Songs for the Week, Surpassingly Cool Edition Wm. Ferguson creates "The Music They Made," an end-of-the-year tribute to musicians as part of our annual The Lives They Lived Issue. Here he presents three songs you should listen to this week. "Paris 1919," John Cale I had the good luck last Saturday to see John Cale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, performing his 1973 album "Paris 1919." The few friends who actually know this record asked me how the show was with a hushed reverence, as if the answer could only be a beatific nod. I obliged with such a nod. To the extent such a thing is possible over e-mail. The vogue for performing classic albums live is a great idea that would benefit from a standards committee. I mean, is it necessary to see the original members of Judas Priest, all in their 60s, do "British Steel" from start to finish? Surely there's a Judas Priest tribute band somewhere called British Steel that can do a credible and certainly more lithe rendition? Or maybe it would be enough just to blast "Living After Midnight" from a car stereo in a 7-Eleven parking lot and call it a day? That is not the case for Cale, one of the coolest people on earth. Among his achievements: bluffed his way into a Leonard Bernstein scholarship at Tanglewood as a young man, where he studied under Yannis Xenakis; moved to New York, where he played with La Monte Young (and occasionally scored weed for him); founded the Velvet Underground. And all this happened before his woefully unheralded solo career, of which "Paris 1919" is only one highlight. "Fear," from 1974, is new wave a full three years before Television's "Marquee Moon" invents new wave. Being in the presence of Cale is necessary. Anyway, Cale is 71 this March, though he was by far the most virile presence onstage at BAM. He shared the stage with one of those hip orchestras with musicians who wear leather leggings and have good hair and who were also clearly out of their depth. But that's what maybe made it so great: The politely sawing violins trying to keep up with Cale's wrought-iron melodies, like gulls trailing an ocean liner. Here's a clip of "Paris 1919" from an earlier performance, at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. "I Would Be Your Slave," David Bowie Bowie needs less setup than Cale and is equally surpassingly cool. It's been a while, Dave, hasn't it? Bowie released a new single last week, "Where Are We Now?" in advance of "The Next Day," his first album in 10 years. It's gorgeous and languid and a somewhat daring move as the first single, which is hearteningly Bowiesque. The daring choice of single, I mean. There's a video for it by the artist Tony Oursler - which I think is better in concept than in execution. But maybe that's a testament to how good the song is. "Where Are We Now?" doesn't sound like any of the more beloved Bowie iterations - Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Berlin Bowie. But it made me wonder, What are we supposed to call post-"Scary Monsters" Bowie? Would that be midperiod Bowie? Dave's lost years? It has been 20 years since "Black Tie White Noise," an album that no one fawns over as they do "Lodger" or "Hunky Dory." But there is great music in the recent Bowie catalog. I predict that bands forming in the next decade will revere "Heathen," from 2002. "I Would Be Your Slave" from that record has some of the fragility of "Where Are We Now?" "Hiccup," Buke and Gase If you want to sound like no one else, it helps to play instruments that no one else has. Buke and Gase is the duo Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez. I'm fairly certain that Arone is the woman and Aron is the man, although I may have that backward. But it doesn't really matter because both are transfixing presences. I do know that the pair left Brooklyn for Hudson, N.Y., where they live some unimaginably bohemian life making their own instruments (buke=bass ukelele; gase=guitar/bass hybrid) and drinking Mexican hot chocolate at the cool cafe in Hudson. Buke and Gase play tonight at Bowery Ballroom; "Hiccup" is from the band's excellent new record "General Dome." <a href="http://bukeandgase.bandcamp.com/track/hiccup-5" data-mce-href="http://bukeandgase.bandcamp.com/track/hiccup-5">Hiccup by Buke and Gase</a>