And he raved on, and I saw that his tears were not only for himself
April 29, 2017 2:40 PM Subscribe
The Love and Terror of Nick Cave - GQ But what about the other songs, the ones where the anger or disdain or sarcasm or malevolence or aggression dominates, the ones that have traditionally been performed by what Cave will describe to me, somewhat wryly, as the “deranged preacher”? How can that guy possibly turn up now?
This interview reminds me of my favourite Nick Cave quote:
posted by Fizz at 2:55 PM on April 29, 2017 [6 favorites]
Skeleton Tree was in the top five for me last year in terms of albums. It was so beautiful, so raw, and it was hard to not see how very much it was made of grief. I've been lucky to see Cave twice with the Bad Seeds, and once as Grinderman. He's coming to Massey Hall in Toronto in May and if I had the dosh, I'd be there to see him another time.
posted by Kitteh at 2:56 PM on April 29, 2017
posted by Kitteh at 2:56 PM on April 29, 2017
Nick Cave is the Old Testament Yahweh of post-punk; a smouldering, wrathful god. (Michael Gira, by comparison, is the Norse hangman god Odin; vastly wearier and yet with more latent menace.)
posted by acb at 3:04 PM on April 29, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by acb at 3:04 PM on April 29, 2017 [4 favorites]
“…and I looked into his face and saw a world of true sadness that, being a mere journalist, I don't have the power to express. But it was there, believe me. A sadness from every pore. The Sad Man. Man of Sadness. And he raved on, and I saw that his tears were not only for himself, but for everyone. Especially me.
oh, nick. nick, nick, nick.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:38 PM on April 29, 2017 [4 favorites]
oh, nick. nick, nick, nick.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:38 PM on April 29, 2017 [4 favorites]
There's something irrepressibly entertaining about domesticated hellraisers.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:49 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:49 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
This has reminded me I was waiting a while to watch One More Time With Feeling. It's on Amazon Prime in the US right now, so I'm watching it now. It's sparse and beautiful and tense.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:28 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 4:28 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
“I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukelele and it started jigging around playing it, and it was looking straight into the camera, straight at me, and I remember thinking, that's it, that'll be me, you know, that'll be me.”
Bless 'im.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:35 PM on April 29, 2017 [7 favorites]
Bless 'im.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:35 PM on April 29, 2017 [7 favorites]
I had that very PAGE with that quote saved for decades stuck in a book in a box somewhere. I remember the very day I bought that very issue, weighing my self-disgust at buying a copy of Spin and the fear that the Borders cashier would think I was some kind of Smashing Pumpkins fan against my need to have and possess anything with Nick's name on it. and there it is right there on google books like time is nothing at all.
boy
posted by queenofbithynia at 4:58 PM on April 29, 2017 [9 favorites]
boy
posted by queenofbithynia at 4:58 PM on April 29, 2017 [9 favorites]
Along the way, he honored a very specific request from Crowe, who had told him about an unused scene written for the first movie in which the gladiator was charged by a rhinoceros. “Russell's like, ‘Just fucking imagine fucking two tons of rhino charging at me! What do I do? What do I do?’ And I'm, ‘I don't know, what do you do?’ ” But Crowe wanted his rhino. “He's like, ‘We still have the software for the rhino—put a fucking rhino in there.’ ” So Cave did.
This is literally a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, and Michael Palin is Russell Crowe.
posted by droplet at 5:05 PM on April 29, 2017 [5 favorites]
This is literally a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, and Michael Palin is Russell Crowe.
posted by droplet at 5:05 PM on April 29, 2017 [5 favorites]
Poor bastard. I'd probably just crumple into a ball and stay there.
posted by Artw at 5:33 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 5:33 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
That whole section where he dictates to the reporter what to say is hilarious. So glad Cave has a sense of humor about himself and the industry.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 5:37 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Strange_Robinson at 5:37 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
The guy may project a lot of social postures, but what he really cares about is words. And as he has pointed out, not for the first time, is that if you like to use words, when you use them in the context of gross tragedy words come into focus and take on tighter meanings.
No-one can accuse this guy of being a poseur, he crafted a rather spectacular and some would say self-defeating (not me) living-out of his moral principles in the early days.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:19 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
No-one can accuse this guy of being a poseur, he crafted a rather spectacular and some would say self-defeating (not me) living-out of his moral principles in the early days.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:19 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
The first time I saw Nick was at a big music festival in the 90s. He was touring to promote his Murder Ballads album.
OH snap, internet never fails, there's a video of it. On Murder Ballads there was a duet with Kylie Minogue. We didn't expect her so it was a surprise when Nick introduced her. The song is, well, it's a murder ballad. Nick kills Kylie in this song . Now Nick is very tall, and Kylie is not very tall. It really worked, what we saw was a giant goth and a tiny little pixie. And he murdered her!
Looking at that video now I see Nick just meeting Kylie's mum and being a normaloid. All that murder stuff is for the show.
posted by adept256 at 6:43 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
OH snap, internet never fails, there's a video of it. On Murder Ballads there was a duet with Kylie Minogue. We didn't expect her so it was a surprise when Nick introduced her. The song is, well, it's a murder ballad. Nick kills Kylie in this song . Now Nick is very tall, and Kylie is not very tall. It really worked, what we saw was a giant goth and a tiny little pixie. And he murdered her!
Looking at that video now I see Nick just meeting Kylie's mum and being a normaloid. All that murder stuff is for the show.
posted by adept256 at 6:43 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
Murder Ballards was very nearly the surprise winner of Best Album 96, and bloody well deserved it.
posted by Artw at 6:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
Cave performs almost entirely to the 50 or so people closest to him, most of whom reach at him with their arms and claw at his legs whenever he allows them the opportunity. Cave will later tell me that there's a banal, practical aspect to this—his eyesight isn't so good, so he can't see much detail beyond the first few rows. But there's something else too. “There's an energy I'm getting out of the people up front,” he explains. “A kind of very immediate validation for what you're doing. There's all sorts of things going on—there's love, and terror…I don't know.”
two things.
1. Nick, I promise I will still be terrified of you even if you have to start wearing bifocals on stage one day.
2. once and once only of the times I have seen him, I was one of those 50 or so people up front, just a couple of years ago. I am not a clawer-of-legs, I just stand stock still and let the adoration radiate out of my fool face and trust that it enters directly into his heart. but when he cast his body out onto the audience to let us hold him up for a moment he flailed around a little bit before struggling back over us to the stage, and I touched his cold wet hand as it passed me by. it was like touching an electric eel. it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, maybe
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [11 favorites]
two things.
1. Nick, I promise I will still be terrified of you even if you have to start wearing bifocals on stage one day.
2. once and once only of the times I have seen him, I was one of those 50 or so people up front, just a couple of years ago. I am not a clawer-of-legs, I just stand stock still and let the adoration radiate out of my fool face and trust that it enters directly into his heart. but when he cast his body out onto the audience to let us hold him up for a moment he flailed around a little bit before struggling back over us to the stage, and I touched his cold wet hand as it passed me by. it was like touching an electric eel. it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, maybe
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [11 favorites]
I've seen him three times and always seem to find myself close up in general admission venues. It's... man, it is something. Kind of life-changing. We've got tickets for this summer on a very staid formal definitely very much not The Black Cat venue where we have assigned seats in the balcony. That's gonna be weird.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:37 PM on April 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:37 PM on April 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
he has always had spectacular taste in opening acts when I've seen him, too. assuming he picks or approves them personally, which who knows but I like to imagine he does. The first time I ever heard of, let alone heard, Neko Case was when she opened for him in...I want to say 2001 but who remembers. and then Shilpa Ray and Nicole Atkins after that. each one of them terrific.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:50 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm a fan of Cave's songs (and I was surprised when I looked to see how many of his albums that I own: many more than I thought) but I don't listen to them very often but maybe I should because this passage literally stopped me in my tracks:
"So, when I hear a song of praise sung to a God that on any empirical level probably doesn't exist, I am somehow moved more, and filled with a deep respect for that human need for meaning that is so powerful, so desperate and so beautifully absurd.”
If I'm not a very good actual atheist, I'm at least a very good functional atheist but I never understood my desire, during turbulent times, to listen to the old gospel hymns of my youth (or, more recently, Rich Mullins) but, after reading Cave's words, I do now. I'm moved deeply by humanity's desperate and absurd search for meaning.
Upon reflection, it also explains why I ask, during times of trouble or thunderstorms, my father (a Lakota holyman) to pray for me or my devout (Catholic) friend to bless me: I need a powerful, desperate and beautifully absurd reminder that I am loved. I mean, I could tell them that it would help me for them to go and stand on their head (which I think they might actually do) but for me it's better to ask, "Pray for this atheist, " and they do the absurd thing because *they love me.*
This was a beautiful interview. Thank you for posting it, CrystalDave!
posted by blessedlyndie at 8:38 PM on April 29, 2017 [21 favorites]
"So, when I hear a song of praise sung to a God that on any empirical level probably doesn't exist, I am somehow moved more, and filled with a deep respect for that human need for meaning that is so powerful, so desperate and so beautifully absurd.”
If I'm not a very good actual atheist, I'm at least a very good functional atheist but I never understood my desire, during turbulent times, to listen to the old gospel hymns of my youth (or, more recently, Rich Mullins) but, after reading Cave's words, I do now. I'm moved deeply by humanity's desperate and absurd search for meaning.
Upon reflection, it also explains why I ask, during times of trouble or thunderstorms, my father (a Lakota holyman) to pray for me or my devout (Catholic) friend to bless me: I need a powerful, desperate and beautifully absurd reminder that I am loved. I mean, I could tell them that it would help me for them to go and stand on their head (which I think they might actually do) but for me it's better to ask, "Pray for this atheist, " and they do the absurd thing because *they love me.*
This was a beautiful interview. Thank you for posting it, CrystalDave!
posted by blessedlyndie at 8:38 PM on April 29, 2017 [21 favorites]
Nobody knows about this one-off. The guy from Fast Times? NOOO! The other guy.
When he pulled a revolver I remember thinking only six of us would die. Immaculate Consumptive.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:00 PM on April 29, 2017
When he pulled a revolver I remember thinking only six of us would die. Immaculate Consumptive.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:00 PM on April 29, 2017
When he pulled a revolver I remember thinking only six of us would die
were you there????? I was only three or four years old when it happened, but I am not making excuses. it was my responsibility to know about that show and nobody else's, and I let myself down.
I was fully of age when I missed the chance to see Marc Almond in Paris, well over a decade ago. this was also a crime and I am very sorry still. Marc isn't what Nick is to me but he comes close. no other living soul does. maybe a couple dead ones.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:51 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
were you there????? I was only three or four years old when it happened, but I am not making excuses. it was my responsibility to know about that show and nobody else's, and I let myself down.
I was fully of age when I missed the chance to see Marc Almond in Paris, well over a decade ago. this was also a crime and I am very sorry still. Marc isn't what Nick is to me but he comes close. no other living soul does. maybe a couple dead ones.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:51 PM on April 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was. (Puts thumbs under suspenders) I had a car and my carless friends were all "This is happening tonight!" and I didn't understand what the big deal was but Grand Mal was kinda particular about who they opened for so ok.
Mayhem. That club sucked. No AC and this 20 foot unpadded metal post 8-10 feet away from center stage. People peed and nobody made fun of them. Present but not on the handbill was JG Thirlwell who had a saxophone.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:43 AM on April 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Mayhem. That club sucked. No AC and this 20 foot unpadded metal post 8-10 feet away from center stage. People peed and nobody made fun of them. Present but not on the handbill was JG Thirlwell who had a saxophone.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:43 AM on April 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not a word about how Earl is coping with his brother's death, which was my first question. Not intended as a criticism of either Nick Cave or the author. It's possible they discussed it an Nick asked that Earl's privacy be respected. But it's the thing I most wanted to know throughout the piece.
posted by oheso at 1:21 AM on April 30, 2017
posted by oheso at 1:21 AM on April 30, 2017
he has always had spectacular taste in opening acts when I've seen him, too. assuming he picks or approves them personally, which who knows but I like to imagine he does. The first time I ever heard of, let alone heard, Neko Case was when she opened for him in...I want to say 2001 but who remembers. and then Shilpa Ray and Nicole Atkins after that. each one of them terrific.A friend of mine and I both trace our fondness for Sharon Van Etten to having seen her open up for Nick in 2013 for Push The Sky Away. There was much about that show that wowed us, and it all started from her opening number.
I feel like I'd heard that anecdote about Nick Cave's Gladiator 2 script somewhere else and re-reading it makes me really want to see it as something, maybe a graphic novel.
posted by bl1nk at 6:37 AM on April 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
I saw One More Time with Feeling twice in theaters last year, with very little advance knowledge about it. Packed shows, both times... and utterly silent, people seemed to be in awe. Nick's reaction to seeing it seems right to me- it felt like a beautiful memorial.
Also, I'd never heard the statue story before. That is hilarious.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 7:37 AM on April 30, 2017
Also, I'd never heard the statue story before. That is hilarious.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 7:37 AM on April 30, 2017
Cave and words... Years back I showed up at a record signing at a now gone store here in San Francisco. When I put two of his books on the counter to sign and no music, he looked down at the books and then looked at me with a big smile. We then talked for awhile about living in Berlin. I'm glad I met him. (I do have a slew of his records.)
posted by njohnson23 at 8:44 AM on April 30, 2017
posted by njohnson23 at 8:44 AM on April 30, 2017
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