John Cale was a founding member of one of the best bands ever, the Velvet Underground. But the big difference between him and his more famous Velvets bandmate Lou Reed was, John has a bunch of really great solo albums and Lou only has two — “Transformer” and “Berlin”. Want evidence? Just take a listen to his 70s output: “Paris 1919,” “Fear,” “Slow Dazzle,” “Helen of Troy,” “Vintage Violence,” and “Sabotage Live.” Dude had his shit tight for years after he quit the Velvets. Not to mention his producing Nico, Stooges, Jonathan Richman and Sham 69 albums in his spare time. Plus Lou never wore a hockey mask onstage.
Cale’s albums from this period are a great mixture of disparate influences: rock, pop, classical music, avant garde composers and, in the later years, punk and new wave. They’re all a bit different: somewhat folky, poppy and almost conventional (“Vintage Violence”), baroque, literary and pretty (“Paris 1919″), paranoid and crunchy (“Fear,” “Slow Dazzle,” “Helen of Troy”), and confrontational and abrasive (“Sabotage Live”). Some of these albums feature contributions from other rad musicians like Brian Eno and Chris Spedding. I am unfamiliar with his stuff after that, but plan on giving those records a cursory listen at least considering how much I love the stuff I have.
I couldn’t really find many quality John Cale clips from the 70s, but just check this one out from around the time of “Sabotage Live.” It’s an Elvis cover with Andy Summer of the Police on guitar and some babe on keyboards. “I’m so lonely I could…… DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”