Nick Cave. The goth-punker in the three piece suit. The sensitive balladeer and the rock and roll wildman. The man who sings with Kylie and Johnny Cash. And author, songwriter, singer, screenwriter, moustache-grower, an artist like no other.
This summer will be a big one for Nick Cave. He’s headlining Homebake with his new band, Grinderman, who rock harder than the bands half his age. Triple J are also honouring his amazing career with tribute concerts around Australia. They used his song in a Harry Potter movie!
He’s one of those that everyone knows, but his music remains unfairly hidden. So tomorrow we are having Nick Cave day. You will hear songs you know and love – Where The Wild Roses Grow with Kylie. The best love song of all time with The Ship Song. A little song called Into My Arms you might have heard. Then there are the rockers – Deanna, Red Right Hand (covered by Arctic Monkeys recently), The Mercy Seat (covered by Johnny Cash). Let’s play Nick Cave songs – from Boys Next Door to Grinderman.
The dark prince of Australian music. And he’s here for your soul.
What better culmination of craft than music and photography? Photos are fast becoming even the average Joe’s “portal to immortal”, so imagine then the pictorial zenith of a real photographic genius. Dane Beesley gives us: Splitting seconds: A Photographer’s Journal. This rustic archival collection of images, spanning a whopping decade, is Beesley’s nod to Australian music. Between gigs, shoots and portraits the memoir affords us with rare behind the scenes glimpses of some of rock’s greatest heroes, from Nick Cave to The Dandy Warhols. This is a book shelf MUST HAVE! If not for yourself, give the gift of music this Christmas.
“Flick through this book, grab your jacket and run out that door ‘cos something magical has to happen.”—Marei Bischarn (Photo Editor, Rolling Stone magazine)
See the full review and order online at Dane’s personal blog site.
As the most continuously played artist on triple j’s airwaves for the past three decades (spanning bands Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds and Grinderman), it’s no surprise that the legendary Nick Cave has been announced as the honorary Aussie artist of this year’s triple j Ausmusic month.
Hosted throughout November, Ausmusic month will ensue with a Straight To You: triple j’s Tribute to Nick Cave tour, and a plethora of incredible Australian talent have put their hands up to take part. Confirmed vocalists so far include Abbe May, Adalita, Alex Burnett (Sparkadia), Ben Corbett (Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side/SixFtHick), Bertie Blackman, Dan Sultan, Jake Stone (Bluejuice), Johnny Mackay (Children Collide), Kram (Spiderbait), Lanie Lane, Lisa Mitchell, Muscles, Tim Rogers (You Am I) and Urthboy (The Herd). The singers will be joined by a band lead by Cameron Bruce – a Sydney writer and musician who plays in both Paul Kelly and Washington’s bands.
Two years ago, Ausmusic month played tribute to Paul Kelly with a series of concerts that resulted in an Aria-award winning CD/DVD. The Straight To You tour kicks off on November 9th. Head to triple j for more info.
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis has revealed classical composer Igor Stravinsky and Nick Cave as two of his greatest sources of inspiration, naming the Aussie artist as “the greatest living songwriter”. In an interview with UK newspaper The Guardian, the Chilis’ frontman attributed his band’s longstanding success to hard work:
“Creativity waxes and wanes. We’re very lucky. We’ve made bunches of fucking money. We could be sat on the beach eating burritos, but even when we’re pissed off with each other we sit in a room and work. Igor Stravinsky sat at his piano every fucking day. Some days it was rubbish and his wife was chewing his ear off – but he stuck at it. The same thing goes for Nick Cave, the greatest living songwriter. He goes to work! Every day. And that’s what we do,” Kiedis told The Guardian.
So there you go guys – hard work really does pay off! And one can only hope for end results like this:
Well, well, well. On this rainy Thursday, we woke up to not one but TWO festivals announcing Grinderman as the headline. The formidable and ferocious foursome of Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casy and Jim Sclavunos will be playing at the return of Homebake one weekend and then on to Meredith Music Festival the next.
This year will see the return of beloved Homebake festival to Sydney’s Domain where some of the biggest musicians in Aussie music history will perform as part of Homebake The Classic Edition 2011…. but never fear Gen Y, there are a fair few contemporary names on the bill too.
Here’s the first of the Homebake 2011 line-up announcements:
Grinderman(featuring Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey & Jim Sclavunos), Pnau, Gotye, Ladyhawke, Rockwiz Live, Gurrumul, Cut Copy, Icehouse, Drapht, Daniel Merriweather, The triffids, Eskimo Joe, Architecture In Helsinki, The Church, The Vines, illy, The Jezabels, Kimbra, CW Stoneking, Kids Of 88, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Papa Vs Pretty, Hungry Kids of Hungary, Passenger, Killaqueenz, Avalanche City, Vents, Noah Taylor & The Sloppy Boys and more.
Tickets on sale 9.00am Monday August 15th from Ticketek and OzTix…. Head to the Homebake website for more info.
Grinderman is the only band announced for Meredith Music Festival as yet. You can however enter the ballot for tickets by clicking here.
It’s very appropriate that the follow-up to Grinderman’s self-titled debut already has a cinematic trailer, whilst its title is suggestive of a film sequel: Grinderman 2. Thankfully it’s not Grindermen.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis of The Bad Seeds and self-described “disciplined orgy of ideas and action” (there had to be a sexual reference somewhere) Grinderman are recently responsible for scoring director John Hillcoat’s disturbing and oneiric masterpieces The Road and The Proposition. Now Hillcoat has returned the favour by creating the clip for the first single Heathen Child, plus this spellbinding trailer for Grinderman 2. Apparently this is only one of several, but hell… I’m already deliriously excited thanks.
Thankfully, there’s only about 2 months to wait… Grinderman 2 will be released in Australia on September 10. As for Heathen Child, that will be released on August 27. It’s a seductive, distortion-fuelled, and flat-out abusive number, as we’ve come to know & love from the lascivious bastards of Grinderman.
Love a bit of Cave-flavoured grit in my red-stained teeth.
Music Matters is a collective of people across the music industry, including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, getting together to remind everyone of the significance and value of music in our lives. Life just isn’t worth living without it and we need to keep the flame burning!
They have commissioned some incredible film-makers across the world to work with their favourite musicians to create some short films about the importance of music in our lives. Here is an amazing piece on our national treasure Nick Cave by Sarah Cox and Emma Lazenby. Sarah has worked with Aardman Animation (of Wallace & Gromit fame) on a number of projects including Don’t Let It All Unravel for the Live Earth concerts. Emma lives in Bristol where she designs, animates and directs for Aardman Animations and ArthurCox. She has recently finished a short film Mother of Many, which won the Bafta for Best Short Animation at this year’s awards.
They said “We have both been long time Nick Cave fans, Sarah even went to see The Birthday Party in 1983 at the Hacienda. Once we got started however we felt the enormity of the responsibility in depicting someone’s life, particularly someone we admire so much. We sort of wish we had selected someone whose opinion we didn’t value quite so much.”
So without any further ado…
There are lots of other beautiful films which we’ll be posting in coming weeks!
Post-apocalyptic movies seem to be an annual Hollywood event… from Independence Day to 2012 or even 28 Days Later… growing up with media-hyped special-effects movies, emotive presidential speeches followed by mega explosions and that classic ‘still standing’ American flag always leads me to snicker to my friends “Dry land is not a myth… I’ve seen it!!!” (Waterworld, 1995)
All that said, when director John Hilcoat (director, The Proposition) decides to make a movie about a Mad Max world, every man for himself…. I literally stop, swallow, and make a happy face. Time to start search for the latest preview on YouTube! Now this could be interesting!!!
As I sit in my office here in Sydney I am AGAIN saddened by the fact that another icon Australia music venue is closing its doors.
But this one holds even more sentimental value than most as the Tote, on the corner of Johnston and Wellington Streets in Collingwood, was not only my old local but a venue that gave me some of my first gigs when I started playing music, it was the venue that hosted the very last Best Of The Brat, I went to two very rock’n'roll wedding receptions at, we had one my best mate Marcus’s 21st there so our bands could play and I saw some of the best and formative gigs there, from the Powder Monkeys and The Hellacopters to The White Stripes, Andre Williams and JET.
This venue to me was as iconic as CBGBS and sadly like CBGBS, all amazing things must come to an end.
It’s about time for another bleak and slightly disturbing cinematic epic in the vein of The Proposition and Jesse James… and this calls for none other than the Kings of Audio Menace: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
The Road is the tale of a father and son’s survival and journey across a barren, post-apocalyptic (and sometimes cannibalistic and toothless) America. Think Thunderdome with fewer cars, colder winters, a better soundtrack, and no Tina Turner.
Nick Cave managed to capture humanity’s future despair in song: “The movie is about the loss of things, the absence of things, the lack of things,” he said. “The lack of the wife/mother is present in every frame of the film. The delicate edifice of the film holds the ache of her absence, tenderly and by the tips of the fingers. The music was composed as a direct response to the film. A light, haunting, simple score with a sense of absence and loss at its heart.”
The Road is is the big screen adaption of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (author of similarly bleak No Country For Old Men), and is the perfect desaturated and austere post-apocalyptic film for the Festive Season (jks). Check out the trailer below:
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