* (restored)

 

‘When I drove up to Zackary Drucker’s home off San Fernando Road, the front door was wide open—a startling sight since most of the surrounding houses have metal bars over the windows and doors. The Los Angeles video and performance artist lives in Glassell Park, an industrial strip in Northeast Los Angeles. Besides the open door, the house also stood apart with its manicured lawn and the polished wood floors I glimpsed through the doorway. It was as if Drucker’s house was in color, and the rest of the neighborhood in black and white.

‘Drucker welcomed me with open arms. We’ve only met a few times socially at art functions, but that’s just how she is. The house is immaculate, though she explains—as if apologizing—she has recently moved in and the decorating was not quite finished. The empty walls are freshly painted in dark grays, browns and puce. Drucker also is dressed in neutral colors wearing a white T-shirt with snug pants, showing off her slim figure. Drucker is a natural beauty, with blond hair and a devilish smile—like she’s got something up her sleeve, but in a harmless way. Her deep-set eyes are so blue they practically sparkle.

‘Drucker is a dynamo, who, at the young age of 29, has created an insightful body of films, photographs and performances challenging gender normativity. Her work, which always intersects with her own transsexual identity, postulates queer alternatives to the status quo. She has staged performances inviting audience members to perform depilatory actions on her body. She has created gorgeous and inquisitive photographs and films that document her life, her personality and image, but also interrogate larger questions of gendered performance, fashion, class, historical lineage, and bodies that resist codification. Recently she was invited to take part in the 2012 Hammer Biennial, presenting SHE GONE ROGUE, an opulent and fractured narrative film with existential leanings.

‘Drucker is an artist who breaks down the way we think about gender, sexuality and seeing. Her participatory art works complicate established binaries of viewer and subject, insider and outsider, and male and female in order to create a complex image of the self. The disciple of a silenced, ghettoized community, Drucker uses a range of creative devices that all strive towards the portrayal of bodily identity, her own and that of others, obsessively infusing visual media—photographs, videos and performance art—with acute, masochistic emotional compulsions.

‘Conceiving, discovering, and manifesting herself as “a woman in the wrong world,” her work is rooted in cultivating and investigating under-recognized aspects of transgender history. Interested in obliterating language obstacles, pulverizing identity disorders and revealing dark subconscious layers of outsider agency, Drucker disarms audiences and uses her body to illicit desire, judgment, and voyeuristic shame from her viewer.

‘Drucker, whose work often celebrates and amplifies the viewer’s inability to affix easy norms and codes, is one of the leading participants in a new generation that is rediscovering performance as a space for revolt, expression, and creative bedlam. “We’re preparing for a future generation and also laying the foundation the same way that our predecessors have laid the foundation for us,” Drucker says. “A lot of what I’m interested in is my own history, my own kind of counterculture history, or the history of transwomen, drag queens, gender outlaws. I think that we’re doing necessary work. And we’re contributing to that rich history of perseverance, of determination, or creating our own narrative.”‘ — collaged

 

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Further

Zachary Drucker Website
Zachary Drucker @ Twitter
Zachary Drucker @ Facebook
‘The Growing Transgender Presence in Pop Culture’
Zachary Drucker @ Lus De Jesus Gallery
ZACKARHYS @ tumblr
‘Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst, from many angles’
Photos: ZACKARY DRUCKER: DOCUMENT JOURNAL
‘Until Now: Zackary Drucker Retrospective’
‘Zackary Drucker wants to archive Flawless Sabrina’s lifework’
‘INTERVIEW WITH ZACKARY DRUCKER AND RHYS ERNST: SIX YEARS’
‘Relative Truths: Zackary Drucker interviews Flawless Sabrina’
Q&A; with Multimedia Artist and SVA Alumnus Zackary Drucker
Photos: ZACKARY DRUCKER @ Volta NY
‘How Zackary Drucker Photographs Trans People’
‘zackary drucker | made in god’
Buy the Zackary Drucker Doormat

 

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Additionally

YouTube curated by Zackary Drucker

Destabilizing a Destabilized Existence, Panelists: Zackary Drucker and A.L. Steiner

Trailer: ‘Irma Vep, the last breath’, starring Zackary Drucker and Flawless Sabrina

Transactivation

 

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Interview
from Art Pulse

 

Your most recent work is an experimental film titled SHE GONE ROGUE, which you made with director Rhys Ernst for the Made In LA 2012 Hammer Biennial. I know that the film features queer legends such as Vaginal Davis and Holly Woodlawn. Can you say a little about this film? What inspired it, and how do you see it relating to past work?

Zackary Drucker: Though the film is abstract and is situated in a fantasy/dream world, it is also autobiographical. I have relationships with all of the people in the film, whom, disparately assembled, represent my chosen family. All of the spaces we shot were on location, in the actor’s home’s, including my parent’s cottage in Crystal Lake, Pennsylvania, and the hundred-year-old house in Silverlake that Rhys and I live in. We also shot with Vaginal Davis in Berlin, Flawless Sabrina in New York City, Holly Woodlawn in Los Angeles, and there was an additional shoot in the Mojave Desert. Rhys and I were taking a break from our relationship, and he had moved out when the piece (that became SHE GONE ROGUE) started to form. I was alone in this house and the walls were literally falling down around me, the ancient plaster crumbling. I fixated on this for months, and it began to fuse with my psychological state-it somehow seemed symbolic or an actualization of my internal world. Rhys and I never actually split, and the film was made as a reconciliation of sorts; we wrote and produced it together. Over the year it took to make the film, he had moved back in, and it felt as though it was an afterlife of a relationship; restored, rebuilt, and we fixed the walls, too.

My character, who is only ever referred to as ‘Darling,’ has a break with reality that leads her to her parents and archetypes, but as they may exist in the future or in a parallel dimension-reality as it’s reprocessed in dream state. It’s about so many things, and honestly is so fresh, I think we need some time and distance to adequately unpack what we did. Speaking for myself, I was thinking about how our bodies age and we go through time existing in any number of spaces and as constantly morphing forms. I think it’s also about mortality, about disappearing into one’s mind, about locating and reconciling my history (personal/cultural), while situating myself, now, within it. I think it’s a pretty deep Saturn Returns existential question mark-who am I, and how did I arrive here? Where am I going? What does my future look like? The people I look to in real life are the people I find in the film, even if their characters are, at times, nebulous and confounding, providing more questions than answers. It was exciting to have an excuse to make art with these brilliant performers and loved ones that I have always looked to as monuments of strength and perseverance.

The film itself is quite beautiful, with decadent set decoration and some fantastic costuming. Did you style your actors, specifically Vaginal Davis and Flawless Sabrina, or was the construction of these characters more of a collaboration between you and these legendary performers?

ZD: There was a lot of collaboration involved with set design and costuming, but much of the aesthetic was already built-in to the character’s spaces and personas. Vag and Flawless’ apartments were pretty much left as is, though we brought select props into Flawless’ place-the altar, the wind-up toys, the record player, which we secured through one of Flawless’ friends. Flawless is her own brilliant stylist and always knows how to push the envelope with her look. Since Vaginal Davis was playing the Whoracle of Delphi, which called for more of a specific costume, my friend Marcus Pontello created her look for the television infomercial scenes. My friend Taylor Lorentz embellished Holly’s place for her scenes, and otherwise, Rhys and I filled in the gaps and made many of the decisions with art direction.

One of my favorite recent works of yours was a doormat with your face on it emblazoned with the word ‘WELCOME.’ The work turns self-deprecation on its head, a kind of preemptive way of ‘throwing shade.’ I know you’re interested in the history of queer languages and that you’re inspired by the book The Queens’ Vernacular by Bruce Rodgers, which specifically addresses the art of reading. Your work often uses ‘reading’ as a device to talk about what is not talked about, especially in videos such as You Will Never, Ever Be A Woman…, in which you and Van Barnes trade loving chains of insults and a kind of Craigslist personal ad banter while lounging around in a domestic setting in various states of undress. I’ve always thought that the way you incorporate ‘reading’ into your work relates in some way to how the fine art world ‘reads’ work, with all the accompanying criticism, gossip and social accoutrements that inform the reception of artist and artwork. Does understanding the dialectics of insult and ‘reading’ ever influence how you see the art world, how you take or give criticism?

ZD: Absolutely. ‘Reading’ is about inoculating or preparing a person for a larger culture of intolerance. If we can articulate the most hurtful things we can imagine, then the words will have less power when being inflicted on us from the external world. It’s also a form of verbal self-defense; anyone who has been bullied or ostracized understands the power of words-it’s all we have to utilize in our uphill battle for self-respect, especially when your physical power or agency is constantly being compromised and dominated. I’m interested in The Queens’ Vernacular because it’s about identifying and putting names to things that didn’t have a name in the American lexicon-we’re talking between the 1920s and 1972 when the book was published. How do we understand our bodies, our genders, our desire, with the limited tools of language? We have to create a new language to define ourselves. I think of the possibilities of gender expression as color 3-D to hetero-normative culture’s black-and-white 1950s television set. All of these things are changing, and it’s up to those of us living in the future to define a new vision for the rest of society.

In your films and performances you establish a relationship with the spectator that confronts him with your gender, your sexuality and your body. In works such as The Inability To Be Looked At and the Horror of Nothing to See, the viewer is involved in the work and feels a variety of emotions that range from admiration, desire, judgment, to voyeuristic shame. Can you share with us how this resource challenges the viewer and impacts in the interpretation of your work?

ZD: My work in performance coincided with my decision to transition my gender from male to female. I started to become more aware of how often my body was being evaluated and scrutinized by the external world. I know this is consistent with a universal truth of being female, continually being seen and assessed, but there is something particularly awkward and vulnerable about going through puberty a second time as a fully formed adult, and towards a more visible gender at that. And eventually, the men who used to call you a faggot are suddenly licking their lips when you walk by, and women who were sympathetic become threatened or competitive. It takes a lot of energy to reconcile and overcome this inner voice that is constantly wondering if the people you come across in your daily life are reading you as a man, as a woman, as transgender, or as a non-person. If they are sympathetic, laughing at you, or shit-talking you in another language. The concept of ‘triple consciousness’ is at play here, and again, is not unique to gender so much as to any group of marginalized people who are visibly different than the dominant power group. Those works where I’m directly incriminating the viewer, their potential assumptions or judgements, are perhaps more of my own projection of what some of those voices of evaluation might sound like, as well as a verbalizing of my own internal process, an exorcizing of internalized shame, or self-doubt. There’s also a nod towards the relentless fetishizing of trans bodies, which is something of a subculture amongst a group of disenfranchised straight men; the underbelly of heterosexuality. The language of that particular style of sexual objectification seemed especially brutal and without boundaries. Performing, for me, is also about collectivity, about tapping into the truth that we are all trapped in bodies that we didn’t choose, and nobody makes it out alive.

For many trans-identifying people the concept of family and home can be a troubling or frustrating thing, with parents often not understanding the complexity of gender and identity. Many parents end up being outwardly hostile towards their trans children. You returned to your childhood home to work on the recent show at Lus De Jesus. Your parents are in your upcoming video for the Hammer Biennial. How has having supportive parents impacted your work, and what thoughts do you have about the notion of family, both drag and trans families and biological families?

ZD: I am incredibly fortunate. My parents are my role models, and I believe that they are role models of good parenting, which is one of the primary reasons I include them in my work. The world needs to see that there is an alternative to parents rejecting and marginalizing their transgender children. The child-parent relationship is so much about reciprocal learning, and I think I’ve taught them as much as they’ve taught me. They never took a strict authoritarian position with me, so I think they have a less-defined sense of hierarchy and have always been open to learning. No parents are free of expectations or dreams of who their children may become. I’m sure it takes a lot of adjustment to reconcile who your children become as adults, but I think it’s narcissistic to expect your children to reproduce your projection, or align with your ideology and values. Above all, my parents are invested in my happiness, and they realize that it took me becoming an artist, a woman, a Californian, etc., to get there. I’m fortunate because they are progressive-minded and educated, and in most ways I am a pretty direct descendent of their ideals. Millennium version. Many parents are probably too invested in their own antiquated values to accept their children’s autonomy, but mine are cool, and they’re fun to be around too.

The confidence my parents’ support has given me has been really instrumental in enabling me to present myself as a subject/object without feeling shamed or disempowered as a trans person. And some of it comes from my ancestors I’m sure, and queens, and trans people, past and future. As queers, we’re lucky to have the advantage of assembling a chosen family too, which has been crucial to my development and my manifestation of self. (Aunt) Holly, (Mom) Vag, (Dad) Ron Athey, (Grandma) Flawless and my (Sister) Van-and that’s just a start, as I have a handful of other siblings-have all been incredibly influential and powerful figures in my life.

 

____
Show

_________
Relationship (2008 – 2013)

‘Relationship is an intimate and diaristic record of Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst’s relationship as a transgender couple whose bodies are transitioning in opposite directions (for Drucker from male to female, and for Ernst from female to male). As both subjects and makers of these photographs, Drucker and Ernst engage various elements of self-fashioning, representing themselves in the midst of shifting subjectivities and identities—making images that are simultaneously unguarded and performative, an extension of their narrative filmmaking practice. Collectively, the photographs become a cinematic document of their romantic, creative negotiation and collaboration. In Drucker’s words, “Our bodies are a microcosm of the greater external world as it shifts to a more polymorphous spectrum of sexuality. We are all collectively morphing and transforming together, and this is just one story of an opposite-oriented transgender couple living in Los Angeles, the land of industrialized fantasy.”’ — The Whitney

 

________________
Video and performance works

w/ Rhys Ernst She Gone Rogue (2012)
22 mins, digital video

‘“Darling” (played by Zackary Drucker) attempts to visit her “Auntie Holly” but instead falls down a rabbit hole, encountering trans-feminine archetypes (legendary performers Holly Woodlawn, Vaginal Davis, and Flawless Sabrina) who are in turn confounding, nebulous, complicated and contradictory. Engaging a world of dream-like magical realism, SHE GONE ROGUE references Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, utilizing a space where singular selves multiply and expand, offering windows into parallel dimensions, with time and space collapsing into a whirlpool of divergent possibilities. When Drucker finally finds the white rabbit, the process of identity construction completes a full circle, offering more questions than answers.’ — ZD

Outfest Interview with Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst of “She Gone Rogue”

 

Bring Your Own Body: The Story of Lynn Harris (2012)

‘Bring Your Own Body is a tribute/biographical monologue to the late transgender figure Lynn Elizabeth Harris. Harris, who was born a hermaphrodite in Orange County in 1950, was raised as a female through high school and beyond by parents who never reconsidered his gender identity, even when, at age 5, Harris developed male genitals. Harris’s mother and father were doting parents, and, through the auspices of a Los Angeles archive of gay and transgender documents and memorabilia, Drucker has come into possession of an extraordinary array of baby photos, family pictures, school reports, driver’s licenses, and other images and documents. By projecting an array of these images on a screen behind her while she recites the details of Harris’s odyssey, Drucker weaves a deeply disorienting tale. What is one to make of a life story that includes both beauty-contest wins as a woman (Costa Mesa Junior Miss, 1968), and an eventual and rapid self-transformation in 1983 at age 33 into the mustachioed man called Lynn Edward Harris? For Drucker, Harris remains both a cautionary tale — his life was sensationalized in painful ways by the tabloids and shock television — and a boundary-busting hero. Her final words sum up these mixed feelings in a simple question and answer: “Cause of death? Not enough love.”’ — The Independent

 

At Least You Know You Exist (2011)
16mm film transferred to DVD, 16 minutes

‘Created inside an archeology of the uptown New York City apartment inhabited by legendary performer/drag queen Mother Flawless Sabrina, At least you know: you exist is a site-specific exploration of a fixed space where everything is in a state of change. Known as Jack to those close to him, he has lived in the same apartment at 5 East 73rd Street for more than 45 years—a crowded, unwieldy place that fiercely pronounces his rejection of conformity. In this 16mm film, totemic mystical objects act as a collection of mysterious sculptures in different states of mutation, and rich layers of feverish history interface with a new vision of transgender performativity. Navigating the real and the unconscious, oscillating between documentary and myth narrative, Zackary Drucker weaves a fluid, parallel text of these two divergent lives, exploring a legacy being passed from a lost generation towards the future.’ — ZD

 

One Fist (2010)
Live Performance, 10:30 minutes

‘This live performance work finds the body of the artist mummified on a rotating turntable. An audio track leads viewers through a schizophrenic journey that vacillates between an Academic discourse about deconstructing the gender binary, and a masochistic sub conscious voice that details the artist’s experience of being objectified. Unraveling layers of language, complicating the intellectualization of the queer body, and challenging modes of spectatorship, ONE FIST is a deep re-contextualizing of outsider representation.’ — ZD

 

Lost Lake (2010)
HDV, 8 minutes

‘Filmed at the peak of autumn foliage in a rural Midwestern US locale, this non-narrative collaboration posits beauty and fear as inextricable from the psyche of the American landscape. Contemplative moments and stunning vistas are jarringly punctuated with the vocabularies of witch-hunts, hate crimes and psychological violence.’ — ZD

 

Performance Clown (2010)
Video and live performance

‘Performance Clown uses tropes of drag performance to abrasively reverse the power exchange between audience and performer. The video introduction begins, the audience watches. The lights come up on Zackary looking foolish, like a rodeo clown. Zackary singles people out and reads them, while they are simultaneously blasted by a pre-recorded laugh track.’ — ZD

 

P.I.G. (2009)
15 minutes, live performance with video

‘Addressing notions of misinformation and revolutionary impulses, PIG is a performance that stages a meeting of politically involved “girls.” This multimedia work places the trio of Zackary Drucker, Mariana Marroquin, and Wu Ingrid Tsang within a dialog about contemporary trans politics as it relates to the history of civil rights movements. Inspired by non-hierarchical forms of social gathering, PIG uses tropes of consciousness-raising and group therapy to explore language, identity, agency, and the societal construction of trans as a “monstrous biological joke.”’ — ZD

 

The Inability to be Looked at and the Horror of Nothing to See (2008-2009)
Live Performance, 17 minutes

‘The Inability to Be Looked at and the Horror of Nothing to See is a live performance that takes form as a group meditation. Viewers are directed, by a disembodied voice, through a series of breathing exercises, new-age visions, and dark, dysphoric confessions, all the while being instructed to pluck out the hair from an androgynous, stripped body in the center of the gallery.’ — ZD

Excerpt

 

You Will Never Be a Woman. You Must Live The Rest of your Days Entirely As a Man and You Will Only Grow More Masculine With Every Passing Year. There is No Way Out. (2008)
In collaboration with Van Barnes, Mariah Garnett, and A.L. Steiner.

‘You Will Never Be a Woman. You Must Live The Rest of your Days Entirely As a Man and You Will Only Grow More Masculine With Every Passing Year. There is No Way Out: features two characters that are expressing the most painful things they can say, to prepare each other for a larger, more dangerous, culture of intolerance. The characters occupy multiple roles, and prepare on all fronts, as they appropriate and enact the fetishistic language of sex ads, assault the spectator, antagonize (“read”) each other, and ultimately regain their agency.’ — ZD

 

FISH: A Matrilineage of Cunty White-Woman Realness (2008)

‘FISH: A Matrilineage of Cunty White-Woman Realness is an extension of a life-long feminist dialogue with my mother. Utilizing a coded language of contemporary and historical queer vernacular, the syncopated language is a conduit between the second-wave and the new-wave/future. The intergenerational dialogue addresses our relationship, and our respective cultural and political positions as women.’ — ZD

Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, I got the great photo, thank you. The Gerard Malanga book I published with Little Caesar Press, ‘100 Years Have Passed’, was one of his Benedetta Barzinni books, and there she is on the cover. Nice observations on Arnold, thank you. ** Sypha, ‘CftBL’ must be easily free to watch on youtube or somewhere if you ever want to. Cale’s Island albums are definitely at his peak. They’re all pretty great. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve been under the impression that the music aka catchy part of Madonna’s tunes are mostly written by her collaborators? If so then maybe her taste in collaborators is less … catchy? Right, I remember now that David Tibet is a big supporter of Shirley Collins. That makes total sense. ** KK, Hi! It does seem like a book that is destined to be reprinted sooner than later. Oh, you’re near Austin, got it. I don’t know San Marcos. Well, I’m not an expert on Texas, although my parents and grandparents were Texans so I spent a fair amount time there growing up. But not around Austin. More around Houston and Corpus Christie. I’m happy you like the Ed Smith, and, if it’s gotten you revved up about your own poetry, that’s the ultimate compliment to it, obviously. Do a chapbook! Big encouragement from me. I want to read it. Thanks, Kyle. How’s school going? You dig it? ** Steve Erickson, Yes, that makes sense, what you said about “prestige TV”, a sharp and self-indicting tag if there ever was one. Everyone, Steve E. has reviewed the Mexican film ‘The Chambermaid’ right here. I’ve never heard of nordic larping. Nice words. Based on your definition, I do know a bit about that kind of work, though. When Zac and I were in Rennes showing ‘PGL’, for instance, we spent time with a woman there who was about to premiere a theater piece exactly as you described, but she didn’t use that term. There’s probably a different term in France. Anyway, I will use those words as a search term and see what I come up with. Thanks! ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool. That the post lead you somewhere. I don’t know Patrick Staff’s work. Interesting, I like how it looks in your photo and on the site. And they live in LA? Huh. Thanks a lot for the tip! ** schlix, Hi, Uli! I very much agree with you about the great and sweeping lack of interest in ambiguity at the moment. Well, you know I think confusion is the truth, so, obviously, this mania for the conclusory in art, and in politics too, is grim to me. I’m on Facebook, but I find very difficult to spend time there where so many people are obsessed with making pronouncements based on an extreme minimal amount of information and actual personal thought about the things they’re judging. I just try to concentrate on the fact that there is a lot of extremely interesting work out there, new and old, that doesn’t pre-curtail itself. As this era has continued and worsened, I increasingly think of this blog as a kind of mission to expose ‘difficult, non-conforming’ work to people who might be looking for pleasure and inspiration in being challenged. Because feeling saddened and worried about the marginalisation of originality and pure adventurousness and ambition becomes futile and self-defeating, you know? Anyway, yeah, I hear you, bro. The Robert Walser/ Der Teich project; It’s Gisele’s next theater work. It’s her adaptation of a Walser play that he wrote when he was 15 or something. Honestly, I think the play itself is terrible, so I’m a bit bewildered by her wanting to adapt and it and curious to see what she does. I may be involved because she has recently asked Zac and I to create a ‘secret’ second play that would be happening onstage during the Walser play but wouldn’t necessarily be visible to the viewer. I have no idea what that means, but we’re supposed to go to a rehearsal very soon to watch the play at its current state and talk about what we could do. We’ll see. So I’m not quite sure what to say about that piece so far. That’s what I know. I can let you know more once I’ve seen what it is. Love, me. ** KeatonStates, It’s hot. What can I say? My sweat is more articulate than I am at the moment. Too bad about ‘PS’. I was afraid of that. Sounds like you got more out of Pride than Pride theoretically could provide. Cool. Me too: that movie love. I won’t be able to stay cool, but you you can, so do that, won’t you? ** Right. A reader of this blog requested that I restore this Zachary Drucker post made back in the days before she was best known as one of the producers of ‘Transparent’. Hope you enjoy it. See you tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

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At About This Time Mozart Was Dead And Joseph Conrad Was Sailing The Seven Seas Learning English Pt.1 (1968)
‘Tony Conrad had introduced the “bouncing screwdriver handle” guitar technique used by John Cale in his and Sterling Morrison’s performance of Cale’s piece “At about this time Mozart was dead and Joseph Conrad was sailing the seven seas learning English”. This piece uses overdubbing in which the instant pause control, which was a feature of the Woolensak tape recorder, was used to “scratch” on a reel-to-reel tape.’ — Oliver Landemaine

 

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Wall (1970)
‘The only piece on John Cale’s first post-VU album Vintage Violence that’s remotely avant-garde is the bonus track ‘Wall’, six awesome minutes of electric viola scraping. In contrast, a lot of Vintage Violence is plain gorgeous and inherently musical; it just doesn’t feel as significant as Cale’s best work, even if it’s surprisingly hooky and accessible. It showcases a light and playful side of Cale that would become more and more submerged as his recorded oeuvre became darker and more demanding.’ — Fyfeopedia

 

_____________________
w/ Terry Riley Church of Anthrax (1971)
‘A one-time-only collaboration between former Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale and minimalist composer Terry Riley, 1971’s Church of Anthrax doesn’t sound too much like the solo work of either. Around this time, Riley’s works were along the lines of “A Rainbow in Curved Air” or “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band”: pattern music with an obsessive attention to repetition and tricks with an analogue delay machine that gave his music a refractory, almost hallucinogenic quality. Though Cale was trained in a similar aesthetic (he played with La Monte Young, surely the most minimal of all minimalist composers), he had largely left it behind by 1971, and so Church of Anthrax mixes Riley’s drones and patterns with a more muscular and melodic bent versed in both free jazz and experimental rock.’ — Allmusic

 

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w/ Terry Riley The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles (1971)
‘Not quite modern classical music, but not at all rock & roll either, Church of Anthrax sounds in retrospect like it was a huge influence on later post-minimalist composers like Andrew Poppy, Wim Mertens, and Michael Nyman, who mix similar doses of minimalism, rock, and jazz. On its own merits, the album is always interesting, and the centerpiece “The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles” is probably the point where Riley and Cale approach each other on the most equal footing. The low point is Cale’s solo writing credit, “The Soul of Patrick Lee,” a slight vocal interlude by Adam Miller that feels out of place in these surroundings.’ — collaged

 

___________
Temper (1972)
‘”Temper”, an outtake from the recording sessions for his album Academy in Peril, was later released on the promotional compilation Troublemakers. It was also released on the Seducing Down The Door compilation.’ — collaged

 

_______________
Days of Steam (1972)
‘Largely instrumental, Cale’s second record is an exploration of his classical training with bits of the VU drone and prog rock widening the borders. Opener “The Philosopher” features Ron Wood on slide guitar and bumps along similarly to the title cut from Can’s Future Days, while the rest of the album consists of the sort of conceptual strangeness Cale is known for (“Legs Larry at Television Centre” is a viola and cello piece with a voice directing imaginary cameras). There is more Can to be heard on “King Harry,” but fans of somber piano pieces will likely get the most out of this.’ — Rhapsody

 

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King Harry (1972)
‘The former Velvet Underground keyboardist and viola player’s third solo album was originally released in 1972 also happened to be his debut on Reprise Records. Cale created a predominantly instrumental album, with “King Harry” the only piece having any formal lyrics. Contributors included Ron Wood on guitar, Del Newman on drums (who would later do orchestral arrangements for Elton John) and “Legs” Larry Smith of The Bonzo Dog Band.’ — collaged

 

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a) Faust b) The Balance c) Capt. Morgans Lament (1972)
‘When things are more quick in mood, as in “Faust,” one of “3 Orchestral Pieces,” one of the Philharmonic guest numbers, Cale has good fun applying rock arrangement and production tricks: compression, gentle flanging, drum rhythms, and so forth.’ — Allmusic

 

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Paris 1919 (1973; live @ Paradiso, Amsterdam 2009)
‘Paris 1919 is an album by Welsh musician John Cale. It was produced by Chris Thomas and features a backing band consisting largely of members of Little Feat. Paris 1919 is made up of songs with arcane and complex lyrics; musically, the album is a shift from his previous works with composer Terry Riley and his avant-garde experiments with La Monte Young towards a more baroque sound. It is the most accessible and traditional of Cale’s albums, and the most well-known of his work as a solo artist. The album was released in March 1973 by Reprise Records to warm critical reception. The Los Angeles Times called Paris 1919 “the idiosyncratic pinnacle to Cale’s thrilling yet perverse career, despite the fact it never topped the charts.”‘ — Wiki

 

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Antarctica Starts Here (1973)
‘It’s the subtle change of the bass notes that does it in this one: chords are repeated, but with different bass notes, giving the song its clustered and subtly shifting feeling. Chord symbols are repeated if it’s a whole bar, noted once if it’s half a bar (so two beats per symbol). If half a bar contains two chords, there’s a “-” between them. Just prior to the instrumental break you’ve got this sublime chord (C9-C11), which really lifts the whole thing up!’ — Tabs

 

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The Man Who Couldn’t Afford to Orgy (1974)
‘Right from the start, Cale makes it clear he’s not messing around on Fear. If his solo career before then had been a series of intriguing stylistic experiments, here he meshes it with an ear for his own brand of pop and rock, accessible while still clearly being himself through and through. Getting musical support from various Roxy Music veterans like Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Andy Mackay didn’t hurt at all, and all the assorted performers do a great job carrying out Cale’s vision.’ — Ned Raggett

 

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Gun (1974)
‘Cale’s own bent for trying things out isn’t forgotten on the album, with his voice recorded in different ways (sometimes with hollow echo, other times much more direct) and musically touching on everything from early reggae to, on “The Man Who Couldn’t Afford to Orgy,” a delightful Beach Boys pastiche. As for sheer intensity, little can top “Gun,” the equal of Eno’s own burning blast “Third Uncle” when it comes to lengthy, focused obsession translated into music and lyrics.’ — Allmusic

 

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Mr. Wilson (1975)
‘The lead track of ‘Slow Dazzle’ is “Mr. Wilson,” a partly-ironic and partly-sincere tribute to Brian Wilson. (And also, I’ve heard, Harold Wilson, but I dunno about that.) It’s a very light song with an acid center, which makes it hard to interpret. If I had to try, I’d say that Cale is identifying with Wilson (“Take your mixes, not your mixture/Add some music to our day”, “Whisper whisper, got a monkey on my back”) and that it quite scares him. Though that probably fits his future career trajectory too closely to be true. This has an interesting form: two times verse + chorus, a middle eight + chorus, and a coda. I should note: in the coda, despite the ironic and mysterious lyric “California wine tastes fine,” all musical irony drops out and only a frankly affecting string part and vocal harmonies are left.’ — Fragments of a Cale Season

 

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Taking It All Away (1975; live @ Zeche Bochum 1983)
‘Oh, you sentimental fool / Yes, you sentimental fool / Love – those broken veins / Made you so afraid / Of that wishful wishing well // Well, now, you’re in misery and in pain / Well, now, you’re in misery and in pain / So she broke your heart / And you let her die / Well, that’s your name and that’s the game // ‘Cause they’re taking it all away / They’re taking it all away / They’re taking it all away … ‘ — JC

 

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Guts (1975)
‘“Guts” opens with the line, “The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife”. This refers to Kevin Ayers sleeping with Cale’s wife before the June 1, 1974 concert, as John Cale related in his autobiography, with Victor Bockris, What’s Welsh for Zen (1998).’ — Lastfm

 

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My Maria (1975)
‘John Cale is a genius. Period. And on no albums was his genius-ness more prominent and seminal than on “Paris 1919” and the Island trilogy – “Fear”, “Slow Dazzle”, and “Helen of Troy”, released in the early to mid 70s. Most people have a tendency to site “Fear” as their favorite of the Island trilogy, but “Helen of Troy” has always been mine. The album starts off with “My Maria”, a hauntingly melodic song that manages to harness in both a spine-tinglingly beautiful chorus *and* some of guitarist Chris Spedding’s gnarliest guitar shredding ever committed to vinyl. It’s also got this awesome marimba thing during the verses.’ — LypoSuck

 

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Engine (1975)
‘Cale had just finished producing Patti Smith’s “Horses” and was in progress of touring when Island released “Helen of Troy” out from under him, without his knowledge, and in an unfinished state of pre-production. Cale once said that Island ‘released what amounted to demo tapes’ on the final “Helen of Troy”: indicating that the problematic elements in question were probably “Engine,” “Save Us” and most of side two.’ — Head Heritage

 

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Leaving It Up to You (1975)
‘Paris 1919 was followed by a trilogy of albums recorded on the Island label, which saw him collaborate with Brian Eno among others. During this period his live show became increasingly aggressive, until one day he slaughtered a chicken mid-performance causing his band to walk off stage in disgust. For most of his career Cale has used the piano as his primary instrument, but on the island LPs he was not averse to rocking out, or indeed freaking out with a guitar while snarling about Sharon Tate.’ — Sabotage Times

 

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Chickenshit (1977)
‘On April 24, 1977, during his twisted rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel” in Croydon, England, John Cale brandished a meat cleaver in one hand and a chicken in the other (which, unbeknownst to those attending, was already dead). As the punk kids in attendance moshed and slammed at the foot of the stage, Cale placed the chicken on the floor, knelt down and swiftly hacked off its head. As he whipped the severed remnants into the audience, everyone, including the other band members, stared in bemusement. The vegetarian rhythm section of Mike Visceglia and Joe Stefko, who backstage had interrogated Cale on his plans for the bird, promptly walked off. Throughout the years, Cale struggled with depression and drug use. By the time the “chicken incident” occurred, he was in the midst of a heavy cocaine addiction, which plagued him with paranoia and borderline psychosis. As his decisions became more irrational, his music increasingly grew angrier. In response to his band members’ departure, Cale quickly recorded the three-song Animal Justice EP, featuring “Chickenshit,” a sarcastic retelling of the events.’ — Magnet Magazine

 

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Dr. Mudd (1979)
‘On “Dr. Mudd,” the fear reaches its high point, though it might not sound like it. Over jittery rhythm guitar, female singer Deerfrance adds carefree “doo-doo-doo” backup vocals, although the lyrics are anything but. With the repeated cries of “Whatcha gonna do?” Cale strains his voice describing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He reminds us that although America may not be forced to relive the events every day, the people of Japan are frequently burdened, cursed to “remember when the children’s hair fell out, and all their skin turned blue.” Cale then asks us to put ourselves in their shoes, quizzing our elected officials what will happen when “China drops a bomb on you.” It’s a catchy new-wave masterpiece, though no fun for those that listen close.’ — Magnet Magazine

 

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Sabotage (1979)
”The music scene was changing rapidly, but the world climate was changing as well. Cale’s next batch of songs would seemingly draw a comparison between the two; as many punks used their music and performances to display their sometimes violent, misplaced attitudes, America nervously watched the U.S.S.R. in the throes of the nuclear arms race, with the height of the Cold War right around the corner. Recorded over four nights in April ’79 at CBGB, Sabotage/Live dealt with these threats head on. In Cale’s autobiography, What’s Welsh For Zen?, he explains, “Sabotage was a response to the militarism that was in the air around then. When I released the controversial track ‘Ready For War’ as a single, I should have said to the audience, ‘We have an induction room backstage. Let’s see you come back and enlist. You wouldn’t have seen one of them—people who had just been stamping their feet and yelling, ‘Yeah, right on!’ Though of course if you stole a hubcap off one of them, you’d probably hear from him.”’ — collaged

 

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Rosegarden Funeral of Sores (1980)
‘This was a strange little single release by the major label (A&M;) affiliated IRS Records. The B-side is probably more famous for Bauhaus’s cover version. And while researching this release online I found a comment as to how their version is much better. I like the Bauhaus version OK, but this is great, too. On the record’s label there is a disclaimer: “Vocal distortion intended”, haha. Also strange, these songs seem to have never been released elsewhere. I checked all the Cale albums from the time, as well as the various “Best Ofs” that have come out. Nada anywhere…’ — Pessimist Club

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** JM, Hey, Josiah! I want to see images. Is this the amazing sounding project you briefly described a bit ago? Anyway, images when the time comes please. Whoa, fantastic about the McElroy. That’s huge news. Whoa. Hoping your friend gets a little something or other from my thing. Take care. I hope the new project is a giant hit whatever that entails. ** dooflow, Hi! What a rare and great pleasure! I’m going to get on the Wheeler Winston Dixon hunt this weekend. ‘The Taiga Syndrome’ is great, right? I think I read that last year. Really, thanks for coming in. It’s a boon. ** ET, Thank you, my pleasure. Oh, shoot, yes, yes, I’m so sorry for the non-reactiveness. I’m slow at the best of times, and between the release of the film and other projects and personal stuff I’ve been really swamped upstairs and downstairs in the last months, so it’s just forgetfulness and a sold-out brain. I’ll go find your email and write to you. Again, I’m so sorry for the silence. Thank you! ** David Ehrenstein, No, the Foucault book is centered around him talking acid in Death Valley. Thank you kindly about PGL. I haven’t seen the Ferrara ‘Pasolini’, but I quite want to. I generally like his films. ** Sypha, The shout out was a no brainer, man. WHITE by BEE? What in the world is that? Oh, wait, duh. Nevermind. I heard a bit of the Madonna, and I thought it seemed actually kind of surprising and interesting. But I’ve only heard a squib. ** Steve Erickson, Thank you for the lists. I’ll find the things I don’t know and test them. Oh, and thanks a lot for the link to the new Ken Jacobs. I didn’t know anything about that. Great! ** Tosh Berman, Thanks, bud, and, mostly, thanks for your great, great book! ** Steve Finbow, Hi, Steve, How nice to see you! Oh, well, thank you. The book is crazy awesome. Take good care. ** rewritedept, Hi, Chris, old pal. Of course I’m happy that the GbV is on your list. Earth bores my pants off. Gisele loves them though. Thank you about Kevin. Yeah, I’m still pretty wiped out by that loss, as so many people are. Thank you and love. ** KeatageCheese, I like water parks, but I almost never go to them for no good reason. Yeah, it’s hood-like. I guess that was the point, to do it there out of solidarity or something and see what happened. I want to see the new ‘Child’s Play’ for sure and the new ‘John Wick’ for absolutely sure. I hope the git hugged you like a long lost something or other. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yeah, I need to get that Meg McCarville. I keep meaning to. Thank you for including PGL. I saw a pic you shared on FB of some pages of the new The Call, and, man, it looks really delicious! The colors thing is amazing, for one thing. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. Cool that your vid is in the bag. And I can watch it? I will this weekend. Whoa, exciting! And thanks for linking up to the backstories. Oh, yeah, I often check out e-flux. I think I link to things of theirs in posts here quite a bit. I’ll check out the piece you especially like. And Jeanines. Thanks as ever for your generosity, and have a swell weekend. ** cal, Hi, C! The Inter Arma is kind of a grower. I love that Ryan’s work is so divisive amongst film/video people. In his case, it seems like a big strength. Oh, yeah, I like that Rhye record. I spaced on it. I want to see ‘Godzilla’, but I think it’ll have to be on a plane at this point. But I love watching giant movies on teeny plane screens with shitty headphones. I don’t know why. Don’t break your back or anything in the warehouse. Always great to chat with you too, big time. ** Bill, Hi, B. Well, of course there are a bunch of things on your lists that I don’t know, and I just took a quick break to scribble — by hand, I’m old fashioned — down those titles so I can be enriched. Thank you. And thanks for listing PGL! ** KK, Hi, KK. Welcome! I know or rather have heard something about Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s ‘Animalia’, but I haven’t gotten it. I definitely will ASAP. Thanks a bunch for the tip, and a sweet weekend to you too! ** Damien Ark, Hey, Damien! Great to see you! People don’t like that Basinski? Huh. Nope, I still haven’t heard the Beth Gibbons symphony thing for no logical reason. I will. Love and peace back to you in spades. ** Paul Curran, Is it solstice? Oh, God. Fucking summer. Yeah, in the two pix I saw, the house literally looked it was in the middle of rural nowhere. I want to check out Setagaya next time I’m there. You want to give me (and Zac) a tour? Well, of course I would be utterly thrilled if you want to make a post about that. That would be hugely stellar. Thank you for the offer! You have a fantastic and beyond weekend. ** TJ Wood, Hi, welcome. Mike Corrao, don’t know him, … okay, I will definitely check ‘Gut Text’ out. Thank you. ** James, Solstice, meh, but thank you anyway. Well, of course about ‘HG’. I have good taste, sir. I’ll look into those non-fiction books I don’t know. I’m spending a fair amount of time thinking about the novel, which is what I need to do before re-tackling it, but I haven’t dug in yet, no. Soon, I hope. Much love back to you and yours. ** Okay. I fell down a Cale-Hole the other day, and I decided to make a gig out if it. That’s your local weekend should you decide to accept the assignment. See you on Monday.