Interviews
Sabotage in Austin
Text by Margaret Moser
Sunday March 21, 2004 5:15pm
San Jose Motel
Austin, Texas
Part 2
JC: Yeah. On the new record, 5 Tracks and Hobo, there are quotes from
Alain Robbe-Grillet. He doesn' t write a novel for 24 years, you know? And
I' m sitting there writing little sob stories, murder poems, you know, like
there' s about five or six of them. And they' re all vague and, you know,
sort of drifty. (Gestures with his arms) And then he comes out with a
novel. And it' s in translation, even. And it puts (me?) to shame.
Unbelievable, this story. And I open up the first two pages of the book,
and in the first two pages I' ve got two quotes. And one is on 5 Tracks and
the other is on Hobo Sapiens. And I can' t remember the difference between
them ...
I know what they' re about, it describes a French intelligence officer on a
train in East Germany, traveling from Weimar to Berlin at the end of the
second World War. And he' s in a carriage and he' s sitting there, and he' s
walking down the carriage and everyone' s sitting there in the train in this
gloom. Carrying bags, bundles, whatever it is. And he' s there. He' s French,
rather well-dressed. As he passes through the carriage, his appearance and
his clothing set him apart from everyone else in the carriage, and when he
opens his mouth and they hear his accent, it makes him feels even more
foreign. And that was just exactly how I felt when I first got to New York.
You know, it was just like nobody understood a word for the first nine
months because my Welsh accent was so thick.
There were all these startling things there, just short little paragraphs
that stuck out. I stuck one in 5 Tracks and another one somewhere else, so
there' s no rhyme or reason to it but ... so, thank goodness for books.
MM: So, you' ve got the online thing going.
JC: Yeah.
MM: You' ve been doing that for the last few years and in the midst of all this cyberspace stuff, these communities are forming out there, we-love-John-Cale communities and stuff like that. How do you regard it, has the ability of cyberspace to bring together your fans changed the way you relate to them?
JC: No. It' s something I studiously ignore, because I think it' s a heavy marketing tool. And really what I think of the web is just mainly a surveillance tool. I mean, I don' t kid myself that all this information is out there just for me to pluck it out of the air and be happy that I had more information than I had five minutes ago.
MM: Uh huh.
JC: It' s really for marketers. It' s more to find out what .. I mean, RF ID and pulling razor blades off the shelf and having that information be attached with the time, the date to your credit card and all that. I mean, all it is is really trying find out what your behavorial patterns are so they can market better. I mean there' s tons of that shit coming down the pike. It' s ferocious and it' s not going to let up. That' s what it' s there for, it' s just to create more efficient markets.
MM: But at the same time, it has opened up this aspect of communication.
JC: There' s a lot of fun out there. (Ticks off on his fingers) There' s a lot of fun, there' s a lot of dangerous shit out there, there' s a lot of sickening things out there. But I haven' t joined any of the communities. I' m not interested in being tagged as ... I have friends and we zip things back and forth, send things to Nita.
MM: Yeah.
JC: But what has had me do is, I can, the night before, read all the
English newspapers, I can get Frankfurt (paper?) in English I can ??? in
English. I can do all this stuff, get the morning Post, the Australian,
it' s all pretty much ... and it' s gotten really boring because it' s all
standardized. It used to be I had to go and search for the Toronto Star on
a Saturday night, on a Saturday morning. I' d get to rush this up, which
would publish the inside reports from the Sunday Times of London on a
Saturday. Now, if I am in London I can get the entire Sunday Herald-Tribune
on a Saturday and I can get the crossword from the New York Times, which is
what I really want! (very pleased with himself). So, you know, it' s all ...
Now, because people pay ... it' s so networked that the same articles
appear. I mean, Al Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage) on the
web is interesting but you gotta be really aware of where it' s coming from
and what the limitations are. I mean, if the (???) model already they (????).
MM: I' m going to stop this and return this call because it' s Raoul and David. (redials) Raoul Hernandez: Hey, how' s it going?
MM: Fine, I am at the hotel interviewing John. How' s dinner looking?
RH: Good, we have reservations for 7:30. How about we leave around 7?
MM: Who' s got a car big enough to hold all five of us?
RH: You do. Three of us can sit in the back.
MM: John' s been sitting in the back.
RH: He can sit there too. (laughs)
MM: (holds phone away) John, do you mind sitting in the back seat with David and Raoul? It might be tight squeeze....
JC: What? (looks baffled)
MM: Just say yes, John.
JC: Yes. (Nita bursts out laughing)
MM: (returns to Raoul) All right. But if there' s any trouble in the back seat ....
RH: Great. (laughs) Pick up at the Embassy Suites at 7.
MM: All righty. Bye.
RH: Bye.
MM: We are set for dinner at 7:30. It' s a little drive north.
JC: (Nods and leans back, lacing his fingers behind his head)
MM: What' s the best film you' ve seen lately?
JC: Film?
MM: Yes. Actually ... let me change that. What are some of your favorite films to watch?
JC: I' m trying to get Francesco Rosi' s films. They' ve only got Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979) and Salvatore Giuliano (1961). Those are the only two. He' s done Carmen, a real ritzy version of Carmen. But he did do a couple of films - there' s another one I' ve seen available. The one I really want to get is the one about the death of the ... assassination of the head of the Italian oil cartel. He' s a communist director and he could get away with things over there that were just pretty touchy. He' s like, kind of Leonardo Sciascia. Leonardo Sciascia' s the Sicilian novelist, right, he' s also a member of the European Parliament and he wrote a book about Aldo Moro' s death (The Moro Affair) that is really very murky about the time that it happened. It asked all the right questions but you know, nobody else would go near it. So, Rosi was like that as well. Anyway, that' s just ... I just want to see 'em. I just bought Salvatore Giuliano. I remember seeing it when I was in college and it' s long but it really gets the Sicilian Mafia.
MM: What contemporary stuff have you seen that you liked, or even something you expected more out of?
JC: Shit. I don' t remember what I saw. Um. Damn. I know what I enjoyed a lot which was that group first did ... what was that movie, with the skiffle group?
MM: A Mighty Wind?
JC: A Mighty Wind, very good. And [David Cronenberg' s] Spider was very good. I like Patrick McGrath, he disappeared up to Toronto for writing it. Because it happened very fast, it was Canadian television, it was done kind of low budget. With those things Cronenberg is really excellent at. What I was surprised at was the score, which was Howard Shore, was a piano score, which is very much like the stuff I did for [Philippe Garrel and those other French guys. But it was very elegant and told the story so well. So I like Cronenberg a lot.
MM: That' s great you liked A Mighty Wind. You never liked folk music.
JC: But it does get it.
MM: It really got it!
JC: When I heard they sang at the Oscars ....
MM: Mitch and Mickey!
JC: (laughs) Excellent!
MM: A lot of people didn' t get it.
JC: The show was so damn long.
MM: I thought it was one of the best in a long time. They didn' t take themselves so seriously.