Okay – a friend loaned me a copy of Nick Cave’s CD containing the cut “O’Malley’s Bar” and I was simply blown away by the intricate intensity of it. I finally forced myself to take it out of my CD player (feeling that a few more weeks and I might fall completely under its spell and do godonlyknowswhat).
How did I miss this?! The whole thing is an incredible piece of work, but the “O’Malley’s” cut in particular just really transports you to that bar and the mind of the story teller.
Fascinating, frightening, fearfully and lusciously wrought.
I became an instant fan.
What else is out there that, not necessarily the same genre, but that good that I’ve missed.
What do you love that on one listen made you an instant fan and why?
I had the same experience with Nick Cave when I first heard the Live Seeds album. By the end of the first track (The Mercy Seat) I was hooked. By then end of the 4th track I had decided to track down everything the man has ever recorded. Great great music being made by that man.
I also had the same experience when I first heard Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. By the end of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, I was a diehard fan.
Lots of music you have to listen to a few times to really appreciate, but sometimes a song just grabs you from the first notes. I like it when that happens. It’s even better when the rest of the artists catalogue backs up the initial reaction to a single song.
I’m guessing the album was Murder Ballads? I had the same reaction to the album. I’d never even heard of Nick Cave before that, and the album completely floored me. Except for “O’Malley’s Bar.” I simply cannot stand that track. To the point where, if I was listening to it at home, I’d get up and stand near the CD player during “Crow Jane” so I could hit the forward button as soon as it ended. Then I got my iPod, and it was blissfully consigned to the Hell of One Star Tracks.
Incidentally, I got turned on to Nick Cave when a friend recommended them because I was such a big Pogues fan. If you don’t know them, check out If I Should Fall from Grace with God. It doesn’t really sound much like Cave, but it shares the same sensibility, if that makes any sense. For my money, there’s no better musical act in the world than The Pogues in their prime.
Check out any DVD’s of Nick Cave live performances. But give his video collection a miss, in it Nick Cave explains how the band hates to do videos, and the videos just prove the point. The God is in the House live DVD great.
I get that feeling with The Carny and Henry Lee, From Her to Eternity, actually a lot of them. Just grabs hold.
Have you listened to his stuff with The Birthday Party? Oh my god listen to “Deep in the Woods” or “The Six Strings That Drew Blood”, dark stuff, very gripping.
Nick Cave duetted with Shane MacGowan on a version of “What A Wonderful World” a while back: there’s a 3 CD box set of rarities, outtakes, B-sides etc. that has it. I loves me some Nick Cave.
Nick Drake is one of my personal instant favourites: one listen to “Black Eyed Dog”, and I had to go out and get everything he ever released - which, sadly, was only three albums.
Yep Nick rocks. If you’re not familiar with his ouevre, I’d day Kicking Against the Pricks is his best. Also The Birthday Party’s Prayers on Fire. If it’s the Pogues you’re after, I’d have to go with Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. Actually I’d have to go with them even if you’re not. Never mind.
Before the release of Nocturama, Abattoir Blues \ The Lyre of Orpheus and The Proposition soundtrack, the Cafe Society Nick Cave / Bad Seeds 6@6 poll had the follwing results.*Red Right Hand: With 16 Votes
The Mercy Seat: With 11 Votes
Where The Wild Roses Grow: With 8 Votes
Do You Love Me?: With 7 Votes
Papa Won’t Leave You Henry ¤ The Ship Song ¤ Tupelo: Tied With 6 Votes
(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For? ¤ (I’ll Love You) ‘Til the End of the World ¤ Into My Arms ¤ Stagger Lee: Tied With 4 Votes
Deanna ¤ Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow ¤ O’Malley’s Bar ¤ Straight To You ¤ The Curse of Millhaven: Tied With 3 Votes
As I Sat Sadly By Her Side ¤ God is in the House ¤ Henry Lee ¤ I Had A Dream Joe ¤ Nick the Stripper ¤ People Ain’t No Good ¤ Ship Song ¤ Stranger Than Kindness ¤ The Friend Catcher ¤ The Weeping Song: Tied With 2 Votes
A Box For Black Paul ¤ All Tomorrow’s Parties ¤ Ballad of Betty Coltrane ¤ Black Betty ¤ By the Time I Get to Phoenix ¤ Cassiel’s Song ¤ Curse of Millhaven ¤ Death Is Not The End ¤ Deep in the Woods ¤ Faraway, So close! ¤ Hallelujah ¤ I Let Love In ¤ I’m Gonna Kill That Woman ¤ Little Empty Boat (B-side to Into My Arms) ¤ Long Time Man ¤ Mack the Knife ¤ Muddy Water ¤ Nobody’s Baby Now ¤ Oh My Lord ¤ Shivers ¤ The Idiot Prayer ¤ There Is a Light ¤ Up Jumped The Devil ¤ Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere: All With 1 Vote Each*3 Dopers concured with your “O’Malley’s Bar” assessment: Jervoise, Tit Whistle & Dryga_Yes - but none of them are around anymore.
That’s the whole “Murder Ballads” CD for me, with the exception of track 2, Stagger Lee, which doesn’t seem to fit very well (and features such lovely lyrics as “…some fat boy’s asshole…”). But listening to the CD (sans track 2) can be an emotionally fatiguing experience–in a good way.
Am I the only one who thinks the ‘narrator’ of the “Song of Joy” might’ve had something to do with Joy and the girls’ demise? He quotes John Milton a bit much, doesn’t he? And the intensity of the last lines… “Do you, sir, have a room? Are you beckonin’ me in?”
Well, it’s giving me chills just thinking of it.
In something like the same vein, you might check out Absinthe’s "A Good Day to Die. It’s quite a bit more personal than what I’ve heard of Nick Cave, but has a similar intensity.
My personal favorite is definite (Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?. I had a friend I let listen to Where the Wild Roses Grow. She’s super melodramatic and she claims that song “scarred” her and I must never let her listen to Nick Cave again.
Her loss. I find that I really love the dark irony of Murder Ballads.
Oh, man. I’m not a Nick Cave maniac or anything, but I have cultivated a certain fondness and awe for his work. The first exposure I had to him was a buddy at work loaning me his copy of *Murder Ballads * for the day. It struck me as shamelessly contrived, but with songs that unapologetic and mercilessly crafted. . . who really cared?
“O’Malley’s Bar” was the standout for me, too. So minutely imagined and blatantly button-pushing. Ar, that Nick Cave. Scar yer soul, 'e will!
Since this seems to be turning into a “If you like Nick Cave, you should check out…” thread:
Crooked Fingers. My favorite album is Red Devil Dawn.
Morphine is kinda like Nick Cave in soft focus. I’m not a fan, but a lot of people like them.
Tom Waits, of course.
The Dresden Dolls are reminiscent of Nick Cave when he’s being all showtuney. Avoid the live album. I like their first studio album but haven’t had a chance to listen to their second one yet.
I love the album Operett Morale by Black Sun Productions. (Warning: Anything past the first page is probably NSFW.) They performed with Coil, and the album is a Coil-ish interpretation of the poetry of Bertolt Brecht.
I think the album You Have Been Warned… by A Midnite Choir is brilliant. Imagine the unholy offspring of Tom Waits and Spike Jones.
If you like Nick Cave you should check out…PJ Harvey, his onetime girlfriend who duetted with him on Murder Ballads: he might have bashed Kylie’s head in with a rock on “Where The Wild Roses Grow”, but Harvey is mre than a match, and wins the next round by stabbing him and dumping him down a well in “Henry Lee”. All her albums are worth a listen, but the most accessible is probably To Bring You My Love.
In the same vein, check out other projects by members (or former members) of the Bad Seeds. Mick Harvey does great soundtrack work, as does Barry Adamson (Gas, Food, Lodging being one I like, but also did David Lynch stuff.) Harvey was also great with** Crime and the City Solution**, and of course Blixa Bargeld’s Einsturzende Neubauten, while nothing like the Bad Seeds stuff, is great in its own right.
Check out the movie Wings of Desire for both C&TCS and NC&TBS in onstage appearances. Nick’s little pre-stage internal speech is great, just before doing From Her to Eternity - “I’m not going to tell them about a girl, I’m not going to tell them about a girl!” Of course, anyone who knows the song, knows how it starts…
Another former Nick Cave girlfriend to check out is Anita Lane (She wrote the songs From Her to Eternity and Stranger Than Kindness). I highly recommend her work with Die Haut, and her stuff with Mick Harvey.
