Newpaper article for impending John Cale show on 01/07/89, (with Lou Reed), Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn Heights, New York, NY - "Songs for 'Drella".

New York Times

"Recalling A Pop Artist And a Friend"
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: January 6, 1989

''Andy, it's me / Haven't seen you for a while / I wish I had talked to you more when you were alive,'' begins the elegiac lyric for ''Hello It's Me,'' one of 14 new songs written by John Cale and Lou Reed for their new musical suite, ''Songs for 'Drella.''

It is a work in progress that will receive its first public performances tomorrow and Sunday at the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity, 157 Montague Street, at Clinton Street, in Brooklyn Heights. ''Songs for 'Drella'' is a tribute to Andy Warhol, who originally sponsored the Velvet Underground, the influential rock band that Mr. Cale and Mr. Reed founded in 1965. The song cycle has reunited two musicians who have not collaborated since 1968, when Mr. Cale quit the group.

From now until December, when it is scheduled to be the closing event of the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, ''Songs for 'Drella,'' is certain to expand from an intimate two-man concert into a much larger music-theater piece. But what that will entail is undecided. This weekend, the 14 songs, which affectionately remember the life and times of the Pop artist, will be performed by Mr. Reed (voice, guitar) and Mr. Cale (voice, amplified viola, keyboards) without interruption and with no special effects. How It Started

The idea of writing some sort of requiem for Warhol was suggested to Mr. Cale by the artist Julian Schnabel at a party shortly after Warhol's death. Mr. Cale has begun an all-instrumental requiem and plans to complete it, but in the meantime his reunion with Mr. Reed has produced ''Songs for 'Drella,'' which was commissioned jointly by Arts at St. Ann's and the Brooklyn Academy.

''When we started playing together last May, it began as just the two of us having fun throwing around ideas,'' Mr. Cale recalled in a recent interview with his collaborator at a Manhattan rehearsal studio. ''Gradually it turned into songwriting. It was a great opportunity to pick up the threads of the Velvet Underground and draw our original ideas about arrangements and subject matter to a conclusion. Obviously, we're bringing a lot of baggage to the project, but we are doing it with a lot of love. Andy was an incredibly generous spirit.''

''Songs for 'Drella'' takes its title from the affectionate nickname, a shortened form of Cinderella, that Warhol's fellow artists used for him in the early 60's.

For Mr. Cale and Mr. Reed, resuming a collaboration that ended 20 years ago has involved eight-hour workdays in a studio discussing concepts, sharing remembrances and exchanging musical ideas.

''We tape everything we do,'' Mr. Reed said. ''Musically, we begin with simple chord progressions to which John adds his Welsh riffs. The lyrics are a reflection of everything we talk about. Each of us has a notebook filled with ideas. I'm the official typist.'' The Goals of the Music

Scanning the lyrics to ''Hello It's Me'' and ''I Believe,'' the latter a recollection of the shooting of Warhol by Valerie Solanas in 1968, their tone evokes the tough-tender realism of Velvet Underground lyrics but with more emotional depth. At once angry and wistful, ''I Believe'' considers the idea of retribution from Warhol's point of view. ''Hello It's Me'' reflects on the artist's shyness. Though friends like Truman Capote and such Warhol ''superstars'' as Edie Sedgwick are mentioned, they remain peripheral.

Mr. Reed and Mr. Cale met Warhol in 1966 when they were hired to perform at showings of his movies in the Cinematheque in the East Village. The performances turned into some of the earliest mixed-media events when people started dancing, and the show was augmented with lights. The band became the musical component of Warhol's short-lived touring extravaganza, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. While the Velvet Underground never sold many albums, the group was among the most influential of the 60's rock bands and spawned scores of descendants.