I have a confession to make : until recently I didn't think much of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds...and you can take that dubious statement in both its ways. In fact I felt more of an aversion than anything else, and so when the editor-in-chief shoved this CD into my to-do box, my reaction was rather one of “What...why...dó I have to do this?!”...but on the other hand the better feelings of curiosity took over. Because, after all, with growing age one's musical tastes change and broaden, you know!
A quick check-up on the band's Wikipedia page learned me that the history of this band goes back to late 1983, following the demise of Cave's previous band The Birthday Party. Originally going under the Nick Cave And The Cavemen monicker (which they used for the first 6 months of their career) the band eventually chose for their current one in May 1984. That same year saw the release of the band's debut album From Here To Eternity on the Mute label (with which the band would linger for most of their career). To date, the band has released a total of 15 studio albums, 4 live records (this one including), two compilations, and 4 DVDs. Some of the studio albums (6, if I remember correctly) have gotten awards (mainly from Australia's Aria charts), and cave himself was inducted into the Aria Hall Of Fame in 2007. Meanwhile, members of the band (Cave included) made steps outside the music world, appearing in movies, and Cave writing his first novel back in 1989. Also, members of The Bad Seeds formed a side-project known as Grinderman (in which Cave would play the guitar) in 2006, and currently they too already have a threesome of albums to their name. Cave also did a side project with The Bad Seeds' Warren Ellis (6 albums!) and released one spoken word album. Through the years, the band also relocated a couple of times (from London to Australia and back, to Germany, etc...) and of course the original (including former Einsturzende Neubauten's guitarist Blixa Bargeld) and some of their replacements have come and gone.
Like many other people, I first heard of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in 1996, when the ballad “Where The Roses Grow” (a duet with Kylie Minogue) hit the singles charts worldwide, but even then I was not very impressed, and later recurrences of Cave songs in the charts never altered that negative feeling. Somehow, Cave's nozzled poetic lyrics simply found no friend in me. One exception however needs to be mentioned where it concerns the song “The Mercy Seat” . You see, Johnny Cash would cover that on his 2000 album American III: Solitary Man, and the album coming into my hands a couple of years later coincided with Cave's original version returning on the radio airwaves. Of course, not having read up on the topic, I very much thought it was Cave and cohorts making a cover of the Cash song...but nevertheless I liked what I heard!
The reason I mention this latter item of course has to do with having been reminded to it, due to the fact that the song is featured on this live album, which was recorded at the Apogee Studio in Los Angeles in front of a limited audience, for airing through the KCRW radio station. The Bad Seeds at that event included Warren Ellis (on guitar, violin, piano, loops and backing vocals), Martyn Casey (on the bass), Barry Adamson (on the organ, percussion and backing vocals) and Jim Scavunos (on drums, percussion and backing vocals), with Cave responsible for the lead vocals and occasionally twiddling the piano keys! Besides the already mentioned song, the material (10 songs) on the album seems to come from a wide spectrum of the band's back catalog, and also include “Higgs Bosom Blues”, “Far From Me”, “Stanger Than Kindness” (a song which was somehow stored away in my memory banks), “And No Moe Shall We Part”, “Wide Lovely Eyes”, “Mermaids”, “People Ain't No Good”, “Push The Sky Away” (that one off the band's last studio album by the same title, which made it to #1 on the Australian album charts and gained 6 Aria award nominations), and “Jack The Ripper” . Apparently played as an 'encore' and decided on in a spur of the moment excitement, that track differs substantially from the calmer ambiance of the others, and was definitely an explosive ending to an otherwize serenely calm evening!
The album will be released on digipak CD and gatefold double LP, the latter including the tracks “Into My Arms” and “God Is In The House” which were also played that night, but not aired and also omitted from the CD version (in spite of the fact that the CD only lasts just over 52 minutes – I mean, space enough for two more songs, wouldn't you say so?). Anyway, after listening to this album a couple of times (and I tell you, when one is listening to an album with a review in prospect, one always listens with a far more attentive ear), I now find myself converted, the old prejudices thrown overboard, and moderately enthused of possibly having to review the band's next studio album...but that's something for which I'll have to wait a couple more years, I'm afraid. For music off the album and from other parts of the band's career, surf to (www.) nickcave.com.