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I’ve just taken delivery of The Death of Bunny Munro – the new novel from Nick Cave. I met the publisher last August, at the filming of Do You Love me Like I Love You? for the remastered Cave albums currently in the process of being re-issued.
I’m looking forward to reading this book, which is a beautifully presented hardback featuring a pink ribbon bookmark. Cave’s last novel – And the Ass saw the Angel – was often breathtaking, but also sometimes suffered from Cave’s heroin addiction at the time of writing (I understand he actually lost the manuscript half-way through its writing in Paris). I’m intrigued to see what the clean Cave’s produced.
I’m at an open air festival.
It’s dark. Late at night. Candles glow.
Nick Cave’s strolling around in an emerald green suit.
We’re walking in opposite directions.
Fans crowd around him, chatting as if they all know him.
The ground undulates gently. He’s walking uphill.
The grass is worn away. Hard-baked earth shows through.
People are sitting in groups around fires and clusters of candles.
Blonde women in kaftans with acoustic guitars.
Like a post-apocalyptic Woodstock.
Nick Cave in MOJO
I read the Nick Cave feature in the current edition of MOJO with great interest. The guy is a great creative talent, has produced a huge and diverse body of work – oodles of songs, film scores, novels – and has the coolest backing band in history. I can’t help but wonder, though, if he regrets the years spent slave to heroin and alcohol. What amount of work would he have produced without the impact of these substances on his life? And of what quality? Would there have been more? Would it have been better? Or were they part of getting to the point Cave’s at now? Grist for the writing mill.
I’d like to think not.
Personally, alcohol and drugs scare the hell out of me, which is why I’ve never tried the former to any kind of excess or the latter at all. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. Snigger if you want. For one thing, I like to be in control. The bane of my life from my teenage years into my early to mid-20s was being the one who didn’t get particularly drunk. I tended to watch people go somewhere else as the alcohol took hold. Left out. Left behind. But mostly, it wasn’t a place I wanted to go. I’ve only ever met one person who is nice to be with when drunk. And, notably enough, two of the three times I’ve met him, he has been drunk. (Are you there Dressing Gown Guy?)
As for drugs… depressive and addictive traits seem to go hand-in-hand with creativity. The large number of artists of all kinds who have dabbled seeking some kind of release or escape or creative aid only to find themselves either screwed up or dead is testament to that. It’s a vicious circle, as drugs usually enhance depressive tendencies. So not for me, thanks. There’s no getting away from the hard work.
Besides, I’m not convinced drugs unlock any kind of creative doors. Alcohol certainly shuts them, and severely impairs judgement. What both do do is mean that the user doesn’t care, about either the results of their actions, or their impact on others. Hugely influential writers such as Philip K Dick are claimed to have drugs as a contributor to their work, although this is said by some to be exaggerated.
Cave’s been clean since 1999, and he and the Bad Seeds are now at their most creative and successful. PKD’s long dead.
Click “Nick Cave” in the tag cloud for other cavernous posts.
Jade Goody
When she was in Big Brother the UK hated her, scorned her, derided her as thick white trash. An embarrassment. Now the UK feels sorry for her. Even Gordon Brown has an opinion. (It’s worth about as much as all his other opinions.) Why? Because she has terminal cancer and is dying before our eyes.
Well, feel sorry for yourself, UK, for you also have terminal cancer. 13-year-old kids are having kids. There’s no discipline in schools because half the teachers are scared or don’t care or just have too much to do. Many kids have unsupervised access to the internet and modern media such as youtube, which is home to human existence in its depraved glory. You can have porn and violence piped directly into your home via cable. (But that’s OK because your kids don’t know the PIN number, right?). 18-rated films are a rarity these days. Finishing a level on a video game is considered some kind of achievement. A nine-year-old kid who came to our house recently talked of playing an 18-rated game in which he had to “break a policeman’s legs” and “keep stabbing this guy to kill him”. I can only assume his mother doesn’t know.
Achievement.
And people are publishing their lives on Facebook without really thinking through the consequences of who can see what. An Austrian friend of mine visited at Christmas. He said: “Whenever anyone applies for a job with us the first thing we do is look them up on Facebook. And there you see pictures of them smashed out of their face somewhere, and getting up to all kinds of shit. People post photos and tag them and you can see it all. They don’t have a clue.”
But it’s all so quick and easy.
SNAP. UPLOAD. TAG. NEXT.
No thought required. Instant gratification.
Even LEGO comes with instructions.
The Financial Crisis
Everybody’s up in arms and angry at the bonuses and so on. It’s understandable. The loss of investments, pensions, interest on savings. All that. I mean, we tried to tell them, didn’t we? We didn’t want a 100% endowment mortgage on our nice house for £250 a month, did we. We didn’t want three credit cards. Or a nice new car for £100 a month. “No,” we told them, “because one day it will all collapse and then where will we be?”
But they didn’t listen, did they? They made us have these things, and now we’re suffering, because we wanted it all there and then, with no strings attached, and never having to pay anyone back. Ever.
We wanted it all and we wanted it there and then. Instant gratification.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds announce the first of a string of summer festival appearances.
The band, featuring Ed Kuepper on guitar, will headline at German festivals Southside (Neuhausen Ob Eck) and Hurricane (Scheesel) in June, Scotland’s T in the Park on 10th July and Oxegen Festival in Ireland on 11th July.
Kuepper, formally of Australian bands The Saints and Laughing Clowns, completes the current Bad Seeds live line up of Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Thomas Wydler, Jim Sclavunos and Conway Savage.
Kuepper has been, and continues to be, a significant influence on contemporary Australian music. He formed the original version of the proto punk band The Saints in 1973 whilst in high school and when the original Saints split he formed what, in the eyes of many, was an even bolder enterprise, Laughing Clowns.
The Clowns broke up in 1984 and Kuepper launched a prolific solo career which has seen the release of more than 20 albums and several film and soundtrack projects. His latest studio recording was ‘Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog’ in 2007.
This full schedule of festival dates promises to include some of the best and most exciting festivals that Europe and the British Isles have to offer. These festival dates mark the band’s first European appearances since their sold-out London Troxy shows in November 2008. More details will be announced very soon.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Mute are set to release their first four albums in a series that will see the band’s entire album catalogue digitally re-mastered and remixed in 5.1 surround sound.
All 14 albums will be available as re-mastered CD and as a deluxe Collectors Edition starting with the release of From Her To Eternity, The Firstborn Is Dead, Kicking Against The Pricks and Your Funeral… My Trial on 30th March 2009.
In a myspace announcement Mick Harvey says:
“For a variety of personal and professional reasons I have chosen to discontinue my ongoing involvement with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. More information and comment will emerge in the coming days and weeks I expect. After 25 years I feel I am leaving the band as it experiences one of its many peaks; in very healthy condition, and with fantastic prospects for the future. I’m confident Nick will continue to be a creative force and that this is the right time to pass on my artistic and managerial role to what has become a tremendous group of people who can support him in his endeavours both musically and organizationally. It was a fantastic experience to finish my touring days in the band with the recent shows in Australia and the unique events that took place in conjunction with All Tomorrow’s Parties, especially Mt. Buller, which was one of the many highlights of my involvement with the band throughout the years. I shall continue working on the Bad Seeds back catalogue re-issues project over the coming year and look forward to the new opportunities I shall be able to accommodate as a result of my changed circumstances.”
A great shame – for me Harvey’s guitar sound was an important part of the Bad Seeds’ sound.
This is one of my favourite writing playlists. It’s a bit skewed towards one artist, but these are great, atmospheric tracks. Gotta love the live stuff. Tupelo and Hiding All Away are particular favourites. Overall, though, in terms of lyrical content and musicality, God is in the House is just about my favourite Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds track. Warren Ellis’s violin is sublime.
My wife and I meet Nick Cave in a venue.
The venue is small but like a theatre, with red velvet.
There’s nobody else there yet.
He’s a likeable guy, in a good mood.
He has a deck of cards and invites me to play a game called “Raise Me”, which involves placing down a card of higher value than the one the previous player has placed, otherwise you have to pick one up. The object is to lose all your cards.
He has to teach me the rules.
Tells me I’m good at cards.
He does all the talking.
I want to ask his what his life’s like, what it’s like touring and being on telly and whether he enjoys it, but I don’t have the nerve, as I reckon he’s off duty.
My wife is sitting in the background watching us, smiling.
On August 1st I was interviewed for Do You Love Me Like I Love You? – a series of 14 films being made by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth to be released in conjunction with the remastered Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogue. The filming session took place at a recording studio in London.
The two artists will take the films and edit them into montages relating to each album or song. They’re filming in London, New York, Berlin and Melbourne.
I had a great time, and met several interesting people. I was told that the Bad Seeds’ superb bass player Martyn Casey had visited the studio the previous evening. Cor blimey. Casey’s bass playing is one of the best aspects of the Bad Seeds’ music. The bass on the opening to the live version of Tupelo is incredibly powerful.
The filming experience was both facinating and strange. Make up was applied (I asked to be made to look 20 years younger and three stone lighter) then I was shown into the studio. Ten minutes were taken to adjust lighting, check sound and so on. Furthermore, I was told on three separate occasions that I was “very photogenic”! (No, really! I couldn’t believe it either!) I suggested that this is something Jane says to all the boys who step in front of her camera, but she assured me that this isn’t the case at all. Ahem.
I had to talk directly to the camera, in which I could see my own reflection, which was very strange. I became very conscious of what I was saying; if I felt I was making a good point but fluffed a word half-way through – as most people do in everyday conversation – I knew they wouldn’t be able to use it, and so I had to start again. I also wanted to avoid saying things like “um”, “er” and “y’know”.
I think the end result was OK. I hope that something from my contribution is included in the end product.
Only time will tell.
I’m delighted and excited to have been asked to make a contribution to the filming of Do you love me like I love you? – a series of films produced by acclaimed British artists Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard to coincide with the remastering of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ back catalogue.
The two British artists have been commissioned to produce a series of short films that will accompany each of the studio albums when they are remastered and re-issued by Mute.
Each film will be a simple, powerful collage of people talking directly to camera about the songs on that album. The artists want to capture passionate, open people talking candidly about the songs they love from the band’s history; discussing the first time they heard a song, what it means to them, how it makes them feel, the stories the songs tell and the ways in which the band has soundtracked their lives.
The films will feature famous, infamous and unknown fans.
Iain and Jane developed the idea and will be conducting the interviews, directing and editing each film. They’ve spent the last six months working with the Bad Seeds on various video projects including the four promo videos for the new album “Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!’, live studio footage and a set of seven, one-minute ’seance’ clips on YouTube. They’re artists who have worked have worked together for 14 years making videos and performances that cross-reference art and music.
Follow-up post made here.
We went to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Carling Academy in Birmingham last night. They were amazing. A hugely powerful band of talented musicians. The bass notes made my trouser legs flap. I’m not joking.
The only down side to the evening was our relatively late entry to the venue, which meant we had to stand to one side of the stage, facing one side of the PA stack, which meant we couldn’t see most of the band, and only half saw Mr Cave’s cavorting. Lesson learned.
