Timeline: 2006
"Jumbo in tha Modernworld" debut in London
Debut of the new song Jumbo in tha Modernworld at The Garage in London - January 25. A studio version is released as a single on June 19.
David J covers "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend"
The extended reissue of David J's On Glass compilation album contains his version Fear Is A Man's Best Friend, plus Ship of Fools from his Blue Moods Turning Tail EP released in 1985. Both covers were previously available on the US only On Glass. The Singles compilation released in 1998.
New York in the 1960s 3CD box set
The three albums with Cale's archival avant garde recordings are released as a 3CD box set. Two bonus tracks on the third disc:
- Cold Starry Nights (from the Jack Smith album Les Evening Gowns Damnées)
- Silent Shadows on Cinemaroc Island (from the Jack Smith album Silent Shadows On Cinemaroc Island)
A single CD sampler with 7 tracks was send out to the press. A 5LP version was released in 2004.
Outta The Bag single
Outta The Bag is released in January as a one-track CD promo to gain some traction for the digital release of the song and the blackAcetate album.
Velvet Redux Live MCMXCIII DVD
The live video Velvet Redux Live MCMXCIII, recorded in Paris during the 1993 reunion tour, is re-released on DVD. The DVD has been remixed in 5.1 Surround Sound. No extras compaired to the original video released in 1993.
Compounds and Elements: Cordoba & Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
The album Compounds and Elements on the All Saints record label features the album version of Cordoba from Wrong Way Up and the live version of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night from Fragments Of A Rainy Season.
Ladybug Transistor covers "Empty Bottles"
American indie pop band Ladybug Transistor covers Empty Bottles on their Here Comes the Rain EP.
Nicolai Dunger covers "Amsterdam"
Swedish singer Nicolai Dunger plays Amsterdam during a live broadcast by the 89.3 The Current live at South By Southwest, March 16, 2006 at Capital Place Hotel, Colorado Room (18th Floor), Austin, TX.
Norman Dolph's The Velvet Underground acetate
On April 25, 1966 engineer Norman Dolph makes two acetates from the Scepter sessions by The Velvet Underground. It contains nine tracks in a different running order, all alternate tracks.
One of the acetates pops up on eBay, listed by Canadian collector Warren Hill who paid $0.75 for it at a flea market in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City in 2002. It was sold for $25,200. There was a winning bid of $155,401, but the buyer backed out. It was released officially on The Velvet Underground & Nico - 45th anniversary deluxe edition box set in 2012.
Producing Alejandro Escovedo
The Cale produced album The Boxing Mirror by American rock musician Alejandro Escovedo is released on May 2. The album was recorded in 2005. Cale also mixed one track: Take Your Place.
Take Me Away is included on the Conflict & Catalysis: Productions & Arrangements 1966-2006 compilation album (2012).
Paris 1919 remastered & expanded
Rhino releases an expanded version of Paris 1919. All tracks are remastered. There is one outtake - Burned Out Affair - and numerous alternate takes and mixes. The extensive liner notes are written by American novelist and screenwriter Matthew Specktor:
"This record is exquisite, yes, and it's piercingly intelligent, despairing of just about every characteristic that's landed us, people, just where we are today. ('Nothing frightens me more / Than religion at my door' [Hanky Panky Nohow] isn't exactly nonsense after all, is it) Yet - yet - it's, ultimately, a humane record, to an extent that seems shocking from someone whose contributions are yoked (to a not-very-inquisive eye) to ideas of sadomasochism,, violence, punishment of every stripe: audio, psychological, psychosexual, historical."
"Perfect" video on Paste DVD
A free DVD with no #21 of American music monthly Paste Magazine contains the promo video for Perfect.
Expanded "Paris 1919" in Uncut
The July issue of English music magazine Uncut has a review of the expanded Paris 1919 album. Comes with a free cover mount CD with Hanky Panky Nohow.
Cale on "The Velvet Underground and Nico" in Uncut
Cale does a track-by- track of The Velvet Underground and Nico album in the August issue of English music magazine Uncut. Venus In Furs is included on the cover mount CD. About Heroin:
"The desire for something you can't describe. This is about a guy who is jumping towards God or the perfection of Jesus. There's a ferocious desire within the song to solve a problem. He doesn't have much left apart from a desire to score; spiritually he's bereft, but he thinks if he can get his fix, life will become better. I don't know if it's about a specific person, more likely an amalgamation, but it's a beautiful portrayal of someone at their wits' end. It's the first song where we decided a drone would work. The song was pretty much the same in '65; Lou just changed the key when I played the viola because that's the dominant instrument - the landscape. Everything was downtuned and distorted with the Velvets in those days. We used cheapish guitars. Lou had the Gretsch Country Gentleman; I used a classical viola with mandolin and guitar strings that were eaten into with clips and pick-ups - really scarred, but it got better as time went on."
On The Black Angel's Death Song:
"Lou had this lying around from his Syracuse days; it was something his teacher suggested he write as a poem - free expression. It was almost like prose and we didn't think we could pull it off. But those were the days when, if someone said it can't be done, you did it anyway. When we mixed it in Hollywood we wanted to use maracas instead of that hissing I do, but it didn't come off right. Sterling refused to play the bass. He resented playing bass on Venus In Furs. We played Tom Wilson this and Heroin screaming fucking loud with feedback; broke the speakers, all that shit. And Tom goes, 'Yeah, hey, you're, er, creating something exceptionally good there.'"
Jumbo in tha Modernworld single
The Jumbo in tha Modernworld single is released as a digital download on June 19.
A CDEP version was announced but withdrawn. Promo copies exist which also includes an instrumental version of the song.
Jumbo in tha Modernworld video
Animation created by minivegas.co.uk. Set in fictional world where thin creatures get fucked over by fatter creatures. Justice is done, when the biggest fattie throws up .. flowers.
A small civilisation's greed, results in a filthy gastronimical stampede. Yeah, that rhymes... and there's some fatties in it too.
The video can be found on the Circus Live DVD.
Richard Witts: The Velvet Underground
Richard Witts, a music teacher at Goldsmith College, publishes yet another book about The Velvet Underground. Good information about The Dream Syndicate and the tunings and instruments Cale used. Nicholas Lezard in a review for The Guardian:
A note before the title page says it is "designed for undergraduates and the general reader". Never mind the general reader, it was the fact that the Velvet Underground are now being studied by undergraduates that had me pacing around the room, pinching the bridge of my nose and saying the title of the fifth track on their third album ("Jesus") out loud a few times. Am I getting that old? When I was an undergraduate, they had hardly been split up for a decade. Students shouldn't be studying the Velvet Underground, they should sit around taking narcotics and listening to them. You'll be telling me next that students aren't allowed to take narcotics any more.
Presenting an award to Manic Street Preachers
Presents the Q Merit Award to fellow Welshmen the Manic Street Preachers at the Q Awards ceremony at Grosvenor House Hotel in London on October 30.
He would contribute "keyboards and noise" to Auto-Intoxication, a track on their Postcards From A Young Man album, in 2010.
John Cale: An Exploration of His Life and Music DVD
DVD release of the 1998 documentary directed by James Marsh. Released in the USA on November 26 by Kultur.com (ISBN: 0-7697-8399-6, UPC Code: 032031414099).
Filmed in Garnant, Wales, New York and Rotterdam. Contains interviews with Cale, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Chris Spedding, Maureen Tucker, La Monte Young, biographer Victor Bockris, choreographer Ed Wubbe et al.
Cale talks througout the documentary with music journalist Victor Bockris. They were working on What's Welsh For Zen autobiography at the time.