Heavy Friends
Saturday March 9th, 2024 with Heavy Ben
John Cale (pt.1): performer, composer, musician

Happy 82nd birthday to John Cale, born March 9, 1942 in Wales. In this first episode, we'll cover the 1960s Dream Syndicate experiments, music from The Velvet Underground, and Cale's solo albums. Episode two explores Cale's work as a producer and collaborator. https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/410/64445.html “Who gets kicked out of the Velvet Underground for being too avant-garde? I love that. That’s John Cale.” The breadth of John Cale’s accomplishments has left his collaborators and admirers in awe. “If you had one part of his career, you’d be a legend,” LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy said. “If you were only the producer that John Cale was, you’d go down in history. If you were only in the Velvet Underground, your ticket’s punched to rock ’n’ roll heaven. But then you did all those Island solo records, and the Eno collaboration, and then ‘Songs for Drella,’” Murphy added, referring to Cale’s 1990 reunion with Lou Reed. Cale has one of the most accomplished résumés in rock history, if not 20th-century culture. He grew up in Wales, speaking Welsh until learning English at primary school at the age of 7. Receiving a scholarship, Cale studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London. While he was there he organised an early Fluxus concert, before moving to New York City in the early 1960s. Cale studied under John Cage and Aaron Copland, and later learned about the transformative power of drone from the avant-garde musicians La Monte Young and Tony Conrad. He mingled with Yoko Ono and Allen Ginsberg, had a fling with Andy Warhol superstar model Edie Sedgwick and a short marriage to fashion designer Betsey Johnson. After he was unceremoniously booted from the Velvet Underground in 1968, he became a prolific, risk-taking producer, helming trailblazing albums by the Stooges, the Modern Lovers, Nico and Patti Smith. His catalog as a solo artist is unbelievably rich, tonally varied and full of buried treasure. He is arguably responsible for plucking a little-known Leonard Cohen deep cut called “Hallelujah” out of obscurity. He is inarguably the most important electric viola player rock has ever seen. John Cale’s Musical Journey Knows No Limits https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/14/arts/music/john-cale-mercy-velvet-underground.html (to embiggen the show icon, right-click and choose "Open image in new tab")