Timeline: 1977
European tour with Patti Smith cancelled - sharing the bill with Cheap Trick
After a bunch of dates in March in Europe a tour as support act for Patti Smith are cancelled. She danced off-stage and feel 15 feet at a show in Tampa, Florida on January 23rd, breaking several neck vertebrae. Cale and his band played club shows in California instead. Up and coming power-pop band Cheap Trick are the support act during a 3-night stand (March 17-19) at the Starwood Club in Hollywood. Not exactly a match made in heaven.
Croydon Chicken incident
Cale was playing The Greyhound in Croydon, UK on April 24. During Heartbreak Hotel a dead chicken was introduced on stage which Cale decapitated with a meat cleaver. Two of his bandmembers, both vegetarians, were not amused. They walked.
This stunt haunts him until this day, but he did not kill a chicken on stage. A roadie did it before the show. Backstage.
"I am singing, 'We could be so lonely,' swinging the chicken around by its feet, nobody in the audience knowing it was dead, 'we could be so –' Twhok! I decapitated it and threw the body into the slam dancers at the front of the stage, and I threw the head past them. It landed in somebody's Pimm's."
Dirty Ass Rock 'n' Roll jukebox single
No singles were released to promote the Slow Dazzle album when it was released. Island however does a belated coupling of Heartbreak Hotel and Heartbreak Hotel in France aimed at jukebox distribution.
Lester Bangs single
Mixes the single "Let It Blurt" / "Live" by music journalist Lester Bangs. The band consist of David Hofstra (drums), Jay Dee Daugherty (bass), Jody Harris (guitar), and Robert Quine (guitar).
It is released on his own label Spy Records in 1979.
Kate & Anne McGarrigle's Dancer With Bruised Knees
Plays organ on the title track of Dancer With Bruised Knees, an album by Canadian singer-songwriters duo Kate & Anne McGarrigle. Plays marimba on Be My Baby.
Kate McGarrigle on working with Cale:
"He has a tendency to throw out ideas, and some of them are great, and he's constantly thinking, and some of them are very good, but he probably has to filter through a whole lot of ideas that he tries and doesn't work. We'll have to see. He has that freedom of mind, some of his stuff we'll use and some we'll change, I wish I could come up with that kind of original idea. Normally my ideas are very safe and so are Anna's. Especially instrumentation, not so much vocals."
Keyboards for Julie Covington's "Only Women Bleed"
Plays keyboards on the Only Women Bleed single, a cover of the Alice Cooper song by English singer Julie Covington. Cooper loved it and sent her a complimentary telegram.
The single is included on the expanded CD-reissue in 2009 of her self-titled debut album from 1978 on which Cale performs on four songs. The reissue was renamed Julie Covington ... plus.
Chris Spedding & Pat Donaldson encore in London
Former band members guitarist Chris Spedding and bass player Pat Donaldson join Cale on stage at the Roundhouse in London on April 10 for the encore of Baby, What You Want Me To Do? and I'm Waiting For The Man. The Clash were supposed to be playing as well - they were the second act on the bill - but they bailed.
Spy Records
Founds his own record label Spy Records with Jane Friedman and Michael Zilkha, who had interviewed him for Andy Warhol's magazine Interview. Zilkah would later found Ze Records, the record label for which Cale would record three albums in the Eighties: Music For A New Society, Caribbean Sunset, and Comes Alive. He would also produce other artists for the label. Distribution of Spy is handled by IRS records.
The offices of Spy were housed in Cale's 250 West 57th Street office. He mixes the debut single of rock critic Lester Bangs: Let It Blurt b/w Live.
The Spy logo was designed by Michel Esteban, using an image of Cale's eye from his Fear album cover.
"Spy Records was a toy of mine for a long time. Its creation made the recording of Sabotage/Live possible, and we put out a single by the rock critic Lester Bangs and an EP by the Model Citizens."
Spy discography
- SPY 001 Harry Toledo & The Rockets - "Busted Chevrolet" EP (7", EP)
- SPY 002 The Necessaries - "You Can Borrow My Car" (7", Single)
- SPY 003 Lester Bangs- "Let It Blurt / Live" (7", Single)
- SPY 004 Model Citizens - "Untitled" (7", EP)
- SPY 005 Marie et Les Garçons - "Rebop / Attitudes" (7", Single)
- SP004 - John Cale - Sabotage/Live (LP)
Australian singer Geraldine Fitzgerald was suppossed to record a cover of Antarctica Starts Here, with Cale producing, but that never happened. He produced a couple of tracks for Canadian pop punk band The Poles, The Loose Screws, and The Reasons, with the prospect of releasing them on the label, but the recordings got shelved. The No-No Band and the Readymades were signed to the label, but nothing came of it. Spy Records closed its doors in 1980.
Producing the punks: Squeeze, Sham 69, Menace
Punk takes off in a big way in the UK. The new kids on the block are in awe of the fact that Cale is a founding member of The Velvet Underground and that he has produced the first albums by Patti Smith (1975) and The Stooges (1969). He is considered to be cool enough to help them out to commit their angry sounds to vinyl.
Step-Forward Records label co-owner Miles Copeland had already hooked him up with The Police in 1976, but there was no chemistry and the sessions were aborted.
Cale produced three bands:
- Packet of Three (Cat On A Wall b/w Night Ride + Back Track), an EP by London based band Squeeze (the EP's title comes from the UK term for a standard package of condoms).Reorded at Pathway Studios in London. He would also produce their self-titled album, released in 1978;
- I Don't Wanna b/w Red London/Ulster, a single by Hersham based band Sham 69. The songs were recorded in August at Pathway Studios in London;
- I Need Nothing b/w Electrocutioner, a single by London based band Menace, recorded in June 1977. Finally released in 1978. A third track, I Like Chips, is included on a reissue in 2020.
(Thanks to Laurent Cobac <lcobac@yahoo.com> for the cover scan)
Producing demo sessions with The Police
Produces demo sessions with The Police at Pathway Studios in London on August 10, recording a version of Dead End Job and two vocal takes of Visions Of The Night.
There is no real connection and the recordings never see the light of day. It did not help that he was quite drunk, and did not like Andy Summers guitar playing - he wanted the band's original guitarist Henry Padovani instead.
Guts
Release of Guts compilation on 11 September. His first best of album features tracks from Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy, the three albums he made for Island.
Includes the previously unreleased track Mary Lou and Leaving It Up to You, which was deleted from Helen Of Troy. After shipping the first pressings Island Records replaced the track with Coral Moon, because it mentioned Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanksi, who was killed in 1969 by the Charles Manson gang.
Producing Harry Toledo & The Rockets
Produces an EP for New York punk band Harry Toledo & The Rockets. Harry Caswell:
"We set up a couple of rehearsals and discussed which songs he was most interested in producing for an EP. John was a classically-trained composer and performer, versatile on several instruments; we were free-spirited rockers with a penchant for the avant-garde. There was a connection between John and myself that disciplined the group and focused our eclectic and populist material. I had a song that kept changing from a minor to a major chord after each verse and that drove John nuts. He lectured me on how you don't do that unless that's the point of the music, which of course it was. I kept the changing chords and we moved on to another song. John would sit at the mixing board, and then pop out to pick up a guitar to add a rhythm part, or let the tape roll and fill out an arrangement with a poignant keyboard invention."
The EP contains four tracks:
- Busted Chevrolet
- Yo-Ho
- Who Is That Saving Me
- John Glenn
This is the first release on Cale's label Spy Records. Who Is That Saving Me is included on the Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966-2006 compilation album (2012).
Harvey Gold covers "Close Watch"
Harvey Gold - guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist for the American experimental rock and new wave band Tin Huey - covers Close Watch. It is the A-side of his 7" solo single Experiments.
Animal Justice
Releases his first EP, Animal Justice, in September with three tracks: Memphis, Chickenshit and Hedda Gabler. Released as a 7" 33rpm and 12" 45rpm.
Chickenshit is a putdown for the band members who walked off stage after the Croydon incident. Backup vocals by his lover/manager Jane Friedman.
Memphis and Hedda Gabler were re-released on Seducing Down The Door and the CD re-issue of Sabotage/Live, which also includes Chickenshit.
Jamming with Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson and Corky Laing
Cale foots the bill for a workshop album recorded at the Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY with guitarists Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter, and drummer Corky Laing. Ronson:
"By late 1977, Ian and Corky came together and decided to give it another go. Ian suggested bringing Mick Ronson in, and the trio began rehearsing and hanging out together. John Cale was recording in an adjacent studio one night, so Mick suggested dropping in to see him. At Cale's urging, the group decided spontaneously to record an album, so the four - Hunter, Ronson, Laing, and Cale - recorded about an hours' worth of material on Cale's dime."
Ian Hunter:
"When I worked with Cale, that was great, really great. He brings something into a room, an aura. We did an album once, a workshop album. It was with Corky Laing and Mick Ronson. It was some great stuff, all the lyrics were stream of consciousness. Apparently, I'm one of the few people who can do that, if I get excited enough. I can reel off words without writing them down. They just come. We had it going for two nights, and it was great."