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What's Welsh for Zen: The Autobiography of John Cale
by
Victor Bockris
,
John Cale
John Cale has been a key figure in rock music for decades. Born in 1942 in a small Welsh mining village, he was playing classical piano on BBC radio at the age of eight, and by ten he had discovered rock and roll on Radio Luxembourg. He studied music at Goldsmith's College in London and in 1963 moved to New York City, under the tutelage of Aaron Copland. Cale was quickly d
...more
Paperback
,
272 pages
Published
February 19th 2000
by Bloomsbury USA
(first published 1998)
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Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
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468)
A co-write with the dreaded Victor Bockris, which guarantees it is repetitive, nonsensical at times, and heavily slanted against Lou Reed. Which is fine, as Velvet Underground followers need to hear Cale's side of the story. Anyone looking for dirt on Lou Reed--or Brian Eno, for that matter--will find it here. And Cale's autobiographical revelations are often fascinating. Despite his imposing, aloof, and cocksure public demeanor, what's revealed is a surprisingly insecure, sometimes deeply unlik
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When I set out to read this book I was expecting two things to happen: 1) I'd read about the life of a genius and be really jealous of him or 2) start to hate Cale for some flaws of his character. Neither actually happened. This was a sad book. A book about a person that expected so much of life and even though achieved a lot, it was never enough. Personal difficulties and resentments are seeping through each chapter. In a way if feels that in Cale's own eyes the peak of his career was achieved
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I was thinking of giving it 4 stars since 1) I'm kinda giving EVERY good book 5 stars, I feel like, 2) sometimes, the way Cale words things can be a bit cryptic, and I wanted a bit more detail on some things... but that's NOT to say the man pulls punches. He pretty much tells you EXACTLY how he got along with Lou Reed, or what he feels the faults of various projects/ albums he was involved in were. And, to be fair, I can't really say he left anything out, or didn't deal with each topic with a gr
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I bought this book about ten years ago mainly because I am a Dave McKean fan. Also, being Welsh, I was intrigued by the title. Over the last few years I've become increasingly more interested in John Cale, The Velvet Underground, and Lou Reed, so it seemed time to read this.
This is an intensely honest and raw autobiography—Cale doesn't always make himself look good so I assume the honesty. The intensity and rawness is equally reflected in McKean's design and illustration. I think there is also a ...more
This is an intensely honest and raw autobiography—Cale doesn't always make himself look good so I assume the honesty. The intensity and rawness is equally reflected in McKean's design and illustration. I think there is also a ...more
This was good for the information, but you have to work for it. What the hell was up with the editing? Or the lack of it? It reads like an exact transcription of Cale talking about his life--so much of it is him talking in circles, and there are typos like crazy. The layout of the text made it difficult to read at times, though after reading a
recent interview
with Cale, I found that was intentional and meant to resemble TV (which makes sense as I can't bear to watch most TV anymore...and anyway
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I've read this a couple of years ago and as far as musician's autobiographies/memoirs go, this one is very good. It's a "warts and all" type of autobiography and Cale doesn't spare himself, unafraid of appearing in an unflattering light sometimes. I think the book was written around the time of Cale's divorce from his 3rd wife and also in rather fallow creative times if I remember correctly so a lot of the resentment and sadness seeps into the text sometimes. Not sure this would still be the cas
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Oct 08, 2007
Charlie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of music in general, velvet underground fans, john cale fans
I'm a pretty big fan of both John Cale's solo music as well as his time in The Velvet Underground. This book gives a lot of info straight from the man himself. He also is very honest and doesn't try to gloss over certain things to make himself look like Mr. Perfect. However, I feel he spent an awful amount of time going on about what a prick Lou Reed is. I do not know Lou Reed, I know a lot of people don't like him and I'm sure they have a good reason. But I get it, he's a prick you hate him etc
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beautifully and gruesomely candid. i respect john cale even more for writing so honestly about himself and sharing his hard-earned and well-deserved insights. felt like having a conversation w/a friend.
I liked the pictures in here and I do love the song magnolia!
The autobiography of John Cale. Full of quotes by contemporaries, scraps of lyrics, and Cale's own perspective on the Velvet Underground, especially his relationship with Lou Reed. Those guys were all strung out on drugs and not just your happy acid, either. But the way they saw themselves is fascinating. And then of course, there is Patti Smith.
It's great! Just a bit tough getting through his early years. Once he grows up and moves to America it's a page-turner. The style is kind of graphic novelish which sounds as though it could be dumb, but it actually makes it very entertaining. The way a colourful persons memoirs ought to look.
While Cale specificaly chose typographical obstacles to making this an easy read, the autobiography is a fascinating tour of the career, accomplishments and missteps of this VU founder, punk hero, and avant-garde musician.
read this book if you love the velvet underground -- visually riveting, and gives a true glimpse into cale's life and real relationship w/ lou reed. kind of sloppy editing and grammar though
Poor. Seems like a squandered opportunity for a major cultural figure like Cale to write a proper in-depth memoir.
Not half bad. At first, I thought the artiness-collagey thing would give me a hairlip, but it kind of works.
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