Masters at work.
Showing posts with label John Cale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Cale. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Velvet Underground - Squeeze (1973)
Hmm... The Velvet Underground or Doug Yule? Who's Doug you ask? He's that other guy in Velvet, the one that isn't Lou Reed, John Cale or Nico. Yeah, that one. Well after they broke up he had the gull to release this as a Velvet album, although it only featured him and some recruits. All the rest of em were enjoying flourishing solo career's of their own, poor Doug was left lying in their shadow. He could'nt even crack a record deal, so he stooped to this. He even manages to sing just like Reed, so at least it softens the blow. The song "Dopey Joe" is sung in the tune of "Lonesome Cowboy Bill", "Friends" sounds just like "Stephanie Says", im sure you can make plenty of comparisons of your own. So... in conclusion: if four Velvet Underground albums arent enough for you, delude yourself into hearing this, unbiased if possible. Its actually not bad.
squeeeze that cash cow.
[thanks to Forest Roxx]
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
William S. Burroughs in Music.
William S. Burroughs is easily one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, friend and colleague of Allen Ginsberg & Jack Kerouac which comprise the Beat Generation of litterate's and poets, a group of singular influence. He is characterized by his ill-bred subject matter: drugs(most importantly heroin), homosexuality, guns, the dark corners of society and the innards of the soul. Some of his works include: Junky (an insiders guide to the life of a heroin addict), Queer, The Soft Machine(which inspired the band of the same name and the Soft Boys) and Naked Lunch his best known work which received a cinematic adaptation by David Cronenberg. I cannot stress his infamy enough. Here i've collected some of his musical endeavors:
Gus Van Sant & William Burroughs - The Elvis Of Letters
A collaboration between Burroughs and director and musician Gus Van Sant. Burroughs also appeared in Van Sant's movie Drugstore Cowboy. Van Sant plays drum machine, bass and guitar, while Burroughs reads four short pieces with his voice often being electronically manipulated.
William S. Burroughs - Dead City Radio
A collection of readings from many of his works, including Naked Lunch, Tornado Alley and The Cat Inside. Behind his low unmistakable voice lies the musical company of such fellows as John Cale, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan(a Naked Lunch reference) and Sonic Youth.
William S. Burroughs & The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Spare Ass Annie & Other Tales.
"Burroughs' dusty, sandpaper-dry readings from several of his works, including NOVA EXPRESS, are augmented with a combination of hip-hop tracks and found music, such as schmaltzy orchestral pop from the '50s, cheesy synthesizer versions of Bach airs, and Christmas carols."
William S. Burroughs & Kurt Cobain - The "Priest" They Called Him.
More readings, this time accompanied by Cobain's aural dissonance.
William S. Burroughs & Material - Seven Souls.
My personal favorite. A reading of his essay on the final death, the death of the soul and the super secretive purpose of the atom bomb, accompanied by Bill Laswell's musical genius.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
John Cale - Music For a New Society
For Howard. John Cale's most challenging, difficult and (to me) his best solo work.
"It's difficult – it's enormously difficult. It might have been expected from a master ironist that music for a new society turns out to resemble a series of requia. Songs begin to take form and crack and dissolve like angels of icing. There is no hopeful circumlocution. When, halfway through the second side, 'Changes Made' seems about to give birth to the optimism of a fresh world, the following 'Damn Life' breaks it down again.
It would be unbearable – parts of it are, particularly the sluggish agonies of 'Santies' – if not for Cale's elegiac touch. It's a heartless gesture to include a snatch from Beethoven's 'Ode To Joy' during 'Damn Life', but compassion finally overtakes despondency. The people in Cale's world are blind and sorrowful creatures destined for unpleasant ends, yet he is at pains to stress that it needn't be so.
In the extraordinary lyricism distilled in 'Taking Your Life In Your Hands', the cautionary 'Close Watch' or the frozen beauty of 'Broken Bird' the point of the music takes hold – from these lessons something better should come forth. The atmosphere of baroque meditation renders it a half-brother to Nico's Desertshore, which Cale also produced.
The final frame is 'Rise, Sam and Rimsky-Korsakov', a tiny and ghostly lament sung by Cale in a manner that actively recalls Desertshore's 'Le Petit Chevalier'. It sinks out of sight to fit in with a world wound down... to die in." - Richard Cook
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
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