Timeline: 1985
Concert on Spanish TV
A concert filmed at Prado del Rey (TVE Studio 1), Madrid, Spain on February 26, 1985 for the La Edad de Oro program is. broadcast on TVE2.
Camera Obscura
Produces Nico's final studio album Camera Obscura. He also co-wrote and contributed a bit of vocals to the title track, sharing credits with Nico and her band members James Young and Graham Dids. The whole album is recorded and mixed in three weeks. James Young, who played keyboards in her band, in his book Nico - Song They Never Play On The Radio:
"I was blown away by the man's musicality. I'd never experienced that depth of commitment to art before, in anybody. He lived and breathed it, to the point of it becoming exhausting. We were living together in Brixton, and after the studio sessions, he'd get a mix on a cassette tape and he'd be playing it in the taxi on the way back to the flat. You'd have time to grab a beer and a cheap eat and then you'd be back listening to the mix throughout the night. You'd grab an hour's sleep and then it would be back to the studio. It was constant analysis. You could say it was over-excessive to the point of neurosis, but I found it an intensely educative experience. It was like finally doing a post-grad course."
Father Cale
On 14 July his daughter Eden Myfanwy is born in Beth Israel Hospital, New York City. He celebrates with a bottle of wine and a gram of coke. After a month reality kicks in. He kicks off and takes up squash.
"You're looking at this creature in your arms thinking, 'You're going to miss out on the best parts of your life if you don't stop. I'm not a politician, but those that don't know history will only live to repeat it. That's one of the things I'm convinced I'm not going to do."
The Jazz Butcher cover Leaving It Up to You
The Jazz Butcher record a version of Leaving It Up to You, released on vinyl with Abstract Magazine Issue 5.
Artificial Intelligence
In September the Artificial Intelligence album is released.
Most of the lyrics on this album were written by the journalist Larry "Ratso" Sloman. An outtake of this album - She Never Took No For An Answer - appears on the Sid & Nancy soundtrack (1986).
"After I finished Camera Obscura, I went away for a couple of weeks, wrote some songs with counterculture journalist Larry Sloman, and came back and made Artificial Intelligence. That was a good way of working, very efficient. But Artificial Intelligence, my last pop album, didn't have much impact, I can't figure out why, because I liked that record. There were a lot of good ideas in it. We had three and a half weeks to complete it, which was ridiculous. We spent one week writing material and then we went into the studio and threw half of it out. Too many of my records were done like that. Give me five grand and you can have the cassettes. I am a ham. but at the time I was very pleased with Artificial Intelligence because for a change there was more singing in there than screaming. Some of it has that psychotic element, but it's downplayed and it's more effective that way. Just sing the song, don't get excited, just take a little blue pill."
However, doubt had crept in as well during the recording sessions. Being a drug addict was no fun:
"I felt there was a certain kind of heroism in my way of life. The heroic stance is to batter yourself with drugs and alcohol and still be able to stand up. And you can, but you find out that the law of diminishing returns comes around with a vengeance. And for me that had kicked in in 1982, at the end of Music for a New Society. So by the time I made Artificial Intelligence I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I thought I was in control and I didn't like the fact that I wasn't. It was a miserable time. It was like trying to sort out your business and your personal life in the middle of an earthquake."
Dying On The Vine single
Dying On The Vine b/w Everytime The Dogs Bark is released in the UK as a single on 7" and 12". Neither format becomes a bestseller.
He performs Dying On The Vine live on the UK music program Old Grey Whistle Test on December 12.
Satellite Walk remix
A dance-remix of Satellite Walk created at Sigma Sound in New York by engineer and producer Carl Beatty is released as a 12" in the UK, with Dying On The Vine and the otherwise unavailable instrumental track Crash Course In Harmonics on the B-side. Also released in Germany in 1986.