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SPY Records
SPY Records was a New York based independent music label created in 1977 by John Cale and Jane Friedman. History The label was created in 1977 by John Cale and Jane Friedman, who was the manager of Patti Smith, and Cale's girlfriend at the time. It was housed in Cale's 250 West 57th Street office.John Cale timeline: 1978
The concept of the label that all artists were to be produced by Cale. The label was distributed by I.R.S. Records Its logo was designed by , using an image of Cale's eye from his ''

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John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, drone, classical, avant-garde and electronic music. He studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before relocating in 1963 to New York City's downtown music scene, where he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music and formed the Velvet Underground. Since leaving the band in 1968, Cale has released sixteen solo studio albums, including the widely acclaimed '' Paris 1919'' (1973) and '' Music for a New Society'' (1982). Cale has also acquired a reputation as an adventurous record producer, working on the debut albums of several innovative artists, including the Stooges and Patti Smith. Early life and career John Davies Cale was born on 9 March 1942 in the mining village of Garnant in the valley ...
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Michel Esteban
Michel Antoine Gaston Esteban (born 7 May 1951) is a French record producer, record company executive, cultural center director and former magazine editor, who founded the Paris shop Harry Cover in 1973, was influential in the early development of punk rock, and, together with Michael Zilkha, established the New York-based record label ZE Records in 1978. Life and career Esteban was born in Paris. From 1968, he studied graphic arts at L'École d'Arts Graphiques in the city, and in 1973 founded a shop in the Rue des Halles, Harry Cover, which specialised in rock merchandise, magazines and books as well as imported records from the US and UK. The basement was used as a rehearsal space by bands, particularly as the punk rock scene developed in the mid 1970s. In 1974 Esteban travelled around the US, returning to New York where he studied under Milton Glaser at the School of Visual Arts. He became a friend of Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine of ...
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Michael Zilkha
Michael Zilkha (born 1954) is a British-born entrepreneur, the co-founder of ZE Records. Early life He was born in 1954, the son of Selim Zilkha, the founder of Mothercare, one of the UK's largest retail chains (and the grandson of Khedouri Zilkha, a banker) and Diane Bashi. His parents had divorced by 1962, when his mother married the British politician Harold Lever (later Harold Lever, Baron Lever of Manchester). He was educated at Westminster School and Lincoln College, Oxford. Career In 1978, he co-founded ZE Records with Michel Esteban, which he co-owned until 1986. From 1986 to 1998, he was co-owner and executive vice president of Zilkha Energy, and from 1998 to 2005 president and co-owner of Zilkha Renewable Energy, until it was bought by Goldman Sachs in July 2005 and renamed Horizon Wind Energy, and co-owner of Zilkha Biomass Energy. In 1998, Zilkha and his father sold the Houston-based Zilkha Energy to Sonat for $1 billion, which in turn was later acquired by El Paso Co ...
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Indie Rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock or "Pop rock, guitar pop rock". One of the primary scenes of the movement was Dunedin, where Dunedin sound, a cultural scene based around a convergence of noise pop and jangle became popular among the city's University of Otago, large student population. Independent labels such as Flying Nun Records, Flying Nun began to promote the scene across New Zealand, inspiring key college rock bands in the United States such as Pavement (band), Pavement, Pixies (band), Pixies and R.E.M. Other notable scenes grew in Madchester, Manchester and Hamburger Schule, Hamburg, with many others thriving thereafter. In the 1980s, the use of the term "independent music, indie" (or " ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
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New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Patti Smith
Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album '' Horses''. Called the "punk poet laureate", Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Her most widely known song is " Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It reached number 13 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1978 and number five in the UK. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir ''Just Kids''. The book fulfilled a promise she had made to her former long-time partner Robert Mapplethorpe. She placed 47th in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of 100 Greatest Artists published in December 2010 and was also a recipient of the 2011 Polar ...
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Fear (John Cale Album)
''Fear'' is the fourth solo studio album by Welsh rock musician John Cale, released on 1 October 1974 by Island Records. Recording and content ''Fear'' is the first of Cale's three studio albums for Island Records, all of which were released in a period of just over a year. During this time Cale was also producing records for other artists, working on albums such as ''Horses'' (1975) by Patti Smith, one of the most influential of all proto-punk records. In addition to his lead vocals on ''Fear'', Cale also played keyboards, guitars, viola, violin and bass, and was joined by Fairport Convention's Richard Thompson, Roxy Music's Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera, and other artists who were signed to Island at the time. "Gun" features an unusual two-man guitar solo from Manzanera and Eno, with the latter using a synthesizer to process the former's guitar playing in real-time. The promotional album for ''Fear'' released by Island Records contained an interview with Cale. He announced an ...
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ZE Records
ZE Records was originally a New York-based record label, started in 1978 in music, 1978 by Michael Zilkha and Michel Esteban. It was reestablished by Esteban in 2003. History Michael Zilkha (b. 1954) is a British-born Oxford University, Oxford graduate of Iraqi descent, the son of Selim Zilkha, former owner of Mothercare, a major UK retail company, and the stepson of Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet member Harold Lever, Baron Lever of Manchester, Lord Lever. In the mid-1970s, Zilkha worked in the New York publishing industry and was a contributor to the ''Village Voice''. Michel Esteban (b. 1951) studied art in Paris and at the School of Visual Arts in New York, before returning to Paris in 1975 and opening the shop Harry Cover (a pun on "haricots verts"), which specialised in current rock music merchandise from the US and UK. The basement shop quickly became the rehearsal place for Parisian new wave bands. Between 1975 and 1976, Esteban published ''Rock News'', which cov ...
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Music For A New Society
''Music for a New Society'' is the eighth solo studio album by Welsh musician John Cale, released in September 1982 by ZE Records and Island Records. With the suggestion from ZE Records owner Michael Zilkha, Cale performed the album mostly improvised live at Skyline Studios in New York City. The album was a creative shift after several rock-oriented albums, with sparse piano-based performances. Background and recording Following on from the commercial success of his previous studio album, ''Honi Soit'' (1981), John Cale turned his label, SPY Records, which had released singles from Marie et les Garçons, Lester Bangs, and Cale himself between 1977 and 1980, over to Michael Zilkha. Zilkha absorbed SPY into his label ZE Records. Meanwhile, Cale had dropped working with a band and was touring extensively as a solo performer.''What's Welsh for Zen? The Autobiography of John Cale'', by Victor Bockris and John Cale; pages 198–201 Zilkha suggested Cale do an inexpensive solo studio a ...
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Caribbean Sunset
''Caribbean Sunset'' is the ninth solo studio album by Welsh rock musician John Cale, released in January 1984 by ZE Records. ''Caribbean Sunset'' became Cale's only studio album to chart on the Dutch Album Top 100, peaking at No. 28. Release ''Caribbean Sunset'' was released on vinyl and cassette in 1984 by ZE Records. It was reissued on vinyl by Mango in 1990. Both the ZE and Mango vinyl versions are now out of print. "Villa Albani" was released as a 12" single in Germany. "Caribbean Sunset" was issued as a promo 7" in the UK. To date, the album remains unavailable on CD or MP3, though a remastered download with two bonus tracks was made available on the ZE Records website in 2011. The album features contributions from Brian Eno and an otherwise "young unknown" band, that consisted of David Young on guitar, Andrew Heermans on bass guitar, and David Lichtenstein (son of artist Roy Lichtenstein) on drums. The cover photograph was taken by Risé Irushalmi Cale. Critical ...
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John Cale Comes Alive
''John Cale Comes Alive'' is the second live album by the Welsh rock musician John Cale, released in September 1984 by ZE Records after the previous studio album ''Caribbean Sunset'' (also 1984). It was recorded at The Lyceum in London, UK on 26 February 1984. It also includes two studio recordings "Ooh La La" and "Never Give Up on You". The album has not been released on compact disc or digital format. The US release has different versions of both studio tracks compared to the European version. Track listing Personnel Musicians * John Cale − guitar, piano, vocals, producer * Andy Heermans − bass, engineer on "Ooh La La" and "Never Give Up on You" * David Lichtenstein − drums, electronic drums, engineer on "Ooh La La" and "Never Give Up on You" * David Young − guitar, engineer on "Ooh La La" and "Never Give Up on You" * Julius Klepacz − drums on "Never Give Up on You" Production and artwork * Stephen Street Stephen Brian Street (born 29 March 1960 in Hackney ...
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