Fairweather Friend

I've always been disappointed in "Fairweather Friend". Cale's closing tracks tend to be memorable; this isn't. Cale writes well and often of the disappointments of friendship; this song's title comes from a throwaway lyric. And, of course, it isn't even an original song - it's a Garland Jeffreys cover. (I'm not sure Jeffreys ever recorded a version, though.) But this is my problem, not the song's. It didn't ask for my expectations.

In fact, it's a perfectly fine track that fits well with the album. Its vaguely travel- and adventuring-themed images aren't far from the other songs'. The jaunty rhythm and unserious delivery brings the listener back into the mood of the early tracks after the one-two punch of resigned sorrow in "Amsterdam" and serious creepiness in "Ghost Story". And, seeing as Garland Jeffreys played and sang on Vintage Violence, it was rather classy of Mr. Cale to cover him. (And, hey, the saloon piano, especially the rolls around the two minute mark, is just a joy.)

Jeffreys is still recording and performing today, but he doesn't seem to do this number. I'm fairly sure Cale has never played it live. I suspect the song is best left an artifact of this particular studio.

So: listen to this album when you want light, expansive orchestral pop adventure fun. Enjoy this song for what it is. I do. But someday I hope I find a song like the one I expected the first time I played this record.

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Memphis

And now for something completely different.

Mr. Cale has always had an eclectic taste in covers (Axton/Durden/Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel", Jonathan Richman's "Pablo Picasso", Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows", Ralph Vaughn Williams's "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", and so on), so it shouldn't be too surprising that he covered Chuck Berry's legendarily expectation-upsetting "Memphis, Tennessee".

It's not one of his most illuminating covers - despite a lot of rearrangement, the overall effect is pretty close to the original. The vocal is bullish, sanding off most of the emotional details, and is probably the weakest link in the song. There's a little bit of everything in the mix and the instrumental parts are continually changing through the song, but I'm not sure that makes it better listening. The hornet-swarm guitar and viola solos, recalling Fear's "Barracuda", are striking and the best reasons for listening. Overall not essential, but worth a listen now and again.

What is surprising about the song is its context. It may sound like an Island Years outtake, but it occupies the second a-side slot in 1977's ultra-bizarre Animal Justice EP, after punkish Croydon Chicken Incident souvenir "Chickenshit". The b-side is "Hedda Gabler". The Cale discography is full of odd records, but I'm pretty sure this one's the strangest.

Speaking of strange: here, watch a Czech Cale cover band (!!!) cover JC's arrangement. Amazing job, but somebody get this poor man a lyric sheet.

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People Who Died

Ian I miss you more than all the others. I salute you, my brother!

Jim Carroll was a poet who drifted into music under the influence of Patti Smith. Despite a lack of commercial success for his music, he lucked into having a song from his debut album, "People Who Died", included on the soundtrack to, of all things, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, earning him royalties for the rest of his life. Later on his acclaimed 1978 novel The Basketball Diaries would be turned into a meaninglessly controversial Leo DiCaprio film and would eclipse the rest of his work in popular imagination.

Then our man covered it in 1995 for the soundtrack to Antártida, an obscure Spanish film for which Cale composed the whole soundtrack (which as you might expect features several variations on "Antartica Starts Here"). Why? Who knows. Basketball Diaries fever, perhaps. But wow the band he put together: Chris Spedding of 70s solo notoriety, roving bassist Erik Sanko (who also worked with Carroll), and, oh, just Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison.



Cale's version loses the demented celebration that is the original's chorus and is really the main reason the people who love the song do. His vocals are very restrained and precise, lending the song a bizarrely nerdy feel. And yet... I can't dislike it. Obviously I'm addicted to his voice. But calming the song down helps amplify the hot spots in the verses Cale used. Cutting it down to the first three verses doesn't really hurt the song - in Carroll's version the additional and repeated verses seem like padding to justify doing the chorus over and over, louder and crazier each time. (Works for Carroll, wouldn't have for Cale.) I admit I've always been disappointed by Cale's flat affect in the emotional high point of the song for me: "Eddie I miss you more than all the others - I salute you, my brother!"

Instrumentally the band pulls it out pretty well. The lead guitar part floats new-wavily above the mix in a pleasing way, and the basic track chugs along sweetly. Moe seems to get some backing vocals in, but they're mixed way low if they are really there. It's not a stellar reunion, but it's not an embarrassing one.

Sterling Morrison died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma soon after the recording. Carroll left us in 2009 from a heart attack working at his desk. Two more friends who died.

Carroll version video from the Leo flick after the jump.

(Skip to 1m20s if you want to miss the meatheads.)


P.S. How does one OD on Drano? Apparently buying heroin from the wrong dealer, i.e. a "hot shot." Jesus what a way to die.

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Sanities redux

I don't normally make apologies for irregular posting, but after calling Ian out I have to make my own mea culpa. I've just been very busy with other projects and have neglected this blog.

Ironically I've been going through a Cale renaissance. I was disappointed but not surprised that the shiny new Watchmen film did not include Sanities (which I already covered). Can't really say anything about it, as I've not seen it, but I was inspired to get some version of Sanities on the internet, and so put together this cover in an hour.

There's no special insight in this version, and it loses some of my favorite things about Cale's original. This is much more of a one-note horror film number. It does have a certain something in moments, though, I think. In any case, I made it, I'm not too ashamed of it, and I thought I would share it. I promise I won't make this a habit.

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Streets of Laredo

At the center of Honi Soit, an album obsessed with foreign affairs and all the sordid relations of men, lies a cover of an ancient cowboy ballad: "The Streets of Laredo." Why?

Back in 1974, Cale had tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Nico to record a cover. Seven years later, he recorded it himself. Why did an overexposed Traditional song, already performed and recorded and arranged to death, hold appeal for so long?

The arrangement here is terribly slow, stop-time with a dragging beat. Each instrument sounds as if it's playing in its own world, only dimly aware of the others. A two-chord synth part drones on in the background, bass and drums occasionally play at roughly the same time, an acid guitar call bursts forth once per measure. The only thing pretty on the track is the mournful, passionate viola cadenza, but it's played over the ugly, metallic strumming of muted strings (a sound used prominently on Music for a New Society).

The production recalls his work on The Marble Index and foreshadows the sound of his next album, Music for a New Society. What merits so much investment of the John Cale Sound?

And why is such a shambolic performance of a tired song one of the most arresting things on the album?

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All My Friends

That's how it starts: we go back to your house. We put John Cale's latest recording, All My Friends, on the stereo. This one's a cover? Not of an old classic or one of his producees but of a modern recording artist? A-and LCD Soundsystem? The "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" guy?

Huh. Weird.

Not too weird, though. The first time I heard James Murphy's original, I thought of Cale. The single arpeggiated piano chord repeated endlessly is amusingly reminiscent of the prankish Erik Satie piece "Vexations," performed over the course of nineteen hours by Cale, John Cage, and others. The lyrics describe a journey from youth to adulthood and the longing for youth again. There are aspects of them that resonate strongly with our man's themes and techniques: a certain longing ("if I could see all my friends tonight..."), indirectness ("it's the memory of our betters that is keeping us on our feet."), and brusqueness ("you drop the first ten years just as fast as you can and the next ten people who are trying to be polite"). And, of course, "friend" is one of the key concepts in Cale's work.

However, one of the sloppiest and least Cale-like lyrics is the one that intrigues me most, given the circumstances of the cover:

And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand
You can sleep on the plane or review what you said
When you're drunk and the kids look impossibly tan
You think over and over, "Hey, I'm finally dead!"
Oh if the trip and the plan come apart in your head
You can turn it on yourself, you ridiculous clown

This doesn't seem like a song written by a young man, even a young man beginning to feel old. Even a sixty-five-year-old as healthy and vigorous as Cale seems to be in recent years might feel like a displaced person amongst crowds of the young, and that feeling of unreal nostalgia and dislocation is strong in both the original and the cover. It's a neat trick.

The repeated piano phrase is replaced with guitar (panned hard to the left) and viola. The bassline, played by James Murphy himself, and the agitated and tense drums form the rest of the backbone. The occasional appearance of additional guitar and other noises make for a development as satisfying as the original, if a little less disciplined and cohesive. It's a great alternate take on the song instrumentally, even if in pacing and construction it's extremely similar to the original.

It's the vocal that really stands out here, though. Cale's voice is very strong and he obviously relishes some of the rich language used. He adds dramatic flourishes to lines which Murphy delivered with a flat affect. He adds a certain intangible quality that Murphy's vocal lacks - possibly more experience with losing friends. And that's what the track comes down to, in every version: "Where are your friends tonight? If I could see all my friends tonight..."

It may not be "Thoughtless Kind," but it's one of my favorite songs this year. I don't know which version I like better, but I'm glad to have them both.

Listen to it on DFA Records's MySpace page. Here's a great Pitchfork piece on the subject, a little more elegant than mine. (Thanks to Bows + Arrows for the heads-up.)

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Waiting for the Man

In the early 80s, at least, Waiting for the Man was Cale's favorite Velvets song to cover. He turned it into an occasion to do atonal piano exploration and some amazing shrieking. It was the scene of some of the most dramatic vocals of his live career: the tense beginning, the gradual distortion of the vocals as the goods make their way in, and finally the cathartic echoing shrieks. It puts a spring in your step!

I'd like the hear the live version from Berlin, 1984. Rants about Augusto Pinochet and the Emperor Claudius are always welcome.

This solo piano iteration from Christchurch, New Zealand in 1983 may not be the best performance, but it gives you an idea of the intensity of his live shows at the time:

Here's an MP3 (full quality in a Flash player here) of a better performance from John Cale Comes Alive (anthologized on the essential Seducing Down the Door compilation, which is out of print like most essential Cale). It's a good, tight band, but I don't like the recording - it sounds like overlimited, bass-free 80s crap. The vocal, though... it's worth hearing. The other version I have, from the Cale Street roio, is not quite as impressive.

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