Been away

But now I'm back.

What did we miss? A new compilation album of Cale productions, some limited reissues of 70s records, and, oh, right, a new record. (And a remix album, but that didn't do a whole lot for me.)

I did at last manage to see Mr. Cale live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last month with the Wordless Music Orchestra. He performed Paris 1919 and a selection of new and old songs. I only caught him one night of the two, and apparently missed a live performance of Do Not Go Gentle... (which might be the first thing I discuss in this brutal new year).

A little review: Paris went well, with some interesting spins on some of the songs. To be frank, Child's Christmas was a wreck, with guitar wanking all over the track and a little something off in everyone's timing. I steeled myself for an unpleasant evening, but things improved markedly on Hanky Panky Nohow. I wish I had written down my notes the same night, but precision is unnecessary. Some songs got dronier, some songs got poppier. Half Past France got a raga development that worked surprisingly well. The most pronounced change was Graham Greene, which lost its reggae completely and transformed into a Latin number, meanwhile achieving its ultimate destiny... well, I guess I ought to write about it. Macbeth was awkwardly grafted onto the end of the album. Why, I don't know.

The second set was on the whole less awkward. Opener Hedda Gabler is a song I've heard too much; I still like Ibsen too much to entirely approve of Cale's use of the name, but the coda was worth the rest of the song. Captain Hook was catastrophically powerful, though Marka did not care for the guitar pyrotechnics. New song Cry was OK, but seemed a bit generic as many recent relationship songs have. I quite enjoy Living With You on the record, but except for a few moments where everything gelled it felt unworthy of stage time. Riverbank was a complete surprise and really hit the spot. A keyboard-driven I Wanna Talk 2 U (whose name still hurts to type) was boring live and not half as good as the album version, to me, but Marka liked it. The Hanging took me a while to place; it's an awfully strong song to bury on a Black Friday special edition!

The orchestra then left the stage. Wordless Music includes many performers I like, and they mostly did very well, but I have to say, things felt much more natural and visceral with just the band. Nookie Wood blew the audience quite away, vocal effects and all, and Venus in Furs was the only way to end the night.

I'm looking forward to the next time I see the band. Hopefully sans orchestra.

More...

70 Years Of John Cale

A group of Cale fans got together over the last few months to put together a tribute to John Cale on his 70th birthday. I contributed my recording of Sanities. It was a very cool project to be part of and well worth your eyes and ears.

For convenience of listening to all of the songs as a set, you can check out the project's Soundcloud directly. Happy 70th birthday, Mr. Cale. I'm looking forward to the new album!

More...

Heartbreak Hotel X

OK, so I sort of made up the name, but there needs to be some way to refer to the new reworking of Heartbreak Hotel that debuted as a sketch from the 2006 rehearsals on the Circus Live DVD*.

It seems to be improvised - I say that because it's labeled "Heartbreak Hotel of sorts!!" on the DVD, and somebody says, "That was a moment!" when they're done. Cale's vocal isn't really in the same key as the rest of the track, to my ears, though as atonal as it is, it's hard to tell. The worst part of the original version is the cringe-inducing "diddy wah diddy" (verbatim) scat in between verses instead of "feeling so lonely" and the rest of the chorus. Despite these flaws, it's fairly compelling. He ends the song with a slurred chant of "whadda whadda whaddid I do," which sounds better than it looks.

I thought it was a one-off when I first saw it, but Cale has been performing it live ever since. He's got a better handle on it now - it's less atonal and less jokey. (Occasional caveman backing vocals from his guitarist aside.) It's not as emotionally satisfying as the piano-driven versions from the early 80s through the 90s, but in general I like it at least as much as his original hard rawk recomposition of the song. (The main post about Heartbreak Hotel is here, if you missed it.)

"I'm scared and I wanna go home," said the guitarist after they played that first version. I agree with the first part at least, but I'm happy that he's still doing violence to old songs.

^* The forty minutes of rehearsal footage alone being a perfectly good reason to pick up the set. The DVD is region-free and the set is cheap now!

More...

Monetized

Hi. I am going to do a trial of AdWords ads. If I can cover the costs of domain renewal at least, it might be worthwhile, if it doesn't kill the visual appeal of the site (ha). If nothing else it will be a learning experience.

If you hate it, let me know. Your opinion counts (R).

More...

Ooh La La

If you took a poll among aficionados on John Cale's worst songs, you can bet that "Ooh La La" would rank high. Honestly, I don't think that's fair. Here's why.

In the song, Cale plays an older lech who hypnotizes the fair Continental ladies and leads them into sin, only to have his misdeeds catch up with him. If you haven't heard it, give a listen:

That's the version that was released on John Cale Comes Alive and as a single in 1984. Cale really hams it up, chewing scenery in the studio as seldom before or since.

There's another version of the song that was released on Seducing Down the Door and possibly Comes Alive in some regions. Despite a different mix, it's mostly the same instrumentally. It adds a cool atonal middle-eight and features completely different vocals. Cale plays it straight, with a barely-sung part drowning in self-regard. Meanwhile, his guitarist Dave Young takes over the hamming in a shouted word part, putting on various accents and trying to get Mr. Cale's attention.

OK, so the sequenced drums are tacky. It's all tacky! It's supposed to be! I mean, for God's sake: "Zoe had a crush on Castro; and Camilla, she loved Bob Hope. But after staring into my clear blue eyes, they both went looking for the Pope!" "I try to hide behind my smile, but they seem to know me... by my stare!" The whole song is as much a comic pisstake as Chickenshit or Hey Ray and should be approached accordingly.

If Cale had made a career of the dirty old man schtick after this, I would hold it against him. (In fact, I hold exactly that against Nick Cave.) But he didn't, so I enjoy this as dumb comedy. And as parody it isn't unwarranted - God knows there are a lot of European films of the late 20th century that take this subject very seriously.

It did pretty much suck live, though. I'm glad he didn't perform it beyond the tour.

More...

Catching up...

¿Qué Pasa? They snuck out a new Cale album yesterday in the US without me knowing about it? I never dreamed I'd learn of a new Cale release by discovering it in a record store, but there you are.

The Record Store Day 2: Black Friday release of EP: Extra Playful features two new tracks not otherwise available. The full tracklist:

1. Catastrofuk
2. Whaddya Mean By That
3. Hey Ray
4. Pile A L'Heure
5. Perfection
6. Bluetooth Swings
7. The Hanging

Black Friday pisses me off, and I did not partake. There were only two copies left at my record store today. Lucky me.

I'm midway through my first listen, but I'm favorably impressed so far. I had managed to avoid hearing Hey Ray and Whaddya Mean in their live versions. It's somewhat unserious and even jokey, though, in the vein of some of blackAcetate or Jumbo. The two bonus tracks on the US Black Friday release seem more demo-ish than the five original tracks. The Hanging is more fleshed out by far. I think this will have legs, but only time will tell...

In other news... I have done you a disservice by not commenting on the recent CD, DVD, and vinyl (!) releases of John Cale's two Rockpalast shows. I picked them up shortly after release, but didn't have much to say at first.

The CD release is great. It could be mixed better, but it's much better than the bootleg I had previously. The band show (Essen 1984) is not his best of that tour, and that band wasn't his best of the era, but it's still a good listen. (John Cale Comes Alive covers the same tour in superior versions but with many fewer tracks.) The solo show (Bochen 1983) is excellent - rather less crazed than other shows, but more competent. It features my favorite recording of "Only Time Will Tell" to date.

The DVD is essential if you like watching Mr. Cale live... and who doesn't. The band show is more entertaining to watch. Heartbreak Hotel and Streets of Laredo will make much more sense when listening to the show after you've watched it.

The vinyl is disappointing. The two-disc release includes the entire band performance, but only four tracks from the solo performance, and not the best ones at that. I'd have preferred selections from both shows. But it is nicely done (better materials than Cale Comes Alive) and worth picking up for superfans.

Hopefully I'll see you again sooner than this time next year. It is beginning to be a habit, though...

More...

Here's to Johnny Viola

It's been a year since I posted? Where has the time gone? I struggled way back in January with the ongoing disaster in Haiti, trying to use it to post on Tonton Macoute. Which, come to think of it, might be worth trying again...

But, maybe as a way to ease back into this thing, why don't we discuss a true rarity: a song about, or at least inspired by, Mr. Cale.

Shearwater are, to my mind, at the very top of the art-music world right now, in quality if not in sales, having delivered three consecutive albums of depth, evocation, and a stark beauty. As frontman and songwriter Jonathan Meiburg put it, the trilogy is music on a theme: "no sound ever comes from inside the gates of Eden."

The first in the very loose trilogy, 2006's Palo Santo, is ostensibly a theme album. Every song, Meiburg claims, is connected in some way to the life of Nico. Despite my fair knowledge of Ms. Päffgen's life and a deep and abiding love for the album, I can't tell you how.

But that's neither here nor there. About three years after I first heard the album, I finally realized that a song called "Johnny Viola" on an album inspired by Nico had to be a reference to our own Mr. Cale. It was the first non-single track on the album that caught my ear, at that.

Have a listen:

OK, so I can't tell you how it relates to our Johnny Viola. But it is an awesome song, and I was tickled and somewhat chagrined to finally make the connection.

[N.B. they're using "The Black Angel's Death Song" as intro music for their concerts this tour. You know, to set the mood a bit. I may have been the only person at the show really enjoying it.]

More...