And now, we come to one of my favourite musicians of all time, John Cale. He was, as many people know, a member of The Velvet Underground, along with Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and Mo Tucker. Cale was classically trained on the piano and he also plays the viola, guitar, bass, sax, and a number of other instruments. I have more that 60 John Cale and associated CDs including his Velvet Underground period, his solo work, The Dream Syndicate, numerous soundtracks, collaborations with people like Terry Riley, Brian Eno, and Lou Reed, and several live recordings. On top of that, I have a number of recordings produced by Mr. Cale.
The Allmusic Guide really has an evocative summary of this record. The guide notes that Cale "was travelling the world in the company of a band of snot-nosed youngsters raised on hard rock, shrieking himself into a frenzy, wearing a hard hat on-stage, and writing songs like Chickenshit, a real-life tale of the time he beheaded a chicken (already dead) on-stage and threw the carcass into the crowd and his whole band quit in protest, set to the most merciless music he'd been a part of since White Light/White Heat."
That really sums up the record. The CD version, which I also have, contains four extra tracks, three of which come from the Animal Justice EP.
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