John Cale is writing a film. It's a collaboration with the avant-garde filmmaker CS Leigh, it's called Everybody Had A Camera, and it focuses on a seven-year period in the life of Andy Warhol, as seen though the eyes of...Mozart.

"Yes, it's about Mozart coming to New York in the Sixties and running into all the people at the Factory," says the Welsh musician, songwriter and producer matter-of-factly.

"The thing about film is, the more incredulous it gets, the more enthralled the audience is. It'll end up, I think, with Mozart nude, running away and throwing off his courtier's outfit."

Ending aside, the gist of the film is clearly autobiographical. Showing an early talent for the piano, Cale was classically trained and spent his teenage years studying musicology at London's Goldsmiths College.

But a move to New York in 1963 saw him become involved with the avantgarde music scene, participating with John Cage in an 18-hour piano marathon.

And, after meeting Lou Reed, his name was to become synonymous with The Velvet Underground, in particular those electrically amplified viola drones which gave Venus In Furs and All Tomorrow's Parties their unique, heady atmosphere.

"It was filthy, dirty and hot," says Cale of the early days in the Velvets, when he and Reed would busk on street corners. "But playing Waiting For My Man on acoustic guitar, recorder and viola outside the Baby Grand in Harlem, that was the best take we did."

Splitting with The Velvets in 1968, Cale went on to produce some classic albums, including The Stooges' and Patti Smith's debuts, and release 30 or so albums of his own which range from traditional songwriting to threatening proto-punk, the latest of which is 2005's Black Acetate, which is more groove-based though no less idiosyncratic.

He has found inspiration in everyone from Super Furry Animals to Dr Dre.

"I'm impatient," he says by way of explanation. "There are more ways than 100,000 to skin a cat. You're gonna miss out on some amazing, scary moments that are really inspiring if you don't take risks, and that's what I'm interested in doing more than anything. I don't get results unless something like that happens."

Making a change from scaring his audience (and his band, who walked off stage in the Seventies when Cale cut the head off a dead chicken), these days Cale's desire to challenge himself has seen him do a lot of live improvising, the results of which can be heard on the upcoming live double album Circus Live.

"You have to be prepared to let some things come out which maybe, if you thought about them, you might not want to pursue," he observes.

"We've found out that if you do the same thing twice you go off stage feeling like, 'What an idiot, why did I bother doing that?' It's fairly intense. We're out on the edge, and I'm happy there.

Starts at 7.30pm, tickets cost £16. Call 01273 673311