50 Greatest Nick Cave Songs: from #4 to #0 not #1

So after all this writing about Nick Cave and all 50 of my favorite tracks I don't think I want to listen to him for a while now. Anyway I wanted to finish off these epic blog posts before the end of the year. So here's my top five songs by Nick Cave starting with number...

4. Nick Cave with Bruno Coulais - To Be By Your Side
One of two tracks in my top five Nick Cave songs which are not on a Bad Seeds album, both are from soundtracks. I know that they all should be album tracks but I can't help but number this song up this high. it's one of his most perfectly written lyrics, a totally stunning, captivating and exquisite song. The music by Bruno Coulais absolutely and exactly matched his words. It's also needs to be heard more too because people don't know of it or just don't know how great this is. Plus where else do you get Cave sing along with Geese which are the stars of the film. A wicked movie too.
Find it on: Travelling Birds (Soundtrack) 2002 or under the title Winged Migration in USA or Le Peuple Migrateur in France

3. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Babe, You Turn Me On
Another of his tracks featuring more winged friends with butcher birds, nightingales and even bees too. This is the fourth song from the huge double album I've picked for my favorite Cave songs. Three tunes from The Lyre of Orpheus side and just one from Abattoir Blues and two were rehashed as singles which I would say are two of his best choices, I never liked the singles but those two are flat out outstanding and superb. Only one other album has four tracks here in my list of his best songs. I've only seen his perform it once live and wished he would play it last time but maybe next time, fingers crossed.
Find it on: Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Album) 2004

2. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Grief Came Riding
This is on my copy of this album but is not included normally. I got it the week it was originally available and it was a bonus track on the album. One of only two Bad Seeds albums recorded at Abbey Road Studios, the other one was the previous album The Boatman's Call. He rarely plays this one live but at a very short, invite only launch party for the album Cave said "the Bad Seeds actually deemed it too depressing" and is about "the misery of living in England". Three songs ended up in my list from this album which ties with The Boatman's Call in second place, the albums with the most tracks I've selected here in my list.
Find it on: No More Shall We Part (Limited Edition) 2001 or B-Sides & Rarities (Compilation) 2005

1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Loom Of The Land
Well, here is my number one track (finally) and of-course has to be from Henry's Dream album. I really have run out of things to say now after fifty tracks but here goes. An album with only nine songs and I've picked four here it's the album that wins hands down here...if you count Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus as one album not two discs or a double album as some people do. I've only ever seen him play this once too but it doesn't matter I love this song so much and I don't really need to explain anymore, full stop.
Find it on: Henry's Dream (Album) 1992

0. Nick Cave with Dirty Three - Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum
But just to be difficult I'm including number zero here. So is this my top song or the previous track? See if you can figure that out. This is the very first Warren Ellis and Nick Cave collaboration, he joined the band Dirty Three for this classic song. In the liner notes for the soundtrack all that was written was "Zero is also a number" and your physically had to rewind your CD which some players didn't do. A hidden track which is the most hardest to find or even just play. The title is in Latin and translates to "Dread the passage of Jesus for He will not return". Epic, Do I need to say anymore?
Find it on: Songs in the Key of X (Soundtrack) 1996 or B-Sides & Rarities (Compilation) 2005

Top photograph by Bleddyn Butcher and was first published in Rolling Stone Australia in May 1994 and now can be found at National Portrait Gallery. He's wearing Smith & Wesson handguns T-shirt, he-ha.

Just to finish off here is a kind-off mix tape thingy called grooveshark so you can play all (but one) tracks on my 50 Greatest Nick Cave Songs, enjoy!

Photos: Gareth Liddiard @ Fremantle Arts Centre and Video @ Oxford Art Factory, 2010

Well I'm back with another Gareth Liddiard and The Drones post. More photos I found of him from last months gig I saw him at on the 12/11/10, it was only just over a month ago now. All these photos are by Graham Clark which I've got from the FasterLouder website (this time). I'm getting sick of these sites you have to click through pages and pages just see all the photos so I've just put an edited half a dozen best photos all in one place. They're great photos too. I remember seeing these at the time but forgot about them and I do like to keep track of these things so I'm re-posting them here, I hope no one minds about this one too. It was a great night and these are great photos of that night.












One more bonus photo here which I've tagged on the end is of the crowd on the night at the show and I'm in it, the blurry guy in the the bottom left hand side which maybe doesn't need to be here but the six above it are wicked. I guess including this one gives a complete view of it all. I can't find any photos from the next night at Mojo's Bar but found a live video of my favorite song from the album and title track on youtube from the same tour, over east a few nights later.



So right at the very, very end of this post is the wicked video of Gareth Liddiard @ Oxford Art Factory, Sydney on the 20/11/10 (with almost perfect sound and pretty clear picture). This song has become my favorite from his new album which is the title track called "Strange Tourist". I've added the lyrics right below to go with the track below so you can read/sing along at the same as watching him, enjoy!

The "Strange Tourist" lyrics:

It was all falling down and a long way from cheap
So tell me why did we live where we lived?
Above the old fish shop where they served up slop
And all the alley cats talked in their sleep

I spent a year there with B
After I quit the Mitsubishi,
Dragged my mattress up some stairs by the sea
Then watched the old van rust in the gusts of the coast
Ending its knightly expeditions for beer

B went psychotic in the navy and he wouldn't mend
Something about a sunk junk and speed
Well he couldn't shake the illness or endure the cure
And there was no point switching treatments in the
Timor Sea

I have never known someone who needed to talk so much
Or even fool himself disguising a guess
I just steered his bullshit through the next diversion
Never bothering with reality checks

Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?

B took his refuge in the open where it stings
You think you'd seen him but he's gone in a blink
Once those Stilnox hit their target don't trust nothing,
No one
And don't go believing anything that you think

He'd say, "I'm half way through
But I don't know what I'm doing
I ain't feeling much of nothing at all
But it's my first time too, if that's a valid excuse
I'm going to wait here for the engines to stall

I've seen the tracks of some giant, the smoke of some fire
Fuse like hot sands in a bottleneck
Does all of beauty lie in being dead and gone
Or is all history made of chickens and their unhatched eggs

I've seen the specter of a frigate on a dry rock face
A stone axe held together with an old bootlace
Anything betraying the drift of dead headway
You can shake it but it won't let go

All that so men can live like girls to keep their might pert
Digging music made by millionaires for car adverts
Save the whales, invade Iraq and have a hamburger
I can't distinguish between the nightmare and the joke

I was in Tokyo once without any cash
Koda Kumi sang a coda pink as sarin gas
I took a trip to Nagasaki in a rented Mitsubishi
Then went camping in the Jukai under Mount Fuji"

Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?

But when his pension got suspended,
Well that spelled the end
And I joined his life of leisure in flight
It's too hard to row a boat using a periscope
Sometimes you gotta do wrong to do right

He got in trouble years back, I haven't see him since
In a men's room in a night club in Madrid
He sold some dexedrine or something to a plain clothes D
Then raised a stink so bad they ended up deporting him

Then last I heard he was as free as a bird or into Scientology
Or into Heaven's Gate or Sharon Tate
Or in the Legionnaires
Or gone to Georgia with the Mujahideen

And someone else was walking eggshells in his birdcage
Someone else shared his unending lease on hamstrung rage
He was someone else's problem, and that made me glad
They can indulge him 'till he's ironclad

Bowerbird, you'd turn a birdbath black
What the hell could be the matter with you?
Where did you come from and why'd you go collecting
Anything that turns the colour blue?

I wound up working in a hospital
Renting TV's to the bored and the blind
Seems the DSS got sick of my BS
And had my unemployment privatised

They made a date with me, some agency
And I went down there like a fool in love
They made a few phone calls, found a real cure-all
Like I wasn't miserable enough

I was working night shift when he got there
The first time I'd seen a coma on the ward
The sister said he won't be needing TV now
Probably won't be needing nothing at all

He was in Tokyo for once until he stabilised
They flew him back here and the story unfolded
They found him frozen in a hollow in Aokigahara forest
Where those harrakiri weirdos go

He died a little later, and was wheeled away
I'd blame his morbid fascination for it all
And his doubtless, groundless faith
In his outdoors manship
He didn't kill himself, he didn't have the balls

Hope dies last in a hospital
But has a habit of doing it next to you
While you shit kick around with your eyes to the ground
Like a bowerbird appropriating anything
The colour blue.

The Gareth Liddiard @ Oxford Art Factory live video on youtube


P.S. I promise I'll get to the final five Nick Cave songs so it's all over and done with in the next post.

Photos: Gareth Liddiard & Dan Kelly @ The EG Awards, 2010

Well, here's an quick post of a couple funny photos of Gareth Liddiard and Dan Kelly messin' about at The Age newspaper EG Awards 2010 with Paul Kelly's new book (above). If you didn't know Paul Kelly is now a member of their Hall of Fame. Gareth Liddiard later played two songs. The first a Paul Kelly cover "The Executioner" (below) with Dan Kelly. Then he played his own song "Stange Tourist" solo but he didn't win any awards but who gives a shit about that.

These four photos are by Robert Carbone which can be found at Photos: EG Awards 2010 : Mess+Noise. Sorry, I couldn't help reposting them here so hopefully no one minds too much.

50 Greatest Nick Cave Songs: from #9 to #5

Right into the very last few tracks. the one and only rule I did make from this list was to not include anything from The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds compilation album (which I didn't break) but now into the last ten songs, all (except two tracks in the next post) are just from the Bad Seeds albums. So the next number is....

9. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Still In Love
Sorry, I can't help but include this track but I do know most hardcore Nick Cave fans totally dislike this album. This album reunited Nick Cave with Nick Launay who produced the "Release the Bats" single by The Birthday Party 20 years earlier and now has done everything since with him. Apparently Nick Launay said something like "you guys sound like old men on your death beds" which then Cave wrote "Dead Man In My Bed" in the studio quickly after. This song follows that on the album at the mid way point. I think it's one of the most amazing ballads he's every written. This albums main theme was to write about the middle period of love so not sad farewell and not the first blush but after being married for a few years like Cave himself. The intermediate part most singer-songwriters have ignored. This was also written and recorded live but he got rid of his piano after this album but if nothing else you've got to admit it was a transitional track and album.
Find it on: Nocturama (Album) 2003

8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Breathless
Another beautifully, romantic track just like the last one which was written for his wife, Susie Bick. The last of his albums recorded and released almost two years apart. With Nocturama done March 2002 in Australia after a tour and out early February 2003 and the next one recorded around April 2004 in France, released at the end of September 2004. You can do the math but it looks like a bit of time in between albums to me. Now it seems he's desperate to record the next one even if he's just finished off the American tour and he hasn't written a word. Looking at the last three albums (plus that book) timeline, Grinderman released on March 5, 2007 and recorded in 2006 then Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! recorded June-July, 2007 then released on March 3, 2008 next came the dead bunny book, written on a Dig Larry tour bus and published in September 2009, audio-book was done at the same time as well. Recording of Grinderman 2 took from August 2008 to 2009 so it was completed a year after the original sessions. All were done in and around London as well. I'm not even including the soundtracks or scores from films and theater. He seems like an urgent, non-stop workaholic in last few years, like it's a race to the finish line.
Find it on: Breathless (Single) 2004 or Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Album) 2004

7. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Watching Alice
The first of a few more bleak tunes, it might be a little unhealthy that I've chosen so many songs like these but it does give me, myself and I more understanding of what I like listening to. So after two of his most romantic tracks here's peeping Tom Nick Cave watching a girl called Alice getting dressed year after year but keeping this explanation shorter than the last two: what could be more depressing than watching a girl getting dressed?
Find it on: Tender Prey (Album) 1988

6. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?
Well this is the third song from The Boatman's Call album which I said in the first post in this series of posts that it wasn't his best album but it's seems it's his second best well, tied for second but I haven't finished yet. Is this the saddest from that album? maybe one of them, with lyrics like: "Around the duck pond we grimly mope, Gloomily and mournfully we go round again, And one more doomed time and without much hope, Going round and around to nowhere" but at least you could watch and listen to the ducks, Nick. Quack!
Find it on: The Boatman's Call (Album) 1997

5. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Sad Waters
The very start of Your Funeral... My Trial album which seems like the album which is tied for third place if I add up all the songs and which albums they came from. Not totally giving away the next final top tracks from the next post but third place albums are 2003's Nocturama, 1994's Let Love In, 1988's Tender Prey, this album from 1986 as all the Bad Seeds albums plus the 1983's The Birthday Party's Mutiny/The Bad Seed. Anyway I think I'll stop now and keep this explanation short and sweet as well.
Find it on: Your Funeral... My Trial (Album) 1986

The top plus the bottom photo are by Polly Borland (again). With Susie Bick (left) with her husband Nick Cave (right) taken from around the year 2000. This one below is the only photo I can find of Susie and Nick together, kissing. A very small one:
Or here is the bigger one with writing all over the middle of the pic. It's obviously posed for her camera but it's sweet and it's titled "Marital Bliss" too.

Stay tuned for the very last post soon of these: my 50 favorite Nick Cave songs.

50 Greatest Nick Cave Songs: His car crash, new interview book & from #14 to #10

To start with a new book about him is out early next year called Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Thirty Years of Essential Interviews edited by Mat Snow. By the way, the editor Mat Snow is the music journalist who is one of the subjects of Scum, a track by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds originally released as a green 7" flexidisc and Snow even talks about it on last years reissue's DVD film titled Do you love me like I love you Part 4: Your Funeral... My Trial which was pretty funny really. This new book has 224 pages it should make it a great read and it's going to be out on January 11, 2011.

Well, it's down to number ten in my fifty greatest Nick Cave tracks and it's getting a bit hard but these songs are my personal favorites. Which means if the song is say number ten in this list, it not necessarily that because all those charts of greatest whatever's I never ever agree with so I'm most likely going to disagree with myself after all this is done. I know I love these tracks more that all his other songs. I would love to see him perform these next few tracks as a set-list for an ultimate concert. I've seen a lot of these preformed over the years but some are still missing being played live well, some of these have never been played live at all.

Anyway here is number...

14. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - I Let Love In
The title track but without the "I" of-course and my favorite track from that album. With the opening lines of "Despair and Deception, Love's ugly little twins came a-knocking on my door, I let them in." It seems to me I like really morbid songs and it gets more and more so the higher I get in this list. Say with the opening lyrics of the first song on the debut Grinderman album he sings "I had to get up to get down to start all over again, Head on down to the basement and shout, Kick those white mice and black dogs out, Kick those white mice and baboons out, Kick those baboons and other motherfuckers out" which is the master plan for his new stuff so hence why I don't like his new words he's singing.
Find it on: Let Love In (Album) 1994

13. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Papa Won't Leave You, Henry
This is a total tsunami or avalanche of Nick Cave lyrics in just a few minutes he fills this song with an unbelievable amount words. This is the opening song from my favorite album of his and there are four tracks here in my chart. It was the first album I bought by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds too. The first album everyone gets from an artist who become a favorite artist always has a special place for anyone. It's funny because the songwriter plus even the band totally hate it as an album. I even got the new reissue and when you watch the DVD you see the band members all bitching about it then you have Mark Arm from Mudhoney, John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats, Gary Lucas from Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, his ex Viviane Carneiro among others all raving about how great it is, funny, eh?
Find it on: Henry's Dream (Album) 1992

12. The Birthday Party - Mutiny In Heaven
The very last Birthday Party track here but like I said at the top of this post these song go up and down in my opinion or depending on how I'm feeling on the day and today I'm numbering it twelve but it becomes a bit pointless (the numbering that is) because it could be all I wanted listen to next week. It is my favorite The Birthday Party song, I do know that. Critics say Grinderman are like this band which I don't get at all because if you listen to "Mutiny In Heaven" it makes them sound like a lame pop band plus his lyrics are so dense on this track you could drown in them which is something you could never say about Grinderman. His lyrics now are really like pop songs: simple, repeated, uncomplicated and very catchy too. Also this is the very first song on which Blixa Bargeld plays guitar for Cave.
Find it on: Mutiny/The Bad Seed (Compilation) 1983


11. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - People Ain't No Good
It was on his 1997 album but this song was later used in a Hollywood movie. Like "Red Right Hand" has been used to much in films, it's like they use it once and it worked so well so if they need a song just use that from now anyway according to me Hollywood's got a brain like a goldfish but whatever. This was very odd in that kid's movie at first but great, I guess in the end. Now this year "O Children" has been used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. It's funny the year "People Ain't No Good" was used in Shrek 2 was 2004 which was the year "O Children" was originally released on Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus album, it's like filmmakers are about six or seven years behind the times. "O Children" is not on the soundtrack but looks like it's all ready become the most downloaded song on iTunes by Cave. I guess it's a good thing, maybe.
Find it on: Shrek 2 (Soundtrack) 2004 or The Boatman's Call (Album) 1997

10. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - The Train Song
This is the first single I bought but I can't stand the A-side but flip side I still find totally beautiful and wonderful. I guess this is a funny one to start my top ten of my all-time favorite Cave tracks with a B-side but there is a reason to this madness. This was the first song heard after my little puppy died. The words really somehow match up to what just happened. I was like thirteen when my Dad gave me one of his dogs litter. I grew up with him and I was into my thirties when he got sick so he was really old for a Staffie. It's so sad writing it all down here and I still miss him but now "The Train Song" is all about that to me. I think I better stop or I'm going to cry.
Find it on: The Ship Song (Single) 1990 or B-Sides & Rarities (Compilation) 2005


Extra, Extra:
Nick Cave's Speed-Camera Car-Crash

View Larger Map
On Tuesday 7th December evening at around 7:OO pm Nick Cave with his his twin 10-year-old sons, Arthur and Earl crashed his Jaguar through a metal barrier and collided with the camera. The crash happened on the eastbound carriageway on Kingsway (road) in Brighton, East Sussex close to where Cave lives. Nobody has been arrested but police inquiries are continuing and a spokeswoman for Cave refused to comment. No other vehicles or people were involved and the speed camera and road barrier which was bent over at 45 degrees. The internet is great because I've found all these photos (below and after) which was taken by Brighton & Hove Studio Ltd and then looked up the road and the speed camera on Google Maps (above and before). Which by memory it's one of the main places/settings in his novel The Death of Bunny Munro but it's not the exact place the main charter dies in a car crash that was in Butlins but that would be too weird, I guess. Sorry for posting all this kind-off gossip maybe news but this is so funny I can't help myself, it's just like that dumb book he wrote last year with his the kids in the car too. He's only just come home after finishing his American tour last week.



The top photo is from Uli M Schueppel's film The Road To God Knows Where which was about Nick Cave & the Bad Seed 1989 tour of America. Nick Cave (front and centre then from left to right) Blixa Bargeld, Kid Congo Powers, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler and the late Roland Wolf.

Stay tuned for the final countdown.

Photos: Dimitron Benefit with The Drones @ The Corner Hotel

Hello and welcome to another post one and it's more about The Drones again. I just found some great photos of the last gig The Drones are and will play this year. I did NOT take these photographs these were taken by Matthew Harding and can be found on the Mess + Noise website. I just really love them, brilliant photos. Also if you didn't already know, I totally adore The Drones and will go as far as calling them the greatest band going currently and maybe of all-time too.

Gareth Liddiard releasing his debut solo album would have to be the highlight of the year, for me. The album of the year no doubt at all, it's still mind blowing even after a couple of months listening. I've also heard the news that Mike Noga, The Drones drummer but singer-songwriter in his own right has done his follow-up to his 2006’s Folk Songs album, March next year he will released his new solo album. The "new" Drones DVD will be releasing some time over this summer (no date as yet). I have also read Gaz is helping Ben Salter from The Gin Club doing his solo album which will be another thing to look forward to next year. I'm hoping for a "new" The Drones album maybe late next year or is that pushing it a bit but I have to guess it's got to come sooner or later at some stage, doesn't it?

It's been a quiet year really for them as a band with only nine gigs this year in total. So just to go over it here from the start of the year was Last drinks at the Tote finishing with Joel Silbersher doing the the last song of his old band's GOD classic track My Pal on 18th January. Then a run of three shows at East Brunswick Club Hotel with Gaz blowing up his amp in the very first song. All of these shows were filmed and recorded for the "new" DVD too. The gigs were on the 20th, 21st and 22nd of February then it was up to Sydney at The Annandale Hotel on 4th and 5th March. Off to England for ATP festival curated by Pavement on 14th to 16th of May. Then back to Melbourne at Forum Theatre on the 22nd October. Then to finish of with this show (that the photos are from) at The Corner Hotel on the 1st of December 2010. I wish I lived in Melbourne and could have seen these concerts but if you went could you tell me about them? I have no idea if this little run through of their gigs is interesting to anyone but me but I do like to keep track of these things and it's my blog plus if you enjoy all this too well that is bonus.

As for any new recordings from The Drones the closest we got this year is on the Maurice Frawley tribute album. I've bought the whole three CD's album but you can listen to the song they did which was the title track Long Gone Whistle; linked here). In the liner notes it only credits Gareth Liddiard and Dan Luscombe as The Drones members but has Augie March's Adam Donovan on Pedel Steel Guitar plus backing vocals and noises. Before that the one I'm missing from last year is the FBI radio's The Live Feed compilation album which I think I'll have to get now, a bit late but it's the only thing I'm missing (I think) so writing it down here reminds me to get it. There are some more great Aussie bands and artists on it too plus a few others from overseas. They're a few other discs from last year which Gaz and The Drones are on, my recommendation would be triple J’s Like A Version Vol. 5 with The Drones' cover of the TV show M*A*S*H theme song Suicide Is Painless. Also Gaz was on Magic Dirt's White Boy EP singing and playing guitar on Love Is The Armour. Plus Adalita and Liddiard did a cover and duet of early The Saints' classic song Messin’ With The Kid on Rockwiz TV show as well. Maybe I should put together a complete discography some time because I like doing stupid shit like that.

Anyway here are the photos below. Did I not tell you they're awesome photographs?















This was a benefit gig for local artist Dimitra Bucolo who suffers from lupus and has been hospitalised due to serious complications. Hopefully this gig will help and hope they get well soon.

All sixty photos for the night can be found here: Photos: Dimitron Benefit Feat. The Drones, Love Of Diagrams, ZOND : Mess+Noise but I've puttogether my favorites in this post because it's well, my blog and as someone said in the comment on their page "the M&N photo gallery format needs a total overhaul. it's completley un-viewer-friendly" which I totally agree with. There are some beautiful and wonderful photos but, you know what he said pretty much says it all.

All photos by Matthew Harding. Unfortunately I can not find his website to link back to other that the Mess + Noise site because I do like to show other peoples work here so if it is problematic for some reason please let me know. Did I already say how much I love these photos. I totally adore them and I would like to thank you personally for such great photos but the internet is at times unlike that. I hope it's all fine reposting the photos here on my blog.

On a final note: I deleted my last post because was unhappy with it, sorry if you liked it I'm going to re-do it sometime soon. Thank you for looking and even reading. I think I'll go back to the 50 Nick Cave songs next and just finish it and be done with it.

50 Greatest Nick Cave Songs: The "new" Bad Seeds album rant & from #19 to #15

I read today about Cave's plan for doing the next Bad Seeds album and I have to say the last three albums: two Grinderman's and the last Bad Seeds Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! all now sound just the same so I'm hoping for something totally different next, even a quick U-turn in the opposite direction.

Dig album was pretty much the same as the Grinderman line-up except Thomas Wydler, the Bad Seeds drummer since 1985 who only played drums on three songs. Conway Savage does play piano & organ but didn't play any of the tracks on the Dig album. Mick Harvey played on all the songs but quit soon after it's tour. James Johnston who plays only four songs on Dig but didn't tour with them. Ed Kuepper joined last year for a festival tour after Harvey left.

I read a great long interview a couple of months ago which Nick Cave who said, "I'd be honoured if Ed would come in and play. But like I said, I'm not really sure what the next record's going to be. I know it's very exciting to me, because the possibilities now have opened up. Now that Mick has left, there's a void. And it's a kind of void of possibilities." Also he said this about Blixa Bargeld rejoining: "But there was certainly no animosity between me and Blixa. We're very good friends, and I think we both feel that what he did was, both for him and the Bad Seeds, the right decision. I mean, I would quite happily have Blixa back if he wanted to come back." Cool, eh? He should make that an official offer because I think everyone would love to see him back in the Bad Seeds.

Of course nothing has happened yet but here's my dream eight man line-up for the Nick Cave & the Bad Seed 15th album plus ideas or my wishlist for songwriting, recording and producing:
Nick Cave
The vocals.
Just write the songs, just sing them like a front man because what a great band you have here.
Blixa Bargeld
The guitars.
Back with his open tuned electric guitar, slide guitar and maybe even pedal steel guitar but on different songs.
Ed Kuepper
The guitars.
His first time recording as a Bad Seeds why not electric guitar and acoustic guitar too but on different songs.
Conway Savage
The piano, organ and all keyboards.
So just let him play them this time around.
Martyn P. Casey
The bass guitar.
Of-course.
Thomas Wydler
The drums.
Just put him back on the drums on all the songs, he's the Bad Seeds drummer.
Jim Sclavunos
The percussion.
That's it, no drumming this time for him he can wait for the next Grinderman album, god help us all.
Warren Ellis
The violin, mandolin, viola, accordion, flute, loops and programming.
Plus anything and everything else he can think off too.

Now here's a good question: can Nick Cave still write really bleak and depressing songs anymore??? Can he just let his sad and morbid side run wild and lock-up his dirty pervert side for Grinderman 3. Can someone please buy him a pet "Moose", maybe. The recording should be done outside of England, returning to American for the first time since the early 90's, maybe even New York might work great for them now. A different producer too would be good. It will be ten years since Tony Cohen did that job but after Nick Launay doing every album since Nocturama so he needs to take a break. Ten songs I think would be the best amount. Something with a totally different sound than the last three albums. Something entirely miserable, they wouldn't have to be all those piano ballads, I don't mean that. Can Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds do a complete back flip at this stage? Maybe not but Cave being a happily married man has done nothing for his songwriting so he should do the "Moose" album. Hey, maybe that is great working title: The Moose Album and here the album cover too, it looks very Bad Seeds to me.
The Moose, 1773, Oil on canvas by George Stubbs.

Whatever is going to happen is not going to happen until next year anyway so back to my countdown. Right now it's going down to number fifteenth which is getting a bit hard, numbering all these songs the higher I get but here goes...

19. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Wings Off Flies
Well, this seems like it's the only one from this album, the debut Cave album featuring The Bad Seeds. I do quite like it as an album but for some reason which I don't know myself and can't really explain I've only chosen this one track. The lyrics at the very start of the song repeat throughout from an old game picking one petal off a flower but Cave replaces it with flies which of-course only have two wings so it always ends on not. Can you imagine young Nick sitting at his London window on rainy day picking up dead insects pulling their wings off?
Find it on: From Her To Eternity (Album) 1984

18. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Magma
This one might seems like an odd one at this stage but I've been enjoying these soundtrack works so much more than say the two Grinderman albums and even the last Bad Seeds album. The Proposition and The Road soundtrack are great. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the weakest one. Some tracks from the three previously mentioned soundtracks are collected on disc one of White Lunar but the second disc is even better. This track is from "The Vaults" which is apparently just vocals but with the FX pedals used heavily over it. Also I wish they would officially release Metamorphosis, Woyzeck and Faust which are all the theater soundtracks and could be on an album too.
Find it on: White Lunar (Compilation) 2009

17. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Jack The Ripper
Just like Loverman in the last post of these 50 tracks, I think this should have been included on The Best of... compilation album because I think it's one of the strongest singles, if not the best one they have ever released. What a killer promo video clip. This song has to be one of the best if not the best ways to close an album too. Wow what an album as well, it's like being hit by sledgehammer repeatedly.
Find it on: Straight To You/Jack The Ripper (Single) 1992 or Henry's Dream (Album) 1992

16. The Birthday Party - Zoo Music Girl
My favorite The Birthday Party album, I think Junkyard is so overrated and you can't call Mutiny/The Bad Seed an album because it's two E.P.'s. This track is the opener for it and I guess, I could say like I said with the previous song but the best way to start an album plus this track it's like a jackhammer . Am I just repeating myself now? If so sorry about that. What about this, can I call this track his first great love song?
Find it on: Prayers on Fire (Album) 1981

15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Nature Boy
The first single from the epic double album and the only one from the Abattoir Blues side or disc here in my list. A great way to kick start the last truly great Bad Seeds and Nick Cave album. It's the first album without Blixa Bargeld but it's an album dedicated to Mick Geyer who's his best mate outside of his bands, and was someone Cave spoke to on the phone sometimes more than once a day and talked about everything including Cave's own music. He died soon after this album was finished and I would say it was his biggest loss in his life since his father at the age of 21. I can't underestimate Mick Geyer's importance to Nick Cave really so now it seems he's a bit lost without him.
Find it on: Nature Boy (Single) 2004 or Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Album) 2004

The top photo is of Nick Cave who is far left (with his very short hair cut). The Bad Seeds who going from left to right are Jim Sclavunos, Conway Savage, James Johnston, Martyn P. Casey, Warren Ellis (in white and blue not black like the rest of the band), Thomas Wydler and Mick Harvey walking the streets of Paris during the recording of the album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus and the photographer was Steve Gullick.

Stay tuned for more soon...

Live Act: Gareth Liddiard @ Sonic Session & Mojo's

I crap on about Gaz, don't I? Well, here I go again. I've been to two most wicked gigs over this weekend and wish there was more because if I didn't think he was the greatest singer-songwriter before, I do even more now.

Before him I thought Warren Ellis and Nick Cave were pretty great but together since about 2005, and I'll say nothing more about them in this post. Rowland S. Howard did show he's truly great but just took a lot longer in between albums. I'll say David McComb and his band The Triffids before that. I like to throw in Kim Salmon and Ed Kuepper too but no one listens to them enough, or should I say more people should listen to them. Paul Kelly also can be included too in this mammoth line-up. Sarah Blasko and Glenn Richards also and are the only other singer-songwriters currently building a career who come close to Gareth Liddiard. With his new solo album he's upped the ante to the exhaustively extreme. Maybe there could be some even newer songwriters on the way in but are yet to unquestionably prove it.

What about overseas singer-songwriters? Well do I need to say anything because they get so much press written about them and are championed by every man, women, child, dog, cat, goldfish, budgie. To me Australian music should talked about as much as stuff from two country's who started with the letter U, can guess which two?

Sonic Session @ The Fremantle Arts Centre

View Larger Map

This gig was at an old mental hospital which is reputed to be haunted and now is an art gallery. It was in the middle courtyard which sounds like a great place for a gig in summertime in Perth but after a queer cold, windy, wet spring week here it was a stupid and uncomfortable idea. I was numb by the end and sitting on plastic chairs didn't help too but moths, mosquitoes and mice were having a good time. Sonic Session's is a bit of an odd gig and might need explaining. It's hosted by American radio DJ called Lucky Oceans who plays Pedal Steel Guitar which worked well with the older Drones songs but didn't with his new ones. Plus in between songs he asked questions but Gaz is a brilliant talker too so made for a good nights viewing. I'm going to write down some things I want to remember and share it with you.

First song up was 'Shark Fin Blues', which after playing Lucky said "How did you come up with that?" "I wanted to write a song like an old sea shanty but it didn't come out like that." he went on to say "It's started with a Karen Dalton song called 'Same Old Man' but changed into that." Lucky asked a lot of times about the songwriting process but Gaz didn't give too much away saying things like "he's a cut and paste kind-off guy" and "just start it by any means necessary" or "doing something you never done before just for something different". Next song was the title track from the new album 'Strange Tourist' which was unbelievable played live. Oceans said "Wow, there is so much in there." and asked more songwriting questions, then Lucky asked a where he was born and grown-up question: "I was born in Port Hedland"

View Larger Map

(Sorry but I've just discovered Google maps and I'm going a bit mad in this post with them). Port Headland looks closer to Darwin than Perth. He traveled a lot as a kid with his family in between London and Western Australia before stopping in Perth and starting school in the suburb of Warwick. Which is north of the Swan River and inland from the coast too. It would have say in the late 70's and early 80's been a bit of a trek into the city but not market gardens like say Wanneroo was back then. Perth as a city is very, very, very spread out because of all the space around. All the suburbs have just grown like some blob monster and it's only just now that all the gaps are being filled in but here's another map to shown you again.

View Larger Map

Liddiard's first and earliest music memory's, that he spoke of that night were Blondie's 'Heart of Glass', he said, "I knew I liked but didn't know why" and Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2', "I didn't stop singing the chorus which worried my folks". He was asked when did he started playing music - as a teenager Saxophone was his first instrument but after hearing Charlie Parker and John Coltrane because he couldn't do that this lead to go on to guitar but it was almost the same because of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page but his sister gave him a cassette of Black Flag and he thought "I can do that". They talked about moving to Melbourne and Liddiard said "it was just something I had to do to keep playing music, just like going overseas too. Just more places to play", which makes prefect sense really.

One of the funniest bits in the first half was talking about the Aussie music scene because "sooner or later you meet and everyone is cool except one person who is a knob but I'm not say who", he was pushed a little more he gave clues "He's from here too and he's got big hair" someone shorted out Luke Steele to which he answered, "you said it not me".

Before the interval they played a wicked version of 'Words From The Executioner To Alexander Pearce', which I haven't heard since the Gala Mill tour live. After the break he played 'Blondin Makes An Omelette' which is one of my favorites from the new album. More talk about starting to work as a roadie, lighting guy, ringer just anything where music was being played and one word to describe himself in his early 20's is "cocky", he's 34 now and making a decent wage like someone with just a normal job but I done something I really love and have done crazy shit to keep doing it. The bands, or artist he name dropped throughout the evening were Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Stooges, Dirty Three, Tom Waits and even Bob Dylan, "He alright ain't he but he's on the cover of Mojo magazine too much and all those critics rave about him way too much." Which then leads into talking about the English and American love affair which can/could go back to the war of Independence according to Liddiard, and how Australians, or for that matter any other countries in the world are never included. It's like those two superpowers are the whole world and the rest is nothing. Breaking into that is kind-of impossible no matter what you do and he knows people in Perth, in Melbourne or just Aussies doing so much better music but if a band comes to town from America you go to see them even if the local who is better than them is playing the same night. Lucky Oceans who is an American living here said, Americans just think they're the best and Aussies don't think that way because you're not raised to think like that so here it doesn't happen. It's disappointing but I guess that's what I was writing about at the start of this post too. They played 'Your Acting’s Like The End Of The World' next which was perfect timing.

The last two songs were from the new album too, they were - 'Did She Scare All Your Friends Away' and 'Highplains Mailman'. Lucky Oceans asked the crowd for questions too, at which point my mind went blank. I would like to interview Liddiard because I could fill a note pad with stuff to ask him but my head just wasn't working and then it was all over and I had to stand up which I couldn't do that too because I was numb with cold.

Album Lurch @ Mojo's Bar

View Larger Map

Well, this is the first show he's done totally solo in W.A., the previous night playing only two songs at the end of the sonic sessions solo. Plus he and Dan Luscombe together supported Augie March late last year but of-course he's done tours over east all by himself. As far as I know he's never done it overseas but hopefully a tour with be announced soon because the whole world should be able to see him perform like this.

Liddiard started at the beginning of the album and did every track on the new album in order plus even had a CD copy to get all in the right order. Then he came on for the encore with 'Shark Fin Blues' and 'Jezebel'. He did little intros about each song so I'm going to write down what I remember too.

'Blondin Makes A Omelette' is about "a 19th century wire walker who once hit the big time crossing Niagara Falls his manager kept thinking new and different ways to do the same thing but did something no rock n' roll manager did, let him piggy-back him across but this song is written from the point of view of his understudy". 'Highplains Mailman' is about "the men who live where I live in the Australian Mountains and think I'm just a softcock." Next song was 'Strange Tourist', one of my favorites from the album. He was saying the character in the song is like a combination of all the flatmates you lived with that you start out liking but you just want to kill them next time they're asleep but they don't sleep because they're on crystal meth and you just end up hating them." He also said to Google suicide forest in Japan so I did and here's one of the weirdest youtube videos I came across so here it is to watch...


'You Sure Ain't Mine Now' was next up some girl shouted out, "you look alone up there, do you want a hug?" which his replied was "No, I get payed to be alone, hey that sounds really cool, don't it?" at some point somebody else shouted out, "when are you going to have kids?" which the answer was, "I'm a lover not a breeder". There was abundance of laughing in between songs for someone who's a deadly serious song-writer. 'The Collaborator' which is another of my favorite tracks from the album is set in World War II but is about "old but also modern day collaborators too." Also he asked the crowd, "if anyone is still frightened of Nazis anymore? Like you could walk about with a swastika tattoo on your head now, can't you? It was like almost a hundred years ago." 'Did She Scare All Your Friends Away' is a love song. He said, you got to have love songs if you're a songwriter but he didn't really explain what it's really about but said "I do know I'm the only songwriter to put Winnebagos in a song. I've been on one too at an expo, somewhere. It cost like three million dollars and is like a yacht with wheels." He kept looking at the back of the CD for the names of his own songs and said he only remembers how the tunes go and not the names and sang the open riff to 'Heartbreaker' by Led Zeppelin.

Someone asked for 'Sixteen Straws' but Liddiard said I'll play this one instead which of-course is the last song on the new album, it's called 'The Radicalistion Of D' "which is NOT about David Hicks. It could be about anyone who gets radical like Timothy McVeigh or David Koresh or even anyone who just joined greenpeace too. It's the same thing, It's all getting radical" at which point someone yelled out "writing a blog" which Gareth said "yes, that the Gen Y way to get radical." So here I am writing what he said one night in a blog, pretty fucked, eh? I do remember making bombs as a teenager and blowing things up. We had a pine forest behind the high school which was perfect for wagging class and you didn't have to go very far. One day someone took all his skin off his hand while lighting one, he just said to everyone he tripped over on the pavement but we knew better. Anyway Gaz goes on to say "my generation bomb things up", proudly but there was a lot Gen Y's in the front row watching him. Because of the subject matter this song is a very, very long song just over sixteen minutes on the album but the person next to me said, "what is it ten minutes?" but what Liddiard did next was slow it right down and it ended up a bit past twenty minutes. He said "rock n' roll is a contact sport so why write a three minute song, I've been listening to a lot of music of North Africa and they do not have radio stations tell them how long to make a song. It's playing Kora or standing on a rock with an AK-47" or something like that. Anyway one of versus in this is about someone who stole a tank in Perth in the early 90's which was a bizarre thing I had totally forgot about, so I looked that up on youtube too and here it is to watch...


In the first verse people in the crowd were laughing about D building a bomb but by the next verse the bloke in front of me sits down on the floor and hung his head. It took one more verse for his girlfriend to turn around and head for the bar for a drink. I don't know how many people have heard this before tonights show but they seem like they all were in a state of shock but the end of it, it was unbelievable to witness, a killer song literally. Anyway Gareth finished off with 'Jezebel' which was awesome.

I wish I bought a t-shirt or tea towel but going to these shows I'm missing some money to pay the rent with. One last thing just before the show started and Mojo's turned into a sardine can I was sitting on couch up the back and Fiona Kitschin you know The Drones bass player and Gareth Liddiard's parter tripped over my feet and she squealed which I said sorry but I don't think she heard me over Syd Barrett's Madcap Laughs. This is totally embarrassing really almost making a member of your favorite band almost fall over so if somehow I could chop my feet off before she did I would but she was the only one of all those people who did but you know it's still pretty bad, eh?

This and the top image is by photographer Olga Bennett and is where Gareth lives in outback Victoria. That's Max the dog, his blue-healer who's also on the inside the CD copy of the new album. Another reason to buy the real thing and not just download it. This bottom photo here is in my girlfriend's latest Frankie magazine.

They were remarkable and astonishing shows so you should go and see him if he comes to your city. I have gone a bit overboard with all these little details and wrote too much so I better finish now, the end and full stop.