John Cale: Helen of Troy Poll

oh and because i care about you, i just posted this very interesting 1976 cale show over here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/7533988833/not-in-new-york-a-little-hard-to-tell-in-the
star studded!

Love "China Sea" and... um... "Close Watch" is great but prefer the version on "Music FANS"... but, um, this album isn't that good by this standards

HIS standards, that is

hmm, not sure if i've heard the other version of "close watch"? is it on CD?

"Music For a New Society"? Unless it's out of print? It's got bagpipes at the end!

"Leaving Up To You" over the title track and "Cable Hogue." "I Kept a Close Watch" isn't even up to his ballad standards.

xp oh ha, yes, i have heard that, missed the acronym. i dunno which i prefer, i like both of them. song is one of cale's best, i think.
i didn't realize until last week that robert kirby (nick drake, etc) did the string arrangements for this record.

Yes, I think it's a bit fussy this arrangement of "Close Watch". And there's too much bellowing and chest beating going on on the rest of the album.

^^^ that's exactly right. It's Grand Guignol.

yeah i remember thinking "leaving it up to you" was really scary/cool when i heard it in high school, but now it sounds a little bit like self parody. definitely like the utter seediness of the title track tho. might prefer the version of "even cowgirls get the blues though".

Repping for "Pablo Picasso."

it's funny, i wonder whether cale covering that song was a high point in jonathan richman's life, or whether he was like "ugh too loud."

china sea, I think

yeah that song is wonderful and pretty unique in cale's catalog. sort of the high point of his beach boys love. the section where the strings come in always gets me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZBxy6KpNj0

Cable Hogue for me. Not the highs of the two preceding it but still a solid record.

yeah john cale doing beach boys is pretty much dream music for me

it's not too late for a john cale - brian wilson collaboration! cale'd be up for it! otoh brian wilson almost definitely has no idea who he is.

wonder if he's a big Love You fan -- i get a little bit of that vibe from the keyboards on china sea.
one of the more frustrating things about the island years comp is the tease about cale's version of god only knows with the london children's choir, which cale deems too incomplete to release. whatevs, let's hear it, dude!

I dunno, I can sorta already hear it in my head. I don't think god only knows works very well as a cover song in general.

would rather him do a crazy version of 'wouldn't it be nice' or something

interesting quote from cale re: the album:
"It could have been a great album. I came back from finishing Patti Smith['s Horses] and had three days to finish Helen of Troy before I went on Italian tour. I was spending eighteen hours a day in the studio. When I got back, I found the record company had gone ahead and released what amounted to demo tapes. The trouble was that Island had their own ideas of what that album should sound like. They wanted to include songs I don't particularly like, but it was also an impertinent assumption on my part that I was capable of managing myself. My determination to have Helen of Troy the way I did was not really fair to Island or my management, especially at a time when Island was losing its percentage of the market, which was making everybody very paranoid."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

tylerw you deserve a medal of some kind for the stuff on yr blog. thx so much.

^i second that emotion; you're doin the lords work, sir.

gotta go with "close watch" here. heavy stuff.

Tyler, what's your blog?

http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/

^^bookmarked

also voted for "leaving it up to you" "cable hogue" even though I like grand guignol have to admit cale can come across as vincent price

Cale is one of those guys that always blames everyone else when things go wrong. But by this point the drugs were clearly taking their toll, and the production/A&R sideline was distracting him (I think Iggy always downplayed his contributions to that first Stooges album, and I'm not sure what Cale really offered Patti Smith or Jonathan Richman, either). After this album, we enter the wilderness ...

I dunno, in that quote above he seems to take 100% responsibility

I'm not sure what Cale really offered Patti Smith or Jonathan Richman, either

Liberty in the studio, and standing back. Enough for many bands, no?

i think cale's main contribution to the stooges first lp (aside from piano on "dog" and viola on "we will fall" was trying to get the band to turn their amps down to 9. which seems funny, but maybe cale had some regrets about the way white light/white heat turned out sonically.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Where did all the prior Cale voters go?

FIne with the results, but I expected a greater tally.

After this album, we enter the wilderness ...

if this is the wilderness, give me lots of wilderness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQYx_V7W324

My favorite performance of the wilderness years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeFYJdW3xDg

aero otm

I saw him I think three times, maybe four, when he was still visibly high a lot - Fender's Ballroom in '86 I think, the Coach House in '84 or '85 - when he was playing mainly solo, sometimes joined by Chris Spedding - dude brought it every time, like every show would have multiple moments where things would get transcendent & you'd say "this is what a great solo performance needs to do, actually go somewhere that feels news" - made a huge, huge impression on me

Liberty in the studio, and standing back.

Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman weren't situations like the Nico records where he was involved with outside arrangements, but that doesn't mean he didn't have a lot of input in other ways.

not a whole lot of votes, but i think the right songs were voted for.

Having pontificated on this thread, I forgot to vote in the friggin' poll!

me too...was posting from phone. there are more cale fans than it seems.

yeah ending a poll on sunday night is probably not the best time

I keep a close watch on this poll of mine.

forgot to vote

I keep a close watch on this poll of mine.
--The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

yeah, "wilderness" -- i kind of feel like Cale's career is *all* wilderness, in a way. he's never really been pin-down-able, and his 80s records are mostly pretty solid. having listened a bunch to the Island Years stuff in the past month, it really is all over the place stylistically and mood-wise. I think because of some of the standout tracks, it gets pegged as his "scary" stuff. but there's just as much pretty stuff, just as much humorous stuff, just as much weirdo stuff.

More good stuff from the wilderness. And will somebody please give the guy a bathing suit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2xO94wEsDY

My Maria.

I picture some kind of 70s hell.
The only song I usually play from this one.
Great great great guitar playing by Chris Spedding
and the background singers going oh, oh, Maria

Would suggest that one reason there were less votes for this was because it's rarely/never been in print in the US outside of The Island Years. For instance, I worship Fear, really like Slow Dazzle...but only know some of this.

Despite being a fanatic for 70s art rock, prog rock, avant whatever rock from about the time I became conscious of it (1981 I think), for whatever reason I never got to hear Cale's solo records until just a few years ago, by getting The Island Years at the library. And I just flipped for Fear and Slow Dazzle, but didn't listen to Helen of Troy as much. Later I picked up Paris 1919 which of course is great too. I'm excited that there is apparently more good stuff out there, judging by the comments on this site. I'd say of all the stuff I've learned in the past three years, these albums by Cale are my favorite.

His live stuff from the late 70s is worth tracking down, at least what bits of it I've heard. He gets torrented quite frequently. Had a great aggressive twin guitar sound at the time that sometimes rivals television.

Have wondered if the ROIR Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was ever likely to see a remaster. Think that has some great moments as does Sabotage.

Oddly Slow Dazzle is the one I never played that much. Helen of Troy just seems more memorably, consistently pained and deranged. Perhaps I was at a susceptible age for such things, though (fifteenish). I was thrilled to find a used copy on vinyl (in the US) in the nineties before Island Years was released, even with "Leaving It Up to You" removed.