John Cale returns to NZ

The Godfather of everything returns for his first New Zealand appearance in over 20 years

For over four decades, John Cale has remained at the vanguard of innovation, responsible for music from delicate beauty to ferocious intensity. From his early- 60s internships with classical revolutionaries John Cage and La Monte Young to his epochal contributions as a member of the Velvet Underground; his landmark production duties for The Stooges, Patti Smith, and the Happy Mondays to his abundant soundtrack, ballet and orchestral detours and his16-album strong solo canon, the one constant in his work is a characteristic unconventionality.

Cale’s last performance in Auckland was in the mid-1980s at the Gluepot in Ponsonby, and though the intervening years have seen that suburb gentrified and up-marketed, John Cale has not inched any closer to the mainstream nor become an artefact preserved from days gone by. An indefatigable presence on the contemporary musical landscape, he has neither compromised his experimental nature nor smugly aimed his work at the museum academia away from the discerning ears of his admirers…

"If you want to be avant-garde, you've got to do it in rock and roll,” he told Word magazine this year. “I see a lot of avant-garde kids today in America depending on process, on method, rather than the force of it, and that's not right. You've got to keep the energy. Avant-garde at it was ... that horse has bolted."

Cale is still drawn to energy, remaining entirely in tune with – and part of – today’s popular music. In May, his version of ‘All My Friends’ by the LCD Soundsystem appeared with the group’s original on that single; he has recently been working alongside Dangermouse; while his most recent albums, 2003’s Hobosapiens (produced by Nick Franglen of Lemon Jelly) and 2005’s BlackAcetate were informed by the kind of urban grooves and rhythms many would associate with artists 40 years his junior. He has no time for resting on past achievements, or sonically repeating himself: John Cale is an artist of the 21st century with the same drive for innovation that has propelled him since his youth.

The one-engagement-only performance, featuring Cale’s current band, will feature selections of his work from throughout his entire career, from the Velvets through 70’s classics Vintage Violence, Paris 1919, and Fear, right through to his recent effort BlackAcetate.

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15
BRUCE MASON CENTRE AUCKLAND
TICKETS FROM TICKETMASTER AND REAL GROOVY

john-cale.com / myspace.com/johncaleofficialsite