Since I've been on this forum I think I have never heard anything about Nick Cave. Does IORRians like him ? Favorite album ? Song ?

Just two songs to make you feel ... sad, sad, sad !

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Sorry for my english ; I'm a french little boy (but I like it)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-05 01:28 by olorin.

Two favourite songs with the bad seeds : - Tupelo
- The Mercy Seat
Album : The first one ( I think,simply called NC & the bad seeds ),

before that was the period with "Birthday Party",which came from Australia,
if i´m not wrong.
They released a couple of tough records .Must have been in the early eighties and
i remember a LP called " Junkyard " to be really good .
I remember John Peel playing them ,by the way....

Two extremes - some of his work sublime and some is dreadful. The Boatman's Call is the album for me. As it happens, I am watching Nick Cave night on BBC4 right this minute!

Cave is the living sample & proof of that Heroin
aint the best tool to create good music.
In the 80s he was most often far far out
and mainly screamed outta tune.
Great disappointment when I went to see him back then.
Alas I missed the opportunity to go see him
this spring, since my pal's dad passed away right then.

saw him at the Hammersmith apollo in may and he kicked some ass!!!!

the track "are you the on the one that i've been waiting for" is one of the
most saddest songs i've every heard.

please check it out if you have never heard it.

Many folks here & at other places so bash his latest album "Dig.. ", but I like it. Will check out that tune.

'Red Right Hand', 'The Carny' and 'Tupelo' are outstanding works of dark brilliance both lyrically and in musical craftmanship allied to a production technique that creates an atmosphere of gothic horror.

The Seeds in their various formats over the years have always been a sh*t hot band that perfectly compliments the supreme wordsmith that the laconic Cave undoubtedly is and who always manages to exude an image of brooding, menacing cool.

i love nick cave.. going to see him october..

i think i saw him 4 or 5 times live since the early nineties. i must admit that his more melodic vein is not for me. He is an excellent songwriter and he can surely craft superb melancholic ballads but in the recent years he has gone too far in that direction for me. Now i saw him a couple of weeks ago in a very thrilling and ass kicking concert to promote Dig which I like better than his latest ones.
Nothing to compare with the tender prey or henry's dream i think but good enough.
My fav are city of refuge, papa wont leave you henry and ballad wise i think the ship song or the weeping song from the same album
great guy

I used to be a huge fan. I saw The Birthday Party in 1981 and followed them and then Nick trough the 80s and 90s with fevered devotion. Then, come the 21st Century, he started making incredibly boring, pedestrian albums (Nocturama, No More Shall We Part,Lazarus), wearing horrific moustaches and turning into the punchline in every po-faced joke. But I still buy the new albums and I still go and see him live (he's still superb live - even if the songs are crap).

Favourite songs?

Sad Waters, In The Ghetto, From Her To Eternity, Tupelo, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, The Carny (same tune and arrangement as Sleeping Annaleah off Kicking Against The Pricks, folks), The Mercy Seat, Slowly Goes The Night, Lucy, Lament, When I First Came To Town, Papa Won't Leave You Henry, Do You Love Me, Loverman, Stagger Lee, Into My Arms, Far From Me, Darker With The Day, Nocturama, Abattoir Blues, No Pussy Blues, More News From Nowhere, We Call Upon The Author

Nick Cave on high horse


A BIG bronze statue of Nick Cave might soon look down on Warracknabeal, just like the rock singer.

While mocking his birthplace as conservative and strangely lawless, Cave has long sought a statue.

The one he favours would show him bare-chested on a rearing stallion.

And after a new approach to the council, what seemed like a joke is gaining traction.

The council says it will look at the proposal and dares him to go the whole hog and build a 50m-high Nick Cave with a viewing platform.

Cave, famed for fronting seminal rock bands the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, has told a local paper he has already invited celebrity friends to the unveiling.

"Russell Crowe, my mate, has promised to attend," he told the Wimmera Mail Times by email. "Snoop Dogg, a rapper, says he'll come if they let him into the country.

"Kylie Minogue said she wouldn't miss it for the world; she even promised to wear her gold lame hotpants."

Yarriambiack Shire Mayor Andrew McLeod said the statue could be an added tourist attraction to the town.

Mr McLeod said the town, population 2600, had "a dry creek bed and a few dry lakes" for attractions.

He said the town wouldn't pay for a statue but "if he's internationally known, you'd say he'd be making more money than me".

Cave said the Warracknabeal statue would make Gundagai's Dog on the Tuckerbox pale by comparison.

He wants it on a roundabout, but the only one spare is earmarked for a statue of a dingo and her pups.

"I ask you, what could be more indigenous to Warracknabeal than me?" Cave complained to the paper. "I was bloody born there."

Shire chief executive Ray Campling said latest indications were that the Cave camp was serious.

"Why not go the full hog and erect a 50m statue of Nick riding a horse?" he said. "You could have a tourist information booth and people climbing up the horse's neck and viewing out of the nostrils."

Melbourne Herald Sun



ROCKMAN

absolutely one of my idols

one of a mere handful of 'oldies' that can still make classic music now (Young, Waits etc)

and no, the Stones don't fall into that catagory anymore

Brilliant! Can't wait to see him in October. Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig! is the best album I've heard in several years.

Cave's cover of Avalanche is maybe the highlight of the 80s by any artist.
Same with In The Ghetto.

His The Good Son saved my life & sanity (along with Preisners movie theme
compositions to Kieslowski's films) during this era; my second last
horrible separation.

I once performed at the same poetry festival as the good Nick. DS Art 1989.

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Baboon Bro
Cave's cover of Avalanche is maybe the highlight of the 80s by any artist.
Same with In The Ghetto.

His The Good Son saved my life & sanity (along with Preisners movie theme
compositions to Kieslowski's films) during this era; my second last
horrible separation.

I once performed at the same poetry festival as the good Nick. DS Art 1989.

Cave did great covers in the 80s - Wanted Man, Long Time Man and the Kicking Against The Pricks albums.

Not to belittle your personal connection to the album in any way, Baboon,but I think The Good Son is where things started to go south. He attempted to make a Walker Brothers album, but he really doesn't have a voice anywhere as good as Scott Walker's. Plus he forgot to write a few tunes too - Sorrow's Child, in particular, is dreary. Some of the album is a forerunner to the boring stuff he he started making in the noughties.

I think Cave's reached that position where he's been around so long that the media acclaim his every new release like he's farting winning lottery numbers and shitting gold.

Sorry to read like a grouch here, but I remember him when he was great. Not this pompous, self-important bore with a crap tache.

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Nikolai

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Baboon Bro
Cave's cover of Avalanche is maybe the highlight of the 80s by any artist.
Same with In The Ghetto.

His The Good Son saved my life & sanity (along with Preisners movie theme
compositions to Kieslowski's films) during this era; my second last
horrible separation.

I once performed at the same poetry festival as the good Nick. DS Art 1989.

Cave did great covers in the 80s - Wanted Man, Long Time Man and the Kicking Against The Pricks albums.

Not to belittle your personal connection to the album in any way, Baboon,but I think The Good Son is where things started to go south. He attempted to make a Walker Brothers album, but he really doesn't have a voice anywhere as good as Scott Walker's. Plus he forgot to write a few tunes too - Sorrow's Child, in particular, is dreary. Some of the album is a forerunner to the boring stuff he he started making in the noughties.

I think Cave's reached that position where he's been around so long that the media acclaim his every new release like he's farting winning lottery numbers and shitting gold.

Sorry to read like a grouch here, but I remember him when he was great. Not this pompous, self-important bore with a crap tache.

That Walker connection you make is a fair point Nikolai. 'Tilt' or'The Drift' is probably the type of album Cave would like to come up with now. Still, a great artist however though defintely not one to get up and dance to.

Try and catch 'The Proposition'.

Interesting thoughts, Nikolai. Know way too little about him to go
into any kinda discussion. In general I seem to approach him from a
sorta opposite direction, since I found him lost in Smack Space
at least live in the 80s. I guess he is a little like Stones
or any artist or any human being, a little sweet, a little sour.

But recommend three albums for me?

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Baboon Bro
Interesting thoughts, Nikolai. Know way too little about him to go
into any kinda discussion. In general I seem to approach him from a
sorta opposite direction, since I found him lost in Smack Space
at least live in the 80s. I guess he is a little like Stones
or any artist or any human being, a little sweet, a little sour.

But recommend three albums for me?

Happy to. My favourites are:

Your Funeral, My Trial - written at the peak of Cave's smack addiction; a collection of dark, melancholy, occasionally blistering songs. Features The Carny, which brought Cave a wider audience when Wim Wenders featured both the song and the band in the wonderful Wings of Desire.

Kicking Against The Pricks - a covers album, released the same year (1986) as Funeral/Trial. He reinvents the songs, sometimes quite drastically, and makes most of them his own. That one of these songs is By The Time I Get to Phoenix should tell you just how good an album it is. Pricks is also a watershed album because it effectively redefined his sound.

Tender Prey - his masterpiece (in my opinion). Features The Mercy Seat (which he's performed at every show, and which was covered by Johnny Cash). Practically EVERY song on it is a winner.


Bubbling under:

Let Love In - It's hit and miss, but when it hits it pulverizes: Do You Love Me (in two parts - one a furious thunderclap of a song, the other a completely different song - a dirge about a kid getting molested in a cinema), Loverman, I Let Love In, Nobody's Baby Now and Red Right Hand (probably his most famous song, thanks to the film exposure) are superb.

The Boatman's Call - Cave's break-up album. Only he breaks up with not one but two women. His second greatest album, and his best of the 90s. He later deemed the album too personal and retreated behind the Nick Cave persona. And then came the tache years.

tek no notice of Nikolai, he's just too old to appreciate Cave's masterfulness

Her Funeral, My Trail
Tender Pray
The Boatmans Call
Let Love In
Murder Ballads
Abbatori Blues / Lyre Of Orpheus
Dig Lazarus Dig
Henrys Dream

all CLASSICS

he/they definitely lost it with Nocturma and No More Shall We Part though. which were both (by his/their high standards) a bit crap


the only reason the press still adore him (and the likes of Neil Young & Tom Waits) is simple. he still delivers excellent albums regardless of age

no more, no less

and check out the excellent GRINDERMAN album too


ps : "Features The Mercy Seat (which he's performed at every show)"

i'd beg to differ!

Nikolai o l d ? ? He mustnt be more than 42-43-44??

Well; thanks botha ya, Nikolai & Andy!
I will wear these recommendations close to me ol scarred heart.

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andy js
tek no notice of Nikolai, he's just too old to appreciate Cave's masterfulness

Her Funeral, My Trail
Tender Pray
The Boatmans Call
Let Love In
Murder Ballads
Abbatori Blues / Lyre Of Orpheus
Dig Lazarus Dig
Henrys Dream

all CLASSICS

he/they definitely lost it with Nocturma and No More Shall We Part though. which were both (by his/their high standards) a bit crap


the only reason the press still adore him (and the likes of Neil Young & Tom Waits) is simple. he still delivers excellent albums regardless of age

no more, no less

and check out the excellent GRINDERMAN album too


ps : "Features The Mercy Seat (which he's performed at every show)"

i'd beg to differ!

Well well, opinions and arseholes ... everybody's got one ...

"Too old" eh? I'm 41. Call that old? How old are you? 17? I was into Cave when you were either still swimming in your daddy's balls or arguing the merits of Jason Donovan remixes.

Until recently, The Mercy Seat was performed at nearly every Nick Cave show. He dropped it from the setlist with Grinderman (obviously), and on the recent tour too, but it's started creeping back into the setlist. He's also re-recorded several different versions of the song too. It's one of those songs he ranks as his very best.

I still buy Cave's albums, because, like The Stones, there'll be two or three great songs on there that no one else could possibly come up with. Cave is unique in that respect, inimitable.

BUT I don't think Dig Lazarus Dig is remotely as good as the press would have you believe it is. Musically, coming after Abattoir Blues (which would have made a killer single album), it was totally dull. Lyrically it consists of bad jokes, pompous couplets (you can tell he's been hanging out with Will Self), and musings on being famous. Of course, the critical hosannas this dull, turgid, two dimensional ungainly lump of an album got will simply reinforce his conviction that he's on the right track. Talk to any long term fan (when did you get on the bandwagon, Andy Jnr? - last month?), and they'll tell you Lazarus is a turd. A loud, polished turd, but a turd nonetheless.

Peculiar anyhow, how long term fans to any band or artist seem to
waqlk in the same direction.

Sorry, Nikolai, BTW, for guessing you were 42 and up

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Baboon Bro
Peculiar anyhow, how long term fans to any band or artist seem to
waqlk in the same direction.

Sorry, Nikolai, BTW, for guessing you were 42 and up

No apologies necessary, my man! You were only a few months out.

Funnily enough, when I went to Cave's London gigs, half the audience were bald ex-goths with their kids. The other half were twentysomethings who didn't know Barry Adamson (who supported him) was a founding member of the Bad seeds, who played on the first four albums. In fact, they didn't know any songs past Abattoir. When he played Hard On For Love they asked "Is this new?"

Get what you mean about old vs new fans. I guess it's akin to that saying about those born into a religion loving it less than those who convert to it.

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Baboon Bro
Peculiar anyhow, how long term fans to any band or artist seem to
waqlk in the same direction.

Sorry, Nikolai, BTW, for guessing you were 42 and up

By the way, do you like Einsturzende Neubauten? They're STILL good, better than ever, in fact. I saw them supporting The Birthday Party in 1983. They've constantly evolved, never made anything close to even a mediocre album, and they're brilliant live. Give me a shout if you want to know more.

see i am a huge fan and i disagre with nikolai's picks.he's goign for the earlier less polished less experimente less learned nick cave.. the punkier more birthday party cave

if i had to take three albums i would easily take these

let love in
live seeds (corker of a live album..just wonderful and you get really hardcore versions of some of those songs nikolai loves (ie mercy seat) but more intense)
and boatman's call which is just a gorgeous album.. his blood on the tracks..

i will agree with nikolai that dig lazurus dig while good (there are no bad albums from mr cave is not that great either)....

i also agree with whoever wrote that cave lost it with nocturama and no more shall we part..t hose are like slow turgid boring nick cave albums..

can't wait to see him in october.. but trust me.. the albums to start with nick cave ARE the ones i have listed..

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Nikolai

Quote
Baboon Bro
Peculiar anyhow, how long term fans to any band or artist seem to
waqlk in the same direction.

Sorry, Nikolai, BTW, for guessing you were 42 and up

By the way, do you like Einsturzende Neubauten? They're STILL good, better than ever, in fact. I saw them supporting The Birthday Party in 1983. They've constantly evolved, never made anything close to even a mediocre album, and they're brilliant live. Give me a shout if you want to know more.

Perhaps a shout later on. Einsturzende is yet to be discovered deeply
by me; have had the around me, but my ears fell of
around 1989 after too much industry.. However, I like Blixa's & Einstürzende's attitude.
(I even beacame some kinda god father for the domestic industry project
of Blood Ov Thee Christ) [somrec.com]
Listen [profile.myspace.com] Warnin'! Dont have the volume level up high!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-06 01:47 by Baboon Bro.

They ARE, ARE they?

Great albums, agreed. Live Seeds is an odd choice though. I thought - and still think - it's a superb live album, and a very good representation of what they were like live around the time. But not a starting point, surely?

Anyway, this is all objective, down to when we all got into him, personal taste etc etc. Kicking Against The Pricks and Your Funeral My Trial were such a HUGE leap forward, musically, after the post-Birthday Party hangover of From Her To Eternity (an album that was acclaimed as the greatest ever made by Matt Snow in the NME ... Cave later wrote a song called "Scum" about him), and the muddled, heavy-handed infatuation with the blues that was The Firstborn is Dead. Pricks and Your Funeral was basically the sonic template for all Bad Seeds albums up to and including Murder Ballads. Then Warren Ellis basically supplanted Blixa Bargeld as Cave's foil.

By the way, you'll notice, when you see him, that the Dig Lazarus Dog tracks are way better live. The album sounds oddly flat when you listen to it afterwards. This doesn't make the songs any better, of course, but they work live, if you get my drift.

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Baboon Bro

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Nikolai

Quote
Baboon Bro
Peculiar anyhow, how long term fans to any band or artist seem to
waqlk in the same direction.

Sorry, Nikolai, BTW, for guessing you were 42 and up

By the way, do you like Einsturzende Neubauten? They're STILL good, better than ever, in fact. I saw them supporting The Birthday Party in 1983. They've constantly evolved, never made anything close to even a mediocre album, and they're brilliant live. Give me a shout if you want to know more.

Perhaps a shout later on. Einsturzende is yet to be discovered deeply
by me; have had the around me, but my ears fell of
around 1989 after too much industry.. However, I like Blixa's & Einstürzende's attitude.
(I even beacame some kinda god father for the domestic industry project
of Blood Ov Thee Christ) [somrec.com]
Listen [profile.myspace.com] Warnin'! Dont have the volume leve up high!!

Neubauten haven't sounded like that in 19 years.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-09-24 06:40 by parislocksmith.

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parislocksmith

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bald ex-goths with their kids. The other half were twentysomethings

Yes, those youngsters. At the Stockholm gig, there was a young goth girl who cried profusely when they played The Ship Song, which for me is Cave at his worst. The current line up is quite good, however. Warren Ellis’ screeching guitar brings back memories of the glorious Birthday Party.

For those who prefer the early Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution come highly recommended.

We have a scholar on the board tonight. Great band who split after making their best album - Paradise Discotheque.

Warren Ellis used to be so polite, pre-Blixa. Scraping away melodically in the background. Post-Blixa he's Charles Manson on violin.

In London, I witnessed not one but three goth girls crying into their black hankies during The Ship Song. That song causes allergies, I tell you. I get the urge to take a long piss every time I hear it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-07-05 23:58 by Nikolai.