[Grab this rare non-album track in beautiful gimped 96kbps mono here! (This one will be up for a week or less, so do it fast.) The song's twists and turns are worth experiencing before you read about them.]
Hey let me tell you 'bout my dream
There isn't really much to tell
At first I'm playing in the Velvet Underground
Then
I'm
speak
ing
Welsh
and
I
can
do
the
double-l
In the same vein as "Autobiography" (better be careful about using the same vein twice!), John Cale's postmodern classic "John Cale" is an examination of conscience, an attempt to evaluate his art, his legacy, his public profile through the eyes of another. Like Autobiography, it puts a humorous and self-deprecating spin on things.
And now I'm on the West Coast all
Fucked up on heroin and speed
And then I'm riding in the back of someone's car
And
I'm
Say
ing
all
these
nas
ty
things
a
bout
Lou Reed
Lou Re-e-e-e-e-ed
(Oh yeah, he went there!) Unlike "Autobiography," though, "John Cale" hearkens back to the pastoral instrumentation of Vintage Violence and the Brian Wilson melodies of his early career. It's a very capable pastiche of Cale's so-called classic period, and it's not unlikely that frustration with the overemphasis on that period leads to the cutting satire of the instrumentation: I mean, sleighbells?!
Nobody can take my dream away.
Nobody can take my dream away.
Nobody can take my dream away.
Away, away, away.
His ability to put himself, as a songwriter, outside himself and look back is stunning.
And then it's nighttime in New York
It's cold and I can see my breath
It's cold. I think I'll maybe stop in for a drink
At
the
White
Horse
Tav
ern
where
I
drink
my
self
to death
to dea-ea-ea-ea-ea-eath
Ah, the classic shocking John Cale ending. He can't be dead, 'cause he's singing the song, but he just killed off his fictional doppelgänger! Audacious and deeply amusing. He rubs in the postmodernism with a final smirking chorus - it was all a dream:
Nobody can take my dream away.
Nobody can take my dream away.
Nobody can take my dream away.
Nobody can take my dream away.
Away, away, away.
If you want a more listenable version, buy the full-quality version (which is actually written and performed by Don Lennon) for pocket change at Amazon MP3 or somewhere else. Laughter, after all, is priceless.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
John Cale
Monday, March 31, 2008
Palanquin
Another "One Word" b-side and North American Wrong Way Up bonus track, "Palanquin" is unquestionably Cale and Cale alone. If it it's not... well, I'll eat my hockey mask.
Why am I so sure? (The plastic may be hard on your teeth, but it's the padding that really discourages taking a bite.) I'm sure because it's a solo piano instrumental, the sort of rolling poco ritardando composition with light counterpoint and right and left hand voices moving in unison. But listening to it again...
Well, there's some synth in the background. There's no reason Cale couldn't have added that, really. He's perfectly capable of the trick of hiding the synth in plain view as part of the chord the piano is slowly exploring, then letting it peek out from behind the keyboard just when you've been lulled into thinking there isn't anything there...
But when the bubbling chimes come out to usher the piece to a close, precipitating out of the synth so naturally, irresistibly, inexorably... that's when I start thinking about what kind of condiment is appropriate for polyurethane.
No idea what this track has to do with human-powered transportation, though. (Chomp chomp.)
Friday, March 21, 2008
Waiting for the Man/Augustus Pinochet
AUGUSTUS PINOCHET!
I don't know what I'd have thought if I were in that audience. Cale is doing his usual mid-80s tour thing on "Waiting for the Man," hamming it up, performing it the way he did back then. It's really moving along. So of course he starts rapping about going to Chile in search of the great coffee bean.
Wait, what? Then he starts screaming at Augusto Pinochet? "I CLAUDIUS," he says. Which gives this modern monster of an "Augustus," a man unworthy of such a name, far too much credit. "Have another cup of coffee!" he bids the Generalissimo. "What's the matter, Augustus? Poison? I drink this poison to you, Augustus! I Claudius!"
Most amusingly, he changes the song's denouement - always the highlight of his versions - to a rather different sort of transfixion:
Augustus saiiiiiiiiid
Augustus SAIIIIIIIID
Augustusssssss aaaaaiiiii Claudius
He said-
Don't leave me, don't leave me Clau-
Baby don'tcha holler
Daaaaarling pleeeeeease don't bawl and shout
I'm Catholic too
I'm gonna work it on out
I'm feeling so good, feeling so fine
Until tomorrow
But that's just
Just another
WAITIIIIIIIIIIN
WAITIIIIIIIIIIN
WAITIIIIIIIIIIN
And what can you say to that? Nothing. You just shut up and listen.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Vexations
John Cale took part in an infamous 18-hour performance of Erik Satie's "Vexations". While there is no recording of that performance (think of all that tape!), a video has emerged that's quite fascinating. Others have called it "astonishing", "jaw-dropping", "priceless." And I can't disagree - try to think of a network or channel that would play this today.
I've mentioned it before, and still don't really know what I think about the thing. It's certainly hypnotic, and enjoyable enough - it has that great late 19th-century crepuscular French mystic mood going, and that's worth something. You can read fascinating notes on the piece by a pianist who performed it in totum with only one partner, or the opaque Wikipedia entry on the piece, too, if you want a variety of nearly baseless speculation.
Try putting it on repeat, and see what you think after 840 playthroughs (to be honest, I'm not sure whether he plays one cycle or three). Volunteer for this experiment by downloading it here. The audience's titters may be distracting at first, but I find that they ultimately blend in well with the music, giving it some texture. God I'm being pretentious. Let me know how you make out, OK? More...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Autobiography
I never wrote a song called "Cocaine"
I never wrote a song called "After Midnight"
My name is Cale
You can call me John
Poor John. Forced to differentiate himself - in 1983, for God's sake! - from the other John Cale, the one whose middle initial is J., the one who adopted the moniker "J.J." in the first place to differentiate himself from the Velvet Underground's bassist. It's all very sad.
"Autobiography" was a little tour rave-up concocted for the 1984 European tour and only played at a handful of shows, most notably at the Rockpalast show available in bootleg form in both audio and video. It's pretty shamelessly improvised, with unprocessed lyrics straight from the Cale cookbook ("Hmm, need lyrics - something about Wales! something about incapacitation due to drug use! something about friends!"). It even features shouted chord changes - appropriate enough for the Caribbean Sunset tour. Funnily enough, the riffs don't sound inappropriate for ol' J.J.
Nothing terribly memorable, but it's an amusing little bit of petulance. Have a listen. And, hey, Mr. Cale, happy birthday. More...
Friday, February 22, 2008
American Psycho
Oh, it's typical, ladies and gentlemen. Sad, but so typical. We've established that Mr. Cale has written scores for many films: some films good, some not; some scores good, some not; some scores released on album, some not; some popular, the vast majority not. So what happens when he writes one of the best scores of his career for a film that, if not a blockbuster, was seen by millions of people?
Well, of course, the soundtrack album released for the film is your typical "various artists" selection. There are a few score excerpts, but they're voiced over by the titular psycho killer, Christian Bale, who, though f-f-f-far better than many narrators, is still an obstruction to my goal, which is hearing the goddamn John Cale score.
A-and it's a hell of a score. It's a little mushy in the late middle, but starts with a bang and ends the same way. The spirit of Bernard Hermann is here (notably on "The Men's Room") - unique for a Cale soundtrack. The piano figure on "The Ritual," while rather unimaginative, is haunting for what's done with it. On "Packing for Paul" Cale recalls his theme for director Mary Harron's earlier film I Shot Andy Warhol. There's a lot of rhythmic tension throughout - unlike some of his more meandering soundtracks, this is mostly a frenetic and tense experience.
When it slows and calms down, though, the effect is powerful - on "The Office," for instance, the eastern-European-feeling horns give the piece an off-kilter nature that's simultaneously threatening and laughable, while the Ligeti influences on "The Second Time"/"The Bloodbath - The Chainsaw" are more effective for being isolated. The churning strings on "The Police" and "The Wrong Building" lose me out of the context of the film, but the Eastern European folk intro of "The Confession" grabs me again.
The most striking track of the score is "The Day Planner" - the weird vocals (by the Mediaeval Babes) are creepy and beautiful, and the sudden appearance of voice has an impressive transformative effect on the soundtrack, allowing for a transition into the drone and serenity of "The End." "American Psycho (Reprise)" provides a smirking, sprightly, sinister finish to it all.
Great stuff! Of note is an interview Cale did about the score, giving a little insight into how he approaches film composition. Screaming rabbits? Yow. He is into music for interrogations!
Psst... there's something nice hiding in the first comment...
Thursday, January 24, 2008
I Wanna Be Around
Me? I'm in great shape; here's the latest thing from the workshop.
I Wanna Be Around was a Tony Bennett hit back in 1963. The song was written by Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt, a cosmetician from Youngstown Ohio who sent a note to "Johnny Mercer-Songwriter-New York" containing a lyric she thought would make a good song: I wanna be around to pick up the pieces when somebody breaks your heart. Mercer wrote the song, and, being a supreme gentleman, gave her a 50% co-credit, guaranteeing her a few thousand dollars a year in royalties for the rest of her life.
And it might never have made its way to John Cale's music stand if Brian Wilson hadn't penciled it into the SMiLE tracklist back in 1966. But he did (even if he got the lyrics wrong). I have no evidence that Cale had a stack of SMiLE bootlegs, but I will assume he did, and shame on him if he didn't.
But the version he recorded with Jools Holland's big band owes little to either Wilson's gentle version or Bennett's slow croon. Cale takes the song fast, hard, and - you can hear this in the vocal - with a sharklike smile. The growl in Cale's voice on "I wanna be around to see how he does it, when he breaks your heart to bits" raises hackles.
Shame, though, that there's so much boilerplate big-band pyrotechnics going on around him. It's fun enough, sure, but a sparer arrangement with a vocal so venomous would be an essential part of the canon. But, hey, the album is cheap and you get great songs by dead guys. For pocket change, I recommend it.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Frozen Warnings
The Marble Index is, for my money, one of the most difficult records to listen to Cale ever made (well, helped make). It's hostile and atonal, cold in a way the New York 1960s recordings aren't, and relentlessly SLOW - not to mention Nico's voice and melodies are more than usually soporific. It's an album I admire more than I enjoy: Nico's vision is singularly intense and Cale's "arrangements" are some of the most interesting music he's ever written, but I find it almost impossible to identify with the mindset behind it.
The song I most enjoy is the most tuneful thing present, "Frozen Warnings." The vocal melody is a weird blend of Gregorian chant and Indian raga, and shows more movement than most other tracks. The backing music builds up around an organ/viola drone, creating a feeling of suspended animation. I don't know what else I can say - this is hard music to talk about.
Well, here's something. Cale wrote a piano part and performed this in the Nico retrospective film Nico: Icon. Below is a video; here's an mp3 of that performance. Great stuff.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
All I Want Is You
Summer days are gone
And winter nights are closing fast
And no-one knows how long they'll last
Till daylight comes again
Welcome to the special autumnal equinox edition of Fragments. We'll be listening to "All I Want is You", a light and sprightly little song, a throwback to an older songwriting tradition, one somewhere between Stephen Foster and the British music hall. The first time you hear this song, filling the space between Fear and Slow Dazzle on the Island Years compilation, you'll swear it's some ancient song that Cale's covering for sport. But you'll look at the credits, and - gee! - it's a Cale original. At least that's how it worked for me.
The gentle, steady propulsion of the rhythm guitar and drum part keeps the song upbeat and positive, despite some sinister modulations in the more rhythmically free piano lead. And the basswork - sinuous and adventurous on the verse, bouncy on the chorus - is excellent. It's an elegantly and cleanly performed bit of music - benefiting, too, from a vocal that's top-quality, moving from minor to major key bits with aplomb.
And for such a simple, "classical" song, it's not a bad lyric at all! It's another exception to my overly-broad observation that John Cale doesn't write songs about the natural world - it's a pithily written goodbye to the summer sun. But the fascinating part of the lyric, to me, is the first part of the second verse:
Summer days are gone
And everybody's in the dark
And no-one seems to want what you and
I have anymore
The confused dejection of the lyric is very piquant, and, combined with the traditional build of the song, makes me suspect that it may be a genuine moment of self-pity for our boy John. (To his credit, the explicit ones are fairly rare.) It's the sort of thing you write, I suppose, when you've written a masterpiece (Paris 1919) that nobody bought and that your record company wasn't interested in. I usually try to stay away from the psychology, as I hate to project, but this feels very naked and sincere.
So anyway: despite the rather grim message ("Summer's over, nobody really likes us, and our future's not so bright. Well, let's fuck.") it's upbeat. Grim-and-upbeat is the recipe for many of my favorite songs, and it works here. I wouldn't say it's worth buying The Island Years for, but it's one of my favorite outtakes. Give it a listen, if you're able.
I hope you, fellow residents of the northern hemisphere, had a nice summer - 'cause it's over now. (You southerners are probably feeling good, though.) Me, I like all the seasons about equally. Bring on the cold.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler, the epic final track of 1977's bizarre Animal Justice EP, takes the structure of Mary Lou's lyrics and some of the lyrics themselves and turns them into a different sort of song altogether, a sprawling downtempo brooder that swells to an odd majesty. It's no accident that this b-side of an obscure EP has been a mainstay of his repertoire for nearly thirty years.
(The connection to Ibsen seems extremely tenuous - maybe he was just going for a self-destructive femme fatale idea. I've read somewhere that the song is "about" Anita Pallenberg, of whom it has been quipped that she was fluent in four languages and three Rolling Stones. [CORRECTION: Jack informs me that the Seducing Down the Door liner notes refer to Anita Bryant, late 50s singer and 70s anti-gay crusader. Huh. I still don't get it.] As far as self-destructive blond-haired northern European femme fatales go, well, I tend to think of someone else in Cale's life.)
The song is very similar in construction and feel to Riverbank: heavy, weary, and slow. A woozy, gauzy electric piano and almost-infinite slide guitar form a bizarrely comforting bed of fog for Cale's very straight, affectless vocal. Viola noises break up the verses. Drums and rhythm guitar (and church organ?!) break out at the first chorus, as a touch of menace creeps into Cale's voice. It's an odd menace, though, more resigned and regretful than anything.
The lyrics are rather terse, repetitive, and dour: tired of waiting, tired of the human race, down in all her misery. Her family doesn't brighten things: her brother is sitting around reading Mein Kampf (puts a different spin on Mary Lou, eh?); her mother hangs her banker husband in the closet (though the verb used means "suspend on a hook or hanger" rather than "suspend by the neck" - love that little bit of dark humor in the ambiguity!). And all we learn about Hedda is that she's miserable and tired (so tired of listening to the gossip and complaints). It's a character study with no character except the music itself.
And it's the music that's transfigured in the end. The coda lyric, "Sleep, sleep, sleep, Hedda Gabler" is an interesting gambit after what has come before, but the line would be nothing without the remarkably sympathetic cast of the whole coda: a gentle lullaby piano vamp, a towering and beautiful guitar solo, and ensemble vocals that really seem to mean it. It's an absolution and a purification, and it's amazing to hear.
Here's a video from that great show at the Paradiso in Amsterdam:
Monday, September 10, 2007
Mary Lou
Record labels add a smidgen of unreleased material to compilation albums to get die-hard fans to buy in. This has been going on for quite some time. John Cale's infamous collection Guts, which introduced hockey mask chic and Helen of Troy outtake "Mary Lou" to the world, was something of an exception, though: Island Records, you see, hadn't issued Helen of Troy in North America, and put this out by way of apology.
It's a very bizarre album, a sort of Songs in the Key of Death: side one is led off by the title track, from Slow Dazzle; then "Mary Lou" and three of the more raucous songs from Helen ("Helen of Troy" itself, Modern Lovers cover "Pablo Picasso", "Leaving It Up to You" - yep, it's back!); Fear tracks "Fear (Is a Man's Best Friend)" and "Gun"; and Slow Dazzle rave-ups "Dirty Ass Rock'n'Roll" and "Heartbreak Hotel." Now, I'd have put "Cable Hogue" on there instead of Helen, myself, but it's a pretty decent selection of the bloodiest tracks of the Island trilogy.
"Mary Lou", like Pablo and Dirty-Ass Rock'n'Roll, is on the album as leavening. Oh, it sounds threatening, but the lyrics are an innocuous and insubstantial imitation of Dylan's "Maggie's Farm." Mary, mother, brother, father, check. Though her father being in the government and not knowing the difference between right and wrong doesn't sound so innocent.
The woo-woo girls start the song out with threatening "oohs" that would pop up in a much less restrained and irritating version in the far future. Cale's vocal is pretty aggressive, especially on the chorus, and he throws in a scream or two for good measure. His screams don't really seem justified by the song's feel, but, hey. The guitar is choppy and pleasant, sort of reminiscent of "Pablo Picasso."
(In fact, very reminiscent of Pablo Picasso, which Cale did with this in a medley as the closer track on this year's Circus Live. "Mary Lou," slight as it is, did better in the medley than it does alone. They have the same turgid feel as all the other rock tracks on the album, but it's a fun pairing anyway.)
I don't agree with Robert Christgau that "Mary Lou" drags down the compilation, but it's not a track I crave hearing very often. It's just sort of there. However, it did lead to something stranger, scarier, and more substantial. Which is what we'll look at next time.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Coral Moon
I don’t mean to be unfair. Sometimes John Cale wasn’t responsible for outtakes making it onto albums. In fact, in the most infamous case, one of his most famous scenery-chewers got thrown off an album in favor of a song that wasn’t really intended for release. The year was 1975, the album was Helen of Troy, and Cale’s turbulent sojourn with Island Records was coming to a bitter end.
If I read his autobiography correctly, Cale had successfully gotten his label to recall the first pressings of Helen of Troy. You see, they didn’t appreciate the finished tracks that were resulting. They decided to try an end-run on him, releasing (in the
What’s weird, though - if Cale's version of events is correct and complete - is that Island Records didn’t object to “Leaving It Up to You” at that time. It’s a marvelously malevolent track, one well worth the attention it will be receiving at some future date. But some time after the album’s release, I believe after the first general pressing, they decided that not-very-veiled threats alluding to Sharon Tate wouldn’t do. Without consulting Cale, they replaced it with the previously unreleased and unloved pastoral “Coral Moon.”
And there’s nothing wrong with Coral Moon as an outtake, or a b-side, or a minor album track. It carries forward the flame of Cale’s crooner/mid-period Beach Boys side, directly following up “Sylvia Said” and recalling the debut’s “Big White Cloud.” It’s got the lush instrumentation, the cooing backing vocals, the thin and vaguely off-key crooning vocal, that satisfied refractory feeling. The lyrics aren’t anything to dwell on, I suppose, but in this they are not so unique. They’re simple, naturalistic, and pastoral, rather threatening the validity of my insight about Cale and nature. But they’re functional and not embarrassing, at least.
There’s really not much to complain about in this lovely if unexceptional track. I wouldn’t even mention flaws like the way the well-constructed bridge is wasted, the way said bridge’s melody rips off the better bridge of album opener “My Maria”, or the way the song peters out without a satisfying ending. It would be a pleasant surprise as an outtake, really cool as a b-side, enjoyable as filler.
But it replaced “Leaving It Up to You,” one of Cale’s most visceral and frightening songs. The keystone track of Helen of Troy, even. Pulling out that slab of violent paranoia and slipping in this slight amusement showed an insensitivity to quality and album construction on
Monday, September 3, 2007
Burned Out Affair
Outtakes are funny things. Some are stunning works that equal or surpass anything the artist was releasing during that period (Bob Dylan’s “Blind Willie McTell”). Some are rank, embarrassing artifacts that only an obsessive completist could stand to hear more than once (Pink Floyd’s “The Doctor”). But most outtakes land in a grey area between the gem pile and the refuse heap. They can be interesting demos that might have benefited from better production, or needed a lyrical retouch to really work. Or they’re transitional pieces, the seedbeds for later, better-known works. And they can even be perfectly decent completed songs that didn’t really fit anywhere at the time.
Cale’s outtakes fall in all possible categories, and I’ll argue that “Burned Out Affair” lands squarely in the last one. The major outtake from Paris 1919 is easily the most interesting bonus included on the reissued album-- much more so than yet another version of “Antarctica Starts Here.” With a title like “Burned Out Affair,” the listener expects a jaded slice of Cale-life, possibly a pastiche on a theme of Graham Greene (but not “Graham Greene”).
“Everything was fine/ when all the girls were boys/ and singing/ was the usual thing to do.”
Yes, kids, listen up while Uncle Cale tells you about the good old days. Cale sings of juvenile burning and looting over a lazy pastoral. The music shuffles along, and while it has the prominent slide guitar of the Paris 1919 sound, the arrangement doesn’t cut deep in the manner of the authentic Paris tracks. It’s the missing sonic link between Vintage Violence and Paris 1919 (and here I thought the missing link was “Gideon’s Bible”).
Not that anything about the song feels unfinished. Structurally complete and featuring a nicely mirrored lyric, “Burned Out Affair” tells a proper little tale. The central strand of the lyrics is the same thread that runs through the phantom streets of Paris-- loss-- but the overall treatment is more in the lighthearted manner of VV. Cale’s fading memories of pilfered magazines don’t tap into the same vein of menace that leaks through the evocations of childhood in “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Growing up’s a bit sad, yes, but what can one do? We don’t cry over Cale’s spilled milk and childishness, and he doesn’t seem to be inviting us to. Maybe something sinister is going on with the clumsy-eyed rats, but nothing in the song entices one to dig beneath the surface. Unlike the great tracks from this era, the images don’t wrap around the brain. “Ghost Story” may truly haunt you for the rest of your life, but this burned-out affair might just get caught in your mind occasionally.
So, there it is-- interesting, listenable, pleasant but not really essential. Rather like most of Vintage Violence, really. Though the image of tin boys and young girls, melting away, seems an oblique reference to Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” I can’t imagine where Cale was going with that, and I’ll leave it to the steadfast Cale blogger Inverarity to ponder it further.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Grandfather's House
Like "Cordoba," Wrong Way Up outtake and One Word b-side Grandfather's House uses lyrics taken verbatim from Spanish in Three Months, a textbook from the Hugo language series. Like Cordoba, "Grandfather's House" seems to tell a story of crime - this time, the story of a white-collar criminal from a good family. It's as detail-oriented as Cordoba, recounting family activities, dinners, flights and scenery. It conjures up a very intriguing story for me: the man, whose grandfather was a magistrate who oversaw the construction of the city's courthouse, embezzled money from his employer (the city?) to relieve his financial woes. I don't know what Cale and Eno saw in the text, but that's my reading. As with Cordoba, many gradations of meaning can be read into this small patch of found text.
Unlike Cordoba, though, it lacks a convincing musical development. It seems as if they couldn't figure out the right way to approach the song, so they just threw their favorite techniques and noises at it: stop-start construction, tinkling synth, electric piano, ethereal guitar, bass, a background drone. The vocal melody steals liberally from Music for a New Society's "Broken Bird," but the performance recalls Last Day on Earth's "Broken Hearts" - unctuous, rich, with an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity (or insincerity?). The song's one transcendent moment: the wordless Eno/Cale duet with viola accompaniment on the middle eight.
Since this track wasn't included on the US release of Wrong Way Up, and since the CDEP is long out of print, I'll post an MP3. It didn't deserve a spot on the album, but it's worth hearing. Enjoy.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sylvia Said
B-sides are funny things. Some bands don't do them - Pink Floyd, for example, once they'd dissolved in Roger Waters's bile. Some bands bury their best songs there - Radiohead's "Cuttooth" being one example. And some (most?) issue studio wankery or songs they don't like as b-sides. These categories are fluid, though, and artists regularly switch from one to another.
John Cale never put out many non-album b-sides, and hasn't in a long time (except to someone else's a-side). On the rare occasions he has, though, he's seemed to move randomly between categories B and C. "Rosegarden Funeral of Sores" certainly fits in the latter category. Fear-era Sylvia Said (the b-side of, unbelievably, The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy), despite some nice touches, goes into category C.
The proto-R.E.M. instrumental work and the bittersweet though makeshift viola part are cool. But it's the slightly drunken and definitely demo-quality vocal that drags the song down. Then there's the seemingly improvised lyrics. It's also the vocal melody, which sounds awfully reminiscent of something. (And what's with that Lou Reed trademark-infringing title, eh?) It's all very ad-hoc, moreso than some contemporary tracks that stayed in the can for another two decades.
It's got a certain Dennis Wilson charm to it, and the instrumental work is very enjoyable, but it didn't deserve a spot on an album. You can pick it up in its proper place on The Island Years.
Note: This exclusively covers the Island Years version. I've read at least once the actual b-side is a different take. I don't have the single, so I can't verify that or judge its quality against this release. Please weigh in if you can compare.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bamboo Floor
A might-have-been classic of the "apocalypse pop" genre, this Slow Dazzle outtake wasn't really properly recorded. The mix is questionable and there's a certain "demo" quality to the vocal (which is pleasant enough). Still, there is ample reason to be glad it appeared on the Island Years/Gold quasi-compilation. It's another mixture of extremely pleasant, jaunty music with dark lyrics. Not just any pop song can carry a chorus of, "Another monsoon's here and it feels like judgment day."
The first thing you'll notice about Bamboo Floor is the constant bell-like burbling organ (?). It's extremely distinctive and, oddly enough, soothing. It's key to the optimistic sound of the music, and makes this otherwise straightforward track stand out. The dominant piano part sounds very upbeat and a bit retro (unsurprisingly - musically, this is a far superior rewrite of the fey and corny "Dixieland and Dixie", a Vintage Violence-era pisstake allegedly written solely to fulfill a contract.) A very conventionally strummed acoustic guitar follows the piano chord change for chord change, and the drums and a completely unsurprising bassline complete the aural scene.
The lyrics, though, aren't conventional for the genre. They're a fractured glimpse of adventuring life, or something - robbers and drugs and houses with bamboo floors. It sounds like an extra-sordid ninteenth-century adventure novel: "Watch out for the eagle's eye or the opium on the breakfast tray, and the laughter of the dying monk from the poison of the tsetse fly." (Pedantic aside: Either it's a bit sloppy or the scene changes from continent to continent: the tsetse fly, the infamous carrier of sleeping sickness, is indigenous to Africa; in the chorus, though, we're reminded that "you can see it all in the rivers of Shanghai" - that China fixation again.) It's a nice little lyric - doomy and amusing at the same time. The roughness of the vocal lends a certain credibility to the narrator.
Have a listen and see what you think:
Full quality flash player
or
Low-bitrate mp3
Thursday, June 28, 2007
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.)
Sunday, June 24, 2007
I Shot Andy Warhol Suite
You've got two chunks of music, pal, and you call it a suite? Not having seen I Shot Andy Warhol, I don't know how much material Cale composed, but this is great stuff, and I'd hate to think that a lot more was left on the soundtrack assembly room floor.
What it sounds like is "New York Underground" from 1998's Nico/Dance Music, if it had been written by Phillip Glass. There are two related string ensemble pieces, each one sounding to me like a passacaglia (development of a theme, usually in a minor key, over a ground bass part). There's little in the way of obvious melody; it's all about harmony and counterpoint.
In the first of the pieces, the upper strings sound very much like human voices (characteristic of Glass's work). The violin and viola dominate, starting with a gentle rocking theme. They move away from one another and the harmonies become more strained. Before dissonance actually creeps in, though, they move back into a close, comfortable harmony and the piece ends. My only complaint is that the bass's connection to the rest of the instruments seems tenuous.
The second piece is rhythmic, violent, grim. The theme sounds to be the same, but the viola and cello dominate, with the violin adding only a little light here and there. There's none of the lyricism that the first piece can't resist including, only determination and inevitability. Automation. No flourish or resolution at the end - we're left hanging.
The piece isn't particularly original or noteworthy, I think, and I don't know what it has to do with Andy Warhol or Valerie Solanas. Nevertheless: it's excellent, satisfying listening. It's one of my favorite soundtrack pieces so far, and the first half might be the most frankly beautiful music Cale has written.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Rosegarden Funeral of Sores
Vocal Distortion Intended
is printed on the label of the b-side of the Mercenaries (Ready for War) single. This b-side contains one of the most bizarre things Cale ever recorded, the ineffable Rosegarden Funeral of Sores. I'll try to eff it - that's my job - but ultimately you'll just have to listen. Here's a high-quality audio file (up for a limited time).
A perverted blues bass figure as mechanical as the drum machine track it accompanies drives this song forward. It's the first released song Cale used a drum machine on, and the drum machine proves essential to the artificial chill that pervades this track. It's a terrible feeling that these instruments produce, a feeling of being moved against one's will, a feeling of automation (this is compounded by the jerky stop-and-go construction of the song - like being on an assembly line). But it's the Wurlitzer organ that encrusts the rhythm track, crystallizing on it like minerals on glass, that really pushes it into horror. For all the fever-dream songwriting around, this is the first song I've heard that sounds and feels like a fever dream.
This feeling extends to the vocals and to the lyrics, the smashed and splintered lyrics that ooze out from that intentionally distorted vocal, metallic and mechanical like the other instruments. There's an explicit dichotomy between Madonna and whore, but I'm not at all convinced that they're discrete actors. The lyrics loop back on themselves, repeat, stop midway and restart. Some men are chosen from the rest. But their choices don't seem to matter.
P.S. That the, uh, less subtle Bauhaus cover is better-known than the original is a damn shame.
P.P.S. The live mash-up with Femme Fatale on Circus Live is an interesting experiment, but it doesn't really get off the ground.
Also: I like the 'n' that they randomly added to the title for the Sabotage/Live reissue - "Rosengarden Funeral of Sores" has a better ring to it.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Jumbo In Tha Modernworld
Who'd have thought that John Cale, of all people, would fall prey to the politico-anthropomorpho-metaphoric song bug, hanging 'round with Paul and Rog and who knows who. Jumbo In The Modernworld is a very curious song to do it, with, though, as whatever metaphors are there are incredibly opaque. Jumbo is presumably an elephant, having lunch with a lion, to talk about an alliance with/against a giraffe. Meanwhile, a hippo may have stolen all the water due to the incompetence of a buffalo security guard. And we should blame it all on the monkey. Who knows, maybe it's about Ahmed Chalabi and his tailor.
I mostly disregard the lyrics, as pleasant as they feel in the mouth. It's mostly a vocal showcase. You hear our sexagenarian friend shout, keen, sing with falsetto, rant, chant, chatter in the studio, and do a very realistic recreation of a lion growl. It's his strongest, most impressive vocal in a long time - I just hope he didn't hurt himself!
The track is pretty amazing, as well. It starts out with a drone and an electronic kettle-drum sounding-thing. Piano and choppy guitar come in as lead instruments and a metal xylophone-type instrument in the background. A new guitar lead comes in on the chorus, to the right, along with a group of "ooh-wah" chain-gang grunters on the chorus. The two guitar leads do a call and response bit on the second chorus, to good effect.
Then everything drops out, leaving just unbearable tension: quiet viola(?) drone, the xylophone, some hand-tapping percussion, electronic vocal humming, and a group of tribal chanters that all sound like Cale, saying something that sounds like "Jumboweh." This state of affairs can't last, and Cale comes back with the chorus for some real screaming.
This feels like an in-joke that turned into studio screwing-around that turned into a song. Which isn't an insult - if he's to be believed, Cale mostly composes in the studio. Despite this track's relatively lightweight nature, it's still a joy to hear him rock out, especially (there is no good way to say this) if you crave the sound of screaming. It may not be deep, but it's got something. At the very least, it rises above the genre.
