Skip to main content

John Cale

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Four stars

 

Swatting flies probably wasn’t on John Cale’s agenda prior to his Edinburgh International Festival appearance, but such an irritating insect circles Cale over several songs in. The elder statesman of avant pop classicism finally appears to repel the assault from behind his keyboard, necessitating a roadie to come on and reposition his microphone. 

This gives an extra edge to an already mighty Guts, from 1975 album Slow Dazzle, one of several sojourns through Cale’s 1970s post Velvet Underground purple patch. This sees Cale’s superb three-piece band led by long term guitarist Dustin Boyer breathe fresh life into the title tracks of Cale’s Paris 1919 and Helen of Troy albums, from 1973 and 1975 respectively, as well as Barracuda, from 1974’s Fear record. 

 

Fleshed out by understated electronic textures that go beyond rock and roll to something more progressively propulsive, there is even a magnificently demonic take on 1980 single B-side, Rose Garden Funeral of Sores.

The scene is set from the start by way of the organ and atonal guitar drones that soundtrack a screen awash with 1960s arts lab static which introduces a set of old favourites mixed and matched with songs from Cale’s recently released Mercy album. On both, the rich croon of his singing voice retains its melancholy splendour throughout. 

 

A woozy, timeless air permeates the slow burning synthetic beats that punctuates both old and new material, with Cale makes nods to his colourful past as if taking stock while still looking forward. This is done by way of his wild years referencing Night Crawling, and, most definitively, on Moonstruck (Nico’s Song), a personal reflection on the former Velvets singer whose solo records he produced. Topped off by his long-standing party piece of a fractured Heartbreak Hotel, Cale may be looking back in languor, but there are no flies on him yet. 


The List, August 2023

ends

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Edinburgh Rocks – The Capital's Music Scene in the 1950s and Early 1960s

Edinburgh has always been a vintage city. Yet, for youngsters growing up in the shadow of World War Two as well as a pervading air of tight-lipped Calvinism, they were dreich times indeed. The founding of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947 and the subsequent Fringe it spawned may have livened up the city for a couple of weeks in August as long as you were fans of theatre, opera and classical music, but the pubs still shut early, and on Sundays weren't open at all. But Edinburgh too has always had a flipside beyond such official channels, and, in a twitch-hipped expression of the sort of cultural duality Robert Louis Stevenson recognised in his novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a vibrant dance-hall scene grew up across the city. Audiences flocked to emporiums such as the Cavendish in Tollcross, the Eldorado in Leith, The Plaza in Morningside and, most glamorous of all due to its revolving stage, the Palais in Fountainbridge. Here the likes of Joe Loss and Ted Heath broug...
2 comments
Read more

Carla Lane – The Liver Birds, Mersey Beat and Counter Cultural Performance Poetry

Last week's sad passing of TV sit-com writer Carla Lane aged 87 marks another nail in the coffin of what many regard as a golden era of TV comedy. It was an era rooted in overly-bright living room sets where everyday plays for today were acted out in front of a live audience in a way that happens differently today. If Lane had been starting out now, chances are that the middlebrow melancholy of Butterflies, in which over four series between 1978 and 1983, Wendy Craig's suburban housewife Ria flirted with the idea of committing adultery with successful businessman Leonard, would have been filmed without a laughter track and billed as a dramady. Lane's finest half-hour highlighted a confused, quietly desperate and utterly British response to the new freedoms afforded women over the previous decade as they trickled down the class system in the most genteel of ways. This may have been drawn from Lane's own not-quite free-spirited quest for adventure as she moved through h...
Post a Comment
Read more