FIVE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES IN THE CAREER OF JOHN CALE
(Featuring Vintage Violence and Halls of Learning)
by Peter Gorman
1. Goldsmiths' Teachers' College, London (1963) -- Having recently been voted "most hateful student" by department heads, Cale ended his college days at a recital performing LaMonte Young's "X for Henry Flynt" by kneeling at the piano and smashing the keys with his elbows. The Goldsmith faculty were not amused.
2. Summit High School, Summit, New Jersey (1965) -- The Falling Spikes, featuring Cale and the other future members of the Velvet Underground, played their first gig with new drummer Moe Tucker at a suburban high school. The band was so loud and offensive that most of the audience soon fled the room. If Cale didn't decide right then and there to forego playing for academic audiences, he should have. No wonder the academy was in peril.
3. Cleveland, Ohio (1968) -- The Velvet Underground song "Sister Ray" is around 18 minutes long on record. On rare occasions the group played a song called "Sweet Sister Ray" before launching into the recorded version. During this Cleveland show, "Sweet Sister Ray" lasted 40 minutes, and then the band launched into "Sister Ray". The live performance featured Cale's demented viola and future English Professor Sterling Morrison on guitar. Truly a study in feedback, and a lesson in how not to increase your audience size.
4. Croydon, England (1977) -- Without informing his band members of his plans, Cale took a dead chicken out on stage (a roadie had just killed it backstage) and decapitated it with a meat cleaver. He then threw the head and body out into the audience. The show promptly came to a halt, with Cale's band quitting in protest. The incident recalled an Alice Cooper concert during which Cooper (the son of a schoolteacher) threw a live chicken into the audience, hoping it would fly away (it didn't; chickens can't fly), at which point the audience tore it to bits.
5. Tokyo (1991) - A show that included one of the performers having his cheekbone broken by another performer would hardly qualify as a memorable John Cale show, except for one notable fact: it was a fashion show. Cale was one of the models. The show's director had a line of pants out that year with the word "Peace" sewn into one of the trouser legs. Cale bought a pair but had the word removed.
(It is widely believed - still unconfirmed at press time - that Cale once spent 45 minutes of a concert screaming at a plant. It is unknown whether any botany professors were in attendance, but if any were, it safe to assume that they were not amused.)
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