dutch translation

clearly defined topic. a person. The songs have become more harsh, almost graphic. The style is changing. Are there many people you feel related to? I think Leaving It Up To You is quite a successful song, because it comes close to what I've always wanted to do: write a song like T.B. Sheets by Van Morrison. Little else Dylan has done for me." Do you also compose other things? "Short stories. And I've painted, portraits. I'd like to make films." If you can express yourself. "It doesn't really matter which way. But then again, you're not a writer yet if you've written two short stories. It just makes me drink again.

HE TAKES a sip of Remy Martin and passes the bottle. That evening Cale plays with his band in Paradiso. But now he has to tell a story first. "In New York I bought a rock & roll record and it was called Lawrie, sung by Dickey Lee. A boy goes out dancing with a girl, an angel of a girl. And then you hear strange things happen in this world That night I fell in love with Laurie and she said it was her birthday We danced and I took her home She said she was very cold so I gave her my sweater When I took her away I thought incens that I hadn't asked for my sweater back Back to her house A man comes to the door and says you're mistaken asking about Laurie How can you be so cruel My daughter left this world ten years ago, exactly ten years ago today, on her birthday, Then comes the sentence: a strange force drove me to the graveyard He goes to the graveyard and there, on a gravestone, lies his sweater Phoebbbb. .

Bugs Bunny & The Twilight Zone (Oct 20 1976) And he's gone again at Island. Whimsical and intuitive as he is, John Cale has got a taste for performing. as it turns out when, a year after his three-day horror trip, Peter van Bruggen once again joins John Cale, assisted by his manager/friend Jane Freedman, in Amsterdam. She calls him her Bugs Bunny, He is watching a political film, Fun fact: the new New York band that Cale praises in the article may get its very first mention in the columns of OOR because of this

SHE CALLS me Bugs Bunny because I think I'm quite mobile," says Cale, pulling it off with one hand by flipping his hair, making upward strokes along the nostrils with the other, tapping a rhythm of a new song with his feet, and body regularly change positions. In addition, his eyes blink and he speaks somewhat hoarsely, in fits and starts. Kevin Ayers cited him as his bad example (He takes pills for breakfast'), Nico wants nothing more to do with him because he would ruin her records - but don't talk about anyone else. Patti Smith calls working with Cale hell. He has the loyal head of a horse, never reacts to things the way you expect him to and dances terribly unwieldy when he plays his personal evergreens Baby What You Want Me To Do or Memphis Tennessee on stage. But now he looks at Tatort, in a small hotel room, and almost breaks his chair in the process. His behavior defies description, The vocabulary of a gifted and underrated poet and musician suddenly seems very limited to me

FLED from Wales. It was boring there, terribly boring. I wanted to go to the big city. It was always the same in the middle of the night I would wake up and I would be terribly afraid that I was missing something important because I was so far away in Wales. Somewhere in the world, at some point, something is always happening. I couldn't sleep for nights because I knew I was missing a lot. Where are they all? What do they know? It's just nice to be a famous pop singer because then you can be everywhere? Yet you are not the textbook example of a social animal 'I drink an awful lot. In bars and stuff But if you bite the waitress in the thigh, is that social? I go to bars to get crazy. A bar is there to get drunk. So you don't want to be what is a loner Nico's mother tongue? "I want to be too. Also something I'm not wanting to miss. When you're here in Holland, you miss everything that's happening in New York right now. "As long as I'm on stage I'm not bothered by anything. Then it can go out, whatever it is. As long as I can play. But I want to write a lot of new songs, because I've been playing the same thing for so long now. And that crazy stuff, crawling on the floor, is no longer there I want to make music.

THAT AFTERNOON we roam through Amsterdam, because according to reports Nico must live on a houseboat somewhere. However, she appears to have left for America. "There's a really good band playing in New York. Talking Heads. A female bass guitarist, cen drummer and a guitarist. David Byrne. I've done four shows in America so far, at the Lower Manhattan Club in New York, with Lou, Patti, Mick Ronson and David. He really kept things together. A fantastic guitarist. Also has an intriguing voice, very melodic. Sometimes he turned it into a kind of Monday morning metal fabric with his guitar playing. [-] I have to be more aggressive as a producer if I like something. I think too often that people will find out by themselves, but you have to tell them →→

I couldn't sleep for nights because I knew I was missing a lot. Where are they all? What are they doing again?

As a producer, I have to be a bit more aggressive if I like something. Too often I think that people will figure it out on their own

Ingen. I would like to make a living from producing, although I will always limit myself to certain types of music, the one in which I believe. But I could never resist making mick. If I did that, I would go crazy." John Cale and the lipped chickens Three quarters of a year later, there is still no new lael, so the altom remains silent. John Cale does produce the debuts of, among others, The Modern Lovers and Squeeze, til land bundles the London dogie in the compi Tate Gats. In September 1977, the 11 Ammal Justice was born, featuring the well-spoken cummer Chic kembit. A reaction to cen indent during a performance indon, England on April 24 of that When Peter van Bruggen immortalizes the culprit Hoest to an Amsterdam poulterer in a real photo strip, the whole story (which will haunt Cale for decades) emerges. AS MANY will know is John Cale and his American band (which mainly consisted of vegetarians) only got hit after he had produced a body of a chicken in public on stage during a performance. "We were an hour and a half away from our destination and I was in that truck with that Kip. So he had plenty of time to think about what I could do with the it," explains Cale. The band members already felt that something was wrong. went and asked me to reassure them that I wouldn't hurt the chicken went into the hotel right away win room, the atmosphere was a bit solemn and that only made me went with that chicken under my arms my room . It had all become very important incident. I had to do it ugly. They all walked off stage and called it quits from their hotel room. No longer in a band and playing with me. You promised us that you wouldn't would hurt, said one of them. Then I answered it: I didn't hurt him, he was dead in one fell swoop," said the master of macabre humor with a grimace.

We take a rest at an old-fashioned cafe on her Sp. A curly-haired boy asks Cale how the chickens are doing. He says he is a psychiatrist by profession. "Do you need some librium?" he asks Cale jokingly. "Methadone maybe? I have it all with me. He opens a briefcase full of vials. "Ugh. methadone, crap," says Cale with a grimace, as if someone is holding a spoonful of cod liver oil in front of him. "You know, I'd like to wring another chicken's neck. It was a really good feeling," he says suddenly, laughing a little scary. He's inspired again by the poultry shop, where the owner sells whole bins full of chicken. asked him, "Shall we find a chicken?" Jane tells him to stop with that nonsense. John Cale hears voices in the dark (December 16 1979) It seems as if the world has abandoned John Cale, Peter van Bruggen observes when he takes stock of a turbulent century in 1979. At the end of the 1970s, Cale presents Sabotage/Live, featuring new songs recorded in CBGBs to save studio costs. From New York, Van Bruggen oversees the winding path that OOR and Cale have traveled in recent years, while the phenomenon itself sits at the table opposite him more calmly than ever. Well, for Cale standards that is. . For the first time when I had to make an attempt where another OOR editor really didn't feel like it anymore, because he only found an impenetrable mush of words in his path and was not even allowed to record it on his tape recorder. Rik Zaal had received a clearer answer to one of his questions: a black eye. And someone from his then-

record company confided in me that no more female employees were allowed to work with Cale because he had made serious rape attempts before. As the years go by, John Cale becomes more normal on the outside. Almost a jovial guy. When I run into him one night in Brussels, and we decide to try all the bars in a busy street, John Cale has become a common guy who squeezes women in the ass. The music of John Cale. Songs about fear, songs that are not just about revenge, but are meant to be like banlock, songs that are supposed to be about reality, but always turn out to be little thrillers, and songs about love. Cale's Ma Ill contains absurd monotonicity, but also often the childish multi-coloredness of Brian Wilson. The idiosyncrasy of Eno, but also the orderliness of a Phil Manzanera. Cale has written both the most beautiful love song (I'm Not The Loving Kind and I Keep A Close Watch) and the most beautiful black songs (Sudden Death and Fear). His voice is monotonous, but at the same time very sensitive. And above all, Cale is a producer who knows how to do it

My bandmates all walked off stage and called me from their hotel rooms saying they no longer wanted to play in a band with me

to make accessible and enjoyable music. That makes his records very easy to listen to, despite the weird slant of some songs. WE'RE SITTING in a coffee shop somewhere in New York. The television is on loud. Every ten minutes the howling of a police siren sounds outside. It doesn't impress Cale. He's used to it. A siren continues to howl in his head. "Life is all horror. Just look around you. It's all in the most mundane things. We have a channel here, and between the talk shows they show incessant images of a video camera that is just placed somewhere on the street Well, that's when you see things. One minute you're having a fun show and the next minute you're standing over someone's shoulder watching someone being sawn out of a car.

sawing off pieces of metal and sometimes pieces of bone too, you understand? And then you get that talk show again. It all just happens." Finally I realize that we are just scaring each other again. All our stories have one core theme: no mercy. "When we were driving through Louisiana.. nothing ever happens there. Real countryside. But those news reports, boy. They tell in great detail how a car slammed into a building, who was in it, where they lived, how old they were and what they looked like after the accident. And then they sat down to tell us who else had just died. Apart from death, there was no news. When I come to my mother, she actually only tells who there are all dead And if I still knew those and those... Then I say: hey, rather tell me who is still alive, that seems more interesting to me.

Life is all horror. Just look around you. It's all in the most everyday things

Four classic John Cale albums from the 1970s PARIS 1919 1973 Paris 1919 is not a sandwich with sprinkles At first it does not taste good, the vocals are unsteady and out of tune, and an open disharmony between vocals and accompaniment seems to have been taken as a starting point. In retrospect, I'm glad I put the record on again and again. The lyrics often deal with terary descriptions of wartime conditions. The Endless Plain Of Fortune seems to refer to the Drill War, Paris 1919 to the disturbed peace of the world before 1914. Half Past France could be an excerpt from parts two and three of Sartre's De Wegen Der Vrijheid. I like side 1 the most, especially because of the striking affinity with the later work of Moby Grape. On side 2, m Graham Greene is very good, with that wonderful heaving eritime. Paris 1919 is well worth discovering, but you might end up with Cale's last sentence from Half Past France: People always bored me anyway. CONSTANT MEDERS

FEAR 1974 John Cale has taken an easier direction on his latest LP Fear. For most songs, Cale is wrapped in the rock idiom. tile musical design somewhat sonorous Paris 1919. A fact that is reinforced by the somewhat lesser what of most songs, Songs convey frightening fear and uncertainty to the listener and leave him in defense as Cale himself. Cale's records are ankingsrezen , no products that are in calf the goals to do. Anyone who takes the time to delve into the phenomenon will be richly rewarded. To start with, a fragment of the opening track Fear Is A Man's Best Friend "Day inn day out/My feet are burning on the ground/We're already dead/But not yet under the ground." However, the cold of the ground already has John Cale in his On the back of the cover, he sits in a toned, white space on top of a refrigerator. CONSTANT MEDERS

SLOW DAZZLE 1975 In the road plates that John Cale has been making in recent years. developments can be clearly observed. The search for an identity as a rock & roll musician, the introduction of introversion for extroversion and increasing aggression. His constant cries of fear and aggression seem to be the result of Cale's growing realization of the impossibility of life. The past Year has been marked for him by problems with his wife, with drugs, with Nico, with gigs demanded of him by the record company, and what's not to eat anymore. The end of Guts, the climax of Slow Dazzle, is horrifying- You're oppressive as Cale, repeating the closing lines 'In the end, in the end, in the end, in the end', bursts into uncontrollable screaming. For psychologists. Slow Dazzle is indeed, as the title says, undeniably mind-boggling CONSTANT MEDERS

HELEN OF TROY 1975 Helen of Troy is hard to place. The level is slightly below that of the appalling concerts that a mad Cale gave here and higher than that of Fear of Slow Dazzle. John Cale has calmed down, has come to himself, I would like to praise Helen Of Troy for my twenty favorite records, because the artist who, for me more than anyone else, lets his personality shine through his music, is himself now more than ever let know. [...] Sooner or later he will come and get you. See, for example, Sudden Death, with rushed piano and strange atonal synthesizer beats "The conference is over, and they're calling out the guards/The Minister of Justice looks so tired/The gunman on the roof picks his target carefully/The last thing he expected to see was sudden death." John Cale is a terrorist. And he keeps the revolver aimed at his own stick. Who is still afraid of John Cale? PETER VAN BRUGGEN

The merciless rock & roll beast John Cale (80) ushers in 2023 with the monumental Mercy, an almost spiritual sounding album on which he goes in search of mercy and compassion. With guest roles for contemporary trendsetters and talents such as Laurel Halo, Weyes Blood, Sylvan Esso, Animal Collective, Blood Orange, Fat White Family and Actress. At the end of last year we were allowed to speak exclusively to the legendary headstrong Welshman. The Zoom interview with Cale from Los Angeles - wasn't one-two-three, but it still landed on its feet.

DAYSS BEFORE the interview I am asked to send in my questions. Highly unusual, I've never done that. Since it concerns an admired, very elderly artist, I'll do it anyway. With the statement that it is a rough outline for our conversation and that none of the questions are intended to be disrespectful. The list goes to Cale's record company Domino a few days before the interview. When the Zoom session begins, a female voice introduces herself as his manager. She says she's trying to "save" the interview, because there are so many questions about Lou Reed—along with Cale at the helm of The Velvet Underground—and Cale will immediately block it. Indeed, the name Lou Reed appears a few times in the questionnaire: "What is your fondest memory of him?" "What have you learned from him and what he has learned from you

Is there a song about him?" "In the 1970s, were you in a competitive battle over which of you was the biggest rock 'n' roll animal?" I tell the manager I will not bring up the subject of Reed at all I ask her if John Cale has read the questionnaire before the interview. No she has not forwarded it to him. THEN THE CONVERSATION BEGINS, with Cale out of view the entire time. Instead a black screen. "Anyway, my thoughts are with you. his gruff baritone smiles merrily at me. Meanwhile, during the conversation, the Dutch representative of the record company is called in a panic that things are going completely wrong because I have so many questions about Lou Reed

(which is nonsense, I didn't bring up Lou Reed, as promised). Nothing goes wrong in this interview, except that I was seriously taken off guard and the line as drawn up in the questionnaire is not clear to the man behind the black screen. It becomes a somewhat uncomfortable feeling of each other. I think Mercy is an organic spiritual album. Did he want to make a spiritual album? Not really. I started it two and a half years ago. Gradually I adapted a lot. When everything was done, I felt that the songs needed more color. I embellished the ideas, so that other accents emerged. Sometimes a different kind of vocals or instrumentation. There was a lot of room to change something. The record developed itself. For me as a listener he is a unit. Everything is related. It's a very electronic record. Was that what you wanted to make? That's how he became, but there are also lots of strings. They showed up and they stayed THE EXTRA allure often comes from a gastro- vocalist. Many female singers, but also the British producer Actress, and the band Fat White Family on Animal Collective. How are you with got in touch with these artists? "I had worked with a lot of them before at Velvet Underground reunion concerts. Some things on the album I wanted to change a bit, like the abstract of the ideas. The song Marilyn Monroe's Legs is an abstract idea. The idea of beauty is really strong on this album. I didn't want to detract from that. Some of the songs had no structure at all and took advantage of it as the melody grew and developed. Marilyn Monroe's Legs is one of them. The production of this by Actress is striking "I gave her a lot of freedom about the instrumental ideas. They were very important. But the melody itself was already there when I presented the song to him. With Animal Collective the process was more or less the same. It's nice working with them. They came to the studio well prepared MERCY sometimes SEEMS like an overview of your entire career and life. "Well, there were some things I didn't want

The idea of ​​beauty is really strong on this album. I didn't want to affect that

drilling bars. In that sense I didn't use a lot of John Cale ideas. Melodies do not appear in the usual way in these songs. I did that on purpose" However, I hear clear echoes of Paris 1919 and that period in your career. When you sing in Time Stands Still about the 'Church of God and the grandeur of Europe, you almost seem to be quoting Jetterlijk from Graham Greene of Pars 1919. The vocal melodies have very much the typical John Cale DNA I agree with that. But I'm still trying to do that in a different way. I deliberately didn't want to repeat songwriting ideas I've used over time. It was really important to me to present them in a different way. I try to avoid clichés on this record." Wanted to evoke ghosts from the past? No example, in the song Moon-struck (Nico's Song?) Moonstruck junkie lady (staring at your feet, breathing words into an envelope to be opened on your death) I am happy to be able to present Nico in a respectful manner. The songs that Nico wrote have grown. They have stood the test of time with flying colours. They are better than ten or fifteen years ago EVERLASTING DAYS you sing: "I don't make excuses and I don't want to make amends." In my country, making excuses right now is something everyone has to do all the time. :No, listen. That's everywhere. And yes, it is alichen. It's really terrible. Federations do the same and no sustainable ideas are presented there or the state we are in. It's been going on for years. I'm angry that this is happening." But is it really true? Do you think there really are no things you should make or risk? Is there really nothing to blame everyone for "No, I think people are responsible for what they do. If they don't lick that, I'll remind them." Story Of Blood lights me the central track of the record. It's a big song and a lot going on. It's crucial phrase is your aftes to humanity: "Swing your soul." Sang the song with Weyes Blood. I interviewed her twice, special interlocutor. Very wise and always herself. What was it like working with her?

"Easy, she was very nice and has a sensitivity that fits the song just right What exactly do you mean by swing your soul? It's a mix of images. A way of approaching a chorus of a song, making sure people don't misunderstand it. That they don't think it comes from a religious attitude. I don't have that." I remember the famous sentence 'Nothing frightens me more than religion at my door [from Hanky ​​Panky Nohow on Paris 1919). "I haven't changed anything in that." IN THE title track you sing: Days and days were spent in anger/Nights were filled with lust. Is that about how the

people live in this time? Or is that about your own life in the past? "Nec. About now, how things have evolved lately. The lack of respect people have for their own lives." So you didn't want to look back on your life with Mercy? "No, I haven't tried that. There's a limit to how much you can do in songs and albums. I'm really happy with how it's turned out now, the sentiment of the album is good." One of the messages of the album is that we should be aware of anhell and our shortcomings. so also of climate change, but we should not become too doom-mongering. "Right! Very good idea."

The songs Nico wrote have grown. They are really better now than they were ten or fifteen years ago

Hence the song title Not The End Of The World? "Precisely" NIGHT CRAWLING is supposed to be about David Bowie "It's really a memory. We used to run into each other a lot in New York, circa 1970s. We talked about working together, but nothing came of it. I'm very sorry we didn't work harder.. We just didn't have the right combination of ideas to develop things. There was too much partying and this is the result" You have partied a lot in your life. "A lot" You were a savage fella in those years.. How do you look back on that? "As a waste of time. When I stopped partying, I made much more progress as a musician. Everything got better and I was much happier. You waste a lot of time when you are on drugs. We looked up some old articles about you, in OOR and elsewhere "Did what you read make you happy?" Well, the music industry was completely different back then "Interesting! That's a very pro clear way of formulating." While rock & roll today is very corporate -organized and corporate-oh well

Indeed. At that time you were pushing the limits. In the late seventies I saw you play a song in Rotterdam called Jack The Ripper At The Moulin Rouge. I don't think you can make another song like that. You were very provocative. It appealed to the imagination that you set the boundaries sincerely. “That's a very diplomatic way to put it. Did you feel you were being provocative? "Sometimes yes, sometimes no." How do you want to be remembered? As a provocative or constructive person? LAST I SAW the documentary on Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. It discusses the important role you played in the development of that song into the classic which it is now. How do you look back on that? "I've always had a lot of respect for Leonard. He really had a lot of depth as a songwriter. So I was very lucky to have that song to cover." I noticed that your version came back in Shrek. What did you think when you saw that? "I was shocked. If you write or contribute a song about an atmosphere or a sensibility and someone adds visuals to it, you get a whole different idea of ​​what the song is about" Weird how things work out. That you end up in this family film with your performance partly because it became so immensely famous 'It was simply the power of Leonard Cohen's text. Just about your lyrics in the title song Mercy. It seems that you are describing the war in Ukraine, right now. You sing: "Colder, colder, colder/Lives matter/Wolves make themselves there/They're gonna buy more guns/Snow and mud. All that's happening now "Yes, that's what it's about." Don't you find it scary that you can write something like that and it becomes reality in some way? "Well, I'm glad I wrote it in time. The moment wasn't over when I got it

That's why I think Mercy is a spiritual album. Because in this day and age we get to see and experience so many horrible things, and have to deal with that. That' for me is the mood of this album "Yes, I agree." A GENERAL question about the past. What are you most proud of? "That always calls for a conclusion on my part about what I have achieved. There is nothing that justifies a conclusion. It is not yet past, The first Velvet Underground record seems to be about being young forever. When I listen to it, I think wow, this is what it is to be twenty. That record is not dated. How is that for you "Yes, about the same. It was very important to us to make something that was somewhat uncomfortable and always would be. It never got vague, It was always very important to make things clear. The record always received welcome criticism everywhere. " So here we are, talking about something 55 years old. "Yes. Not bad." I asked what you are most proud of. Could that record be it? "Yes, I think so" Do you still listen to it? "No not anymore I really like your 1970s solo records. We had another discussion here about which one is the best. "I can't help you with that." I would say Paris 1919 or Slow Dazzle. There's a battle in my head between those two, but you may have another candidate. "No. I agree with you. Coincidentally two of my favorites too. Mainly Slow Dazzle:" Yes. With hot number Guts. How many times have I had that in my head. Guts, guts, got no guts "Haha;"

It was very important for The Velvet Underground to make something that was uncomfortable in a way and always would be

Life is all horror. Just look around you. It's all in the most everyday things

Routine and routine, they will probably never get a hold of 80-year-old John Cale Mercy is the impressive testimony to that. The album is full of idiosyncratic songs in which conventional structures are far removed and various remarkable guests - from Weyes Blood to Animal Collective - appear. (EAR 1)

Growing up, pop music was still young enough to make the idea of ​​an elderly rocker unimaginable. It has long been clear that pop and rock have no retirement age, but few musicians seem to have as little influence on routine and routine as on the now 80-year-old (!) John Cale. Ever since he moved to New York as a young Welshman to help shape modern pop music with The Velvet Underground, his came re has been all about uniting melody and avant-garde. In recent years he has not been very productive (his previous album

Shifty Adventures In Nooky Wood dates back ten years ago), but when new material appears, Cale undeniably has something to say. Mercy is an impressive testimony to his artistic urgency. The double album is full of exciting. idiosyncratic songs in which clichés and conventional structures are far removed and various remarkable guests make an appearance. Names such as Laurel Halo, Actress, Weyes Blood and Animal Collective not only show that Cale has an open eye for the new vandals of pop music , but also prove the respect that the great man enjoys among a younger generation. Their contributions are valuable, but relatively modest. Mercy is above all the brainchild of Cale himself, who with his undiminished beautiful baritone denounces some of the greatest excesses and threats of the Western world. No doubt there is life before death, MATTHIS LINNEMANN