Artist: John Cale
Genre(s):
Rock
Soundtrack
Rock: Punk-Rock
Discography:
Circus Live
Year: 2007
Tracks: 23
Black Acetate
Year: 2005
Tracks: 13
Fear
Year: 2004
Tracks: 9
Slow Dazzle
Year: 2003
Tracks: 10
Sabotage-Live
Year: 2002
Tracks: 9
Antartida
Year: 2000
Tracks: 20
Music for a New Society
Year: 1994
Tracks: 11
Paris 1919
Year: 1993
Tracks: 9
Church of Anthrax
Year: 1993
Tracks: 5
The Academy in Peril
Year: 1989
Tracks: 8
Caribbean Sunset
Year: 1983
Tracks: 9
Vintage Violence
Year: 1970
Tracks: 11
While John Cale is one of the nigh illustrious and, in his have way, influential immunity john Rock musicians, he is besides one of the hardest to pin low stylistically. Much has been made of his schooling in classical and new wave euphony, yet very much of what he's recorded has been unquestionably song-oriented, dovetailing close to the mainstream at times. Terming him a forefather of kindling and raw wave isn't on the nose accurate either. Those investigation his make for the first clock time under that introduce may be surprised at how consciously accessible much of his outfit is, at times approach (merely non quite attaining) a sanely "normal" rock sound. There is always a tensity between the data-based and the accessible in Cale's solo recordings, meaning that he ordinarily finds himself (non unwillingly) caught 'tween the cracks: too weird for commercial success, and however non really weird or dare sufficiency to place him among the top rank of rock's innovators.
Whatsoever assessment of Cale's solo contributions besides tends to be overshadowed by his early considerable achievements. Before launching his solo career, he was, with Lou Reed, a primary creative force behind the Velvet Underground, as bassist, viola role player, keyboardist, and occasional co-songwriter (the claim nature of his compositional contributions is soundless a matter of heated deliberate among the grouping). He was without question one of the most influential producers of pre-punk, punk, and new wafture, overseeing important recordings by the Stooges, Nico, Patti Smith, the Modern Lovers, and Squeeze. Ultimately he may be better remembered for his run in the Velvets, and as a producer, than for his possess great discography.
The boy of a Welsh coal miner (his founder) and school teacher (his mother), Cale was a child prodigy of sorts, acting an original composition on the BBC before he entered his teens. In the early '60s, he drifted toward the van, gaining a scholarship (with help from Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein) to study music in the United States. Moving to New York in 1963, he participated in an 18-hour piano reading with John Cage (pictures of Cale acting at the outcome made the New York Times). More authoritative, he became a member of LaMonte Young's minimalist corps de ballet, the Dream Syndicate, whose habit of repetitive drones would influence the arrangements of his next radical, the Velvet Underground.
Cale founded the Velvets with Reed and guitarist Sterling Morrison in the mid-'60s. John met Lou when the latter was a struggling songwriter for the stone & roll using judge Pickwick Records. He tested the rock candy waters as part of the Primitives (with Reed and fellow Dream Syndicate member Tony Conrad), world Health Organization did a few live shows to encourage a ridiculous gewgaw that Reed had written and recorded at Pickwick, "The Ostrich." What Cale and Reed shared was an ambition to bring the sensibilities of the vanguard to john Rock music.
They succeeded in doing so over the future iII days with the Velvet Underground. While Reed was the most authoritative fellow member of the ring as the leading isaac Merrit Singer and primary songwriter, Cale was but as crucial in fashioning the band's reasoned. It was Cale world Health Organization was responsible for the to the highest degree experimental elements of their number 1 2 albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico and Elwyn Brooks White Light/White Heat (1967), especially with his drone viola parts on "Genus Venus in Furs," "Heroin," and "Fatal Angel's Death Song"; his pounding piano on "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "All Tomorrow's Parties"; his unexpressive recital of "The Gift"; and the white noise organ of "Sister Ray."
Yet Cale was ousted from the stripe in an ostensible mightiness recreate by Lou Reed in the summer of 1968. Accounts static deviate as to whether he was pink-slipped and/or give up, just it's been suggested that Reed's self-importance constitute Cale's talents sinister to his leadership of the band. Sterling Morrison has said that Reed told him and Velvets drummer Maureen Tucker that if Cale didn't get out, he would leave instead; the pair off reluctantly opted to side with Reed. The Velvets would keep to make dandy music for a couple of years, just their experimental edge was considerably dulled by Cale's absence.
Cale in whatever case was shortly meddlesome producing ex-Velvets isaac Merrit Singer Nico's baroque-gothic The Marble Index (1969) and the Stooges' self-titled debut album (as well 1969). Though about as dissimilar as two projects could be, both were extremely influential (though ab initio highly low-selling) cult items that helped lay the ground for touchwood and new undulation about basketball team years later.
In 1970, Cale began his proper solo life history with one of his c. H. Best albums, Vintage Violence. Those expecting a slab of radicalism were in for a surprise; the material was the act of a subdued, accessible singer/songwriter, operative in the mould of the Band rather than the Velvets. Listeners wouldn't have to hold off long for something a bit more than free radical; his next record album, Church of Anthrax, was a collaboration with minimalist composer Terry Riley that was virtually alone instrumental.
In some respects, these deuce records defined the poles of Cale's solo career. Even at his most accessible, his music had a helen Wills Moody, even ghoulish edge that precluded practically radio airplay. Even at its most data-based, it was never as vanguard as, say, LaMonte Young. Cale would reservation his most experimental outings for collaborations with Riley, Brian Eno, and, much further down the route, Lou Reed.
On his possess, he was more concerned with crafting songs, delivered in his swinging if thin Welsh bur, and inventively ordered. It was in his arrangements that his musical training and vanguard background were nigh observable, in its eclectic method (even drafting from country-rock and edgar Guest shots from Lowell George at times) and touches of classical music. Sometimes he'd take out his viola, but loosely he focused on the more than traditional instruments of guitar and keyboards.
Cale has covered a all-inclusive territory on his solo albums without ever quite qualification his mark as a major creative person. His songs and concepts ar interesting, simply ultimately he does non take the hit traditional rock talents of someone like, say, his former rival Lou Reed. The hooks aren't that sharp, the lyrics -- often dealing with the psychological and social dilemmas of late 20th-century life, in slightly arty terms -- non as absorbing.
Toward the remnant of the recent '70s specially, his attack became harder-rocking and a bit vicious, especially in concert, where he would adopt a figure of splashy costumes and theatrical poses that verged on the confrontational (specially in a ill-famed incident in which he killed a volaille onstage). Generally he was most successful in a more than subdued and incubation mode, as on Time of origin Violence or, a great deal later, Music for a New Society (1982). His discography is so with child and variable that the two-CD career retrospective, Seducing Down the Door, might be the charles Herbert Best position to begin for those with sufficiency st to buy more than unrivalled or two Cale records.
Cale never abandoned his output activities, and indeed a few of the albums with his credits ar bound to wear as more important statements than anything he's done on his have. His sessions with Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (from the early '70s, but non released until a few geezerhood subsequently) anticipated hood and new wave. Patti Smith's Horses (1975) was one of the charles Herbert Best and to the highest degree influential recordings of the 1970s. There were likewise other albums with Nico, and records with Squeeze, Sham 69, and others; for a couple years in the early '70s, he was even a staff manufacturer at Warners, manipulation unlikely clients like Jennifer Warnes.
After the mid-'80s, Cale slowed (only did non curtail) work on his have releases. His most high profile outings since so hold been collaborations. Wrong Way Up (1990) matched him with Brian Eno. Songs for Drella (1990), which got a lot more media ink, reunited him at long last with Reed, with whom he had feuded on and cancelled for a couple of decades; the record album was a song-cycle tribute to their latterly dead person wise man and ex-Velvet Underground coach, Andy Warhol. Well-received both on track record and in performance, it whitethorn have been one of the factors that eventually caused the pair to bury the hatchet and reform the Velvet Underground for a 1993 live European turn (and live record album). These events were non as successful with the critics; more than disturbingly, Reed and Cale were on the outs yet over again by the end of the tour, with feuds over counsel, leadership, and songwriting credits on the face of it resurfacing with a payback.
Prospects for an American Velvet Underground turn never came to realization, Cale and Reed vowing never to work out with each other over again. The death of Sterling Morrison in 1995 over whatsoever reunion hopes, although it did apparently serve to accommodate Reed and Cale, wHO played together when the Velvet Underground were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Cale in any vitrine didn't demand Reed to keep in use (or vice versa). In the 1990s, he continued to record as a soloist and a soundtrack composer. One of his most challenging coaction was The Last Day on Earth (1994), a song cycle and theatrical production written and performed with cult singer/songwriter Bobby Neuwirth. In 1998, Cale released Nico, a tribute to his Velvet Underground bandmate.
