I found the Grinderman records weak. While kinda raw-sounding, Cave still started to morph into Mel Tormé again. DLD! is a good record.

I have an old tape copy of Murder Ballads. That was the first NC record I heard.

Krev wrote: Sat May 25, 2024 6:23 pm I found the Grinderman records weak. While kinda raw-sounding, Cave still started to morph into Mel Tormé again.

What I appreciate about Grinderman, is it is the only Nick Cave material that lifts a mask a little bit and injects some self deprecating humor into the process of aging into Mel Torme. Literally Nick Cave singing "get off my lawn". Which is funny.

The dispatcher asks “What’s going on?”
“Please Sir, what’s going on?”
The kid is laying on the lawn
He’s been giving me shit for years
He rides his bike across my lawn
Now he’s laying on the lawn

Also....

Well my baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster
Two great big humps and then I’m gone

What’s this husband of yours ever given to you
Oprah Winfrey on a plasma screen
And a brood of jug-eared buck-toothed imbeciles
The ugliest kids I’ve ever seen

See, funny.

"Frogs" is fucking terrible. Good lord.

ErikG wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 6:36 pm "Frogs" is fucking terrible. Good lord.

I'm already outed as a NC apologist and this seems to be true. I can see what the song is going for, but it misses, I think mostly cause of his singing. The arrangement and vibe seem kind of cool but he's just doing generic Caveness on top of it and he's mixed so high.

Oof. He's trying to be Bowie trying to be Scott Walker. Gaudy arrangement too.

Not into the lounge lizard, singer/songwriter shtick at all and I can't stand Leonard Cohen either... first two and the covers album were cool though:NC

I like Frogs. It reminds me of the lush symphonic eras of the Lips and Mercury Rev.

Speaking of...the Lips/Cave collaboration on Heady Fwends is stellar. Imaginative, loud, glorious, kaleidoscopic, boisterous, and a buncha other shit.

Had a neighbor - Creepy Curt - who would see me having a beer on the back patio and he would take that as a cue to bring his three-foot purple bong and his iPod dock into my yard and proceed to crank "No Pussy Blues" as loud as those little speakers would go, with no regard for the cancer hospice center across the alley, all the while I'm telling him to take his bong home, and I don't want the trouble (this was before it was legalized in MPLS).
I have a handful of stories about this weird motherfucker appropriate for another thread but, yeah, "No Pussy Blues" was the only song he knew aside from "Pizza Hut / Taco Bell" by Das Racist.

NC, though, because I also have a really cool friend who's into NC&TBS.

losthighway wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 8:20 pm

ErikG wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 6:36 pm "Frogs" is fucking terrible. Good lord.

I'm already outed as a NC apologist and this seems to be true. I can see what the song is going for, but it misses, I think mostly cause of his singing. The arrangement and vibe seem kind of cool but he's just doing generic Caveness on top of it and he's mixed so high.

I shrugged and gave the new one a listen in the car today and I was pleasantly surprised. He's not about to change minds with this one but I find it enjoyable. It's campy, even for him, but if you lean into that fact it's cool. It sounds really good too, which is weird cause I remember thinking Frogs lacked in sonics when he dropped it.

Wild Gods is definitely the best “post Harvey/Blixa” album. Well, it’s the first I’ve spent any time with. It’s kind of got a Spiritualized vibe musically. I can see why it’s getting all the raving reviews.