Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

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