John Cale: master of reinvention
Scores fresh hit with blackAcetate New disc spins fresh generation of fans
At age 64, John Cale might just have his fingers at last on pop music’s greasy brass ring.
His new album, the curiously retrotitled blackAcetate — a reference to the impermanent first impression of a metal “ mother” master used to make vinyl LPs — is probably the best of his 20- plus solo recordings. The disc captures the elusive artistic semantics, the musical currents and the emotional timbre of its time. It’s alternatively doomy and gloomy, tender and transcendent, pretty and vicious, hip- hoppy and psychedelic. When it rocks, it rocks like a hurricane.
Its success seems to have taken Cale by surprise. But he won’t admit this during a brief conversation on the phone earlier this week from Oklahoma City, the half- way point in a North American tour that’s racking up high attendances. He and his band arrive at Toronto’s Lula Lounge for three nights starting Sunday.
“ No one could say it’s not a John Cale record, but then it doesn’t have much in common with anything that precedes it, apart from the fact that it’s the third album in a row that I’ve composed and completed in the studio, from beginning to end,” says the classically trained Welsh violist, songwriter/ poet/ record producer/ music score composer/ musicologist and all- round visionary protopunk architect.
His association with Lou Reed in the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol in the artistic avant- garde of 1960s New York is the bedrock of an entire branch of rock mythology and fertile fodder for serious socio- anthropological study in sundry universities.
“ In the sense that it sounds different from my other work, it is a John Cale record,” he continues. “ It has always been important to me to make every piece of work unique, to try to evolve into the next phase as a songwriter. There’s no end to that process, and the only way you can move forward is by taking risks, by finding a place that’s uncomfortable.”
Indeed, Cale’s own efforts in the postUndergound decades display little in the way of a cohesive musical vision. They range from experimental forays into the organic hypnotics of one- time mentor John Cage and the grand impressionistic structures of Aaron Copland ( under whom Cale studied as a teenage prodigy in Boston), to his own brand of lyrical folk, hard rock, metal, punk, dance and even country music. Even his groundbreaking work as a producer with Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Nico, Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman provides only oblique clues to the presence of a sustaining principle, though those artists all share his renegade spirit and sense of reckless abandon in the studio.
It’s debatable that Cale ever valued mainstream acceptance over artistic freedom, anyway. His career is a series of fits of passion and false starts, wrong turns and great discoveries that are discarded almost as soon as they’re made. The man is defiantly opposed to repeating himself, yet his core audience has remained loyal and respectably large since the 1960s.
“ This time out, it’s a really interesting group,” Cale says. “ Not the regulars at all. They seem to be new people, particularly in Dallas and Denver. I’m not sure where they’re coming from, since it’s unlikely they’ve had time to hear the record, which has only just been released. I do radio interviews wherever we play, but I doubt that accounts for these new fans with a different focus.” Co- produced by Cale and composer/ drummer Herb Graham, blackAcetate was “ built” — Cale’s word — from the ground up, starting with the barest essentials, usually guitar and rhythm tracks.
“ I wanted to get away from my last album ( HoboSapiens, a 2003 collaboration with loop- crazed French DJ Dmitri Tikovi), and because I have a bad habit of overdubbing, I opted this time for grooves, and a more light- handed direction.”
Cale and Graham ended up with 48 completed cuts, from which 13 were chosen for the new CD. No two tracks are alike, and Cale, the singer, moves effortlessly between the almost pure pop of “ Outta the Bag,” with its robust falsetto vocals, to the Morrison-like crooning on “For a Ride,” from the sparse and almost absurdly hypnotic hip-hop riffing in “ Hush” and “ Woman” to the ear- slamming roar on “ Sold- Motel” and the subdued fury in the closing cut, “ Mailman ( The Lying Song).”
“ There was only one consistent idea during the whole process, which started in September last year — to get as far away from the previous album as I could,” says Cale, who makes particular note of the influences of primo American hip- hop stars Pharrell Williams and Dr. Dre, referring to the latter as “ the new Quincy Jones.” The key to his recording process — past and present — is improvisation, he says, and using as many studio tools as he can find “ in order to get the work done more quickly. I like to set goals and see things through. The sooner you reach the end, the fresher it sounds.”
Cale says he has no intention of riding on the success of blackAcetate by releasing another cull from the 48 original tracks, or trying to duplicate the winning formula.
“ We may use a couple of tracks to build something else, but I think the next record will have more rhythm components than this one. My eyes have been opened to all sorts of possibilities.” On stage, Cale is different again, promising what he calls “ a predominantly straight- ahead rock show” featuring a tough, young quartet that was brought on board during the final stages of recording blackAcetate.
“ People haven’t seen me with a rock band for a long while,” says Cale, who promises one obligatory Velvet Underground song at each performance.
“ Maybe that’s why we seem to be getting a new audience. They certainly reconcentrate my mind while I’m performing — that’s the payoff.” Just the facts Who: John Cale, Priya Thomas opening When: Sunday to Tuesday @ 8:30 p.m. Where: Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas St. W. Tickets: $25 @ Sam The Record Man, Rotate This, www.ticketweb.com and @ door