/|\(;,;)/|\ There's an ocean of music, and I'm swimming as hard as I can. I use this blog to post music & commentary; I hope you find something here that does it for you. Peace!
My friend Z wanted to know if the new Nick Cave album is any good. Yes. Yes it is. Push The Sky Away simmers like The Boatman’s Call, years later and further from the shore than ever.
“Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man” by Grinderman
A friend of mine—he’s coming over later to swap music—loves Nick Cave but isn’t familiar with Cave’s other band, Grinderman. I’m looking forward to introducing him to this record. Grinderman—which is basically a stripped-down version of the Bad Seeds—work up enough lust and fury on this record to fuck the teeth outta your sister’s mouth. Nick Cave hasn’t sounded this wild since his Birthday Party days, or maybe the Let Love In album.
“Long Time Man” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
This is one of those songs where you must listen to the lyrics, if only for Nick Cave’s performance. It’s a song about a man who misses his wife long after he killed her.
“Truck Love” by Die Haut with Nick Cave
Die Haut was a Post-Punk band from Germany, and they recorded this criminally underrated album in the early ’80s with Nick Cave. (This was after The Birthday Party had run its course, but before The Bad Seeds took off.) This record went out of print almost immediately after it was released, was passed around for years as a bootleg, was finally released on CD in 2004, and then promptly went out of print again. You’d think the label would know better: Nick Cave tends to inspire a rabid following, and I count myself among them. Definitely check this record out if you can find a copy.
“The Witness Song” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
This is how Nick Cave sings Gospel.
“Love Bomb” by Grinderman
From the first Grinderman album. Remember the intensity of Nick Cave’s early band The Birthday Party? That was the ferocity of young men making an entrance. This is the ferocity of middle-aged men digging their claws into the carpet, kicking at the bouncers trying to drag them out the back door. They’re raging against mortality and sexual frustration. Just how fierce is that rage? Fierce enough to fuck the teeth outta your mama’s mouth.
“Let The Bells Ring” (Live) by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Nick Cave idolized Johnny Cash, and it’s surprising how much he has in common with the older artist: A love of American Roots Music, obviously, but also an air of conviction that allows him to inhabit the characters he creates in his songs, and more importantly his subject matter—both artists rejected modern sensibilities in favor of Biblical themes of sin, damnation, violence, and redemption. I suspect this last affinity may have been the most important to Nick Cave, who once said in his lecture “The Secret Life of the Love Song” that every love song is really about our yearning for God—which would make Cave a devotional artist, albeit a frequently somber one, much like the Man In Black. The two men got to know one another, covering eachother’s songs and even collaborating on a few. I’d love to have had a chance to listen to Nick Cave and Johnny Cash trade thoughts on God and music.
This is a song Nick Cave wrote for Johnny Cash when he passed away.
“Accidents Will Happen” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Who’s ready for more Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds? This is the B-side to the “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!” single. I played it for my friend Kaun as he learned how to drive in my car. Why? Because I fucking love irony.
PS: Prepare for some summer reruns this afternoon, folks. In my ongoing mission to repair dead links I’m reposting fifteen or so songs. My ultimate goal is to take all the songs I’ve posted on this blog—something like 1500 and counting—and upload each of them to Tumblr’s own servers, so we’ll have a music archive that will last as long as Tumblr. Pretty cool, right?
“Supernaturally” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Nocturama was underwhelming, but shortly after that Nick Cave seems to have entered a hot steak in his songwriting. Check out this double-album, Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus. He sounds almost cheerful on some of these tracks.
“Idiot Prayer” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
There’s been some speculation that The Boatman’s Call is about the dissolution of Nick Cave’s extramarital affair with PJ Harvey, but you don’t need to know that story to appreciate this record. It’s about relationships—your relationship to God, and to a woman. For Nick Cave, the two are all tangled up together, as he explained in his infamous lecture “The Secret Life of the Love Song.” Take this song, “Idiot Prayer.” It’s about a man on his way to the gallows, attempting a final farewell to his woman. But Eternity mocks our notions of cloture, and he knows too well that nothing ever really ends, no matter how badly he wants it to.
“Release the Bats” by The Birthday Party
My buddy Escue has the best description of this band, The Birthday Party. He called it, “A killer Post-Punk band trying to keep up with Nick Cave.”
“Up Jumped The Devil” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Word has it Nick Cave was fighting his heroin addiction when he wrote the songs for Tender Prey. Which explains a lot. There’s always been something oddly reactionary about his lyrics, obsessed with sin and damnation, and that aspect of his songwriting seems to peak with this record. Because it’s hard to be enlightened when you’re already in Hell.
“Brother, My Cup Is Empty” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
This is a drinking song, but not the kind you’re thinking of. You wouldn’t play this at a party unless you hate your friends. This is the song you play when you’re ready to crack a bottle over somebody’s face.
The story goes that Nick Cave wasn’t happy with the production on this album, Henry’s Dream, and that’s the whole reason he later did the Live Seeds record. Personally, I love it—it’s as fierce and moody as Tender Prey but less primitive.
Here’s “Hey Little Firing Squad,” a cool B-side from the Midnight Man EP. Most of the time, bands use their less-than-stellar recordings for B-sides, but not Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Every album they make has a distinctive sound (around this time, for example, they were getting in touch with their inner Iggy on a record called Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!), but often enough they’ll record a great song that just doesn’t fit with the concept of their current album. Which is why I highly recommend their B-Sides & Rarities collection; much like Tom Waits’ Orphans, it’s a lot of great music in search of a home.
I’ve been getting a few votes for a Nick Cave marathon…
I don’t believe this album was released in America when it first came out. This is Kicking Against The Pricks, the third Bad Seeds album, and it’s a collection of covers. I seem to remember an interview with Nick Cave in which he said the band wanted to test their limitations, to see what they could and couldn’t do by tackling a lot of their favorite songs, and they found they could play damn near anything. It’s one thing for a solo artist to bounce from one style to the next, but it’s rare for the whole band to be so versatile; seriously, name one other band that could record both Let Love In and The Boatman’s Call.
Anyhow, here’s Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds flexing their muscles with The Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”
