One of my all time favourite albums and certainly favourite songwriters.
Having split the Velvet Underground, John Cale might easily have packed up his viola and avant garde bona fides and disappeared forever into the obscure realm of experimental music. Instead he’s had it both ways, interspersing LPs like 1997’s Eat/Kiss: Music for the Films by Andy Warhol with more traditional art rock (God I hate that term) albums like Vintage Violence. Lou Reed went on to join the greats, but by any standard Cale’s albums of the early to mid-1970’s stand up to those released by Reed during the same period. There’s much to be said for Reed’s aggression, but Cale’s emotional detachment also has its lure. In “Hanky Panky Nohow” Cale sings about “seducing down the door.” Which to my way of thinking is just as good as Reed’s approach, which was to kick it in.
Source: Graded on a Curve: John Cale, Vintage Violence – The Vinyl District