Solo albums

Sabotage/Live

About this album

Released in December 1979. Spy Records SP004. Some pressings have a locked-groove at the end of side B with a 'dead-air' alarm sound.

Tracks:

Recorded live at CBGB's, New York - June 13-16, 1979.

The CD reissue on the Diesel Motor label in 1999 contains four extra studio tracks:

"Those kids punching the air in mock salutes declaring they are Ready for War! make me sick... I bet they are ready... like hell. I should have an induction room backstage. Let's see you come back and enlist.

But I have received a lot of reaction from the album like that. Even some of the guys who devise war games for the Pentagon have come to the shows as a result of that record and this tour. It looks like finally I have made an American album.

Right now America has this lingering weak-sister image, but that's because both America and Russia attempt to make deals about the rest of the world while working under the threat of nuclear confrontation. This album is about going through that nuclear barrier, I think that's important. You've got to experience a nuclear war and find out exactly what it does, how people live in the face of it after the fact of it.

There's no reason though, to force my notions on people, I suspect other people are more effective at putting across some of the things i'm interested in. Their ways, at least, are more digestable. I'm afraid nobody really wants to hear what i'm singing about. Its beginning to dawn on me that not that many people are convinced of my commercial appeal."

All songs written by John Cale, except Walkin' The Dog written by Rufus Thomas, Jr, and Memphis written by Chuck Berry.

Musicians:
Mark Aaron: lead guitar
Joe Bidewell: keyboards, vocals
Doug Bowne: drums, vocals
John Cale: vocals, piano, guitar, fretless bass, viola
Deerfrance: percussion, vocals (her name is missing on the expanded Diesel CD reissue)
George Scott: bass, vocals

Other credits:
Mixing: by John Cale & Warren Frank
Executive producer: Jane Friedman
Remixing engineers: Jim Jordan & Roddy Hui at Big Apple Recording Studios, New York
Recording engineer: Charlie Martin
Art director: John Vogel
Cover photos: Hugh Brown

Bonus tracks

Memphis, Chickenshit and Hedda Gabler were released as an EP called Animal Jusitice in 1977. Rosegarden Funeral of Sores was released as the B-side of the Mercenaries single (1980). The master of the studio version of Mercenaries is lost and therefore not included.

Musicians bonus tracks:
John Cale: vocals
Ritchie Flieger: guitar
Jimmy Bain: bass
Bruce Brody: Moog synthesizer
Kevin Currie: drums
Michael Mason: rhythm machine (on Rosegarden Funeral of Sores)