nick cave

Cypress Grove, one-time collaborator with Jeffrey Lee Pierce (check out their Rambling Jeffrey Lee LP - "Real Steel Blues") is unwilling to let the magic die. He feels Jeffrey’s echoes all around him.

So do his friends and admirers. One can’t help wondering whether, if Debbie Harry had predeceased him, Jeffrey might have been tempted to do a similar project for Her.

I have actually lost count of the number of times I’ve played this. I keep doing it. In the car, on the computer and around the house. Bloody hell it’s good.

Ever find yourself in the situation where you’re presented with a band with an unpromising name, an enigmatic if not daft cd title which, upon listening, you are so transported and delighted with that you play the item over and over in amazed disbelief, discovering as you go, humming and singing around the room, that the band have been in existence for quite some time and have five more LPs to their name and you paw miserably at your spartan wallet, realising that the next pay packet will have to do..?

Yes, Black Moose is one of those albums. Like listening to a smart blend of Lovecraft, R.E. Howard and the darkest American blues and country while reading Grimm to a terrified child. It’s as real as reality, and as tangible as imagination.

Jackdaw - Edward Clayton-Jones (self released) 

I've been looking forward to hearing “Jackdaw” for a while, but I must confess I didn't expect it to be this damn good. The last thing I said to Ed was, “Well, look, you know me. If I don't like it or I think it's bad, I'll tell you I can't review it. I'd rather have the friendship.” He understood. 

Bad reviews, pfft, they're mostly just juveniles showing off how clever they are, and I've got better things to do with my time. Also, I'm not clever. Years ago, the New Musical Express and Melody Maker used to hire such clever types and, while they could sometimes be amusing, they would often miss brilliance in preference to their own self-swagger (for example, XTCcopped endless daft reviews which completely missed how fucking sharp, funny and evocative they were). So to “Jackdaw”.

Up Above the City, Down Beneath the Stars
By Barry Adamson (Omnibus Press)

This autobiography is so sumptuous and clean that I don't want it to end, so I'm taking it in glorious nibbles. I haven't finished it yet, but sod that. You need to know how damned good it is, so I'm filing the review now. Just order it, buy it, demand it from your music emporium. 

Barry Adamson is perhaps best known to the Australian rock 'n' roll world as a founder  member of Magazine, covering for Tracy Pewwhile the latter was in jail, and the first four Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds LPs (and re-joining in 2013). He is also an accomplished producer of film scores.

His own band came to Australia in September 2012 on the back of his LP “I Will Set You Free”. I have very fond memories of that magnificent night in Adelaide, not least because I only recall three other friends there: one of whom we all miss terribly.

FMR008 - Fleshen Fella (Fantastic Mess Records)

This band was formerly known as Fleshlight, comprises four actors and played live (in drag) at the Gasometer in Melbourne precisely once before recording this bunch of songs, sans overdubs, and promptly disappearing.

This is a seven-inch EP of five songs on a boutique label.

Spoiler alert: There's much more to this story but don't read on if you want the mystery to be preserved...

Adelaide-based writer, editor, and sometime-musician Robert Brokenmouth took the time, during lockdown — well, lockdown for us non-South Australians, at least — to reflect on his literary and musical trajectory. It’s a curious bundle of projects and interests that Brokenmouth juggles — the war buff and the punk music-buff occupy the same territory (no military pun intended) without apparent contradiction.

Brokenmouth’s published achievements include his chronicling of Melbourne’s punk scene in the 1996 book “Nick Cave: The Birthday Party and Other Epic Adventures” as well as editing‘fictionalised’military histories such as Australian WWII navigator Ray Ollis’s 101 Nightsand air gunner John Bede Cusack’s “They Hosed Them Out”.  

For Brokenmouth, war and punk have one thing in common, perhaps: both are opportunities for adventure, in very different shapes and forms, but adventure nevertheless.

With COVID-19 limiting opportunities to meet for an interview, Robert kindly responded to my questions via email — and though you might not getting him talking so prolifically in real life, it’s clear that when he puts pen to paper, or finger-pads to keyboard, he’s got a lot to say, and a rollicking history all his own.

I’ve pulled out some choice tidbits from Robert’s life and career to give you a sense of the Boys’Own, Boys Next Door fan.

Corporate con or well-meaning act of benevolence? History tends to deliver a verdict of the former. for "Lethal Weapons", the 1978 compilaiton album of Australian "punk". 

"Lethal Weapons" was a product on an offshoot of major Australian label Mushroom (the same people who brought you Chain, Skyhooks and the Sunnyboys) and it was clearly a cynical attempt to commercialise underground music scenes then burgeoning in Melbourne and Sydney, especially.

Compiled by would-be A & R man Barry Earl, the album was notable for its eclectic cast which included The Boys Next Door (soon to become The Birthday Party), JAB, The Survivors,  whose members would go onto Sacred Cowboys, The Moodists, Radio Birdman, Teenage Radio Stars and the Bad Seeds. 

Trevor Block went in search of many of the original protagonists in bands that signed to Suicide. We're reprising his article to mark 40 years of "Lethal Weapons", and the decade since its CD re-issue. 

Signed-up member of the Melbourne Music Mafia, Malcolm Hill, is premiering a new single with his band Malcolm Hill and Live Flesh.

"Cosmic Love", and its companion song "Anybody Seen My Girl", are a digital precursors to a full album later this star from Geelong-born Hill, a writer and staple of the 1980s Melbourne underground music scene with Buick KBT and Head Undone. Hill has guested with the likes of Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes, Nick Cave and The Dirty Three so he's well-credentialled to say the least.

Grab a download of his new songs here.

The late ‘70s in the UK saw a deluge of explosive music and art colliding, and while not all was good by any means (much was utterly dreadful), some was brilliantly wayward. The Pop Group are one such, and they are doing only THREE shows in Australia in March.

The first is at the Adelaide Festival on Thursday 5th March, the next day they’re in Sydney at the Factory Theatre, and the last gig is at The Corner Hotel in Melbourne (where they will be supported by the rather swish Harry Howard and the NDE). Then, they’re slugging through the USA and back to Blighty to cause more sore feet and body odour. Toting a brand new album "Citizen Zombie" that's relevant and brilliant. 

Credit: Barry C Douglas (Barry Takes Photos)

Zurich-based Henry Hugo has been in Melbourne for a few weeks, playing with a variety of Melbourne talent so glittering it fairly takes your breath away. I believe there might be a couple more gigs to come, so I suggest you get your hat and coat and wallet and get out the door right now.

Before I go on, I missed opening act the St Morris Sinners. I have heard endless good things about them and I must catch them soon. But it wasn’t to be tonight.

Who the fuck does Henry Hugo think he is?

Argentinian. Lives in the evil gnome capitalist capital, Zurich. Will only eat meat-lovers pizzas. No poncy vegetables or fruit for this Dark Lord carnivore. Would probably munch on dwarves if he could catch them unawares. One of these sentences is a fib.

And here he is, this Henry Hugo, writing songs like "Cold Night in Warrnambool", "Deep Lead Creek" and a whole host of others inspired by … erm, well. Us. Orstrilians. Strayans.

Well. There’s a lot of people in Australia. Millions born here, born and bred, who are, frankly, so repulsive in themselves they should be taken out to sea, tied to an old fridge and set free…

Henry Hugo is, like several other overseas-born artists, an honorary Australian. He loves Australian culture, the country, the people, how and why we live here. It’s not a political thing. He’s not a potential Swiss immigrant who complains about the cowbells, or a Muslim grumpy because we don’t [fill in the assorted blanks here], nor is he a reffo.

_{Hugo Race makes a point}

Adelaide's Wheatsheaf Hotel (aka the Wheaty) is one of those modernised, forgotten pubs with pricey but excellent wines and beers. Local families bring their kids and they run amuck.

There is a beer garden, but few people smoke (which I can’t understand). Coffee and hot chocolates are available at the bar. There are no pokies and no ATM (you withdraw at the bar). They have exhibitions of art, photography, hairdressing and whisky tasting.

The back room (where bands play) is essentially a newish tin shed with a ceiling, lights, formica tables and period chairs, and everyone squashes in somehow.

Multi-instrumentalist and hypnotic crooner, Hugo Race, returns home to Australia in June and July, fresh from an intense wave of European solo headline concerts in support of his latest EP "Ophans".

The five-city tour will include dates in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania.

Race delivers a unique take on experimental blues, folk and dark-edge, dragging inspiration from artists the likes of Neil Young, Velvet Underground and Wilco.

His EP is credcited to Hugo Race Fatalists, the collaboration between Race and Italian instrumental gurus, Sacri Cuori , and is said to create "ground-breaking, intense sonic soundscapes that merge folk, experimentalism, electronica and rock".

_{Lax Charisma photo}

Alexa Clayton-Jones and I went out to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds last night at Sydney's voluminous and brand new International Convention Centre.

It blows my mind that for a few weeks in 1984, I played in the Bad Seeds, and I’m remembering bouncing around Europe in an old GMC wagon and some of the more colourful venues we played.

There will be a a special encore cinema screening of "Descent Into The Maelstrom" at the Sedition 2019 Festival in Sydney on September 21 - part of a three-film offering that will bring together some unlikely bedfellows. And we don't mean past and present Radio Birdman members...

To complement the screening of "Descent", producer Jonathan Sequeira is putting together some of the documentary's extra material for a short film about the Darlinghurst underground music scene and The Funhouse, called "Let the Kids Dance".

"This will be a ONE OFF SCREENING only. Some of the material might be in the extras, but the film itself is ALL NEW and will only show at Sedition!," Sequeira said. 

Capping it off will be a screening "Murder Ballads", the story of the creation of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ album of the same name, featuring exclusive interviews with Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, among others. This could be the first and last time The Dark Lord Cave, The Budgie and the Birdmen appear on the same silver screen at the same time. The venue is the Palace Cinema at 17 Oxford Street, Paddington, and it runs from 7-11pm. 

For an Australian, Jack Saint comes across as Warsaw's own version of Tex "The Everyman" Perkins crossed with Sir Nicholas Cave. If that means he's destined to star in a country and western stage show and become a conjoined twin to Warren Ellis, so be it, but it's a meeting of the musical minds that we're talking about.

Jack Saint sure sounds like took advantage of the lifting of the Iron Curtain to sip deep at the well of St Nick and his Seeds and (more relevantly) the Beasts of Bourbon. "Girl What You Looking For?" sounds like it could have fallen off "Sour Mash", the 1988 Beasts record where Tex and the boys got all bent out of shape over Captain Beefheart. 

"Girl...?" changes direction four times over its course with Wolf's repeated jagged guitar figure the familiar reference point. Jack Saint (the singer) intones/preaches like Jeffrey Lee Pierce. The band's cover of The Gun Club's "Stranger In Our Town" is a dead giveaway of another influence.

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds are returning to Australia in April 2024.

Kid Congo has one of the most enviable rock n’ roll resumes in existence. He was a founding member of cowpunk blues outfit The Gun Club, guitarist for legendary psycho-billy purveyors The Cramps, and played with Australia’s own, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

_{Guess who's coming to dinner? Kid Congo Powers (right) and the Pink Monkey Birds.}

Kid Congo Powers’ musical career is a lens through which can be seen some of the most intense and evocative music of the last 40 years. 

Born Brian Tristan in the Los Angeles suburb of La Puente, Kid Congo Powers famously met Jeffrey Lee Pierce in the line at a Pere Ubu concert. Pierce was the president of the LA chapter of the Blondie Fan Club; Powers was the president of local chapter of The Ramones Fan Club. Pierce recruited Powers to join his fledgling band, Creeping Ritual, later to become The Gun Club. 

In 1980 Powers joined psychobilly band The Cramps, who’d recently moved to LA from New York (it was Cramps lead singer Lux Interior who bestowed Brian Tristan with the moniker Kid Congo Powers). 

Munity in Heaven: The Birthday Party
Director: Ian White

Rating? Nine skulls and a pair of horns. Read on for an explanation.

Much to my Mum's surprise (yes, I have a mother. I was in fact born), the other day I apologised to her for all the skulls I brought home when I was a disaffected kid, aged nine or whatever, and placed these scabrous ornaments around my bedroom. There was a cat skull, a dog skull, a few lambs and calves, a pig, a snake and blue-tongue, and goat horns (but no goat skull). 

The area we lived in was countryside only a decade ago so there was a lot of paddocks nearby. I'd hop the ancient barbed wire fence held taut by termite-eroded chunks of wood, and spend most of the day walking. Saw a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have. Found out first-hand - long before dissection class at high school - what bodies smelt like when dead and when torn open. Some really unpleasant dirty magazines.

Half Deaf, Completely Mad: The Chaotic Genius of Australia’s Most Legendary Producer
By Tony Cohen with John Olson
(Black Ink)

“Unputdownable” is a word and it officially entered the English lexicon in 1947. That’s a full decade before Tony Cohen came into the world, but the descriptor could have been custom-built for “Half Deaf, Completely Mad”, his posthumous autobiography.

This is a tale of hyper-energy and off-the-wall sonic experimentation cleverly disguised as a 230-page paperback. It’s a weaving, sometimes wobbling story told through Cohen’s often bloodshot or pinned eyes, with dry wit and self-deprecation. 

People who worked with the man and saw his excesses first-hand might question his ability to recall fine detail, but in the same manner that Tony would feverishly splice three-inch tape to insert a crucial edit, his co-writer John Olson stitched the bits together.

Not familiar with Tony Cohen’s work? The music he produced was the soundtrack of the life of anyone into Australian underground music in the 1980s and ‘90s. The Boys Next Door, the Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Michael Hutchence, The Johnnys, Beasts of Bourbon, Go-Betweens, Hunters and Collectors, Kim Salmon, Laughing Clowns, The Cruel Sea, The Saints, X, TISM…the list goes on. Flick through your own record collection and get back to me.