Soundtracks: Grinderman

So usually we like to be a little more girlcentric here at nogoodforme.com, but since Nick Cave was responsible for one of my personal iconic fashion moments in life, we'll let this review slide. Picture it: a hot, steamy July day in 1994. Lollapalooza, before it became a one-day thing crawling with indie yuppies and their spawn. All the boys back then had those floppy skater-y haircuts, baggy pants, and that awkward, gawky thing going on where they can't even put the moves on you because they're too, you know, shy and sensitive. So who comes rounding the corner like some gang in a Sergio Leone film but Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds -- with ink-dark hair, cowboy hats, aviator sunglasses and black suits so tight they would have made Hedi Slimane cry hallelujah in the sweltering heat. It was at that moment when I realized, Wow, men look really fucking good in suits, and a libidinal impulse was born.

Nick's gotten more and more refined and literate in his musicmaking since he started out in the Birthday Party, but he's always been a sharp-dressed man who knows the power of a rakishly refined suit. (Hey, it worked on Polly Harvey for a bit.) So when we heard he was taking some of the Seeds (Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey) and doing a rougher, less polished version of his Leonard Cohen-inflected art-punk blues in his Grinderman project, we were worried that it would be one of those embarrassing things where old dudes try to relive their wild youths. But Grinderman is kind of awesome. The record itself is a primordial, brutal kind of thing, really rough and dirty and kind of obscene in parts, the way you wish the new Stooges record would be. But what it is more than anything is really fun, with a confrontational sense of irony and humor. (Cave practically has a meltdown over not getting any on "No Pussy Blues" and it's both fierce and hilarious.) The record slows a bit towards the end, but ends in a stomp and grind with "When My Love Comes Down" and "Love Bomb." What can I say? The man's fifty and still has that fire. And he still looks good in a suit.

And as further proof that Goth art-rockers can be funny, here's Einsturzende Neubauten frontman/Bad Seed guitarist Blixa Bargeld doing a commercial for German do-it-yourself store Hornbach where he reads from their catalog. He's not in Grinderman, but why not?

Posted by Kat in Soundtracks
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