Cataloging everything you’ve done—I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in different ways of expressing myself. If I’m lucky, it will work."John Cale
Timeline: 2025
Paris 1919 book
Mark Doyle publishes his book about Paris 1919 on February 6. He dit not love the album immediately:
As 2006 became 2007, somewhat to my surprise, I also began putting Paris 1919 on again and again. It became my default album, the one I'd play between other albums. The thing about most other music I liked during those years (think Silver Jews, Sufjan Stevens, New Pornographers, and TV on the Radio) was that, however great it was, it couldn't withstand constant repetition. You'd ruin it through overfamiliarity, like a joke told too often, so you had to dole it out slowly. But Paris 1919 never got old. I kept playing it and playing it, and it got stranger by the month.
It came to haunt me, this album-to haunt me and to mystify me. Even today, having played it a million times and sliced it frontways and backways and all other ways in order to write this book, I could listen to it again, right now, and find something new. I know other fans who feel the same way. This book is for them, but it is also for people who were like I was in 2006, impatient and slightly put off by the slick surface of the thing, confused as to how the guy who scraped his fingernails across the first two Velvet Underground albums could create something so warm and comfortable. Maybe, too, it is for the young John Cale himself, who began distancing himself from the album not long after it came out. In a 1974 interview, he called it "a bit too arty... a bit too much on the cultural side." The next album, he promised, would be better. "I don't want to make Procol Harum records."
The liner notes always credited the U.C.L.A. Orchestra as being players on the album, but orchestral manager Joel Druckman goes on record saying that it was in fact the orchestra from the University of South California.
Adam Miller dies
American singer and chorister Adam Miller, who did the vocals for The Soul Of Patrick Lee on the Church of Anthrax album, dies on February 4 in Frederick, Maryland. He was 77. He also provided backing vocals on the Cale produced Nico album Desertshore in 1970.
"All To The Good" video
On February 24 All To The Good is released as the fourth single from the POPtical Illusion album. The promo video was directed by Abigail Portner.
No doubt this world is really f^#%ed up right now - let's make sure we leave a crack in the void. xxjc
Poptical Illusion '25 tour
In February, March and April he is on the road in Europe for the Poptical Illusion '25 tour, with shows in France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, UK and Ireland. Four shows in Germany were rescheduled on doctor's orders. He had to rest his voice.
New song "Long Way Out Of Pain" in Rouen
During the first show of the tour, on February 25 in Rouen, he debuts a new song: Long Way Out Of Pain. He plays it on most dates of the tour.
» Fresh Cale
Order the remastered and expanded Paris 1919 album (2LP, CD) via Domino Records
Order the remastered and expanded The Academy in Peril album (LP, CD) via Domino Records
