<\/p>\nLou Reed performs live on stage with Welsh musician John Cale (in centre) and German singer and musician Nico at Le Bataclan Theatre in Paris, France on 29th January 1972.<\/p>\n
<\/span>MICK GOLD\/REDFERS\/GETTY IMAGES.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nCale says he found the Factory \u201cfreakishly enjoyable.\u201d He had an affair with Edie Sedgwick, took all the drugs, and adopted Warhol\u2019s relentless work ethic: \u201cYou just get your nose down and off you go.\u201d But the fun ended when Reed cut ties with Warhol and kicked Cale out of the band.<\/p>\n
Disappointed but also a bit relieved, Cale tried producing and had a hand in such legendary albums as Patti Smith\u2019s Horses<\/em> and The Stooges\u2019 eponymous debut. He also embarked on a restless career as a solo artist. As Reed morphed into the Rock n Roll Animal, Cale refused to be pinned down. He followed up 1973\u2019s lush Paris 1919<\/em> by charging into the art-rock future with Brian Eno. He married and divorced three times, including a short-lived union with the designer Betsey Johnson, and had a daughter at age 43. Her birth inspired him to get sober.<\/p>\nBy 2016, he had released 16 solo albums.<\/p>\n
Cale was touring Brazil when the pandemic hit. He had a nearly finished album in the can but decided to rework it. Released last year to critical acclaim, MERCY<\/em> features an array of ultracool guest artists like Weyes Blood, Animal Collective, and Sylvan Esso. The album addresses our collective contemporary insanity but also includes odes to Marilyn Monroe and his old bandmate Nico.<\/p>\nBut MERCY<\/em> doesn\u2019t capture the full scope of Cale\u2019s frantic creativity during the pandemic. \u201cHe began writing new songs as if it were the only thing keeping him alive,\u201d says his longtime manager and coproducer Nita Scott. \u201cI think the pandemic shifted something inside of him and it came tumbling out.\u201d<\/p>\n\nJohn Cale, 2024; POPtical Illusion, Cale\u2019s 18th solo studio album.<\/span>COURTESY OF THE LABEL.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\u201cI ended up with 70 or 80 songs,\u201d Cale says. The world outside his LA studio offered an endless parade of surreal and disturbing material. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the crazies running around trying to change people\u2019s minds about what medicine is for,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s remorseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the resulting album, POPtical Illusion,<\/em> this consummate team player is on his own, and those who know Cale from the \u201960s and \u201970s may be surprised to hear how modern he sounds. Programmed beats skitter and loop as synths bounce and swirl. On the lead single, \u201cHow We See the Light,\u201d his Welsh-inflected baritone booms over staccato chords reminiscent of the Clash sample in M.I.A.\u2019s \u201cPaper Planes.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen I ask if he keeps up with his old Factory friends, Cale says, \u201cUnfortunately, there aren\u2019t too many of them around.\u201d At 82, he\u2019s focused on what\u2019s next. He\u2019d love to produce a hip-hop album with Tyler, the Creator or Earl Sweatshirt, and he says he\u2019ll never stop making music. \u201cI can\u2019t do anything else, and I\u2019m still learning,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful life if you can live through it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There would be no Velvet Underground without John Cale, who heard an aspiring folkie named Lou Reed strum a song called \u201cHeroin\u201d in 1965 and immediately grasped its avant-garde potential. Together, the classically trained Cale and the city rat Reed revolutionized rock and roll\u2014according to everyone except Cale, who once wrote that the \u201cattempt to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[944,1792,21],"class_list":{"0":"post-104392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-from-the-magazine","10":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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