October 31, 2008
“Stitches don’t help at all”
Possibly the first John Cale record I bought, Guts is a sampler from the ‘74′-’75 Island years. The Island anthology that came along in the ’90s presents the whole of his three regular issue Island albums, with a few bonus tracks, but Guts — with only 10 tracks — probably does the job almost as well. The title track (source of my title above), “Fear Is a Man’s Best Friend,” “Leaving It Up to You”–first-rate material. And he’s wearing a hockey mask.
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8 Responses to ““Stitches don’t help at all””
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Those are sure three great Cale songs.
“The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife/Did it quick and split” (“Guts”)
I never saw a Cale performance during the hockey mask era. The surgeon’s scrubs era, yep. But not the hockey mask.
Say, you’ve seen the video that accompanies that charming Black Acetate (2005) throwaway “Perfect”, yes? No? Maybe?
Wow, Sheila, no, that’s new to me. Nice song. And seeing the things listed along the side on that YouTube page reminds of the ‘criminally under-appreciated’ ‘79-’84 period, beginning with the absolutely wonderful “Baby You Know” from Sabotage: Live (poorly recorded but still worth having), the rather charming Honi Soit, the mercilessly grim Music for a New Society, and even the least appreciated of all Caribbean Sunset.
“Damn Life,” which I mentioned in Sheila’s Vintage Violence’s post, is Cale’s desperate lyric paired to a truly cracked performance of the “Ode to Joy” and is only one of the joys of Music for a New Society, a mostly very slow and ‘avant-garde’ record, side two of which is broken very neatly in half by the upbeat rock of “Changes Made”, featuring one of Cale’s very fine growling vocals.
Oh, “Baby You Know” is fine!
I’m glad I saw Cale live ’round the Sabotage: Live era. He was much better than one might judge from that recording.
Honi soit qui mal y pense, eh?
Never saw him live — before my time and all — but I do recommend two albums as a fine intro to Cale: Fear and Paris 1919. Sort of the two sides of the guy. It’s still pretty convincing that a guy could do both of those extremes so convincingly.
“Caravans and lots of jam and maids of honor singing crying singing tediously”
It’s not too late, Alesh! I know that Cale was touring heavily last year, so there is still hope.
I do like the two albums you mention, and I’m with you about Hard Cale and Soft Cale. Both ring true.
My friend Cooper Renner is less fond than I am of Soft Cale, but that’s okay.
You’ve seen that great Amsterdam performance of “Paris 1919″ on YouTube, yes? (I think I prefer it to the ‘original’ version on the Paris 1919 album, the production of which never excited me beyond endurance. And Cale’s delivery — in the Amsterdam performance — really gets under my skin. In a good way.)
Oh. And I’ve always liked that line you quote from “Paris 1919″: Caravans and lots of jam/And maids of honor singing crying singing tediously
You’re a ghost
La-la-la la-la la-la la-la
Oh, wow, I’ll check out that video…!
I had trouble getting into soft Cale myself at first, especially since I got into him via the Velvet Underground, where he was in charge of bringing the noise.
Funny thing is, though, a whole bunch of the songs from Paris 1919 pop up in my head regularly, even though I haven’t listened to that album in years (time to dust off the CD collection).