POP MUSIC REVIEW : John Cale’s Moment of Discovery

To follow singer-songwriter-musician John Cale’s career is to follow the shotgun wedding of art and rock ‘n’ roll: His early days were spent as a disciple of mystic experimentalist LaMonte Young; he co-founded the Velvet Underground; he collaborated with Eno and Phil Collins and Phil Manzanera; he produced some of the rawest, most vivid early punk-rock records.

At UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Thursday, in his first Los Angeles performance in several years, the reclusive Cale drew a near-capacity audience that seemed as reverent as if in a church. Perhaps in anticipation, Cale dressed like a rumpled Anglican priest and hunched over the keyboard of a grand piano.

He started his set with three Dylan Thomas settings from his “Falklands Suite,” which shackled Thomas’ subtle speech rhythms into the Procrustean bed of Cale’s thumping four-square piano-man groove. He ended with a slow, tragic version of “Heartbreak Hotel,” punctuated with train-whistle screeches from the accompanying string quartet. There is certainly a point of art to be made in proving that both Dylan Thomas and Elvis Presley can be made to sound like Bernie Taupin on a bad day, but it is an elusive one.

His rudimentary piano technique--and reluctant, raspy singing style--do create a certain intimacy, bringing you closer, making you care a little more than you might wish. And sometimes, when his moment of discovery becomes your moment of discovery, this intimacy can be frightening.