Suspenders!

John Cale does not appreciate of being bootlegged during gigs, and does not seem particularly happy about photographs either, especially when taken with a flash. Once in Berlin I was searched by a very meticulous girl with green hair and sternly reproached for carrying a supermarket-quality disposable camera, which was confiscated, before being allowed inside the venue. I wouldn’t have dared use it anyway. Disturbing John Cale while he performs isn’t exactly the point of my traveling around parcel post special delivery from one gig to the other.

Anyway, Logan took a couple of photos for me with his mobile phone last month in Turin, being very very unobtrusive of course and without flash absolutely. I hope John won’t mind if I share them, it’s just that his outfit is so cool. Enjoy.

Like a Counter Turn into a 3A

So the ice skating season is nearly over, time for a brief review.

I’m very pleased with the achievements of my favourite skaters this year, particularly pair Savchenko Szolchowy with their Pina routine, dance pair Virtue Moir consistenly back to gold (although I find Davies White Strauss routine quite remarkable), and of course my new hero Yuzuru Hanyu on the senior podium.

I’m also happy about Carolina Kostner winning world gold at last. She skated on Halleluja at the gala and German reporters on Eurospot DE couldn’t help but remark, halleluja, gold at last. But Carolina knew better, in fact it was Jeff Buckley’s version, Cale’s arrangement, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Halleluja. Anyway, the gold was very well deserved, a career gold.

It’s been a nice season indeed, with impressive Elizaveta Tuktamisheva from Russia already circling over Sochi as a bird of prey, Mishin’s new athlete Arthur Gachinsky doing well in Sheffield, and various Italian pairs shining bright, including Della Monica Guarise, being Matteo Guarise the former roller skating star.

To me, the highlight of the season remains a counter turn into a 3A, a little detail that truly amazes me. Nowadays quite a few skaters can take off their triple axel from a spread eagle entry, but only young Yuzuru Hanyu does a counter turn into it.
You can check 2012 Nice Worlds or even more impressive 2011 Nebelhorn Trophy, both at min 1.18.

All Along the Riverbank

As you may happen to know, I am a Caleist.
I started being a Caleist aged 14, that was 1988, when I first discovered the Velvet Underground via a rural  punk community, kind of, in the Bologna area, Italy. I didn’t know I was to be called a Caleist then. With the delirious confidence of a 14-year-old using too much hairspray, I simply considered myself to have a tremendously good taste. How couldn’t you possibly love Cale? He was the one with the electric viola! A bloody electric viola! So I happily carried on with this belief of mine, through Songs for Drella, Words for the Dying, Locusts etc. But I was also quite busy, musically speaking, lots of dead musicians to be listened to, countless dead musicians, and the living ones, Cave, die Einstuerzende, Neil Young, so I got distracted, derailed, minimalism, folk-psychedelia, London, Berlin. Until one night, many years later, I noticed a faded poster in the street and it occurred to me that I had never seen Cale live once. Why on Earth? I had seen Lou Reed twice after all. So off I went to see Cale live, in a very small, uncrowded venue, open air. And that was when I learnt I was what being a Caleist is about exactly. Well, it’s about finding yourself to be Cale’s very own public, a singing, electric body, one who is magnetically drawn to the front row (see image below), dead chicken or not dead chicken. One who will hardly breath through the classics and who will know and scream the refrains of obscure old songs. Ultimately, one who vibrates very well along with the sound of the Kurzweil and the Welsh voice. And you know what, one with a tremendously good taste.

So if you’re a Caleist, the current tour is for you, it’s still long and it’s currently being rescheduled. A few classics, no auto-celebrations, all new songs you already know because you’ve paid attention, together with old forgotten songs you still know by heart. It’s exactly what Cale feels like singing  for you these days, nothing more, nothing less. In the end, it’s electrifying. Gun+Pablo, no Chickenshit.

Penblwydd Hapus

It’s John Cale’s birthday and I get the presents!

For You’ve Touched Her Perfect Body With Your Mind

I was watching I’m Your Man (2005) the documentary about Leonard Coen, and thinking that nearly 20 years have passed since the first time I found myself in front of Nick Cave, a sweating, smiling Nick Cave to be precise, and that was when I learnt that you have to fight for the front row, friend F.’s idea initially, and since then I saw John Cale, barefoot, playing a grand piano, Jeff Buckley singing his Hallelujah under a very cloudy summer sky, and I was in Montreal once, and all this makes perfect sense.

Then the recording ended abruptly right in the middle of Suzanne.

Twice

Guess who’s the lucky girl who’s just got herself tickets for Cale in Turin as well as in Milan?
Car has been serviced last month, tyres are almost new, the snow is melting, hitting the road in March.

I Will See You Soon

At the end of the gig, John Cale always says that. He means it. Not necessarily that he will see you soon in the same venue or city, but that of course you will be traveling to follow him, parcel post special delivery if necessary.

03/12 C-minecultuurcentrum, Genk, Belgium
03/13 Les Docks, Lausanne, Switzerla
03/15 Magazzini Generali, Milan, Italy
03/16 Orion Club, Ciampino, Italy
03/17 Hiroshima Mon Amour Club, Turin, Italy
03/20 Sala Apolo, Barcelona, Spain
03/21 Sala BBK, Bilbao, Spain
03/23 Auditorio Casa de Cultura, Aviles, Spain
03/24 La Coruña Palacio de Congresos,
03/24 Coruña, Spain
03/25 Sala Joy Eslava, Madrid, Spain
03/27 Teatro de Malaga, Malaga, Spain

05/03 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival,
05/03 Belfast, Northern Ireland
05/04 The Button Factory, Dublin, Ireland
05/13 Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
05/25 Royal Festival Hall, London, UK

Time Has Told Me

I love it when I discover elements of consistency in collective imagination, especially when I can relate to them on a personal level.

As you may have noticed I’ve been on quite a Cumberbatch trip lately, and this has also involved, among other things, watching BBC Hawking and reading a couple of related interviews, and look what I’ve discovered:

What roles would you most like to play still?
A young Nick Drake (the folk musician) – on film or telly. Play-wise, Oswald from Ghosts, Hamlet obviously. And why not Constantine (from The Seagull) as well.

Nick Drake. Nick Drake! He even felt he needed to specify who he was, for the uncultivated reader, and that the medium would not matter really. I love this. I’m speechless.

By the way, Cumberbach/Hawking flirting with the blonde girl at the pub about relative time (min. 14 – min. 0) reminded me of one of my physics teachers back in high school. No, not the young aggressive annoying lady, not the disgusting middle-aged sex addict who would never speak a word about physics, not the dull brunette who was only and forever interested in wave motion and but could not spell waves correctly, no, I mean the young guy with the sweet smile  and the perpetual chalk stains on the blazer. He didn’t like to sit at the desk, what he did like to do was scribbling madly on the chalkboard, and then he would lean on it and speak to the class, and sometimes he would call someone at the chalkboard to complete the scribbling while he still leaned on it (he would shift a little to give you some space) and continued to speak, and sometimes he started to ignore the rest of the class to speak to you and to you only. That’s exactly how I was taught about relative time, only year at high school I understood anything about physics actually, and that’s why I decided to read Brief History of Time in the first place.

Now, I don’t know how these BBC Hawking people knew about the only year in high school I understood physics, but I’m happy it earned Cumberbatch a BAFTA nomination as well a Golden Nymph.

Penblwydd Hapus, John

Just Before Dinner Time

Some more photos of my favourite pizza place, where I have my VU&Nico table.

The Sex Pistols corner.

The London Calling table (I love this one).

The Who and the Zimmerman (always believed in him, as you know)