Experimental violinist John Cale first gigged with Tony Conrad on a novelty dance single

Evidence

That fall, two stoned disciples of La Monte Young—twenty-two-year-old Welsh violinist John Cale and twenty-four-year-old Tony Conrad—got together to rehearse with a thirty-ish friend of Young’s, artist Walter De Maria who played the drums and had a big loft on Bond Street. Their mission: learn an inane would-be dance-craze catalyst called “The Ostrich.” The tune was released as 45 rpm single by Pickwick International, pioneer purveyor of “sound-alike” recordings and bargain-bin LPs, and attributed to a studio band called the Primitives. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 644

Categorization

• SHARE: The future Velvet Underground violinist cut a ‘sound-alike’ bargain-bin 45 under a pseudonymous studio band — a great fact for any music-history nerd.