Timeline: 1996
The Velvet Underground in the Hall of Fame
Long overdue, The Velvet Underground are inducted by Patti Smith into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on January 17. Smith:
"They are the Velvet Underground and their work is the clipper ship. We salute them and mourn with them their captain Sterling Morrison."
He performs Last Night I Said Goodbye To My Friend with Lou Reed and Moe Tucker, a tribute to Sterling Morrison, at the induction ceremony. It is the last time that the three members The Velvet Underground plays together. Morrison's widow Martha accepted the award on his behalf.
Score for "I Shot Andy Warhol"
Contributes the I Shot Andy Warhol Suite to the soundtrack of I Shot Andy Warhol. Directed by Mary Harron the movie tells the story of Valerie Solanas, who accused Warhol of stealing her play.She fired three rounds at him in the Factory on June 4, 1968. Warhol never fully recovered. Harron about Cale's contribution:
"I hadn't seen John Cale for a while, but I asked him to score I Shot Andy Warhol. Lou Reed had already said we couldn't use any Velvet Underground songs in the movie because he hated Valerie Solanas, so I asked John, who actually wasn't speaking to Lou at that point anyway. Everything he wrote was so European, and elegiac, and tragic. So I had to ask him to make it more American. Some of his strings were just too dark. John goes into tragic European pretty easily."
Patti Smith again
Plays organ on the track Beneath The Southern Cross on Patti Smith's Gone Again album.
Smith was invited to return the favour and play on Cale's Walking On Locusts album, but this never happened.
Scoring Basquiat
Release of the soundtrack of Basquiat movie, directed by Julian Schnabel. Cale wrote the score for this film. A bit of the music he wrote would be used for Some Friends, a tribute to Sterling Morrison on the Walking On Locusts album.
The soundtrack album for the movie includes his version of Hallelujah.
The Island Years
Island releases a double CD The Island Years. This collection contains almost the full body of songs recorded for the label in 1974 and 1975: the albums Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen Of Troy, and a bunch of B-sides and previously unreleased outtakes. The Liner notes are written by Ben Edmonds.
A renamed budget reissue, Gold, is released 2007 by Universal Music.
Rhinoceros Hunting In Budapest
Plays the manager of a stripper named Lola in Rhinoceros Hunting In Budapest, a movie also featuring Nick Cave. Cale wrote the soundtrack. Written and directed by Michael Haussman. It is premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, USA, on January 19, 1997.
Marc Almond
Plays piano on Love To Die For on his Fantastic Star album.
The album's producer Mike Thorne also mentions Come In Sweet Assassin, Sacrifice, and Violence.
"John Cale has left messages both at home and at studio. Sounds concerned. Maybe he's really messed up his schedule (he’d been asking to shift the date already). Call him. 'I haven't listened to the tape.' That's the least of his worries, and I tell him so. 'Just get over and I'll give you the chord sheet.' After producing an album for him twelve years earlier, I know that's a good place to have him, edgy and spontaneous, under threat and having to be brilliant NOW. As he can be. He arrives earlier than required. Still edgy but very friendly."
Discussing Warhol on the Charlie Rose show
He appears on the Charlie Rose show on May 24 with director Mary Harron and professor Robert Rosenblum, discussing Andy Warhol:
First, Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war and current member of Congress talks about politics in America and his relationship with Bob Dole. Then, New York Times film critic Janet Maslin, October Films managing executive Bingham Ray, and Newsweek magazine's, David Ansen discuss the recent Cannes film festival, which notably included the films Secrets and Lies and Kansas City. Finally, Mary Harron, writer and director of I Shot Andy Warhol, John Cale, a member of Velvet Underground, and Robert Rosenblum, a professor of fine arts at New York University, discuss the famous artist, Andy Warhol, who combined art with pop culture and continues to captivate America years after his death.
Unplugged session Dutch radio
Records Close Watch, Some Friends and Set Me Free for 2 Meter Sessies, a Dutch radio program - August 5. The double CD Het beste uit 10 jaar 2 Meter Sessies, released in 1997, contains only Close Watch.
Patti Smith yet again
Joins Patti Smith on stage at a show at the Shepherds Bush Empire, London, August 7, to play bass on Land and Gloria.
Producing and playing piano for Goya Dress
Produces the Goya Dress' debut album Rooms. He mixed four songs: Rooms, Greatest Secret, Katie Stood On The Benches and The Maritime Waltz . Plays piano on one track - Scorch. The Glorious EP contains a few non-album tracks. Singer Astrid Williamson of this Scottish alternative rock band remembers:
"The sessions for the album seemed to move very fast. It drove me nuts. I think I shouted of possibly cried about it. Then John caught me red-handed trying to redo a vocal, 'Katie Stood On The Benches'. 'Aargh, Astrid, you wouldn't be you if you didn't do this stuff.' Horrifying."
Scorch is included on the Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966-2006 compilation album (2012).
Walking On Locusts
Releases his Walking On Locusts album, his first rock album since 1985. A lot a famous musicians lend a hand, including David Byrne, David Soldier and Maureen Tucker. Nevertheless the album receives poor reviews.
Cale quotes used for the press release:
"The album evolved from being on the road with New York City's Soldier String Quartet, every room we played needed to be rewired to facilitate a string quartet, so during those boring sound-checks we wrote some new songs. A lot of the other albums I've done were improvised in the studio, so they have this tension-filled aspect. I didn't edit too much of this album from where it started.
My songs are always about something, its almost obsessive. I'd like to write a song that's not about anything but inevitably there's something didactic that happens. I'd probably write better songs if it weren't for that.
Dancing Undercover has that loopy kind of fiddle playing you put on top of a song which gives it a slinky, sexy sound and Crazy Egypt is about a woman in Louisiana who sells antiques and whose prime directive is to rip people off. The song came together easily. I had a bass line for the song so I called up David Byrne. He came along and played guitar on top of it, and then I wrote the words. It was very painless.
Set Me Free is the least arranged song and because of that it's very simple, Entre Nous is autobiographical, it's about me being at the center of many different situations at once.
Some Friends was originally just a chunk of music that was moody and drifted around. I was going to use it for a film soundtrack, then I turned on the tape and started writing the words using onomatopoeia. In the end it was just about Sterling. I was glad that song happened because it resolved a lot of things in my head.
I used musicians judiciously, anyone willing to step out of the box a little is worth their weight in gold, then you don't have to tell them what to play."
"Dancing Undercover" on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Performs Dancing Undercover on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (September 25) to promote the Walking On Locusts album. Lance Doss on pedal steel.
Limbo At the Rykodisc Luau
Crazy Egypt and Dancing Undercover are included on the Limbo At the Rykodisc Luau promo, an "In-Store Play" promotional compilation CD put together by his then label Rykodisc that was sent out to record stores.
Producing Maids of Gravity
Produces and mixes the album The First Second by the American alternative rock band Maids of Gravity.
William Burroughs
One track - Dying On The Vine - on a double CD 10 Percent dedicated to the American cultwriter William S. Burroughs.
Producing Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses
Produces the album In Paradisu by Corsican revival band Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses.