#588: john cale - buffalo ballet (1975)
i’m just going to come right out and say it: john cale beats lou reed.
max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular
fine videos daily:
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri
feat. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, will oldham, serge gainsbourg, the kinks, harry nilsson, dusty springfield, the clash, the smiths, al green, rolling stones, cat power, yo la tengo, stevie wonder, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, jimi hendrix, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, the monochrome set, randy newman, cure & queen
i write for the nyo, live in nyc, am 25, please email here
"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck
see the archives & a random post
"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso
"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul
"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. do it very slowly and don't confuse him." -charles mingus
"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits
"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, yeah, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom like a gentle drum. -john cale
"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn
"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly
"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george
"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex
gotta think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom
"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan
"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson
"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian
"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player
"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne
"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton
"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector
"at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen
"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe
"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello
"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons
"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen
"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris
"the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin. we'd been talking to ramblin' jack elliott somewhere and jonesy said to me, 'come over and i'll turn you on to grass.' he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie
brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk
ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun
"the only word is love." -john lennon
thelonious monk's middle name: sphere
"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead
"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash
"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues
"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger
"but chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it altogether." -robert christgau
mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." and 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."
download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches
the olden days: 08 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 09 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 10 j. f. m. a. m. j. j.
make a tumblr!
1960s on mon
1970s on tues
1980s on wed
1990s on thurs
2000s on fri
feat. the beatles, aretha franklin, neil young, dr. dre, will oldham, serge gainsbourg, the kinks, harry nilsson, dusty springfield, the clash, the smiths, al green, rolling stones, cat power, yo la tengo, stevie wonder, antony, wilco, elvis, talking heads, elliott smith, jimi hendrix, r.e.m., ray charles, velvet underground, the monochrome set, randy newman, cure & queen
i write for the nyo, live in nyc, am 25, please email here
"mtv makes me want to smoke crack." -beck
see the archives & a random post
"i just happen to be here, and it's okay." -caetano veloso
"sing a simple song but keep the swing strong." -de la soul
"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. do it very slowly and don't confuse him." -charles mingus
"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits
"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, yeah, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity bom like a gentle drum. -john cale
"i’ve still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don’t know about." -loretta lynn
"after cheesecake with all of your friends and family, who's gonna front the bill? me... say you want to take first-class trips, well i want to work those first-class hips. yes i do." -r. kelly
"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george
"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex
gotta think straight, keep a clean plate." -joanna newsom
"keep a clean nose, watch the plain-clothes." -bob dylan
"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson
"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian
"think about something else. was art tatum talented?" - shoot the piano player
"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne
"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton
"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector
"at a certain point phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen
"they’d whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what’s your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what’s yours?'" -tom wolfe
"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello
"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons
"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong’s recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cézanne, the crabs at sam wo’s, tracy’s face." -woody allen
"where have you been all my life?" -emmylou harris
"the first time i got stoned on grass was with john paul jones of led zeppelin. we'd been talking to ramblin' jack elliott somewhere and jonesy said to me, 'come over and i'll turn you on to grass.' he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie
brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don’t talk
ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
#1 song on the white album (tie): long long long, happiness is a warm gun
"the only word is love." -john lennon
thelonious monk's middle name: sphere
"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead
"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash
"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues
"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead.” -pete seeger
"but chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it altogether." -robert christgau
mashable.com says about us: "you can expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." and 33 1/3 says: "it's nice to have someone steer me in a more worthwhile direction."
download albums, see album covers, photos, posters, quotes & 'staches
the olden days: 08 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 09 j. f. m. a. m. j. j. a. s. o. n. d. 10 j. f. m. a. m. j. j.
make a tumblr!
john cale isn’t just better than lou, he’s louder and softer and closer and nearer.
what’s more, his 1973 album paris 1919 (download it here) is very pretty! plus it has lowell george and other members of little feat playing glorious backup, which goes a good way toward making up for leaving the velvet underground.
#547: velvet underground - femme fatale (1967)
one good test for heartfelt love of a band is whether you can listen to one of its best songs played after your favorite member has left the group. and a really good test is whether you can listen to it while it plays over blurry footage of edie sedgwick. you’d think it would be impossible, but then there’s this clip, which uses audio from a show without glorious john cale—the saddest welshman downtown ever saw, not that lou reed ever appreciated him—and footage from warhol’s poor little rich girl. and it’s just beautiful.
the reason that john cale’s 1974 album fear sounds like jumpsuits, fistfights at the lions club, ex-wives, fish, lou reed’s aftershave, coal mines in wales, patti smith’s perspiration, police station basements and 23rd street at nighttime is that it is really, really good. his holiness richard thompson from fairport convention plays guitar, and so does phil manzanera, whose roxy music companion sir brian eno is credited as playing “eno.” and the backup singing on thigh-slapper the man who couldn’t afford to orgy is credited to certain girls named “i & d chantler and l strike,” about whom very little seems to be known. but to be fair, vintage violence is almost as perfect for a late-winter sunday afternoon, and so is looking at pictures of john cale.
speaking of the lions club, it’s strange that its logo hasn’t been put on skateboards, graffiti, or at least tattoos, just as tamla motown’s original logo should be.
#512: chrissie hynde (with nick cave) - i’ll stand by you (bbc, 1999)
it’s wrong that the 80s gets all the power ballad attention. with no disrespect to every rose has its thorn, it was in the 90s that stephanie seymour walked down axl rose’s aisle for ten and a half minutes while aerosmith outdid all the gems on get a grip with an interstellar slow jam. and then there’s the pretenders’ monumentally under-appreciated i’ll stand by you: this performance includes the velvet underground’s john cale looking on and nick cave slightly messing up key changes, plus there’s a joke about oasis. and god bless chrissie hynde, who came close to starting a band with the clash’s mick jones and marrying the kinks’ ray davies, but could beat both in arm wrestling.
#487: frank zappa & the mothers of invention - sleeping in a jar (1969)
today i enjoyed a frank zappa album for the first time ever. before he’d seemed annoying and jazz major-ish, like you could tell he’d suffered asthmatic sinus problems as a child. but i bought a 99-cent lp of we’re only in it for the money (from bleecker street records, which, as of this week, no longer carries 99-cent lps, an unbelievably bad decision that i sincerely hope they reverse). the music lives up to its excellent yellow cover, sgt. pepper-aping inner sleeve, and free cut-out insert. it would make for a great musical adapted by john cale, randy newman, and van dyke parks. this video happens to be from a year later, but it’s excellently reminds me of madvillain’s meat grinder. on the other hand, i may not listen to all of we’re only it for the money for another four months, so maybe all this is just the long thanksgiving weekend talking.
#402: lou reed & john cale - style it takes (from songs for drella, 1990)
if this sounds like hallelujah, only with no allusions to the old testament and a lot to pop art, it’s because john cale was a year or so away from making leonard cohen’s song famous when he and lou reed recorded songs for drella, their warhol eulogy. style it takes isn’t just soft and sweet, it gets nostalgic and furious—it’s downy but a downer, the combination that makes hallelujah so good. but leonard cohen’s song is probably better, what with its references to biblical coitus and all.
i’m starting a club that gets together every sunday to look at pictures of john cale and listen to vintage violence, paris 1919, fear, and slow dazzle over and over and over and over and over. he’s like ulsses s. grant to lou reed’s rutherford b. hayes.
#277: john cale - hallellujah (1992)
9 albums from 1969 i’ll listen to 40 times in 2009 to mark their 40th anniversaries:
1. the velvet underground’s the velvet underground: even though john cale (above) had just left the band, this not only has super-delicate candy says and pale blue eyes, but tuba-thumping after hours.
2. leonard cohen’s songs from a room: a very long-faced jew plays a jew’s harp and some tunes about jews, birds, and butchers. if only leonard cohen had written hallelujah back in the 60s, then john cale could’ve covered it with the velvet underground, and then everyone’s heads would’ve exploded.
3. fairport convention’s unhalfbricking: get yourself a father like mine who saved his fairport convention LPs and kept them spic and span, and then go and listen to percy’s song until your heart bleeds.
4. bob dylan’s nashville skyline: tonight i’ll be staying here with you, lay lady lay, and country pie are three exceptionally satisfying and only moderately dirty country ditties about sex. when you’re older i’ll tell you who old saxophone joe is.
5. caetano veloso’s caetano veloso: once i strangled a fascist spy in brazil with a purple shoelace while listening to veloso’s closing track alfômega.
6. harry nilsson’s harry: i’ve been listeninig to pandemonium shadow show, aerial ballet, nilsson sings newman, and especially a little touch of schmilsson in the night too much, so 2009 will be the year of harry.
7. townes van zandt’s townes van zandt: mostly i’ll just listen to fare thee well, miss carousel because it’s better than anything on nashville skyline, and i’d stand on bob dylan’s big brass bed in my desert boots and say that.
8. david bowie’s space oddity: not as perfect as hunky dory or as martian as ziggy stardust or as fashionable as scary monsters, but space oddity has janine, the love song of the year.
9. skip spence’s oar: did you know that when lou reed heard all come to meet her he opened up his chest with john lennon’s pen knife and fedexed his left and right ventricles to neil young, but the package was intercepted on the canadian border by leonard cohen, who gave it to bob dylan for his birthday?
kanye west’s 808s & heartbreak, streaming now on rupert murdoch’s favorite place to meet local teenagers, came out today. can i be the first to say that it’s hip hop’s power, corruption & lies, right down to the quasi-peter saville artwork? it’s a terrifying, mechanic, late-night, hollowed-out break-up album from someone who still has romantic ideas about where albums can go and what they can do when songs are blown up and deflated.
let me say that robocop’s strings are as good as john cale’s on paris 1919. and paranoid has a synth hook that’s hookier than a bunch of hookers watching hook.
the squeeze’s 1978 debut gets one point for john cale’s production, seven points for the lichtenstein-meets-kruger design, and nine points for vulgar positioning of the a&m records logo.
#232: the velvet underground & nico - femme fatale (1972)
the music john cale made after he left the velvet underground make john lennon’s post-beatles imagine and plastic ono band look like sad little side projects. (see oct. 16th for gideon’s bible and paris 1919, but then there’s also the better-than-bowie man who couldn’t afford to orgy, barracuda, and amsterdam).
i just discovered beautiful, beautiful, beautiful videos from a show in 1972, the year cale’s second post-velvets album came out. it’s just him and his old bandmates lou reed and nico breaking everyone’s hearts and pouring mercury into their arteries and replacing rib cages with pillows.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Comments (View)
john cale - gideon’s bible (from vintage violence, 1970)
garcía lorca or nancy reagan or someone once said, “there are worse things to do with your thursday than getting stoned and listening to john cale’s gideon’s bible.”
#229: john cale - paris 1919 (amsterdam 1998)
witness john cale (who became famous for his 1967 and 1968 albums with the velvet underground) playing a 1973 song about 1919 in a 1998 concert. the chronological silliness boggles one’s mind, but what will really make steam burst horizontally from your cartoon ears is the glorious string section.
(see more cale here.)
