Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

Sounds like Jethro and Luke are virtually the same age, both born in April/May 1991. Reports today suggest Jethro was older by 10 days.

“White Elephant” with the full live Seeds lineup is incredible and a great set closer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aADVH5lqeFU
^^sound not great but yes, I can imagine being there would be kinda wild

i bought a ticket to see cave & ellis this year. they're not bringing the full bad seeds to australia for whatever reason this year but it looks like their previous carnage tour dates without the rest of the bad seeds were pretty heavy on ghosteen material so i'm looking forward to that

quite a lot of his material works better live, for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHb6bi3haQU

Recent concert at Hanging Rock

Didn't know Colin Greenwood was playing bass on this tour!

the guy is easily one of the greatest live performers I've ever seen.

it was just on the most recent australian leg, they also had larry mullins on percussion (who's been touring with the bad seeds since 2015) and a trio of backing vocalists. on the previous na/europe legs they had different backing bands

i saw them last month and it was a decent show, they played nearly all of carnage & ghosteen and not too much else, though they did play "breathless" which was lovely to hear. certainly not any sort of greatest hits show, leaving out most of the bad seeds staples. it was quite long (two & a half hours) and most of the material was quite slow, there'd just be the occasional burst of intensity here and there so it was a bit odd in that regard. ellis was ridiculously dramatic playing his little keyboard on his lap.

lol that video pretty much only includes the more energetic material they played

A good read:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/nick-cave-on-the-fragility-of-life

I had some thoughts about that New Yorker piece. (For the record, in the first 15 minutes after posting this newsletter, a half dozen people have unsubscribed.)

Nick Cave rules

what rules are these?

No smiles, no suntans

what rules are these?

When Morrissey's talking, you show some goddamn respect and listen politely!

there is something wrong with you

according to gossip, Nick Cave has good reason to be a bit nervous about cancel culture

life is too short to write long essays about why life is too short to read any more interviews with Nick Cave talking about the fragility of life.

otm times a thousand!!!

but how else can one show one's bravery these days?

boy, unperson, I've enjoyed your jazz coverage for a long time, but the bit about Cave's and Petrusich's grief is just really gross -- I can tell you're already in "well that's my opinion!"-land about it, so no point telling you, but it's a really shitty opinion you should consider maybe changing to a better one.

Cave can be insufferable, overly pious and out of touch, but as you state yourself -

Now, this is certainly justified in a way; two of his children (he has — had — four, with three different women) have died

in a way - come on! can you even begin to imagine what this must have been like? a lifetime is not long enough to deal with and process this. your piece feels like you are a human devoid of any empathy at all, which from reading other stuff you have written I know is not true. This piece feels like a BIG misstep.

Yeah, maybe not the best example to choose for doubling down on a "journalists shouldn't turn pieces into personal essays" stance.

(which at this point is its own subgenre anyway, even if you don't like it or don't want to read/write that kind of piece)

some of caves words on grief have been helpful to me personally but I guess I’m just a rube because he’s obviously an idiot being coddled (???) by journalists and he’s not even as good as the cramps (???)

why are we even engaging with this

I’ve lost interest in his music (too wordy, too laboured) about 20 years ago but I never fail to read any his the Red Hand Files dispatches (where he shows an empathetic sincerity that I never would have expected from the guy). So yeah I’m probably more interested in hearing him share lessons from his grief with someone hurting, than in a more typical promo Q&A

I’m also greatly weary of the Cave-as-sage thing (many of his responses sound like someone listening to the sound of his own voice and marvelling) but I guess he’s not responsible for the rapturous reception. I’d never argue with his right to explore his grief however he needs to, nor that of others, and since I don’t want to read it I just avoid it.

(!! autocorrect turned “explore” into “exploit” before I caught it)

after i was an asshole online, colleagues kept mysteriously calling me out for being an asshole online

i like cave's music but his schtick is pretty annoying removed from it (& not to say that there are no problems with it in the context of his music either)

Find me some 59 year old white guys who aren’t annoying

(he's 65 btw)

sometimes i almost forget, so it's useful to be reminded what an incredible piece of shit unperson is

great interview, thanks for sharing Ned!

It is genuinely difficult to sit down, with all your human limitations, and write a song. I am writing the lyrics to a new record at the moment, so all this is extremely raw, and I may be a little sensitive about these matters, to say the least! [Laughs.] But, as the months drag on, you slowly draw the small threads of ideas together that hopefully, eventually, make up a group of songs that become an album. Once you’ve got that done, things start to reveal themselves and make sense, and you go into the studio with your band members, and you start recording the music, and it’s like collecting treasure. By the time you get these songs onto the stage, they have grown immensely in emotional stature. It can be a truly transcendent experience. So it’s a beautiful, upward journey, to write songs and present them onstage. These small, wretched, little lines that you’ve clawed out of yourself are suddenly amplified onstage, by the brilliance of the musicians who play them, to the absolute delight of your audience. It’s an extraordinary feeling, really, the trajectory of a small, inconsequential idea to something of true importance.

nick cave rules

What happened to Petrusich's husband? There have been several NY-based critics about her generation (or maybe it's the previous generation) who have had a spouse die at a young age - Matt Zoller Seltz, Rob Sheffield, etc. Maybe statistically it's not a lot, but it's awful and sad how it's not a rarer occurrence. They've all been pretty open about it in their writing.

Seitz not Seltz

xpost It looks like some antivaxers latched onto his death

xpost - not sure exactly what happened, iirc it was reported as a sudden death after a seizure at home

I love how thoughtful and introspective he gets in these things:

Marilyn Manson said in an interview:
‘I was in a drug rehab program once, but they kicked me out. That bored me to death. I asked the therapist if he could name a single artist who made more exciting art after rehab. He then sent me to a psychiatrist, who told me he didn’t treat artists, that was hopeless: they needed the ups and downs for their art, I should just make sure that I had more ups. It’s a constant struggle. Many great musicians, actors, painters or writers have suffered throughout their lives – and great art has emerged from their pain.’
What do you think about that?
CHRISTOPHER, MUNICH, GERMANY

My life is a mess. I am a drug addict now for fifteen years. I am worried about giving it up because I am an artist, a painter, and I don’t want to lose my edge. I can’t create without it.
THOM, BRISTOL, UK

Dear Christopher and Thom,

The idea that if you stop drinking or taking drugs then you stop making interesting art is a delusional claim. It is one routinely made by those who have not really experienced the full reach of life, that is to say those who have only really experienced the addicted life. If I correctly understand some of what Marilyn Manson is saying then I can tell you that in my younger, addicted days I most likely shared a similar view. I don’t know when Marilyn Manson said this, it could well be a quote from his younger days too. It certainly feels like it. What I myself did not understand at that time was that true suffering, or rather, meaningful suffering, only begins when we stop taking drugs. It is then that we are forced to live life on life’s terms, without the insulating effects of alcohol or drugs. We learn, in sobriety, our true and complex relationship to the world, and the profound nature of suffering. We also find, to our surprise, that happiness is possible as life broadens into something intricate and nuanced and interesting and strange, and potentially deeply creative. Life in sobriety becomes, as the greatly missed comic genius, Barry Humphries, once said, ‘funny’. The cossetted, flattened, self-obsessed life of the alcoholic or drug addict knows little of these things.

We often hear the grandiose presumption that the artist-addict experiences a kind of ‘holy ’suffering, that their struggle is special or somehow elevated beyond the ordinary heartache of the world. This is simply not the case and indicates little understanding of the nature of suffering or addiction or, indeed, art. The artist-addict, cocooned within their addiction, always has the validating recourse of their art, whilst the ordinary person, dealing with the hardships and devastations of life, must deal with raw existence simply as it comes. I find there is considerable courage, beauty and humanity in that common struggle.

Art is the agent best equipped to bring light to the world. That is its purpose. That is its promise. That it is predicated upon a unique suffering that is somehow linked to drink and drugs is self-serving, self-piteous nonsense. Don’t fall for it.

Love, Nick

Wow

Great response. I had never knowingly heard Cave's music until a couple months ago, just because it didn't seem like my thing, but gave Let Love In a shot and man, I was a fool for missing out for so long

The idea that if you stop drinking or taking drugs then you stop making interesting art is a delusional claim.

I challenge Mr. Cave to make it through one whole post-1986 Aerosmith album.

Come on, Aerosmith was never interesting.

I mostly agree with Nick Cave but also think unperson has a point as well.

Some people, sure they stop the d&d-ing but still maybe never really get in touch with the other stuff.

I think the problem or at least a problem is that often people take more drugs when they are younger, and younger people tend to make more inspired music. But I guess the whole concept is awash in generalizations.

I enjoy making fun of Nick Cave because I think he's a lunkhead who makes bad art whether he's high or sober, but honestly I kinda agree with him on the "drugs don't make your art better" thing. I was never a drug person — a couple of joints and a few acid trips in high school — and haven't had a drink in somewhere around 20 years. Even when I did drink, it was never more than, say, three beers on a given night out. And the reason for that is I couldn't write if I was drunk or high, and being able to write has always been more important to me than anything else. Is what I do "art"? I don't know. But it's the reason I'm here, so I have to be as good at it as possible. My tools need to be sharp and ready at all times. And I think, as great as some of the art made by people in altered states of consciousness often is, from Exile On Main St. to dub, it's probably a case of stumbling upon brilliance rather than being able to access it at will.

It's not really hard to come up with an answer to Manson's misguided question. John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins (virtually every great album they made came after they finally got off heroin), Martin Scorsese (left cocaine behind and decided to make Raging Bull next), etc.

I see Cave’s point but, sorry, his music got way less interesting once he and many of his bandmates kicked/cleaned up. Just my opinion.

I'd say intoxicants have squandered more creativity (and often the health of creators) than they promoted, when you look at entire careers and lifespans.