall and Eddie Sparrow.
Eno spoke positively about this performance, saying, "The instruments were incredibly out of tune, so out of tune you wouldn't believe it. But it sounds fantastic. There's one little bit in it where there's a riff between the guitar and one of the bassists, and they're so out of tune it sounds like cellos. Amazing! I mean if you tried to make that sound in the studio it would have taken you ages. You wouldn't have thought of making it, in fact, it's such a bizarre sound. And the piano and guitar are quite well out of tune as well. Ha!"
Musical composition
The album version of "Baby's on Fire" is 5 minutes 19 seconds long.
The song begins with a tense high-hat and bass line, along several different kinds of electronic sounds.
Eno's vocals enter after this, being described as "nasal" and "slightly snotty".
Following this first section of lyrics there is a 2 minute, 59 second guitar solo by Robert Fripp with shifting drum beats as backing; Eno's vocal returns as the song ends.
Release and reception
"Baby's on Fire" has received positive reviews from critics, mainly noting the guitar solo. Douglas Wolk of Blender described the song as "a two-note wonder built around an all-hell-breaks-loose guitar meltdown by King Crimson's Robert Fripp", while Chris Ott of Pitchfork Media called the track "earth-shattering".
"Baby's on Fire" was featured prominently in the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine., with vocals provided by the film's star, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
The greek rock band 'Μωρά στη Φωτιά' was named after this song. (Μωρά στη φωτιά literally means 'Babies on Fire', in Greek)
GG Allin's Funeral — "The Final Hellride" VHS, 1993 (Part 2)
AMAZING G.G. ALLIN.... Kevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American singer, songwriter and record producer, who performed and recorded with many groups ... Kevin Michael "GG" Allin, better known as GG Allin (born Jesus Christ Allin, August 29, 1956 - June 28, 1993), was a punk rock vocalist and leader of several bands. He became famous for his live shows, which invariably featured Allin cutting himself with shards of glass and other objects; banging the head with the microphone or inserting it into your anus; defecating on the stage and ingesting excrement, or passing them on his face and often throwing feces in the audience
Although he is best known for his acting on stage than for his musical work, he recorded a significant amount of material not only in the punk genre but also in country and western and classic rock.
GG Allin's albums were purposefully rendered ill-bred, poorly produced, purposely small in distribution (to make them scarce in the future), and generally poor musical criticism.
Despite these factors, GG Allin has always retained a cult audience, and a legion of fans has increased greatly after his death. GG Allin has always promised that he would commit suicide on stage, (he almost had ...) but failed to keep his promise because he was fatally killed by an overdose of heroin on June 28, 1993, at the age of 36.
GG Allin's Funeral — "The Final Hellride" VHS, 1993 (Part 1)
AMAZING G.G. ALLIN.... Kevin Michael "GG" Allin was an American singer, songwriter and record producer, who performed and recorded with many groups ... Kevin Michael "GG" Allin, better known as GG Allin (born Jesus Christ Allin, August 29, 1956 - June 28, 1993), was a punk rock vocalist and leader of several bands. He became famous for his live shows, which invariably featured Allin cutting himself with shards of glass and other objects; banging the head with the microphone or inserting it into your anus; defecating on the stage and ingesting excrement, or passing them on his face and often throwing feces in the audience
Although he is best known for his acting on stage than for his musical work, he recorded a significant amount of material not only in the punk genre but also in country and western and classic rock.
GG Allin's albums were purposefully rendered ill-bred, poorly produced, purposely small in distribution (to make them scarce in the future), and generally poor musical criticism.
Despite these factors, GG Allin has always retained a cult audience, and a legion of fans has increased greatly after his death. GG Allin has always promised that he would commit suicide on stage, (he almost had ...) but failed to keep his promise because he was fatally killed by an overdose of heroin on June 28, 1993, at the age of 36.
30/03/2019
Tubes - White Punks On Dope (1977)
happy birthday 1950 - Re Styles, guitar, vocals, with American band The Tubes known for their 1977 hit single 'White Punks On Dope' and the 1983 US No.10 single 'She's A Beauty'.
Morricone - The good, the bad and the ugly - Ecstasy of Gold
Best scene, best song. Morricone. Covered by Metallica.
29/03/2019
The Cure - Where the Birds Always Sing (The Crow)
25 years ago today The Crow Soundtrack Was Released, featuring The Cure's "Burn", and a Nine Inch Nails cover of Joy Division's "Dead Souls"
25/03/2019
R.I.P. 76 Scott Walker singer biography | family | facts| lifestory | news | updat...
Scott Walker, experimental pop hero, dies aged 76
Death announced by label 4AD, who said he had ‘enriched the lives of thousands’
24/03/2019
WOASCHES: Interview with JOHN BALANCE (COIL) from ADN Katazi...
WOASCHES: Interview with JOHN BALANCE (COIL) from ADN Katazi...: Geoff Rushton aka John Balance 1962-2004 ADN: Which are the main purposes of COIL?
NEU! 1986 - La Bomba
happy birthday Klaus Dinger
La Bomba taken from the album NEU! 1986
NEU! '86 was produced, recorded, mixed, played, composed, etc, from Okt. '85 until April '86 by Dinger/Rother in Grundfunk-Studio Düsseldorf, Dingerland-Lilientahl Studio Düsseldorf, Michael Rother's Sterntaler Studio Forst.
Klaus Dinger: vocals, drums, guitar, keyboards
Michael Rother: guitar, bars, keyboards, Fairlight Music Computer
Keith moon puts to much dynamite in his drum kit and blows up in his face
The Who destroying their instruments on "the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in 1967
Xiu Xiu takes on ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man”
ZZ Top and ZZ Bottom split. Here’s what Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewarthas to say about the whole endeavor:
“IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO COME AROUND TO ZZ TOP. WHEN I WAS A KID I THOUGHT THEY WERE A JOKE BAND AND THEIR BEARDS AND CAMPY SEXUALITY FREAKED ME OUT. LATER ON XIU XIU TOURS, WE WOULD AND STILL DO ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE BLACK FLAG TOUR DIARY “GET IN THE VAN.” WHEREIN HENRY ROLLINS MENTIONS PLAYING ZZ TOP TO ALL THE PUNKS IN ENGLAND, TELLING THEM IT WAS THE NEW EXPLOITED RECORD AND WATCHING THEM CRY. THIS WAS FUNNY AND I THOUGHT HMMM. THEN AFTER WATCHING A LONG JAG OF MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES, BILLY GIBBONS, OF ZZ TOP, TIME AND TIME AGAIN WAS A COMMENTATOR. HE WAS ALWAYS INCREDIBLY SMART, CLEARLY DEEPLY DEVOTED TO THE HISTORY OF MUSIC AND INSANE LOOKING. WE WERE ASKED BY THE AV CLUB COVER’S SERIES TO PLAY A SONG FROM A LIST THEY HAD CHOSEN. EVERYTHING ON THE LIST WAS A BUNCH OF 90S RNB THAT I WAS NEVER INTO OR LAME-O INDIE ROCK EXCEPT FOR “SHARP DRESSED MAN.” THE STARS HAD ALIGNED. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT A RADICAL GUITAR PART IT WAS AND WHAT A PLEASURE IT WAS TO LEARN, BY THE END OF THE SONG I HAD TO HAVE 4 DIFFERENT FUZZ AND DISTORTION PEDALS ON TO MAKE IT AS ZONKED OUT AS IT NEEDS TO BE. WALKING DOWN THE STREETS OF TORINO ON TOUR AND TALKING WITH DEAR FRIEND AND LONG TIME COLLABORATOR FABRIZIO PALUMBO OF (R) AND HIS HUSBAND PAUL BEAUCHAMP. I MENTIONED WE WERE COVERING THE SONG. THEY SAID VERY MATTER OF FACTLY, XIU XIU AS ZZ TOP AND (R) AS ZZ BOTTOM. LET’S DO A SPLIT 7 INCH. HE SENT IN HIS PERFECT MINIMAL, EXPERIMENTAL, GOTH, CABARET VERSION OF “GIMME ALL YOUR LOVIN.” A PERVERSION MADE IN HEAVEN WAS BORN…”
Robert Lippok - varieties of impact
Berlin-based producer Robert Lippok will return on May 18th with his newest solo LP »applied autonomy«out via the German label Raster. While it’s been seven years since his critically acclaimed effort »redsuperstructure« came out on Raster-Noton, the musician and set designer has been busy giving workshops around the world, writing music for dance, sound installations and theater performances, as well as collaborating with musicians like Soojin Anjou, Askat Jetigen, Jesse Osborne-Lanthier, Noir, and Klara Lewis.
Many of the sound components on »applied autonomy« began as sketches recorded over a short period of time. Meant to be used as layers during Lippok’s club performances, the tracks on the upcoming LP were shaped using the material and his experience working with it during his live events. In addition, the album culminated in a collaboration with Klara Lewis during a 2-day residency at EMS studios in Stockholm. Using the concept of “applied autonomy” as its launching point, the musicians played and recorded simultaneously, though not explicitly together, using the shared creative space more as a psychic laboratory–rather than as an avenue towards a traditional recording session. The result is the LP’s 14-minute closer, “samtal.”
Nikki Sudden - Liquor, Guns and Ammo
"Liquor, Guns and Ammo" recorded an album with three members of R.E.M.
Nikki Sudden was born on July 19, 1956 in London, England as Adrian Nicholas Godfrey.
He died on March 26, 2006 in New York City, New York, USA.
A drug user for many years, 'heart attack' was probably caused by a heroin overdose. His former band member Kevin Junior told the Chicago Reader in January 2007, that Nikki Sudden had been an "addict" and he witnessed excessive drug use in 2004, when Sudden had asked him to come to Berlin and join his band for a European tour: "The amount of drug use, fighting, and inner turmoil was ridiculous. We were fighting over girls and scraps of powder, absolutely the most retarded, childlike behavior." Junior returned to Chicago and quit drugs, but a few years later he heard again from Sudden: "Just a couple days before he died we were in contact. We wrote each other a couple really funny e-mails. But then he asked me if I could hook him up with somebody in Chicago to get dope. And I said absolutely not. I was kind of insulted, 'cause I'd been clean for a long time. Like, 'How dare you ask me to get back into that world, Nikki.' "
23/03/2019
Blixa Bargeld (with Die Haut) - Johnny Guitar - Live, Berlin Tempodrome,...
Blixa Bargeld (with Die Haut) - Johnny Guitar - Live, Berlin Tempodrome,...
22/03/2019
TOPPOP: Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers - I am A Little Airplane (L...
Broadcast date: 1-6-1979
TV program: TopPop
Dana Gillespie - Andy Warhol • TopPop
David Bowie originally wrote & produced the song "Andy Warhol" for singer Dana Gillespie before recording it himself a few months later for his 'Hunky Dory' album. Here's Dana, August 1971, performing her version on the Dutch TV show 'TopPop.' Mick Ronson is on guitar
Dana Gillespie - Andy Warhol • TopPop
David Bowie originally wrote & produced the song "Andy Warhol" for singer Dana Gillespie before recording it himself a few months later for his 'Hunky Dory' album. Here's Dana, August 1971, performing her version on the Dutch TV show 'TopPop.' Mick Ronson is on guitar
20/03/2019
Patek Philippe Museum Rochat Brother's Singer Bird Pistol
Clockwork treasures ~Patek Philippe Museum
Patek Philippe Museum Rochat Brother's Singer Bird Pistol
Clockwork treasures ~Patek Philippe Museum
19/03/2019
18/03/2019
Minami Deutsch und Damo Suzuki Roadburn
At the 2018 edition of the mighty Roadburn festival in quaint little Tilburg, Minami Deutsch did a live collaboration with krautrock maestro and ex-Can man Damo Suzuki. Once they got going, they didn't stop. The sense of propulsion at the core of the show absolutely finds its way onto the recording and deep into your soul. On Fuzz Club.
Neu! - Negativland
Negativland...I had the happiness of seeing this great band live, in 2012 at the contemporary art museum of Serralves, Porto
Mark Howard Hosler is an American musician who is a founding member of the sound art collective Negativland.
Mark Howard Hosler is an American musician who is a founding member of the sound art collective Negativland.
Negativland is an American experimental music group from the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. Its name was taken from a song by German band Neu! . The group's performance consists of Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons, Don Joyce, David Wills (The Weatherman), and Peter Conheim.
The Negativland have released several albums ranging from sound collage to more musical approaches or recordings of radio broadcasts, most of them through its own publisher, Seeland Records.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s they produced several albums for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid, and EP U2.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s they produced several albums for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid, and EP U2.
The Negativland were sued by the U2 label, Island Records, and SST Records for using U2 sound samples, which brought them some damage and notoriety.
The group is actively against current copyright laws, having collaborated with Creative Commons in the development of new, freer licenses. All the work of the group is free of copyright.
Since 1981 the group has maintained the oldest experimental radio program in the United States, Over the Edge, a weekly program run by Don Joyce, consisting of three hours of sound collage on specific topics.
The Negativland came twice to Portugal in 2008, with It's All In Your Head FM and in 2012, with Booper Symphony, for concerts in Lisbon and Porto and for conferences at the Universities of Lisbon, Porto and Algarve.
17/03/2019
Mr CHARLIE (PETER LAUGHNER- from PERE UBU)"Waiting for the Man"
Recorded in 1969 in Bay Vilage, Ohio, by the band, Mr. Charlie. Sixteen and 17 yr. olds singings a song about scoring heroin (by the Velvet Underground) - not your average highschool band! Photo of Craig Ferrier (drums), Peter Laughner (vox and one of the guitars) and Don Harvey (bass), spoofing cover of Hendrix's "Are You Experienced" album. (Rob - second guitar and Dan - tambourine and backup vocal, not pictured)
16/03/2019
HOWARD DEVOTO
Howard Devoto (born Howard Andrew Trafford 15 March 1952 in Scunthorpe) is an English singer and songwriter, who began his career as the frontman for the punk rock band Buzzcocks, but then left to form Magazine,
Beat Circus - Boy From Black Mountain
Boy From Black Mountain is the third release from the determinedly eclectic Boston-based ensemble Beat Circus. Beat Circus is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist / singer-songwriter Brian Carpenter. The music bridges a number of disparate genres including experimental music, Americana, cabaret, circus music, Appalachian string music, bluegrass music, old-time music, Southern Gospel, and funereal music. The current edition of the band features a unusual and versatile instrumentation. Brian brought in violinist Paran Amirinazari and violist Jordan Voelker (who also provide background vocals), trombonist Doug LaRosa, and the rockabilly-style rhythm section composed of upright bassist Paul Dilley, guitarist/banjoist Andrew Stern, and drummer Gavin McCarthy. The understatedly beautiful cover artwork and illustrations within the full color booklet are by Carson Ellis, known for her work on albums by The Decemberists
Boy From Black Mountain began shortly after Carpenter's son was diagnosed with autism in late 2006. He began writing songs inspired by the experience of living with his son during the time of diagnosis and treatment. Carpenter further dedicates the album to his father and grandparents, whose lives as watermelon farmers in the rural Bible Belt inspired some of the songs. This is a very artful-yet-accessible album with great lyrics, memorable songs and rich orchestrations. In addition to the songs are a handful of haunting instrumentals which help to frame the overall work of the songs to a larger canvas.
15/03/2019
Jody Harris and Robert Quine
Jody Harris and Robert Quine- Flagpole Jitters
Escape Infidelity (2) 1981 Vinyl
10/03/2019
09/03/2019
John Cale - Buffalo Ballet (with Chris Spedding)
I don’t remember if I discovered Andy Warhol or Lou Reed first, but I know I never knew who John Cale was until college, when my roommate played me Paris 1919 in the spring of my sophomore year. It’s an album that’s about style above almost anything else, and because I didn’t know what to make of it, I dismissed John Cale after the first few songs. I knew Cale had been in the Velvet Underground, which for me at the time was still the coolest band in the world, but that wasn’t enough to make the album cool. But how could someone who was in a band with Lou Reed write a song like “Paris 1919,” with its dated, slightly pretentious orchestration and throw-back Englishness. Where was New York in this music? Like, I understood he was Welsh, but what? John Cale did a lot of drugs. I wanted “Heroin,” which he didn’t write, OK, but he had to be able to do something close to it. Instead he wrote lyrics like “The continent’s just fallen in disgrace. William William William Rogers’s put it in its place”—I couldn’t understand it.
In the summer after my sophomore year had ended, I thought more about John Cale and how I should give him another shot, if only to finally confirm that he wasn’t any good and that my roommate was totally wrong. One night in June I downloaded Paris 1919 on iTunes and listened to him again—and again and again until, finally, out of his fuzzy superficiality (I mean this in the best sense) this creeping feeling that John Cale is really, really great finally seized me. As I played the album for the third time in a row, I realized that John Cale’s music isn’t just about affect, it’s about the lush Surface and, like his friend Andy Warhol, the Concept. John Cale copy and pastes styles, attitudes, and music, and that was something I could understand. Pastiche.
I saw this photograph while browsing around Tumblr recently and it reminds me of another thing I realized about John Cale that ultimately made him so appealing to me: he’s always out of focus (in photos, music, history, everything), present but slipping away, from collective memory (the Velvet Underground is Lou Reed, right?) and anyone’s interest until it’s almost like he’s not there, and maybe was never there in the first place. It’s a kind of disappearing act, a performance of his absence in the popular narrative of counterculture music in order to forefront an otherness within the self, to say “I’m here, but I’m not me,” I’m Graham Greene, I’m a rock star, I’m a dandy, I’m Welsh, I’m New York, I’m an avant-garde composer, I’m wearing a mask that’s my own face, I’m everyone. “Somewhere between Dunkirk and Paris … Most people are asleep, but I’m still awake …” I see John Cale in this space, the psychic flatlands between the waking world and the dream world, where the differences between you and, say, the book you’re reading or the song you’re listening to crossfade, the edges bleed and, for the length of a song, you’re sort of not you. I don’t want to say that John Cale exists in (or allows for) some utopian inter-subjectivity, only that his work forgoes a stable image of its author for something else, perhaps a multiplicity of authors, which makes his work so much more compelling than most of his contemporaries. When my third play of Paris 1919 ended around three in the morning, I went to sleep in a haze of admiration. I wanted to be John Cale.
David Bowie called himself a collector once in an interview: “I collect personalities.” In some ways, it’s like John Cale collects genres as well as personalities. And rather than use them to design an aesthetic that ultimately signifies a coherent body of work, like Bowie does, Cale sublimates them into a much less coherent oeuvre that fails to point to any one characteristic aesthetic. If David Bowie is about one man trying to be different, John Cale is about different men trying to be the same.
I guess I like the idea of pretending to go away even if you remain in place. John Cale’s never the same person twice, and he’s rarely the person you think he should be. In Paris 1919, Cale begins by setting Dylan Thomas to music in “Child’s Christmas in Wales,” a deeply personal song that must’ve spoken to something in Cale. It comes off, to my mind, as though he wrote it, like, it has that honesty I think a lot of writers prize. Autobiographical honesty. But he didn’t write it. In fact, it was written some twenty years before Paris 1919. The album shifts through styles (rock in “Macbeth,” honky tonk in “Half Past France”, classical-ish in “Paris 1919, to name a few), but ends brilliantly with “Antarctica Starts Here,” maybe my favorite song on the record. It’s a smooth conclusion to the album: a lush electric piano and bass guitar that evoke late night lounge clubs in Los Angeles, little white candles on round tables and red curtained walls.
The song’s about this prototypical late 60’s Warhol superstar, actually, somewhat like Lou Reed’s name songs (“Lisa Says,” “Caroline Says,” “Candy Says,” etc). Presumably she’s a gorgeous woman entering the late stage of her wobbly, glamorous life. Everything’s fading, and the pain of it is so unbearable John Cale had to make it into calm, atmospheric music that raises above a whisper only for a moment at the end. I guess the title means everything that surrounds her has grown cold. But what’s important about the song is that it’s not so much John Cale as it is Lou Reed. It has the feel of Berlin and Reed’s post-VU work (“Street Hassle,” right?), all these sad superstars fading into the wallpaper of the end of the 1960’s.
I started playing “Antartica Starts Here” while I was writing the previous paragraph. I normally don’t play music while I write, but I hoped that listening to Cale’s music as I wrote about it might inspire me. Not really thinking, I switched the song to “Caroline Says 2” by Lou Reed. I listened to the chorus about how cold it is in Alaska, and it occurred to me that the two songs are basically the same.
I’m pretty sure John Cale copied Lou Reed, maybe even consciously translated or rewrote the song into his own album, but then I realized Berlin came out three months after Paris 1919. In linear time, I guess I’m wrong, which really throws a wrench in my theory because it’s essential that Cale would copy Reed and not the other way around. Lou Reed is the steadfast original. He’s not interested in having anyone else write his songs for him.
But then, OK, I took a nap to clear my head for this essay, and while I napped I had this dream in which John Cale came to me. The dream was brief, but before I woke up John and I had this exchange: “Andrew, while Paris 1919 came out before Berlin, ‘Caroline Says 2’ is actually an old Velvet Underground song that Lou repurposed for his album. I did in fact rewrite his song.” I woke up and realized my proposition wasn’t wrong at all. I remembered exactly why I thought Cale rewrote the song: even though Paris 1919 came out after Berlin, “Caroline Says 2” is itself a rewrite of the earlier Velvet Underground song, “Stephanie Says.” So Cale rewrote a rewrite and got “Antarctica Starts Here.” Lush Surface, Concept. Thank you, John Cale.
When I write that John Cale is about genre play, I’m probably being very selective of his long career. I don’t mean to say my argument doesn’t hold water. The diverse range of genres listed on his Wikipedia page probably attests to what I’m talking about: John Cale plays art rock, classical, drone music, experimental rock, folk rock, and protopunk. He’s a spoken word artist. He plays the viola, violin, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, organ, piano, harpsichord, keyboards, harmonica, cello, double bass, saxophone, mellotron, and the celesta. He’s worked with Lou Reed, Nico, La Monte Young, John Cage, Terry Riley, Cranes, Nick Drake, Mike Heron, Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, The Stooges, The Modern Lovers, Art Bergmann, Manic Street Preachers and frontman James Dean Bradfield, Marc Almond, Squeeze, Happy Mondays, LCD Soundsystem and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
John Cale knows a lot of people, but he’s still pretty elusive, right? Like, what do you make of the fact that the man who started his career by making pretty hard-edged trance for the Factory ended up writing a totally-earnest song titled “Hanky Panky Nohow,”
and later moved into pretty safe classical territory—even though it’s billed as experimental—with his record Eat/Kiss, which accompanied the rerelease of a Warhol film? But he’s had (many) great moments, like the album The Academy in Peril. It came out the year before Paris 1919 and it’s pretty wonderful, like weird instrumental music with a point of view: although edgier than Van Dyke Parks, The Academy in Peril has the same curious anti-pop pop of Song Cycle. Lit pop. There’s even a track on it called “John Milton.” And wasn’t John Milton all about style? And maybe how style can be a kind of content? Milton forced English to obey a Latin grammar it doesn’t favor because it made the language do new things. John Cale made rock music do the same thing when he forced the genre to absorb others unaccustomed to it.
Andrew Durbin co-edits Wonder, a publisher of artist books, ephemera, pamphlets, and glossies. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Antennae, the Brooklyn Rail, Web Conjunctions, Washington Square, West Wind Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
04/03/2019
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