A Shitty Exposé On Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
by McMeats
So as the story goes, I was handing out some #18’s at the local distro, Roger’s Zoo. I gave (Disgruntled) Davey his. After thumbing through a few of its pages, he told me I should write an exposé on Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. It seemed random enough, especially since #18 was the first issue that I actually did not write anything in. (Well, except for #Four, but that one doesn’t count.) So I asked him why, and he would not give me a reason. So I thought, maybe he’s dead, right? I mean that’s usually why someone starts talking about some famous person for no apparent reason. There was otherwise no relation to anything that was happening at the moment. So I checked, and no, he is not dead. And what the fuck does it mean to do an exposé, anyway? Am I supposed to get to the gritty underbelly of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds? But I figured, if I had a request to write something I might as well do it. This one’s for Davey, God rest his soul.
The first time I heard Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds was when I saw them at The Gorge for Lollapalooza ’94 during the golden age of the alternative music movement. No-Sleeves Steve was there, so was his sister Lisa, as well as Paul “Greco” Wisher and, everybody’s favorite, Leif “Rev. Minesweeper” Brecke. Leif was pretty excited about seeing them, I had never heard of them, I was there to see Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, etc. But Leif talked ‘em up pretty good so I was interested. The Bad Seeds came on stage, probably middle billed, so like late afternoon. It was really fucking hot that late August day. After seeing 2 or 3 bands and being in the thick of the hot, moisty feverbox of a mid-90’s mosh pit, the mist tent up the hill sounded pretty fucking good. Much more refreshing than watching a band that I knew nothing about. They had been around for at least a good 10 years, but when you’re source for music was pretty much limited to watching MTV (oh yeah, they used to play videos didn’t they?) or happening upon some weird band at Off The Record, you tend to miss out on some of the Seeds that laid the groundwork.
So after getting mistified, I headed back to catch the last half of their set, and I can tell you it was pretty fucking amazing. They were touring in support of their album Let Love In. Which, as the title may suggest, was one of their more darkly pretty albums. But y’know, in the same sense as The Swans’ The Burning World was a pretty album. After seeing them I bought the cd at the merch table. I listened to it, quite a bit, actually, but it didn’t seem to give the same punch as when I saw them. Obviously there was more to them, then that album, so I looked into their back catalog, and started hearing some great stuff.
The early albums had been out of print in the US, but due to the success of Let Love In, a half-dozen albums were re-released over the course of the next few years. Here are some selected highlights of their career. Their first album, 1984’s From Her To Eternity was some dark atmospheric post-punk carrying over from the days when Cave and Mick Harvey were in The Birthday Party. Any self-respecting Bad Seeds listener should already be well versed in them. Kicking Against The Pricks, another great record, came out a couple albums later. It’s a covers album, and usually when a band starts doing these they’re heading south. But some of the covers like “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “Running Scared” are such classics that they almost end up being originals, not to mention that they were staples of their live shows 16 years ago when I saw them, and still are.
In 1988, they released Tender Prey, featuring Cave’s magnum opus, “The Mercy Seat,” Johnny Cash would go on to cover this song, and upped the chill factor by 10, as he had a tendency to do. As dark and moody as the Bad Seeds were to that point, this was probably their darkest album to date, and would be until Murder Ballads came out eight years later. This is my favorite album as Cave paints such vast tales of death and violence that he almost takes you to the point of no return. Not that I’m saying this album will make you go out and kill someone, but it gets you thinking.
Since then, they’ve put out several more albums. In 2001, No More Shall We Part was released, and it was a different take on similar subject matter, reminiscent of Let Love In. but not as darkly ironic and violent. It’s actually a very beautiful record, which may or may not be a compliment. In recent years several of The Bad Seeds, Cave included have formed the side project Grinderman, in which the musical stylings have almost come full circle back to the days of The Birthday Party. There exists much more of a noisier garage feel, with more of an artistic approach, though, perhaps, less spiritual.
There you have it. Though I did not list everything that The Bad Seeds are involved with (i.e. Einsturzende Neubauten, but that would have taken way more than 2 pages by itself), and I left out probably some crucial albums, but it is what it is…shitty.
I hope that this meets your expectations, Davey.
Here’s to life. Fuck It!
mmm