John Cale

John Cale co-founded The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed.

Well, that should be reason enough to want to see him, but if not...

He's worked with such luminaries as Brian Eno, Terry Riley and Kevin Ayers, appeared on Nick Drake's beautiful Bryter Layter and participated in the first ever performance of Erik Satie's 18 hour piano piece Vexations. He produced the following iconic and brilliant albums: Horses for Patti Smith (Horses, goddamnit!), The Modern Lovers' debut record, The Stooges self-titled debut, and fellow Velvet Underground bandmate Nico's The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End. Just to name a few little accomplishments.

As a solo artist, Cale has the traits of a wanderer, picking up new instruments here and there, and experimenting with genres that may have seemed like odd choices at the time, but looking back his work has a kind of cohesiveness, an ebb and flow of pattern and talent with a love of drone. While still a student in London, he organised an early Fluxus concert he titled A Little Festival of New Music in 1963. Later he played in famed avant garde composer La Monte Young's Theater of Eternal Music, and while he still delves into pop (the titular single from 1973's solo record Paris 1919 is a real pop masterpiece, see below), there's always an element straying from the path.

John Cale will perform as a guest of the Sydney Festival, live in concert with his band, supported by Sydney's own Jack Ladder. He will also present the Keynote Address for Circa 1979: Signal to Noise.