Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

Classic? Beyond classic, fucking godlike more like. Try the _Live Seeds_ album, _Kicking Against the Pricks_ or _Let Love In_.

There's been a real shift in how Cave is perceived. When I first started reading the press he was always treated as this borderline nutter goth smack freak, now he's an Important Figure, and in between there was this oh-it's-another-Nick-Cave-album period, which would always qualify the "He's good" with a big "But". I think that got it right, pretty much.

A handful of stunning tracks though - "Mutiny In Heaven", "Tupelo", "The Mercy Seat", "The Ship Song", "Do You Love Me?", "Stagger Lee". So surely not a dud.

The Good Son proved the leonard cohen territory was his ie a very well structured running sequence, and ambience that almost saves also-rans like "weeping song",
but he dropped the ball on Henry's Deam so badly that i really haven't been able to bother much since

I mean there are a few songs on Let Love In, but for me that's as patchy as the album that preceeded it (Henry)

i believe he can only do so many really good ballads though, and that he's revisited those same ballads so often with the recent albums

i say there're have been so few rock songs that i can count them -- "The good son" & "the hammer came down", "Long time man", "Jangling Jack", "John Finn's wife" -- that's one or at most two good rock songs for each of those albums ! (oh "papa won't save you Henry", "who will be the witness", "jack the ripper", "weeping song" all lousy songs, such rock-by-numbers stuff, will not save him)

go back to your funeral my trial for the whole range, great title track ballad through the true freak-show feel of "The Carny", (better than anything the residents had produced for oh, so-long), and then the great whine-o-drone of "long time man" and the succinct birthday party punch of "scum" -- a classic album, from when Cave had to produce decent stuff to keep his job and maintain and propogate his reputation

"Murder Ballads" a great Aussie cash-in for then career dwindlings of Kylie and Nick (and what an unexpected couple !! proving they're both really show-biz and contenders for legit. rock star -- i thought Cave had some outsider cred -- maybe this was needed to break the concept to new audiences ?? it worked i suppose, but just a big-budget re-rendering of "long time man" idea to me)

ok the birthday party and early bad seed stuff didn't get the easy pay-checks the concept and oomph of their mere presence deserved as real-life art in the public eye, so
good luck to him for those initial flashes of real brilliance

maybe he'd be best served by a "greatest rock songs" and "greatest 'love' songs" double greatest hits, and then save those good songs for singles and forget the nine-yards albums

(ie you should not produce a whole filled out album if you don't have enough good songs)

I've only heard three Cave solo tracks: his cover of Neil Young's "Helpless," which I love, his cover of the Beatles, "Let It Be," which I despise, and that song "I'll Love You Till The End Of The World," which is pretty nice. I'm guessing people would recommend The Good Son as the place to start checking out his solo work? From Her To Eternity?

I trust many of you already know what my full first name is.

Mmm hmm.

So, um, what about my opinion regarding Nick Cave? Well, when you're able to selfishly claim that song for yourself, what other answer can you have but CLASSIC? All those naysayers can just kiss me. And Momus? I happen to like Kylie Minogue, too. She comes from a magical little place with little elfin fairies who spread their pixie dust all across this land. What do you say about Kylie's collaborations with the Manic Street Preachers? MSP also like Kylie.

But back to Nick Cave. Classic. A surprising one, too, considering how little I actually care for country. But I like this brand of graveyard country rock. And damn, I need to play "City of Refuge" now.

What do you think of The Bad Seeds? Surely you must like them... ?

I'm going to listen to my namesake song again.

I may be new and not know shit but I do know I don't like this kid at all.

No, I really like it as well.

whatever

What do you think of The Bad Seeds? Surely you must like them... ?

no

The last record of his I bought was "Murder Ballads" and I didn't really like it much and at the time was getting into some different music. I've been curious about the last three, but not enough to search them out.

Did you check out Aereogramme by the way?

regards,

REB

regards,

REB

The BDay Party were fucking wicked and badass and awesome.
Solo Nick Cave is hit and miss with some really awesome moments and some really low, bad moments.

But if it isn't totally awesome, then its atleast usually pretty funny.

I've also been listening to B-Sides & Rarities on my ipod, and that 3rd disc just keeps blowing my mind. Some of that stuff is jaw-droppingly good.

Just felt like gushing... that's all.. :)

I would love to see the Lyre Of Orpheus/Abbattoir Blues tour, that gospel choir he's got going would kill live. Imagine 'There She Goes, My Beautiful World' live. I'm also interested in their dynamic now that Blixa has gone. I wonder who'll do Kylie's part now on the live performances of "Where The Wild Roses Grow". Blixa had such a lovely falsetto. Maybe Mick will pitch in...

Is it just me or does Cave have a lot better sense of humor than he's usually given credit for?

Apparently his publicist announced that he's doing no tours for 2004/2005, and in 2003 he said he wasn't touring a country that had declared war on Afghanistan, so god only knows what 2006 holds.

the dud part is the way i can't afford the seventy odd dollars it costs to see him next tuesday.

I don't think he's even come close to the level of The Boatman's Call since then, but there's enough there up to then to justify a resounding classic.

Seeing 16 Horsepower live made me decide Nick may as well retire as he wasn't really required any more - sadly he's managed to outlast them.

Blixa didn't leave then, he just refused to do Lollapalooza. He left proper after Nocturama, having barely played on the last three records (Cave said that his presence and opinions in the studio were still personally valuable even if there wasn't anything for half the band to play tho). His replacement is actually Lolla fill-in James Johnston! Playing organ not guitar for the most part though.

Funnily enough, 16 H opened for Nick on the 1998 tour. I always liked them, but not loved. Appreciated the obvious Ian Mc. from Echo jones in the dude's voice, though.

But the person way upthread who mentions Cave's "stifling seriousness" is really missing something. One of the great things about the early stuff (Boys Next Door through Birthday Party through, well, even "God Is In The House") is his mordant humour.

My coincidental thoughts in way more detail than you want, from just the other day:
http://www.livejournal.com/~frogworth/3437.html

Then again, each to their own. Praps just not your cup o tea.

30th January Birmingham Symphony Hall
31st January Cambridge Corn Exchange
1st February Nottingham Royal Centre
2nd February London Apollo Victoria - supported by Richard Hawley
4th February Edinburgh Playhouse
5th February Glasgow Concert Hall
6th February Manchester Bridgewater Hall

50 years old today! HB NC!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cave

tbh, everything he's done post-Birthday Party belongs in the arena of the worthy-but-dull.

The lp covers looks splendid when laid on designer furniture, however.

tbh, everything most of what he's done post-Birthday Party the first four solo albums belongs in the arena of the worthy-but-dull.

fixed

:-)

I am glad to share a birthday with this man. I will listen to the Birthday Party all day.

Happy birthday!

Yes, that's right he's a Virgo/Libra cusp isn't he? I always kindof forget what sign Nick is for some reason. Happy Birthday Ivan!

Not really feeling his new album at all. Anyone?

me either, can't get past the first two songs. same reaction i had to grinderman...I love nick cave but, maybe like the fall, I've just kind of had enough

Yes, exactly.

I've had Straight to You on repeat all evening - it's an amazingly beautiful song. Not two things I normally associate with one another, beauty and Nick Cave

Classic but Dig Lazarus Dig hasn't appealed to me either.

Most of Lyre of Orpheus is beautiful imo

Dud. Birthday Party great, but after that I sometimes wonder whether he is responsible for Bad Things in music. PJ Harvey turned rubbish after she hung out with Cave, then he infected Will Oldham, and he also gave Kylie cancer.

All rather stagey for me and a friend who saw Grinderman recently came back spitting venom.

He is in some way responsible for the song Mr Cave's A Window Cleaner Now by Half Man Half Biscuit though, so I suppose we must put our bright swords up and let the good Lord calculate the final reckoning.

Your post really made me scared that the Nick Cave show I'm seeing on Monday night might not live up to my expectations but then I saw that you liked at least part of Will Oldham's career.

PJ Harvey turned rubbish after she hung out with Cave

Motherfucker you crazy. PJ has always been great, always will be. Put out her best album a year ago, in fact... in case you didn't notice.

reatards unite, don't fret, it will be great. i've seen nick a few times (though the last time was maybe 3 years ago) and he has never once been disappointing. MUCH better than when i saw will oldham, no doubt.

also lol @ the pinefox hating on the caveman.

Motherfucker you crazy. PJ has always been great, always will be. Put out her best album a year ago, in fact... in case you didn't notice.

I didn't like it, sadly, but I'm pretty sure that's my loss. My music tastes have got so narrow as to be the aural equivalent of an old man with dyspepsia picking at his food.

Nick Cave is one of those people who, because he gets close to the sort of thing I like, but doesn't quite hit the mark for me, gets my hackles up more than people I like less. Does that make sense? I'm not sure it does...

Will Oldham was dreadful the last time I saw him, I almost wept with boredom.

Christ - me, I, me, I, me, I. Shut up, man, who wants to know?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds US Tour Dates

After seeing their most recent show, still classic. His relevance has outlasted all of his younger acolytes, including Gallon Drunk, The Flaming Stars (James Johnston has been a Bad Seed for the past 4 years), 16 Horsepower, Black Heart Procession...

Classic.

Nick Cave is the coolest man on the planet, next to Leonard Cohen.

I'm seeing Nick Cave tomorrow night here in NYC and I am psyched. I've missed him several times...but no more. I'm sure he's going to leave me stunned by greatness.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds US Tour Dates

Dear Nick,

Please come back to Austin, Texas. I miss you being here. If you come I will buy a ticket to your show, get drunk and sing along to "Stagger Lee" with you... and really, what could be better?

Cheers,
ilxor

i walked past warren ellis near madison square gardens a couple of hours ago, and it made me wish i'd be spending tonight watching him legkick and flail. report back, nyc-ers.

nick cave is the motherfuckin man, c'mon now

Best places to start? Live Seeds is incredible and can stand in for the entirety of his solo output to that point. The only album of Mr. Cave's I currently own or feel the need to own is the b-sides comp, which only has one stone dud on it and which - kind of - can stand in for the rest of his solo records.

nick cave is doing the music for a production of Woyzeck where i work. should be amazing. http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=112

xpost pretty much everything he did in the 80's/early 90's is awesome. Since then, it's mostly been pretty good. I probably listen to the first half of Henry's Dream the most. Nick Cave's got that kind of Fall thing where you have to just dig in at random and start feeling your way out from wherever you are, and you feel like you have to get more and more and become familiar with lots of his stuff before you can understand any of it well. That Very Best of is actually a pretty dec introduction; it doesn't really work as an album, but it does a great job of sampling all the kinds of stuff they've done. Getting that and going from there would be as good a way as any to dig into them.

Anybody see the DC show(s)?

Mr. Monster & I were there on Monday!

I was there on Monday and thought it was a pretty badass show. I'd like to shake the hand of the man who yelled out for "Your Funeral My Trial," which killed.

How was Kid Congo?

Just read a few pages of Cave's new novel, The Death Of Bunny Munro:

Bunny stops thinking about Sabrina Cantrell's backside and starts thinking about her pussy instead and quite soon he is thinking about Avril Lavigne's vagina. He is almost positive that Avril Lavigne possesses the fucking Valhalla of all vaginas, and in response to this late-night lucubration he carefully folds a copy of the Daily Mail over his semi-tumescent memeber. There is, after all, a child in the room.

Is this book published yet?

Don't think so, but there's an extract in a magazine called Loops.

the fucking Valhalla of all vaginas

Oh dear. The porn mustache has finally taken its toll.

YOU'RE A OLD SLEAZY GUY NOW, WE GET IT, WELL DONE

And that quote actually makes it sound better than it is! It's pretty bad. It honestly reads like it was written by some smart-arse seventeen year old. Shit doesn't hit the fan, instead "the shit and the fan had their fateful assignation." You'd never guess he already has a previous novel and various screenplays under his belt. Avril Lavigne's vagina seems to be some sort of leitmotif:

A great wall of darkness moves towards him. It is unconsciousness and it is sleep. It moves like a vast tidal wave but before it breaks over him and he is away, before he renders himself completley to that oblivious sleep, he thinks, with a sudden, terrible, bottomless dread, of Avril Lavigne's vagina.

they dragged Avril & her vaginerrrr from the hole
and the bulb that burned above them
did shine both day and night
and the 'giner learned to love its greater darks and lesser lights

This stuff sounds pretty bad, folks. Surely he's capable of better.

this sounds great! what do you expect?

"Avril Lavigne" is very nearly an anagram of "Evil Vagina"!

nick cave's writing was almost always pretentious

Gotta risk pretentiousness and sentimentality to get anywhere deep.

That said, was that excerpted in Razzle?

Dig Lazarus Dig (album) overall is amusing and well written, and there are plenty of great songs on it. I really like it.

"Avril Lavigne" is very nearly an anagram of "Evil Vagina"!

actual LOLZ

Too bad "vagina" doesn't have two syllables or else you could sing it to the tune of "Evil Woman". That is, if you could do Jeff Lynne's falsetto.

i like grinderman and lazarus now. not sure what I was thinking a few years back. I even like nocturama now.

Yeah Bunny Munro was pretty terrible. Hard to believe it was written by the same person who wrote the wonderful And The Ass Saw The Angel.

i kind of like most of no more shall we part now as well. what is wrong with me. I'm still pretty sure bunny munro will not be any good though.

Actually I see things exactly opposite. "...And the Ass Saw the Angel" was a nice try but Nick clearly wasn't up to the task of writing a story in the O'Connor/Faulkner mode. That book ends up a pretentious mess.

"Bunny Munro" on the other hand was, to me, pretty funny in parts and much more relaxed. It didn't pretend to be great literature and the tone much in line with the louche demeanor put forth by Grinderman.

after spending a lot of time with all the post-boatman's call albums over the past month, it's pretty obvious to me now that abattoir blues/lyre of orpheus is a monumental masterpiece of a record, maybe better than boatman's call, rivaling the good son for my favorite overall record of his. I suppose a lot of people already knew this but for some reason I slept on this album for a long time, maybe because of the length, maybe also because even though I'd purchased it, the version I had on my ipod was cobbled together mp3s of different bitrates and mis-sequenced and it seemed more like a mess than it actually is.

Yes, it's fantastic. Probably my album of the year for 2004 and a hell of a masterpiece, his best work overall.

It is probably crazy how much better I like "From Her to Eternity" on the Wings of Desire soundtrack v. "From Her to Eternity" on the album of that name. It's just razor sharp, man.

very much seconded. I discovered the song through that movie and was appalled when I heard the tinny original.

Totally otm. Movie version so much richer, much more dramatic. I always skip the original bc I hate the way it sounds.

When they're first committed to tape, lot of Bad Seeds numbers (in contrast to Nick Cave songs) seem to be a groove with a chord change and a monologue on top. It's later on that the noise and improv gets solidified into a song. The Live Seeds versions of his early 90s stuff is a lot more compelling too. "Tupelo" and "Mercy Seat" seem to be lucky situations where the total fire was there at the start.

yeah i'm not usually a fan of live albums but most versions on Live Seed kill the originals

Oops:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/08/article-0-0C65AD15000005DC-492_634x415.jpg

Though I do love this:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/08/article-0-0C65ADAF000005DC-582_634x647.jpg

wtf is that jacket

(his I mean)

What's with all these Australians suddenly trying to bring back western civilization? First Assange, now this...

er, not back, down :-/

Love the comment:

Never heard of him but now I'm a big fan.

just discovered murder ballads. wow!

stagger lee is mindblowing. this is where cave laid the groundwork for the grinderman project, no?

stagger lee blows the rest of that album out of the water, which is saying a lot since it's packed with gems. love the video for it as well. it's basically just the band standing around, but NC and BB just have so much damn presence.

it reminds me of worm tamer from grinderman 2.

this is where cave laid the groundwork for the grinderman project, no?

no

yeah, i've now read the sound/vibe for grinderman goes back as far as cave's early band (the birthday-party, iirc?). i wasn't a fan years ago, when i heard that stuff. maybe it's time for another try, since i love grinderman 2 so much.

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/9530466.Julie_named_Alumnus_of_the_Year/

awesome

bring back the handlebar mustache tho

"Well of Misery", Electric Ballroom, 1984 - billed as Nick Cave & The Cavemen

fkn great performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFdUTM4gU-o

lol@ spanish subtitles

goddammit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26zga0G_C4A

one more

St Huck, Barcelona 1984

melt ur face

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcnUvZqvBiI

He was fantastic once.

I'm sure I've wondered out loud here about this, but the de facto breakup of Grinderman and the return of the Dirty Three makes me wonder about the state of the current Bad Seeds. There's been boilerplate murmurings of a new album, but nothing concrete. Been four years.

its all a bit weird

4 years? But Grinderman 2 came out in 2010. Seems like it had run its course and now he's figuring out the next phase of his career.

4 years since "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!" the last Bad Seeds album, which is not Grinderman (different sound, line-up, name, etc.).

Dud.

Nick's all "I started working with Rasputin when?"

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/308907_330981433660239_652789611_n.jpg

Cave looks a lot less bald there than last time I saw him. Perhaps he shaved off the stache and stuck it on his head?

Hell yeah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK59GDfWvsg&feature=youtu.be

Went to the final tour rehearsal for the new album last night, at a leisure centre ballroom in Hove … and good God the new songs were boring, apart from Jubilee Street or whatever it's called. Not a single melody between them.

There has been some anticipation of the album on this thread. But yes, it's looking like a boring one.

Wow: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/02/nick-cave-interview-jack-barron-rocks-backpages

Is that a Guardian page that links to the Barron interview on Rock's Back Pages, or someone talking about it, or a new interview with Barron about it?

Click on it, maybe you'll see.

Wow.

great interview! (seriously)

incidentally the current tour is fucking ferocious and amazing, saw him in SF the other night and it was maybe the best I've seen him out of five or so tours

So what was the "secret project"?The Good Son?

Rehab?

And The Ass Saw The Angel, I'd guess.

"Johnny Suede"?

A great interview.

And yeah they've really been on fire this tour, the Mpls gig was probably one the best shows I've ever seen.

And The Ass Saw The Angel, I'd guess

Can't be that as it's referred to in the article.

Think it probably was just rehab, as Josh in Chicago says. See the first couple of paragraphs here, for example:

http://nickcave.com/music/nickcaveandthebadseeds/the-good-son/information/

Here's a more recent interview/article, from last week's NY Times Sunday Magazine, in case you missed it:

http://nyti.ms/1mFsiYg

I was pretty surprised at the ILM reaction to the last album. I thought it was fantastic, and nothing at all like Boatman's Call/NMSWP (neither of which I ever really feel like listening to, aside from a few Boatman tracks) which it was compared to. I wonder though how much of it was due to listening to poor digital streams/files on poor headphones/computer speakers, as I do think it's a more subtle album that might be difficult to appreciate if you can't hear what's going on.

Once I listened to the whole of Push the Sky Away I loved it, and it's probably the record I've listened to most in the past year. I was disappointed by We No Who U R, as a single, initially, because it did sound like it was supposed to be a Boatman's Call/NMSWP-type song, and a really dull one at that. But as you say, the album's a completely different record - not really built around that kind of songwriting - and even We No Who U R fits perfectly on it.

Actually yeah now that you mention it I was a bit skeptical when I first heard the single too.

Very much looking forward to 20,000 Days in any case.

i love how the endless choruses of 'the mercy seat' vary subtly so that you can never sing along

the bad seeds are just ungodly awesome on this new tour, was probably top 5 shows ever for me

i love push the sky away, so much space and really cool low-key groove based record

the last bad seeds show i saw (15 years ago) is top 5 ever for me so i am hyped for tonight. what's the current setlist look like?

Lots of stuff from the new record, plus one song from most of the other records

awesome, thanks. i look forward to hearing the live arrangements of these new songs

"Jubilee Street" in particular is different and awesome

the periodic eruptions into swansian double-percussionist industrial maelstroms were really something.

i think it's kind of a shame that he writes pretty good piano ballads b/c they are still the least interesting thing that he does. those aside they maintained an impressive level of intensity across the sparser new stuff (like higgs boson blues or jubilee street), the early harsh stuff, and the "pop" stuff (a la red right hand). best show i've seen since sade for sure, and not entirely dissimilar.

and i liked "into my arms" shit too, don't get me wrong, but i was embarrassed for the people of new orleans when they started like fucking waving their arms and clapping in vague rhythm. ugly scene.

http://acltv.com/mentioned-artist/nick-cave-the-bad-seeds/

Cave and band taped an episode for the Austin City Limits tv show

I fought the movie all the way, as I find Cave increasingly pompous and occasionally silly, but it works, mostly.

I absolutely loathe Cave and find him a ridiculous son of a doctor, so will struggle with this movie.

Is this out yet? I liked the trailer.

Even if you didn't like his material, the shear mass of his body of work makes him an undeniable classic.

While the Cave-penned screenplays for both "The Proposition" and "Lawless" are benefited greatly by tremendous performances from the cast, he seems to have a pretty solid grip on that form as well.

Additionally, the soundtrack for "The Proposition" by Cave and Warren Ellis is nearly another character in the movie.

Film has run for 3-4 weeks in NYC.

I do like The Proposition a lot, whereas I have not paid the music much heed since The Boatman's Call.

his recent stretch of albums is a lot better than the immediate post-boatman era.

agreed

i have found that no more shall we part & nocturama are much more listenable for me now than when they were released... not sure why exactly, though

And No More Shall We Part is tremendous... can't say i've enjoyed the last few studio albums though. Lyre of Orpheus probably the most recent goodie.

The film had its moments but I was somewhat underwhelmed. For me, the long therapist scene slowed it down horribly. If you are a big Nick Cave fan, as I am, you have heard all that stuff (e.g. his dad talking about Lolita) dozens of times. I would have loved a whole film of NC just hanging out with Warren Ellis and/or his kids.

Meanwhile, he announced a solo European tour next spring last week, though most of the dates sold out pretty quickly. I got some good seats for the first show in Glasgow. Although they're billed as solo shows, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Thomas Wydler and Barry Adamson will be playing with him.

Lastly, it looks like a lot - maybe all - of Nick's records will be re-released on vinyl over the next few months. I've been harassing Mute/his management for years to please let me pay hundreds of pounds for a box set, though it doesn't look like anything as fancy as that is coming. The first batch of re-releases are as follows:

Oct 27
From Her To Eternity
First Born is Dead
Your Funeral My Trial

Nov 17
Dig!!! Lazarus!!! Dig!!!
Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus
Nocturama

November 24
Kicking Against The Pricks

I am ridiculously excited about this. I'm hoping they've made Dig!!! Lazarus!!! Dig!!! a proper double album (the original version had the last song on a separate 7-inch single).

Saw the film this weekend, and yeah mixed feelings.

Liked:
Nick Cave taxi service (esp. Blixa)
The archive (Pew piss/punch commentary especially)
The look of it
Closing performance

Disliked:
most of the Deep Thoughts voice overs
Most of the music (not a PTSA fan)

Missed Royal Albert Hall tickets but then noticed the Hammersmith gig on his website basically before it was announced & got great tickets - middle of the second row. Best tickets I've had for anything ever tbh, v happy.

FINALLY xp

people are straight up pirating those on vinyl b/c the demand is so high, I see all these lame color copied LPs with the loose shrink on 'em

right now one of the 80's LPs on Homestead will run you around $50 used

these Brit and Aussie guys who wish they had hillbilly peckers do make me larf

Lol! he spent years being a slumming poseur-douchebag in sao paulo, trying to make his hilbilly pecker origin story work, then he got bored and moved to a posh bit of London with some excellent schools.

meh not that different from Dylan really

http://louderthanwar.com/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-to-reissue-all-14-albums-on-vinyl/

It is going to be very easy for people buying me Christmas presents this year.

aw yeah, Funeral & Lazarus are both 2LP sets

never been a fan but i thought the movie was good in parts.

why would you see this if you weren't a fan?

because my boyfriend wanted to see it

it looked like it had something interesting to say about creativity, which it did, even if it was shopworn. i'm generally ok with slumming brit and aussie guys who wish they had hillbilly peckers as long as their music isn't laughably overblown garbage.

i'm a fan of warren ellis fwiw.

listening to This Is The Sea by waterboys this week for the first time, and outside of Whole Of The Moon it struck me as mega mega Bad Seedsy in places, albeit with a far wimpier vocalist... i'm sure everyone Seeds involved would be horrified by the comparison

some minor chuckling at how the build-up to the "Jubilee Street" performance at the end reminded me of the title track in "Purple Rain"

I finally saw the movie a few weeks back and really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would. It took me a bit to get used to the..arch-ness?... of it, but goddamn the colors were so rich & it was shot so beautifully, it was impossible not to kinda fall back in love with him

i started to feel a bit fangirly, esp during the archive stuff, that was fun

and the little bit of blixa stuff was <3

He has a new book thing coming, The Sick Bag Song, a kind of tour diary written on airline sick bags. You can buy a limited edition version of it for £750. Might give that a miss.

http://www.thesickbagsong.com/
http://pitchfork.com/news/58943-nick-cave-compares-sick-bag-book-to-kanye-west-pornhub-more-in-silly-promo-video/
http://thequietus.com/articles/17474-nick-cave-announces-sick-bag-song-book

yeah i saw that

weird

seeing this movie somehow just made me feel worse about the maron interview

i still havent listened to that...secondhand embarrassment is holding me back

Telling that Mick Harvey wasn't one of the car interviews.

not telling of anything we didn't already know

^^^

i do miss him. it's fine without him but it's just not quite right :/:

then again, it's not like we can't just watch the other movies

http://youtu.be/5UMba2Rq8j4

dont really get what was so embarassing about the Maron interview

yeah me neither, thought it was just Cave being Cave: forthright, a little testy, but still likeable.

unprepared weirdo maron being the embarrasment, not cave.

For real, I think Cave gets testy cuz it's obv Maron hadn't heard of Cave until a week before, though I think in the end it turns out to be a good interview

yes. It does turn out ok. I just can't handle the initial awkwardness.

I loved the bit in the movie with Warren Ellis when they talk about Nina Simone and Jerry Lee Lewis and get all excited and let themselves be music freaks. I also thought the "archives" visit was a nice arch bit of self-parody about his navel-gazing and high self-regard - but then it led into some really interesting stuff too.

The Maron interview wasn't bad at all - I think maybe Maron was just really thin-skinned about a couple of good-natured jabs from Cave.

The archives bit was a set-up, right? That can't be real...

ok it's all just sets. too bad. Warren Ellis really should live in that cottage.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6259253/nick-cave-explains-the-truth-behind-his-staged-documentary-20000-days-on-earth

new vinyl reissue of Tender Prey sounds AMAZING, I am very pleased with this purchase

I find myself thinking 'I want some champagne, some cocaine, and some sausages' most days

Nick Korv and the Bratwurst Party

A friend who moved away maybe 7 years ago left me his record collection to hold on to until he stops living like a vagabond and returns to collect them someday. Tons of vinyl, a bunch of tapes, a couple of VHS tapes, and one dvd.

I set up a new TV and blu ray player recently and wanted to test it out, but all my dvds were upstairs and I remembered he had this one dvd sitting with all his other stuff right near the new TV, which happened to be the Nick Cave "God Is In The House" concert film. I picked it up and it felt much heavier than it should have, and upon opening it I found a stack of naked pictures of his now ex girlfriend.

I don't know why I found this so amusing but something a bunch of naked pics stashed in a Nick Cave dvd seems so appropriately seedy and awesome.

"god" is in the "house"

lol

I got to say the live version of "Higgs Boson Blues" from Live at KCRW to me slays the studio version. The slow and linguine groove of the live radio version is hypnotic, it kind of reminds me of the "Thrill Is Gone" groove. I hear the studio version of "Higgs Boson Blues" and it sounds way too fast.

agree, it's a great live album.

did you see the live studio take in 20000 days? now that's spectacular

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zQSuPDmBPc

otm

Holy shit this is awful:
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/13420121.Rock_legend_Nick_Cave_s_son_killed_in_cliff_fall/

Read about the incident this morning before the victim was named, fuck. So many times I've seen Nick out with his boys, skateboarding on the seafront and such. What a dreadful fucking thing

it's terrible, so awful for all of them.

Oh fuck :(

that is heartbreaking.

It was just on the local news. shocking.

The death is being dealt by the coroner's officer and is not being treated as suspicious.

there was a great picture of nick w/ his boys on twitter the other day:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtWdNlYIUAAWDve.jpg

This is horrible. Poor guy.

So awful :(

awful awful awful

my god, that photo.

Rest In Peace.

I am so sad about this, the statement they issued made me cry so hard. can't even imagine the pain.

My coworker recently lost his stepdaughter

I cannot imagine anything more life-shattering

Loved the last scene in 10,000 Days where he's eating pizza with them and watching cartoons.

yeah that was cool

Fleeting impression, but he looked like an A+ dad and a doting one too whenever I saw him out with them. Dunno why I feel quite so cut up about this, but I made damn sure my own kids got an extra big hug from me when I got home today.

hug them for me too :)

11 year old wasn't best pleased the first time round tbh

lol

very sad.

oh man, so sad

Yeah, don't know what to say. But very sad.
Did Cave just finish a tour cos he was on one recently. Just think it might be even worse for him if he was away at the time.
Must be devastating anyway.

Well, thanks to the Daily Mail, who doubtless think it looks too much like Broadchurch not to go in with the intrusive photos (which I've not seen) its fairly clear he's there.

Hoping that grief and media pressure isn't going to lead him back into previous substance abuse.

A parent's worse fear, I just can't imagine what the family is going through, my heart goes out to them.

wtf https://twitter.com/alexispetridis/status/621941755387244544

Cave, who is known as the Prince of Darkness because of his obsession with death and violence...

Jesus, that's some sub-Daily Mail spitefulness there

what the hell

two days running apparently as well

"nick cave had watched violent films with his children" ffs

Yeah, god what I'm hearing seems to indicate that despite earlier depiction as a near psychopath he was a fantastic deeply loving Dad who had a lot of time for his kids.

insinuating cave was in some way responsible, even when the circumstances around the incident are unclear

and what 15 year old hasn't seen a film containing violence?? some of these films might even have been made by a news corp subsidiary

I want him to beat the shit out of whoever wrote that

https://twitter.com/BernLagan

the worst

JCLC otm

well this is terrible

Saw the Distant Sky simulcast screening on Thursday. Clearly the arena shows were all pretty much identical because it was the same set I saw in London. A poorer show tbh, the version of Tupelo in articular wasn't nearly as good and the whole thing seemed a lot more one-note in terms of song tempo. Some observations:

Still don't like that new arrangement of The Ship Song.
Martyn Casey has mutated into Steve Bannon.
Jim S has turned into Mark 'Chappers' Chapman.
The hands-on-hip shaker action Jim did during Red Right Hand was a tad camp.
Loved Thomas Winder's confused face when he was trying to watch for a cue during The Weeping Song when Nick was on walkabout.
Laughed out loud at Thomas' panic during the count-in for Push The Sky Away when he realised his beater was the wrong way round.

Sad news – ex-Bad Seed Conway Savage has passed away of a brain tumour, aged 58. RIP.

oh fuck

RIP :( :( :(

saddest news

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/what-are-your-thoughts-on-brian-enos-stance-on-israel/

Nick Cave shares letter to Brian Eno on Israel concert.

thanks for this, nice to read these letters

what the hell

https://theredhandfiles.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e3a1d76999a9cb593da469b4c&id=b9acf0665d&e=ceb1e8bf44

2nd try

https://www.nickcave.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/GHOSTEEN_PACKSHOT_01.jpg

why am I looking for Waldo

You can expect a new album next week.

It is called Ghosteen.

It is a double album.

Part 1 comprises of eight songs.

The Spinning Song
Bright Horses
Waiting For You
Night Raid
Sun Forest
Galleon Ship
Ghosteen Speaks
Leviathan

Part 2 consists of two long songs, linked by a spoken word piece.

Ghosteen
Fireflies
Hollywood

The songs on the first album are the children.

The songs on the second album are their parents.

Ghosteen is a migrating spirit.

Exciting!

Seeing his Q&A next Monday. Wonder if he will add anything new to the setlist...

BIG GHOST aka the steendriver

I've yet to hear a single album by him. I suppose I could start here.

Hmm, I'm not sure any one album is the definitive "one to start with," but (having not heard it), I'm not sure this album is that one.

This does seem like potentially a weird time to check in with no foreknowledge, yes.

That cover tho.

it looks weirdly like it's been put through a deep dream filter

The seeds were never bad to begin with and they have sprouted.

I went to the Q&A Friday night and he totally denied they were working on a new album. I guess if it was already in the can he might have been technically truthful.

lol, tricky bastard

wonder just how long the two long songs are, presumably quite a bit since they make up half the album

intrigued and looking forward to this

Fantastic news!

I absolutely love the cover. It's different to both but makes me think of the cover of the last Andrew W.K. album You're Not Alone and the photo that was recently released from the forthcoming H. P. Lovecraft The Colour Out Of Space adaptation with Nicolas Cage.

As always with a new NC & the Bad Seeds I'm curious to find out who constitutes the Seeds this time around, other than BFF Ellis obv, I suppose I can wait a week

On first blush I don't love the title, the artwork though is bonkers two thumbs up

why am I looking for Waldo

― StanM, Monday, September 23, 2019 6:52 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was searching for Kenny Loggins

Art source identified:

new nick cave album art looks like a print you’d buy in a christian superstore because well pic.twitter.com/pVp3rPRmGh

— metal dot txt (@metaltxt) September 23, 2019

pic.twitter.com/KO3pQpEQFM

— metal dot txt (@metaltxt) September 23, 2019

interesting that this is an edit to his Breath of Life painting with Adam highlighted in the original pic.twitter.com/SWw6Ql8KUC

— metal dot txt (@metaltxt) September 23, 2019

The band I was in for our last record we typed in a couple of keywords into Google image search and like the 2nd hit was a crazy/great painting and we emailed the dude and viola that's what we used.

I sincerely hope that's what Nick did.

"Hey Warren...Warren! Look! What if like we had animals in this setting?"
"Yeah mate yeah fantastic...can we get a lion too?"
"A lion? Fucking obviously"
"Awesome"

Looks like the usual crew

GHOSTEEN – THE NEW ALBUM
24 SEPTEMBER 2019

Ghosteen, the new two part album from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, will be released globally on all digital platforms on Friday 4 October.

Vinyl and CD will be released on Friday 8 November, pre-order now here.

Ghosteen will premiere in full on YouTube at 10pm BST on Thursday 3 October and at listening events worldwide, more information here. This will be the first chance to listen to the new album.

Track Listing:

Part One
1 Spinning Song
2 Bright Horses
3 Waiting for You
4 Night Raid
5 Sun Forest
6 Galleon Ship
7 Ghosteen Speaks
8 Leviathan

Part Two
1 Ghosteen
2 Fireflies
3 Hollywood

The album was recorded in 2018 and early 2019 at Woodshed in Malibu, Nightbird in Los Angeles, Retreat in Brighton and Candybomber in Berlin. It was mixed by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lance Powell and Andrew Dominik at Conway in Los Angeles.

Nick Cave – vocals, piano, synthesizer, backing vocal
Warren Ellis – synthesizer, loops, flute, violin, piano, backing vocals
Thomas Wydler – drums
Martyn Casey – bass
Jim Sclavunos – vibraphone, percussion
George Vjestica – guitar

track times for the curious

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/1479214340

Mixed by Andrew Dominik? the film director?

apparently!

half of his filmography is Cave collabs so presumably yes

xpost

Yeah I knew their other relationship but that's interesting, I wonder if there is any film element or if it relates to the spoken bit.
I checked out from the Bad Seeds when the Harvey / Bargeld era transitioned to the Ellis era but I might give this a listen.

Just wanting to say again that the Cave/Ellis soundtrack to the Mars TV series is really, really lovely.

MASSIVE dud

fuiud Australians

OH I DISAGREE

xp the mercy seat is waiting, friend

seems like another one informed by his grief for his son

https://pitchfork.com/news/watch-nick-cave-cover-daniel-johnstons-devil-town/

Just wanting to say again that the Cave/Ellis soundtrack to the Mars TV series is really, really lovely.

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 25 September 2019 01:29 (fourteen hours ago) link

Yeah this was great

Saw the three-hour Q&A last night, and it’s definitely worth seeing if you can.

The questions kind of fell between Tony Robbins (questions from people grieving and dealing with addiction) to Kevin Smith (what song would you play if playing one song would save the planet? A: “Babe, I’m on Fire” continuously).

Cave on solo piano was as intense as a Bad Seeds show in its energy, and the public intimacy and vulnerability of the whole thing (more from the women than the men, in their questions) made for a really memorable night.

hype ting, global premiere on youtube happening now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwlU_wsT20Q

oh damn good looking out

ghosteen is a hell of a title considering his recent family life

So far...is this Nick's "New Jersey"?

Sounds pretty, wonder if he's done ever rocking out again.

natural progression from the past couple of records. lovely microkorg work. typically gaudy and perfectly cliched, lyrically.

so far it sounds like the NMSWP to Skeleton Tree's Boatman's Call, if that makes any sense. more ornate and elaborate extension of the same general vibe

Sounds pretty, wonder if he's done ever rocking out again.

fwiw he has said to expect a third Grinderman album

Sounds pretty, wonder if he's done ever rocking out again.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 3, 2019 2:14 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

did the last two records "rock out"

I don't think so? But he did play a couple of rocking hits on tour, iirc, which seemed kind of weird and obvious compared to the quieter introspective stranger new stuff.

It would be pretty funny if Grinderman 3 turned out to be another album of synthy drumless ballads

I liked his last couple of albums a lot, but they made more of an impression in the context of the documentary and concert film, respectfully, then they did on my stereo.

Push the Sky Away certainly had moments of rocking out (the ends of "Jubilee Street" and "Higgs Boson Blues")

I love the last two records but part didn't grab me much, I'm however willing to believe this sounds way better in a non-streaming on Youtube format

"Part 1" I meant to say

ah, that was all too samey for me. i nearly fell asleep.

This mostly sounds like Nick Cave reading out poetry over a noodly Cave/Ellis soundtrack.

It sounds a lot like Skeleton Tree but it's missing something.

there's some very pretty bits on this and i think i would really like it if it was only for a few tracks in the context of a more varied album but it's too much all at once. i felt the same way about skeleton tree and never got into it the way i did push the sky away, which is one of my favourites of his.

ok the second disc rules, the longer songs allow for much more movement and progression so they end up more engaging overall

Worthy but tedious album. A real slog to get through. I'm sure the Guardian will love it and Nick's new legion of hipster fans and edgy moms will be all over it, but I miss the Bad Seeds as a band and the excitement and energy from their old albums.

I'm sure the Guardian will love it

Bingo:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/04/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds-ghosteen-review-the-most-beautiful-songs-he-has-ever-recorded

i loved skeleton tree and y’all are being real nerds about this

Nick's new legion of hipster fans and edgy moms will be all over it

Hipster fans and edgy moms how? Haven't heard the new one yet, but why do you think this is the case?

dnftt

the good bits on this are really so good that i already regret being vaguely dismissive of it earlier when i was halfway through it

I had already pre-ordered it so I think I might hold off on listening to it again until I have the physical copy in a month or so, but on first blush it wasn't really for me, certainly the obvious next step after Skeleton Tree, but not as engaging

The bit I heard there was some (relatively) high-register singing. Was that Nick, or Ellis, or someone else?

I couldn't really tell, feels like it wasn't always Nick or Warren

I don't know that anyone is gonna write a better Nick Cave song than Elena Setien this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43rYIsnoPug

at the end of "Hollywood" i'm pretty sure it's Cave who sings for a while in a higher register

tried cutting it down to five tracks because i found the first disc to be a bit too meandering and found it to be completely transcendent like this:

Ghosteen
Bright Horses
Night Raid
Galleon Ship
Hollywood

Idk about y'all but I'm crying to every single beautiful and devastating song on this album

this was a lovely listen

I must say I never dreamed I would hear a Yamaha DX7 bell on a Nick Cave album ("Night Raid"). I don't begrudge him wanting to make beautiful music to mourn his son but I feel uncomfortable listening to it.

certainly the obvious next step after Skeleton Tree, but not as engaging

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, October 4, 2019 9:08 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

so if I found Skeleton Tree difficult and dull, I'm going to find this one borderline unlistenable, yes?

it's much better imo, but i found skeleton tree to be mostly tension without much release. this one's much prettier and there's more to grab onto, at least for me. i still think it's a little much overall but the highs on it are incredible and some of his best ever work

i kinda do hope that since this one is supposed to be the "end of a trilogy" they'll make something more rocking next time, but keep the wonderful sound design from these last few albums around

i love the all tension no release quality of skeleton tree. it's like it's stuck in a loop. ghosteen seems like the other side of its coin, all that tension in service of total gorgeousness

"night raid" is incredible btw

tried cutting it down to five tracks because i found the first disc to be a bit too meandering and found it to be completely transcendent like this:

Ghosteen
Bright Horses
Night Raid
Galleon Ship
Hollywood

― ufo, Friday, October 4, 2019 6:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i respect this reduction bc these are all the songs that blew my mind on contact, but i think i’d still miss the others particularly “spinning song” and “leviathan”

my initial read on this album still feels correct, so good job me. "Bright Horses" got me right in the gut on second listen and I suspect I'll feel that way about much of this soon

Fried Egg Sandwich at 6:15 4 Oct 19

Worthy but tedious album. A real slog to get through. I'm sure the Guardian will love it and Nick's new legion of hipster fans and edgy moms will be all over it, but I miss the Bad Seeds as a band and the excitement and energy from their old albums.

yeah really sad to see Nick Cave appealing to hipsters as opposed to his old working class, salt of the Earth, sports bar crowd cranking The Good Son from their Ford F150s

on first listen, I don't like it as much as Skeleton Tree but feels like something that could grow with further listens

I absolutely love Push the Sky Away but always seems to get a lukewarm response on ILM

“edgy moms” jfc

sheesh, moms are the worst

i don't know if i think the whole is better than skeleton tree but i'm pretty sure part 2 is the best thing he's done this decade

i'm pretty sure part 2 is the best thing he's done this decade

with the analogue synths and the choir sounds... it's like he's singing over a Kosmische album from the late 70s sometimes

the second disc is absolutely better than push the sky away and i say this as a big fan of that album

weirdly what this album reminds me the most of is magical cloudz which i never really expected from a nick cave record

haven't fully digested it but surprised anybody would prefer it to the last two. It's certainly beautiful and but seems to be a bit too soundtracky (and not unlike some of Cave and Ellis's soundtracks) and a bit too lacking in variety and tension? And surprised anybody would say Skeleton Tree is all tension and no release, when the penultimate song Distant Sky is perhaps the most beautiful recording of the last 10 years.

for me it's the most interesting thing he's done, or at least the thing i like the most since Abattoir Blues. probably because some of the first disc definitely sounds influenced by mid 90s Current 93.

the opening of the title track feels very "warszawa" to me

the whole album is continuing to grow on me, i think i was caught off-guard by it opening with "spinning song" which is one of the most minimal and skeleton tree-like tracks, but i even like that a lot now. "ghosteen speaks" is the only one i haven't gotten into yet, it's still quite formless and is mostly synth drones plus backing vocals "wwhoaaaaaaaaa" over and over

with the analogue synths and the choir sounds... it's like he's singing over a Kosmische album from the late 70s sometimes

I'm sold on that!

Or like a later Alice Coltrane record, which both he & esp Ellis are noted fans of

Hmm, thinking of this in terms of one of Alice Coltrane's ashram cassettes helps. My first listen found it too tract-like, too dependent on the words to click. But framing it as devotional pondering may help.

https://i.imgur.com/REug3mx.jpg

Nick what do you think Antifa is fighting for

http://www.theredhandfiles.com/why-do-you-write/

Or against, rather

nick: "self-righteous belief and the suppression of contrary systems of thought" is bad. "lack of humility" is bad. "paternalistic and doctrinal sureness" is bad.

also nick: people who are religious and believe in god are indisputably wrong and should probably be shunned.

i couldn't care less if people believe in god but i found his antifa commments quite shocking.

No one even brought up Antifa, he could have left it at his thoughts on woke culture, which I disagree with but whatever, old white dudes gonna old white dude

whatever, old white dudes gonna old white dude

bravo

I was at his Sunday 'Conversations...' show here in SF -- which was quite good -- and he did talk about free speech as such in the context of his version of "Stagger Lee" but didn't go THAT far, let's say. But I did think "Hmm..." when I heard it.

Bunch of UK and European dates announced for next year:

https://www.nickcave.com/tour-dates/

Lotte Lehmann, the German soprano, had this line about how 'only that is convincing which is truly felt' and as I listen to Ghosteen I'm tempted to reverse it: clearly I'm meant to feel something, but that putative emotion is buried deep in layers upon layers of smug theatrical artifice. I don't buy his incantations in the least, and all I'm left with as a newcomer to his oeuvre is the man's Reputation.

I think that's fair, or at least not unfair. Context carries a lot of weight on this album. Getting into Cave via this album would be a little like diving into Autechre and starting with "All End."

He's not even that great in concert these days. Around the time of Henry's Dream and Let Love In the concerts were extraordinary, the Bad Seeds were such a force back then. Some of the best live shows I ever saw. I find Cave's shows quite boring now.

Having gone to one of the Skeleton Tree arena shows it sort of worked, and I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I have the urge to go this time round.

OTM about the Henry's Dream shows, they were the ones with the Mercy Seat endurathon version iirc.

I'm too much of a johnny-come-lately to have seen him around that time, but the Skeleton Tree shows were incredible for me, just this total communal love-fest.

the Push the Sky Away tour was fucking amazing

I don't dig the album, but I'd really recommend seeing Once More With Feeling before you dismiss it all as smug showmanship

tbh I think he's a bit lost but for understandable reasons

Yeah, I saw Once More With Feeling. In 3D! It was okay. Don't know if it was a necessary film to make, I just felt a bit sad after I saw it and wished the album was better. The Road To God Knows Where is good if you've not seen it.

Ellis is a weak link for me, I just don't like what he brings to the band. Sonically I find him a real turn off.

Lately I might agree with that. He's a wild man, so it's kind of too bad these days he's relegated to playing little micro synths or whatever. But when he picks up his violin or a guitar he's pretty rocking.

I would agree with most of that, I like Skeleton Tree more than you but this isn't his best era for sure

Ellis can be so great, Dirty Three was so amazing live and he was great on the Push tour

but yeah this new one reminds me a bit of when I go to Guitar Center to get strings on sale and end up fucking around with doing droney pads on some display synth for fifteen minutes

Can't remember which tour (Abattoir Blues possibly) but I saw The Dirty Three support the Bad Seeds once, Warren was absolutely amazing then. He played in the Bad Seeds the same night too. Crazy energy.

I wonder how many people who put Ghosteen in their albums of the year lists will be listening to it in one, five, ten years? It just doesn't feel like an album to be listened to much for me. I could always go back to Let Love In because it's such a stonkingly good, end-to-end killer record, but these last three albums just don't have that pull. They feel like worthy pieces of art that were important for Nick to make, but as music albums, not so compelling.

That fucking awful Bunny Munro book (I remember Q describing it as "like being hit over the head with a squeaky sex toy) was the beginning of a sharp artistic downward trend for Cave.

it'll be in my albums of the year list and i probably will be listening to it occasionally for the next 10 years, it's really that gorgeous

i understand why the change in sound may not really interest long-time fans at all though

I wonder how many people who put Ghosteen in their albums of the year lists will be listening to it in one, five, ten years?

incredibly boring way of thinking about music ahoy

Boring or not, I think it's not a totally unreasonable stance/standard. The broader question is, is it an album that you'd put into regular circulation as something you'd reach for before another album, either by the same artist or not? I don't know. I think of something like "Vulnicura" by Bjork, which I really liked at the time but haven't listened to since (and I never heard her most recent album). Or the second Bon Iver album, which I recall being kind of cool, but which I haven't felt the need to listen to since its release as well. I mean, there are only so many hours in the day. There are something like 20 Nick Cave albums at this time, that could be all I listened to, but if I was jonesin' for Nick Cave I'm not sure what it would take for me to grab the new one (or any of the recent ones) over the 5 or so I like a lot more.

I could always go back to Let Love In because it's such a stonkingly good, end-to-end killer record, but these last three albums just don't have that pull.

I feel the same way, Eggsy. As you said, Nick *had* to make them, and I respect that and find things to love on all of them, but they're so laden with context for me that they're hard to revisit. "Ghosteen" just slays me. As a parent, it's one of your my nightmares writ large.

Some not particularly coherent thoughts that I might come back to:

a) I guess he has to make the music he has to make, at this point.

b) I guess he's in a position (financially, whatever) that he can make the records he needs to make.

c) I don't like the idea of "Good music will be listened to in the future". You can play a record once and it change your life. There's no expectation that you watch a good film multiple times, I don't think.

this new one reminds me a bit of when I go to Guitar Center to get strings on sale and end up fucking around with doing droney pads on some display synth for fifteen minutes

hahaha OTM

I wonder how many people who put Ghosteen in their albums of the year lists will be listening to it in one, five, ten years?

I wonder this about literally every new record I've purchased since 2010 or so (with the exception of NTS Sessions 1-4) but I also acknowledge that this is a 'me' problem and not a 'music' problem. I also concede that I still get a lot of enjoyment from the ritual of getting swept up in the fever that still accompanies the release of particular albums. Last month when every message board was talking about Fear Inoculum? That was fun as hell. I dunno if I'll be listening to that album in five or ten years (probably not) but I had a good time getting swept up in all the excitement (see also: A Moon Shaped Pool). Ghosteen feels like one of those albums. This is why I am always loath to declare 'omg best album since xxx' and such, even when it might feel that way at the time.

He's not even that great in concert these days.

I saw him on "The First Born Is Dead" tour, which was as wild as anything. He encored with "Wild World" which almost made up for me never getting to see The Birthday Party.

I think I have probbaly seen him play a dozen times since then including one TV recording in G

He's not even that great in concert these days.

I saw him on "The First Born Is Dead" tour, which was as wild as anything. He encored with "Wild World" which almost made up for me never getting to see The Birthday Party.

I think I have probbaly seen him play a dozen times since then including one TV recording in Glasgow in front of an audience of around 100 which was so intimate that Blixa was practically sat on top of me while he was playing.

But the best time I

He's not even that great in concert these days.

I saw him on "The First Born Is Dead" tour, which was as wild as anything. He encored with "Wild World" which almost made up for me never getting to see The Birthday Party.

I think I have probably seen him play a dozen times since then including one TV recording in Glasgow in front of an audience of around 100 which was so intimate that Blixa was practically sat on top of me while he was playing.

But the best time I ever saw him was last year in an enormo-dome which I was expecting not to enjoy. He managed to make a 15000 capacity venue feel more intimate than that TV recording.

sorry for the muti posts - my phone is having a meltdown.

I've seen him a few different times since the mid '90s, but I haven't seen any of the recent big shows, just clubs and theaters. Speaking of context, what throws me a little bit is his stylistic turn came with Push the Sky Away, well before the death of his son, and even most of Skeleton Tree was iirc written or recorded before tragedy hit, too. Of course, that album is eerily resonant with what we, as fans/listeners, know happened, and the 3D movie subtly but explicitly expands on that feeling. So of course the new one is the first composed and recorded after the death of his son, and we listen with that in mind, but contextually I hear it as very much of a piece with the last three first and foremost. I'm honestly curious where he goes next, whether he stays in this minimal electro-acoustic mode or moves on to something else.

"He's not even that great in concert these days."

this is a bewildering statement to me. He's exceptional. Different than the 80's and 90's yeah, but that was a long fucking time ago.

On a separate note: Robert Ham (who...used to post here? still does? my brain is soft on this point) earlier today overheard a guy talk about this guy's friend who has a pizza place in the San Juan Islands in Washington. To quote Robert, the pizza place guy "is having a mural painted featuring Nick Cave, David Bowie, Joe Strummer and one other famous rocker he couldn't remember the name of sitting around a table eating pizza together." Needless to say I want to see this thing immediately.

Pics or it hasn't happened

I’ve seen Nick Cave a slightly embarrassing number of times going back to Henry’s Dream. The highlights were the tours for The Boatman’s Call and Abattoir Blues, absolutely exceptional shows with the new material feeling super vital. I’ve seen the last few outings and the new stuff has been good but for me they get a bit rote when the setlist warhorses are wheeled out - Red Right Hand, From Her to Eternity, Tupelo, Into Your Arms, Ship Song. I get why you’d want to play those songs and if any of those shows was your first NC show it would totally deliver.

The show I saw on the Push The Sky Away tour had Jubilee Street as like the 3rd song and it was unbelievable, one of the most extraordinary live music moments I’ve ever seen. I could have left at that point totally satisfied.

Nick Cave, David Bowie, Joe Strummer and one other famous rocker
Bob Marley or GTFO

Iggy IMO

saw bad seeds in a theatre san diego in 2017... still probably the best rock show i've been to. never seen a band with dynamic range as broad as that. nick's presence was out of this world, and being part of the crowd rushing the stage was surreal.

No More Shall We Part tour for me. I'm more or less a casual fan but to this day it was one of the best rock shows I've ever attended.

The new record's just ok imo. I really love "Night Raid" but none of the others are sticking. FWIW I didn't much care for Skeleton Tree either.

yeah. it's a shame the last two records don't really hold up to the amount of fuss - and magnetism - of the recent documentaries, tours, talks, etc. i really do think the seeds are world class musicians and nick's an amazing writer, but i just expect something a little more than microkorg for an hour.

So after bailing early on the stream as I noted up thread I held off on listening until the actual physical thing arrived. Listening last night my impression was I liked it quite a bit more (listening to a youtube stream on my headphones on my phone at work isn't probably the ideal listening environment) and approaching it in terms of Alice Coltrane's late devotional records I think helped but it into better prescriptive.

Musically, it reminds me of a lot of weird late 70s French synth stuff, Bernard Szajner or Richard Pinhas, though it isn't as urgent as any of that, more languid, more Tangerine Dream-y, ("Hollywood" is basically the score of a William Friedkin movie)...but with Nick obv singing/decanting over the top of it. More slippery then I usually like to hear NC/Bds but it was growing on me

Lots of weird animal/burning/fire/LA/Jesus images coming through in the lyrics...made me wonder if being semi-Malibu based they were affected by the Woolsey Fire

Made me think he has actually made a weird/divisive record that he always claims "Nocutrama" is, but overall I think I liked it, it makes up an interesting triptych with the last two, but I totally get why people wouldn't like it, my wife was really not feeling it.

Also interesting, Warren & Nick are the only ones who have their pictures in the artwork anywhere, in the very smeary, 80s gatefold

Love this album. Shouldn't play it on the way to work, in a morning, though.

https://www.stereogum.com/2076046/nick-cave-addresses-change-problematic-old-lyrics/news/

lol what a fuckin dope

Just so I'm clear, you would have songwriters like Cave revisit their previous work and alter any lyrics that might potentially offend someone? I guess I don't find his reply to that question especially unreasonable.

I read that like three times yesterday and still couldn't make heads or tails of it, what a dumb answer, if he doesn't want to change words in old songs (or if he does or whatever) I just think the way he couches his answer is stupid. Just say "yeah people might be offended by it but that's how the song goes" or "yeah people might be offended by it so I've amended it" but don't say yr songs are special children on the playground or whatever

I'm really growing annoyed with these missives, there was one the other day that about the meaning of a certain song that pissed me off cuz I just wish people wouldn't explain what their songs are about

i don't give a shit whether he changes the lyrics in his songs or not but that's a stupid, defensive answer

this whole exercise started out pretty neat but he's increasingly shown himself to be a pretty typical narrow-minded older dude on quite a few subjects you'd expect

I'm really growing annoyed with these missives, there was one the other day that about the meaning of a certain song that pissed me off cuz I just wish people wouldn't explain what their songs are about

― chr1sb3singer, Monday, March 9, 2020 11:28 AM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i hate "explainer" and "song exploder" type shit, drains everything of life

the dumbest thing is like oh it was 30 years ago who could have known...like this was TWO years after gnr's "one in a million" sparked a huge controversy, you knew what you were doing

i don't think he's under any obligation to change anything, or do do old songs or not do old songs but don't pretend

In 1992, the song was fully intended to be offensive, as far as I could tell. What's changed is that a young'ish white dude being offensive in 1992 (or 82, with the swastikas and such) could be taken as a strike against The Man, maybe even a show of camaraderie coming from a band of dudes with different ethnicities and sexualities, but now just feels like another rock band full of dudes.

> this whole exercise started out pretty neat but he's increasingly shown himself to be a pretty typical

The "holy song as a messager from the unknown" shtick is pretty thin after years of deploying it.

it's just the dumbest possible way to do the standup comedian "i'm just a teller of hard truths that some people can't handle" bit, art was such a mistake

the dumbest thing is like oh it was 30 years ago who could have known...like this was TWO years after gnr's "one in a million" sparked a huge controversy, you knew what you were doing

and in the 28 years since the record came out, approximately one person has not realised the song is written in character

The "holy song as a messager from the unknown" shtick is pretty thin after years of deploying it.

If you believe things, you should stop saying them, to better demonstrate your sincerity.

a young'ish white dude being offensive in 1992 (or 82, with the swastikas and such) could be taken as a strike against The Man, maybe even a show of camaraderie coming from a band of dudes with different ethnicities and sexualities, but now just feels like another rock band full of dudes.

― Julius Caesar Memento Hoodie (bendy), Monday, March 9, 2020 2:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

speak for yourself?

Not sure if anyone else watched Idiot Prayer last night, I was lukewarm on the idea going into it, the whole forced "live event" feel, clunky ticketing processes, solo piano, etc, but man it was really awesome, he did a great/wide selection of Bad Seeds stuff, a couple of Grinderman songs, a new song, all of it was great. The two Ghosteen songs (a record I have really come around on), esp "Galleon Ship", sounded perfect as solo piano jams.

I was hoping for "Wild World" but I'll take "Papa Won't Leave You Henry" any day of the week.

The execution (at least in North America, I know UK & Australia had issues with the stream) was excellent and expensive, I am sure this will get released in wider form at some point

yeah it was really nice; it was essentially a PPV film since it was made last month, but this made up for the cancelled tour this year. Performances were top notch. Yeah I'm sure this will be available later and likely is already on torrents somewhere; if you streamed this to your computer (which was kind of a pain in the ass) they just hosted it on vimeo and despite the "you can't log in later than start time" you absolutely could, and you could pause and rewind and even start over if you wanted to.

Bjork is doing 4 livestream concerts in August, via dice as well; but these appear to be actual live events. Looking forward to them.

Wasn't part of the point (and price) that it was a one-off, not to be released at a later date?

(Difficult to imagine that it won't be obviously).

It was, but the way the thing was shot & recorded it would be insane to think they are just going to sit on it forever.

And yeah despite all the "one time only! basically live event! not really!" hype it was stream-able right away, though I wonder if that had to do with the technical problems that it had in Australia and the UK? Like maybe they decided to be on the safe side and just have be like a normal streaming video.

And would I be cheesed if it were available later to people who didn't shell out 20 bucks? Not really

yeah I downloaded this from a torrent site already

I would've paid for this if it was actually live and I thought about paying anyway. A couple of his films (the concert one and the one about the previous album) were supposedly one-night only as well, weren't they? I don't really mind all this stuff. As someone who's followed him for a long long time, I have a kind of respect for how fucking skilful he is at making shitloads of money nowadays. Every time he does something like this, I think of his song "Easy Money" - that really nailed it. And I get it - providing for his family and then some is his priority above everything else, fair enough.

This is funny: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/piano-you-played-for-idiot-prayer/

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/1164-2/

stan culture strikes again

Vol. 1 of a major biography in the works:

https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460713211/boy-on-fire/

Nick Cave seems like someone that would write an exemplary and honest memoir that still manages to elide major events and subjects, like Springsteen did, imo.

Did anyone see last week’s solo concert?

Oh nevermind, missed the earlier posts.

crowdfunder for nick: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/1172-2/

that follows on an earlier report where apparently people have been calling that piano company telling them to give him a piano; he asked them to stop

these toxic nick cave stans (cave trolls??) are out of control

Looking back at his facetious post:

Now, one of the things you may or may not know about being a famous musician is that companies give you shit for free. The more famous you are, the more shit you get — you just have to wear one of their t-shirts or a branded cap or something.

I'm struck by the thought that if you have to explain a joke to the room, you're in the wrong room. The wit of cult-artist years of songwriting were built around the fact that he never winked. That post needed a winky emoticon, which would further kill the joke, so he shoulda caught himself.

tbf the internet is mostly one very large wrong room

yeah!

crowdfunder for nick: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/1172-2/

Nick's response is quite funny, good to see he isn't taking himself too seriously.

And would I be cheesed if it were available later to people who didn't shell out 20 bucks? Not really

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, July 24, 2020 11:43 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

And there it is

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/nick-cave-idiot-prayer-concert-live-album-1054536/

The film is going to be in released in cinemas with extra songs as well.

I'm not one to watch a concert movie, but I just listened to the audio version of Idiot Prayer that was just released as an album and it's kind of the perfect thing to close this really terrible year with.

My only regret is that I cannot listen to it with the biggest Nick Cave fan I knew and one of y best friends, who passed away from cancer almost exactly two years ago.

Incidentally, charlie rex has proposed a Cave et al ballot-based poll in coming days. Expect an actual dedicated thread very soon...

omg definitely will participate in that :D

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/how-is-your-lockdown/

the upcoming quarantine album is titled Carnage

Carnage is out now! Cave/Ellis only. sounds great so far.

Seeing there's a new book out on the young NIck Cave
There was a competition on the ROiwland S Howard FB p[age for copies last week.

i'm kinda surprised this ended up being just a cave & ellis album, was expecting at least some remote contributions from the other bad seeds

those "hand of god" backing vocals make me think of pj harvey

so far it's pretty in line with push the sky away and skeleton tree in sound, except with electronic beats

like specifically this feels like the album "animal x" would have fitted on

the minor->major shift in "white elephant" is kinda deflating, it was great to hang around with Mean Nick for a few minutes again

yeah but it still rules, wish he snarled the mean part more though. absolutely the highlight so far

the first half is a peek into the alternate universe where instead of making the boatman's call he got really into electronic textures in the way so many bands did in the late 90s and tried to make something resembling trip-hop

bodes well for the long teased grinderman 3

"what doesn't kill you makes you........crazier" is a pretty classic nick cave capper

cool little album, kinda merges the arc of the last three albums into one

i prefer the moodier first half of the album though, it's more interesting than the second half which sounds beautiful but they did that territory better on ghosteen not too long ago. the first half at least goes to some interesting new places and doesn't mirror skeleton tree & push the sky away as directly

"white elephant" definitely my favourite

thanks for the heads up! also liked the first half better, and thought White Elephant sounded like self-parody :)

(obv Cave has always believed that self-parody is nothing to be frightened of)

Hmm, I wonder if "Weird" Al is even capable of self-parody, and how he would go about doing it? I guess like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4wFviI79VA

lmao you and your thought exercises <3

For years Anita Lane was overshadowed by her collaborator and ex-boyfriend Nick Cave. Eleanor Philpot argues that we instead need to see the singer as an artist whose exploration of female sexuality was way ahead of its time.

I'm delighted she is getting a long, long overdue reappraisal.

I'm also delighted that Mute will be reissuing Sex O’Clock later in 2021, the album's first vinyl release

Sad update:

Goodbye lovely Anita, my most magical friend. Will be so missed. Love to all who loved her . 💔✨#anitalane pic.twitter.com/VL4smrGM9P

— Kid Congo Powers (@kidcongopowers) April 28, 2021

Oh no! So sad. Such a talent.

noooo ;_;

RIP

went out, found Boy On Fire on the shelf in the local chain newsagent. So bought it despite being broke, cos t was cheaper than I think I'd heard it was elsewhere. (Oh yeah had access beyond the front of the shop to the shelfs that people haven't been near since the start of the year.)
Then got home and heard that Anita who must feature heavily was dead. Sorry to hear that.

RIP. Had never heard her version of Sexual Healing before ( w / Nick Cave on backup vocals).

(Johannes Beck & Moritz Wolpert are credited as the "choir" on that. Barry Adamson plays vibes, though.)

Rob Sheffield obit for Rolling Stone.

Memories by Nick: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/tell-us-about-anita/

Standing on the street in a baby-doll dress, surrounded by sunshine, laughing and radiating a piercing beauty of such force you stop breathing.

I could not believe my eyes.

Later, at my kitchen table drawing things, she had a quickness of touch and a clear, light line full of humour, throwing each drawing away and starting another, charged with a rampant, unstable, fatal energy that would follow her all her life. My line, amateur and ponderous.

Everyone wanted to work with her but it was like trying to trap lightning in a bottle. Mick Harvey managed to coral her into the recording studio, but these precious offerings are a fraction of what she was.

She was the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far.

Walked into the most prestigious art college in Australia — on a whim — and talked her way into being given a place there. Bought an easel, some butcher’s paper, some crayons, put on a dress, did her hair and never went back in.

She thought the best ideas were the ones that never saw the light of day.

She was the brains behind The Birthday Party, wrote a bunch of their songs, wrote ‘From Her to Eternity’, ‘The World’s a Girl’, ’Sugar in a Hurricane’ and my favourite Bad Seeds song, ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, but was much more than that.

(more in the link)

I'm late to hearing it, but I think Carnage is a fantastic record and one of my favorites in recent years. The individual songs are great on their own, but this is a case of all of them being elevated by the overall running order - the back half being one extended comedown from the frantic peak of "White Elephant" is really, really well done.

Carnage is really great, I listened when it first came out and it didn't really do much for me, but I've been playing it a bunch the last couple of days & really getting into it

I almost didn't even pick this one up because I'd filed it mentally as another of their film score things, so glad I righted that, it really is terrific.

LP is due to arrive to me today so I am excited to listen to the physical thing.

Pro-tip: Cave on a recent Red Hand Files (which I don't even know why I read these anymore) did this deep-dive/close read of the lyrics for Carnage and I would say avoid it all costs becuz as much as I love the music & his lyrics he recently has been making me insane by explaining what songs are about specifically and imo, he has no fucking clue what his songs are about or he's just wrong.

Don't explain the songs.

...could you elaborate?

I cannot

Goodness I'd forgotten about this. I've barely digested Ghosteen. Is it a tough one to get into? I suppose it doesn't matter, I should get it.

It's not tough, mainly just pretty.

it's probably most similar to skeleton tree, but i prefer it to that

he has no fucking clue what his songs are about

what does this even mean

this? https://www.theredhandfiles.com/such-a-beautiful-sad-song-carnage/