John Cale

“When I first came to New York, Allen Ginsberg asked me if I’d made many friends. And I said I thought I had, but I couldn’t seem to keep in touch with them. He told me that in New York you practically have to grab people by the clothing and hang on to them in order to maintain any kind of relationship. Maybe it’s the same thing with audiences. You just have to constantly keep on playing and hammering away.”

(John Cale, quoted by Roy Train in Creem magazine, November, 1987)

Cale celebrates his 83rd birthday today

Steven Taylor gives, in brief, the pre–Velvet Underground background:

“John Cale (was) a violinist and student of composition who left London on a scholarship to study with Aaron Copeland ar Tanglewood, played for a time with LaMonte Young, abandoned the “futility” of avant-garde music for the “urgency” of rock and founded, with Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground…”

“As a teen in Wales, Cale had fantasized about traveling to New York to take up residence among the avant-garde musicians and poets of the Lower East Side. In 1963 he got his chance. After leaving Tanglewood, his first paying New York gig was one of a roster of pianists in John Cage‘s marathon presentation of Erik Satie’s Vexations– a brief work that the composer had noted might be played 840 times. Cale subsequently sought out LaMonte Young, who invited Cale to join his ensemble, the Theater of Eternal Music. Cale also participated in the recording of the music for Jack Smith‘s groundbreaking film, Flaming Creatures. The drone experiments Cale engaged in with Young and others are evident in the first Velvet Underground performances.”

Taylor goes on:

John Cale met Lou Reed in early 1965 when a producer from the record label where Lou Reed worked as a song-writer recruited Cale to join Reed and two other musicians to pose as a band on American Bandstand, lip-synching on television to a song Reed had recorded on the  label, Reed shared some of his more esoteric lyrics with Cale – “He was writing about things other people weren’t. These. lyrics were literate, well-expressed tough, novelistic impressions of life, The two formed a partnership that became, in the summer of 1965 0 a quartet – the Velvet Underground (named after Michael Leigh’s novel about the more bizarre sexual practices of suburbanites, The band premiered in December 1965 at Summit High School New Jersey, then went on for two weeks at the Cafe Bizarre in Greenwich Village, There they were spotted by Andy Warhol who offers to buy the band new instruments and manage them for 25 percent of their earnings.

Beginning in January 1966, Warhol arranged a series of shows where the band would play in front of a screen on which were projected two films. This living art exhibit named “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable“ evolved to include additional lighting effects and dancers. Warhol produced the Velvet’s first album which, after some delay, was released in March 1967 by Verve Records..”

The Velvet Underground and Nico (and indeed, the follow-up record,  White Light, White Heat (1968) turned out to be two of the most influential records in rock history.

And these were, by no means the only “classic albums” that Cale was involved with. Subsequent to his departure in September of 1968, and alongside a maverick solo career, he became adept as a record producer. He produced The Stooges (Iggy and The Stooges first album) that year, ’68, and Patti Smith‘s Horses, seven years later.

He also earned deep respect for his own work, starting with. Vintage Violence (1970), through an extraordinary nineteen studio albums, (most recently,  Poptical Illusion (2024))

 

 

Cale’s productivity, versatility, curiosity, open-mindedness and restless experimentation appear undiminished. Cale is a survivor. See this important New York Times piece from 2023 by Lindsay Zoladz – “John Cale’s Musical Journey Knows No Limits”

(see also Cale’s interviews with NPR,  Tape OP  and The New Yorker, that same year)

On the occasion of the release of Poptical Illusion, Stereogum,  published a career over-view
(and Sean O”Hagen interviewed Cale in The Guardian)

A selection of previous interviews – 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013 ,2012, 2011…

For a rich trove of Cale video interviews and documentaries – see  here

Enthusiast/fan “discellany” attempts the curation of a selection of Cale’s best songs (up until 2012) – (but there are just so many!)

John Cale’s official website is – here

We also strongly advise you to visit his extraordinary unofficial website – Hans Werksman‘s Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend (active since 1999) –  truly, the ultimate Cale location, here

 

& so,  a few choice John Cale items:

I Got A Secret  (the marathon presentation of vexations ) (1963) 
“Loop”  from the December 1966 issue of Aspen  (recorded in 1964)
1966 Archives of American Art interview
1967 John Cale-Lou Reed radio interview
Mark Doyle’s 33 on Paris 1919
Toronto tv, 1979
1983 with Jonathan Richman
John Cale and Brian Eno in Russia 1989
1997 John Cale on American Masters
2013 John Cale visits his old apartment on Stanton Street
2014 John Cale is celebrated in Liverpool 
2016 John Cale and Florence Welch in conversation
2024 Interview with Martin Sheen
2024 Raphael Helfland’s Fader Interview (see also here)

& the Beat connection:

Here’s Cale’s contribution to the 1997 Jack Kerouac Tribute album Kicks Joy Darkness
(a Spoken Word Tribute with Music) –  “The Moon”

and (with Philip Hunt) his 1994 collaboration with William Burroughs’ “Ah Pook Is Here”

We’ll conclude with two John Cale documentaries

A 1998 BBC documentary:

and another one from Dutch tv

Keep inspiring us with your music. Happy Birthday, Happy 83rd birthday John Cale!