Timeline: 1986
Interferon interference
After catching a cold in Beaufort, France, he is diagnosed with extreme liver damage, caused by many years of heavy drinking. Cale goes on medication and has to take interferon to fix his body's anti-viral defenses for six months to recover.
Another View
Cale plays on three tracks of Another View, an album with Velvet Underground outtakes:
- Hey Mr. Rain (Version I)
- Hey Mr. Rain (Version II)
- Guess I'm Falling In Love
The band played an extended version Hey Mr. Rain on most shows of the 1993 reunion tour.
Producing Lio
Produces three tracks of Belgian electro-pop singer Lio's album Popmodel: Dallas, Barbie and Veste Du Soir. The last track is used as the B-side of the Je casse tout qu je touche single.
Dallas is included on the Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966-2006 compilation album (2012).
David J covers "Ship of Fools" and "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend"
The former Bauhaus bass player/vocalist David J covers Ship of Fools. Originally released on an EP, it is included on his On Glass compilation album, which his also contains his version of Fear Is A Man's Best Friend.
The Velvet Underground on the South Bank Show
The Velvet Underground are featured in an episode of South Bank Show on London Weekend Television. ITV, UK. The documentary is broadcasted on April 27, 1986.
Contains footage of the January 13, 1966 Velvets show at the Annual Dinner of the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry at Delmonico's Hotel, New York. Also included is a solo live version of Thoughtless Kind.
Helen Terry covers "Close Watch"
UK singer Helen Terry covers (I Keep A) Close Watch on her Blue Notes album.
Spacemen 3 cover "Why Don't You Smile Now"
English rock band Spacemen 3 play a 23 minutes drone cover of Why Don't You Smile Now at their concert at Free Form Freak Out, The Blitz, Reverberation Club, Rugby, UK on March 20.
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Release of the live album Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, recorded at CBGB's in New York in 1978 and 1979. It is only available on LP through mail order. The actual release is delayed several times and it finally becomes available in 1988. The label announced plans for a second volume in the press sheets, but that never happened.
Released again on CD in 1987 as a regular album with a different cover and track listing.
Something Wild
Composes the soundtrack of Something Wild, starring Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels. Directed by Jonathan Demme. It is their third collaboration. He wrote the score for the Caged Heat movie in 1974 and Who Am I This Time? in 1981.
The Sleeper sampler
The Sleeper is released on One Pound Ninety-Nine LP - A Sampler of the State of Things. Beggars Banquet BBB 1 UK Sampler.
Sid & Nancy
Contributes one song, She Never Took No For An Answer, to the soundtrack of Sid & Nancy, a movie about the former Sex Pistols bass player Sid Viscious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. It is an outtake from the Artificial Intelligence album, written by Cale and Larry Sloman.
Producing Happy Mondays
Produces Squirrel And G-man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), the debut album from English indie dance band Happy Mondays. The album was recorded in two weeks in December, with the band starting from scratch half-way through, because they were not happy trying to get a bit of funk into the material. It is finally released in April 1987.
"A very quick nightmare. I had just stopped drinking and everything else. The band complained that I was on a health kick and that all I did was sit around eating tangerines all day long."
"It was a black mark on me for not being the John Cale they thought they were going to get. But those sessions were full of folly. You know, Bez not being able to stand up straight even when he was sober. Seeing Bez try and play a tambourine was like watching a building collapse. It was very funny, but we got it all done."
Tony Wilson, record label owner of Factory Records, loved what Cale had done for Patti Smith, producing her Horses, so he reached out:
"When John first asked me what the Mondays were like, I said, The best way I can describe them, so you know what your letting yourself in for John, is scum. They are fucking scum."
Kuff Dam is included on the Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966-2006 compilation album (2012).