Part One: I was a prisoner in a lesbian lobotomy jail.

I’ve twice missed making contact with John Cale and I’m getting tired of the chase. The man’s obviously a ghost. He’s always writing ghost songs and he’s had the most unlikely life — from Garnant, South Wales, to Burbank, South California, via a legendary stint with the incipient Velvet Underground. And now I find myself sitting next to this man who says he’s John Cale in a preview theater which is cowering in the shadow of the London Hilton to see a screening of this movie he’s scored called Caged Heat set in a women’s prison in California.

Lingering shots of beautiful, bare prisoners tormenting each other, wrestling in the showers, knocking the dentures down the throat of any unfortunate convict who g|ts in their way. The prison is run by a frigid cripple who cruises around in her motorized wheel chair; she is ably assisted by a perverted prison doctor whose hobby is drugging unfortunate inmates and taking Polaroid snaps as he strips their clothes off. The doc is also a power drill freak, and his ambition is to plunge the drill into the brain of some helpless prisoner in the interests of corrective surgery. But this is really a progressive pulp movie cos some of the gals get it together and blast their way out of the prison, raise some reinforcements, then blast their way back into the prison and rescue one of their number from the clutches of the mad doctor, who’s already got her strapped to the operating table and is just sharpening his power drill... and over all this John Cale is still playing his viola. “This is a B picture,” he says to me proudly as another cop explodes in slow motion all over the screen.

Part Two: “Efficiency efficiency they say/Gef to know the date and tell the time of day.” (“Paris 1919”)

1942: Cale born in Garnant, South Wales. Learns to play the viola in school: “It was an allocation orchestra, they had clarinets and flutes and stuff. Everyone else got the clarinets and flutes, all I got was the viola.” Also trains as Church organist to accompany psalms and services “in Kings College Chapel style.” 1959: Cale studies music at Goldsmiths College, London. Stages concert piece which involves “screaming at a potted plant till it died.” 1963: Cale awarded Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to Berkshire School of Music, Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Composes and stages “fairly usual modern piece” for piano player and prepared piano and table. “I was working away inside the piano, and I’d hidden this axe behind it. Without any warning I picked up the axe, turned around and faced the audience, and went WHAM! and demolished the table. The front row of the audience collapsed completely.” 1964: Cale stays on in New York, works with LaMonte Young. After a year in New York meets Lou Reed, they try putting together a variety of groups. “We tried to play clubs in Harlem but they wouldn’t let us in, we played Larry Love’s Nest, we played on the sidewalks. We made more money on the sidewalks than anywhere else.” 1965: Barbara Rubin introduces the embryonic Velvets to Andy Warhol. Andy introduces them to Nico, Paul Morrissey, Gerard Malanga etc. etc. 1966: Warhol stages Exploding Plastic Inevitable mixed media show with Velvet Underground. Chaos, madness, depravity etc. etc. 1967: Cale has played bass, viola and organ/piano on The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat albums, then quits group. 1968: Cale scores Nico’s Marble Index album; looks for production gigs, finds Iggy & the Stooges and produces their first album for Elektra. 1970: Cale collaborates with Terry Riley on Church of Anthrax and records first album of own songs, Vintage Violence, both for CBS. (Both these albums are still available, no matter what your friendly record store tells you.) Cale also works as staff producer for CBS, mixing quadraphonic versions of albums. 1971: Arranges, produces and plays most of the instruments on Nico’s Desertshore album. Cale becomes A&R executive for Warner Bros, in sunny Burbank, and records The Academy in Peril (primarily instrumental) album, including “Days of Steam,” which becomes theme music for Warhol/Morrissey movie Heat and in return Warhol designs Academy cover. 1973: Cale records Pam 1919 produced by Chris Thomas, with backing by Little Feat and UCLA orchestra. Ecstatic reviews, low sales. 1974: Cale signs with Island records; contract specifies six albums in three years. Cale currently recording and mixing first album, Fear, in London.

Part Three: “From here on it’s got to be/A simple case of them or me.”

(“Half Past France”)

Contradictions coalesce naturally around the man. From King’s College Chapel psalm settings to screaming at plants till they died. From an academic background in London to the twilight netherworld of the Velvet Underground. From musical celebrations of madness and perversion to an executive job with Warner Brothers. Production and collaboration with both Iggy Pop (founding, father of punk rock dementia) and Terry Riley (transparent, zany face floating happily across the cerebral systems of Rainbow In Curved Air). Does this represent a fascination with extremes? Does Cale see Iggy and Riley as opposite poles of a rock spectrum? No he doesn’t. The quality Cale associates with Iggy is innocence. And he also felt Riley’s music contained a hidden layer of funk which Cale wanted to emphasize on Church Of Anthrax. He was disappointed that Riley lost interest in the collaboration after recording it, and left Cale to finish producing and mixing the album on his own.

How did Cale relate to his staff jobs at CBS and Warner Bros. — was he passing like a ghost through the industrial recording complex? No, it was work that he wanted. Ever since he split from the Velvets, Cale seems to have been torn between a career as a producer/arranger/A&R man and pursuing his own vision as a recording artist.

But still, he is very good at ghost stories. “The Soul of Patrick Lee,” (the one song on Anthrax) sings of a spirit falling from the sky “down from Bangor with her eagles.” “King Harry” (the one song on Academy) is a tale of a monarch who is “but a whisper of his former self’ told by a weird giggling/whispering voice. “Ghost Story” (the best track on Violence according to Cale) ends with the words “It’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.” And, of course, the title track of Paris 1919 contains another apparition who materializes out of a clock and keeps “standing there but never talking sense/Just a visitor you see so much wanting to be seen ... ” You’re very good at ghost stories, aren’t you? John Cale shifts uneasily. His pronunciation flickers between South Wales and South California. “Well, fear is a man’s best friend,” he suggests tentatively.

Cale’s characters live and die in fear and confusion, unaided by the elegant music that surrounds their plight. Drowning and floating in empty space are common occurrences in his songs. The early Velvet albums were produced by Tom Wilson, the man who gave Dylan his first rock band on Bringing It All Back Home, and some of Cale’s territory sounds like an extension of Highway 61: the same world of chaos propped up by musical precision, the same authority figures wondering what went wrong, the same resolution of tensions with infectious pop refrains. On Vintage Violence: “Mardi Gras passed this way a while ago” while elsewhere lions are making plans and “wasting away on advice.” Aren’t these unlikely ingredients with which to seek fame and fortune in pop?

His songs display the art of dissolving the categories in which songs are usually packaged, but Cale doesn’t have the arrogance or messianic streak that characterized the electric Dylan. He seems civilized; his intelligence has a wide range; he is honest and slightly confused. He doesn’t want to be a surrealist cult hero, he wants to make records which sell. He believes that pop should mean popularity.

Cale admits that his songs scramble together images and ideas in clever collages (“as the crowd begin complaining that the beaujolais is raining/Down on darkened meetings on the Champs Elysee”) but claims that Lou Reed’s directness (“I’m waiting for (he man/ Twenty-six dollars in my hand”) is something he admires more. “It’s O.K. to cut up disparate things — but you’ve

got to have an identity first.” Later he remarks, “I was masked on Vintage Violence. I didn’t realize at the time but the cover tells you that. You’re not really seeing the personality. The were glimmers of light on Paris — I was beginning to come through the cracks. But these songs the ones I’m doing now — really make me feel I’m a songwriter for the first time. They’re coming together and they’re more abrasive than Paris. That album’s all right but I don’t want to make Procol Harum records for the rest of my life.”

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“Many lied, many tried Simple stories are the'best Keep in mind the wishful kind

Don’t want to be like all the rest.”

(“Charlemagne”)

Part Four: “Barracuda barracuda won’t you lay down your life for me? ”

The studio is located a few yards from the King’s Road. John Cale, Eno and Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music’s phenomenal guitarist) are huddled around the mixing desk with the Engineer, adding, overdubbing, arguing about each note. Cale’s voice booms out of the monitor speakers, images of underwater paranoia float around the control booth: “Barracuda barracuda won’t you lay down your life for me? ... the ocean will have us all... ” Cale runs back into the booth: “How does that sound?” “Put some reverb in,” suggests the engineer and the organ reverberates obediently. “Careful,” mutters Cale, “Echo is the opium of the poor musician.”

More footsteps sound on the control booth stairs; an enormous man with blond hair and a very nervous manner enters. He is an actor from The Virginian and acts like a shy cowboy. “I just came in to say that I’ll be coming over later,” says the Virginian. “Great,” says Cale. The Virginian exits. “I’m going to make a big sign and hang it on the door,” mutters the engineer. “It’ll say Recording Is Not A Spectator Sport. ” The tapes roll again. “We need some brass in there to answer it... pah PAAH ...(pah PAAH,” s£ys Cale. “Can we get a French horn in?” “Do it on the organ,” says Eno fervently, “Use the brass stop.” “No, man,” says-Cale, “Real instruments are always better than the elctronic version.” “Two nil,” says Phil Manzanera^

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“You know what I hear there?” says Manzanera, “A very distorted guitar to answer those chords :.. pah PAAH ... pah PAAH.” “That won’t work,” says the engineer gloomily, “you won’t get any edge that way.” “We’ve got the chimes, let’s try it on the chimes,” says Cale. “The chimes of bondage flashing,” mutters Eno dreamily. Cale and the engineer vanish to mike up the chimes. “Chimes won’t work,” says Eno when they’ve gone. “Too many weird harmonics in the chimes.”

John Cale is leaping up and down in front of the mike rehearsing his vocals. As he sings the song again and again more madness enters his voice. A girl wanders into the control booth looking lost and unstable. “I feel funny,” she says as she sits on a chair and almost falls off it. Eno returns carrying a tray full of coffee cups; he gives one to the girl who’s feeling funny. “Careful,” he says, “it’s very hot.” The girl gulps down the red-hot liquid. “That’s better,” she says. “Very domesticated of you, Eno,” says an American girl in the booth. “Someone’s got to remain normal here,” replies Eno, “someone’s got to keep bloody normal.”

The evening is rapidly mutating into a John Cale song. Cale is still leaping up and down screaming at the mike; everyone else is slumped in the control booth. The engineer rolls some more tape and a very beautiful, ethereal track with organ and 12 string guitar starts playing. A peaceful, happy expression flits across everyone’s face as they listen to the music. “This is the first evening 1 we’ve ground to a halt,” says Eno sadly, “it’s been all go up to now.” “Too much traffic passing through,” says Phil Manzanera. “Too much traffic,” echoes the engineer. Two more people enterthe control booth and sit down. “What’s happening?” they ask in unison.

Downstairs Cale is banging at the piano and singing to himself. The^ Virginian re-enters with a friend, a small man in a dark coat. “Shit, I’m sorry to disturb you,” says The Virginian, “but I might not be able to get back later. It’s my birthday today and I’ve brought my friend.” “Have you heard what I’m working on?” asks Cale. “This is what . my album really needs.” And he starts banging the piano again and singing “Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles” very loudly. The Virginian and his friend stare at Cale; they both look slightly puzzled. Above them, Eno is gazing down on the scene through the glass windows of the control booth. His eyes glint in the studio twilight and he looks like a creature peering out of an aquarium. Behind him the monitor speakers are still singing. “The ocean will have us all... the ocean will have us all... ”