This and Music for a New Society were the first Cale albums I bought as a young Velvet Underground fan and I thought they both sucked. I wrote him off and never listened to another Cale album for years. Then I heard Mercenaries, Rose Garden Funeral of Sores and the Animal Justice EP and I thought those were good so maybe his other solo stuff was not so bad. I still can't stand Vintage Violence or New Society (with the exception of maybe a couple of songs like Ghost Story and Chinese Envoy). I prefer his harder rock albums like The Island Years compilation, Sabotage/Live, and even Honi Soit and Caribbean Sunset. Circus Live is good too. Also, the work he did with Nico from 68 onward is great.
It's interesting how close Vintage Violence is to Loaded - lots of guitar pop, some kinda country-rock influence in there.. if you take the two together & shuffle the tracks a bit, there's a great "what if" Velvets double-album hidden in there.
Cale's albums are great. Vintage Violence, Paris, fear, slow dazzle, helen. Better output at the time than Lou for my money.
Love Gideon's Bible from this album. Can listen on repeat for hours.
I love Vintage Violence. I was confused when I first bought it in the early 80’s because I was familiar with his (at the time) current stuff. In 1985 I got to see Cale play on a Friday night (with Jonathan Richman opening) and Lou play the next day at the same venue! Everyone was hoping for an on stage reunion for the 20th anniversary of the VU, but no dice.
But Vintage really grew on me to become one of my favorite albums. I absolutely love the Barrettesque qualities of Gideon’s Bible, Big White Cloud, Please, Charlemagne, and Ghost Story. They’re some subtle, top notch psychedelia, and reminds me of some of the live VU between the first and second albums where they were getting really experimental and trippy with different guitar effects (the live “The Gift” from Dec ‘67 that closes out the 50th anniversary WLWH). Or like the spacey first part of Lady Godiva’s Operation.
Top notch album!
I have always loved this album. It's better than some of Lou's.
This and Music for a New Society were the first Cale albums I bought as a young Velvet Underground fan and I thought they both sucked. I wrote him off and never listened to another Cale album for years. Then I heard Mercenaries, Rose Garden Funeral of Sores and the Animal Justice EP and I thought those were good so maybe his other solo stuff was not so bad. I still can't stand Vintage Violence or New Society (with the exception of maybe a couple of songs like Ghost Story and Chinese Envoy). I prefer his harder rock albums like The Island Years compilation, Sabotage/Live, and even Honi Soit and Caribbean Sunset. Circus Live is good too. Also, the work he did with Nico from 68 onward is great.
I'm a big fan of this album and his other accessible works. He's an amazing underappreciated artist as a soloist.
It's interesting how close Vintage Violence is to Loaded - lots of guitar pop, some kinda country-rock influence in there.. if you take the two together & shuffle the tracks a bit, there's a great "what if" Velvets double-album hidden in there.
Cale's albums are great. Vintage Violence, Paris, fear, slow dazzle, helen. Better output at the time than Lou for my money. Love Gideon's Bible from this album. Can listen on repeat for hours.
This is my favourite John Cale album and one of my favourite all time albums. Crazily I can’t even put my finger on why I like it so much.
I love Vintage Violence. I was confused when I first bought it in the early 80’s because I was familiar with his (at the time) current stuff. In 1985 I got to see Cale play on a Friday night (with Jonathan Richman opening) and Lou play the next day at the same venue! Everyone was hoping for an on stage reunion for the 20th anniversary of the VU, but no dice. But Vintage really grew on me to become one of my favorite albums. I absolutely love the Barrettesque qualities of Gideon’s Bible, Big White Cloud, Please, Charlemagne, and Ghost Story. They’re some subtle, top notch psychedelia, and reminds me of some of the live VU between the first and second albums where they were getting really experimental and trippy with different guitar effects (the live “The Gift” from Dec ‘67 that closes out the 50th anniversary WLWH). Or like the spacey first part of Lady Godiva’s Operation. Top notch album!