Timeline: 1987
Andy Warhol dies
Andy Warhol, visual artist, film director and "producer" of The Velvet Underground & Nico, dies on February 22. He was making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia. He was 58.
Cale attends the memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on April 1st, and talks to Lou Reed.
The painter Julian Schnabel suggests that he should write a memorial piece for Andy, planting a seed for what would become the Songs for Drella album with Lou Reed.
La Monte Young copyright clash
Avant-garde musician La Monte Young is offered a multi-album deal by Gramavision Records. He wants Cale and Tony Conrad to sign a contract to recognize him as the sole composer of the music they performed with The Theatre of Eternal Music in the early Sixties. They flat out refuse to do so. Conrad goes as far as picketing Young live performances.
Billy Bragg covers "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend"
English singer Billy Bragg covers Fear Is A Man's Best Friend on his Peel Sessions album.
Why Don't You Smile Now cover
A cover of Why Don't You Smile Now is released on the five track 12" EP MoeJadKateBarry by Maureen Tucker, Jad Fair, Kate Messer and Barry Stock.
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Release of the live album Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. The tacks recorded in 1978 and 1979.
Previously only available as a mailorder LP in 1986 with a different song list and cover art.
According to the sleeve notes the first 4 tracks were recorded live on December 28, 1978. The other four tracks on December 31, 1979. The venue for both gigs was CBGB's in New York. Guitarist Ritchie Fliegler begs to differ:
I just received a copy of Cowgirls (I got it on Amazon) it's interesting. And, while definitely recorded at CB's there are some big errors.
The first 5 songs are the Judy, Kral, JD, Bruce and me band. From when, I don't remember. However the liner notes say it's the first four songs - This is absolutely incorrect - it's the first five.
The last three songs: Somebody, Decade and Magic are another gang altogether. Listening to this CD was the first time I have ever even heard them. Of this I am totally sure beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It is likely that the sleeve notes for the LP and the CD are the same, although the tracks were not. It was never amended.
Life Underwater
Performance of Life Underwater in New York. His daughter Eden Myfanwy is part of the show, reading a few words on stage. The first lines of the show go like this:
"There is the mariner. Ready for the sea. Where his footsteps will not be heard, nor leave their mark, so much lost in time...."
Director Zoe Beloff made a movie based on this piece in 1994.
The music was never released. An excellent bootleg recording of a performance in Munich can be found on John Cale & Strings.
"Sanities" misquoted in Watchmen comic
A part of the final lines of Sanities - "All so that it would be a stronger world / A strong though loving world / To die in" were misquoted by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in their Watchmen comic, on a full page and the final panel of the comic's twelfth issue (October 1987). Fictional anti-villain Adrian Veidt gets it wrong again - "I envision a stronger, loving world" - in the fifth episode of the Watchmen television series in 2019.
"The Falklands Suite" in Amsterdam
The Falklands Suite get its world premiere on November 14 and 15 at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with the Metropole Orchestra and Stedelijk Helmonds Concertkoor.
It consists of four poems - There Was A Saviour, On A Wedding Anniversary, Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) set to music by Cale, and two instrumental interludes. The performances are filmed by Dutch TV.
"This was a period of much creativity. Yet the sessions seemed to be longer and more tiring as they proceeded. The orchestration had to wait another nine months and had it not been for a proposal of the Paradiso Club in Amsterdam that I give a performance of the poems with the Metropole Orchestra, this piece might have died there and then. It forced my hand and I went to work immediately. My having a tape recording of the performance was an important factor in the future of the piece. I sent a copy to Brian Eno, how had by now established Opal Records via Warner Brothers, and the enthusiasm Brian showed for the piece was immediate and very gratifying."
The November 15 show was filmed by Dutch television.
A studio version of The Falklands Suite, recorded in Moscow with the The Orchestra Of Symphonic And Popular Music of Gosteleradio, was released in 1989 on the Words for the Dying album. No pedal steel or guitar on there. In hindsight Cale was pretty dismissive of using those instruments:
"Too much of a cabaret element,"
Producing Element of Crime
Produces the German rock band Element of Crime album Try to be Mensch. Plays keyboards on four tracks: Nervous and Blue, As Long As I Love You, Don't You Smile and Going With A Stranger.
String quartet for the Massachusetts College of Art
Is commisioned to write a string quartet for this ensemble.
Randy Warshaw Dance Company
Writes four pieces of music for a dance project, performed in New York in November He performs it live with The Orchestra of St Luke's at Town Hall in New York on June 8 and 9, 1991. A studio version is released as Sanctus (Four Etudes For Electronic Orchestra) on the Paris s'eveille - suivi d'autres compositions album in 1991.
Siouxsie & Banshees cover "Gun"
English alternative rock band Siouxsie & Banshees cover Gun on their Through The Looking Glass album.