John Cale Tonight at Starlight...anyone?

[Schwa.]

John Cale, former member of Velvet Underground is playing tonight at the Starlight in Waterloo.

here is an article from this weeks Echo.

BLACK VELVET

By Ric Taylor

As the patron saint of sonic exploration, John Cale’s work with

one of the most influential bands of the ’60s, The Velvet

Underground, and his later three decades of soundcraft have

afforded him the kind of catalogue that is vastly important and

influential, even if today he remains something of a cult figure.

While Cale explored solo work after his departure from VU,

his production credits are lauded as being beyond compare—he’s

produced the debuts of The Stooges, Jonathan Richman’s Modern

Lovers and Patti Smith, as well as worked with The Happy

Mondays, Nico and more. By the ’90s Cale had brought his

musical muse to movie soundtracks, but every so often he offers

another peek into his mindset with a new album proper.

A musical chameleon, it’s impossible to sum up Cale’s

importance in a few sentences, but with a new CD and tonight’s

Starlight performance, fans both old and new have a chance to

partake in the Cale canon.

As an influential figure in bringing the words drone, noise

and soundscape into the more mainstream musical lexicon, his

two most recent releases—2003’s Hobosapien and the newly

released Black Acetate—offer up Cale as ever the inventor and

explorer but with decidedly more friendly aural results.

Cale’s old VU counterpart Lou Reed has often been difficult

in interviews but Cale, is open, honest, excited and welcoming.

We began our talk about his newest efforts with a friendly chat

about the weather, and how sunnier days are nicer than the

cloudy one he’s currently experiencing in California.

“They offer more giggles in the day maybe,†smiles Cale on

both sunnier days and a perhaps renewed perspective. While he

offers an archetype for shoegazer and fusion bands, these days

he is exploring hip hop technique and pop presentation. But

would he prefer if audiences approached him without his past in

mind?

“I don’t think it’s realistic, and I think it’s what they expect

from me,†says Cale on a career that offers a seemingly different

musical style with each new recording. “If they are used to having

something different from me every time, then they should have

no problem relating, but maybe they need to have the idea of

Hobo and Black Acetate in their minds when they think of me now

because those two things represent a different environment for

me as a musician then all of the stuff I’ve done before.

“Those were polemical days,†Cale reasons on his time with

The Velvet Underground, before suggesting that his new CD is

not so polemical. “I’m happy with it. But I don’t think that there’s

anything on this album that people won’t identify as being John

Cale. I don’t think there’s anything you can point to and say,

‘that’s John Cale trying to be somebody else.’ I think it’s true to

John Cale.â€

Cale experimented with loops and technology on

Hobosapien, but with veteran jazz fusion drummer Herb Graham

has reached a different plane with Black Acetate. Yet, even

knowing his penchant for experimentation, it was unexpected to

hear him talking straight hip hop. “I started writing the songs in

a different way. I heard Snoop and Pharrell Williams’ ‘Drop It Like

It’s Hot’—that song only has five elements in it,†explains Cale on

the influence of hip hop production on his own work. “There’s a

single that Snoop did where they used [the sampled sound of] a

spray can as a rhythm instrument, and I thought ‘the hiss of a

spray can is one thing, but what’s the point of having a spray

can?’ I think this guy is really writing about something else, and I

think he’s making a statement about the environment of hip hop

more than just a musical statement.

“When ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ came along, it was just like an

extension of that and it was amazing! It was so minimal. So I went back to the drawing board and tried cutting everything out.â€

Musing on sampling and hip hop recording techniques, Cale

suggests that the words or music alone aren’t what’s making the

statement. The samples and production speak loudly as well,

taking the spray can associated with graffiti and literally

incorporating it into the rhythm of a song—the medium is the

message indeed.

But Cale is able to extract metaphor and meaning from the

situation with ease, even finding a possible direct link between

two disparate positions like the president of the U.S. and your

average hip hop producer.

“When I first started thinking about this, I thought, ‘what

does anyone in the White House know about anything going on in

the street?’ Do they have any idea what this represents or what it

means? They couldn’t be farther apart. But then I thought, ‘wait a

minute, they have commonalities. They have the bling and the

group think is exactly the same—[the White House] is just another

type of gang.’

Cale’s delving into new production brought about a new

philosophy—and with his new CD, more than just presidents and

producers can find common ground. Acetate is heavily reliant on

technology, yet it’s possibly Cale’s most organic work. With his

reputation for exploratory music, Acetate offers pop lullabies and

comedic though acerbic commentaries—it’s a new direction for

Cale, but that’s what diehard fans have come to expect.

“For Acetate, it’s a one man band,†Cale explains. “We didn’t

use the technology as severely as we did on Hobo, and that whole

thing was locked to a click track. This time we let it be as

inaccurate as we could stand. Generally, there’s a thing called

quantizing, which takes all of the inaccuracies you’re playing and

puts them in time, and we didn’t do that. We let it bubble along

until we got to the song ‘Woman,’ where the MPC took over. That song has a dual personality. It has this edgy, hip hop groove to it,

but it ends with an anthemic arena rocker.â€

Acetate sees Cale as adventurous as ever, but perhaps

mostly pushing the nature of his own catalogue. “Outta The Bagâ€

features a fun, falsetto–voiced Cale, while “For A Ride†shows how

much Cale influenced bands like Love and Rockets. “Perfect†is

pure power pop, and “Satisfied†offers a lush ballad, but the

stand–out for me is the self–deprecating “Brotherman,†which sees

Cale at his most relaxed and honest, exclaiming “I write reams of

this shit everyday.â€

“That’s a joke and it happened by accident,†clarifies Cale. “I

was just ranting in the studio and everyone in the booth was

laughing and telling me to keep going. What I hear when I listen

to the track is my trying to avoid being political, but it’s still there

a little bit.

“This is a light–hearted album for me,†adds the singer. “It

has humour and goofiness. ‘Outta The Bag’—People tried to get

me to sing it an octave lower, but it just lost all of its charm. Even

when I perform it live, even if I can’t hit the notes it doesn’t

matter, everybody gets it.â€

And as Cale is set to return to the area after a decade or so

away, he promises not a man and a computer but a full–on rock

show. It might not focus too heavily on the drones and durges of

his earliest works; but with a VU tune thrown into a mix of more

of his recent work, John Cale presents an artist on a different

plane, ready to deal with his past glory and prepared to present

his future.

“Mainly, it’s a slamming rock and roll show,†beams Cale on

the new Acetate tour. “A lot of people haven’t seen me in that

context for a while, so these shows are offering me a lot of fun

with these guys…

“For this record, I developed a sense of humour and we

don’t have any problem recreating anything on the record onstage. For Hobo we played with [backing computer] tracks, but

this is a lot more raw. There’s mostly this record, some of Hobo

and even a VU song… But overall, you’re going to be standing in a

wind tunnel when you hear this band.â€

Will Cale’s return be an occassion for a plethora of new fans

to be inspired to create new sonic sounds in his wake? Should we

applaud or blame Cale for helping to create a wealth of new

musicians that find beauty in noise? With his reputation, Cale can

muse on his past philosophy to challenge musical convention or

to offer a ‘rub’ against the grain of expectations.

“The rub is really good sometimes,†muses Cale on any

young musician set on creating challenging music. “It’s how long

you can live with the rub that really shows how interested you are

in the future. You rub against things and if something grates

against you… When you can’t solve a problem, it’s the same

thing. How patient or insistent are you to solve a problem? Some

problems are worth solving and others are not. So that really is

the best question—is it worth solving this problem?â€

And whether historians will thank or blame him for a

cacophony of exporations from countless followers of his musical

teachings, Cale muses on the thought and only replies: “I kind of

like the Zen attitude towards it, and I’ll say it’ll be sunny today.â€

[Schwa.]

Whoa!

Just checked the price of the show and its 30$ for advance tix.