I posted the following a little while back in the "Who is Australia's best ever singer/songwriter? thread, but having recently stumbled upon this thread, it's more relevant to this thread than that one -
I’ve noted the Nick Cave "controversy" in this thread. I’ve long had a fascination with Cave. He was born and spent his early childhood in the small Wimmera town of Warracknabeal, close to where I was born and raised. He then moved to Wangaratta, where I also have relatives and know the place fairly well. My attitude to him has tended to bend and sway between antipathy and admiration at different points in time, as his music evolved and matured along with him. As so, I would have agreed with all of the following posts -
"For most of his life, admits Nick Cave, Australia's baritone bard of the dark and deep "I was in awe of my own genius" and everything else existed on the periphery. Then his 15-year-old son, Arthur, died and that way of living "collapsed completely. I just saw the folly of that ... disgraceful sort of self-indulgence. ... I'm a father and I'm a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist"...
… He's been many things. The post-punk, emaciated frontman of The Birthday Party, thrilling and terrifying audiences with wild, often violent, gigs amid blood-curdling calls to "release the bats". .., A heroin addict in a lime-green suit, busted by New York police ...
... A big part of that meaning has come through Cave's growing commitment to Christianity, a direction which alienated those fans who prefer a more godless idol. But, says Cave, he and the Bad Seeds have never been afraid to lose fans. … dressed, as usual nowadays, in a well-pressed suit.
The shrieking, scrawny servant of Beelzebub who landed in London in 1980 is now the besuited grandfather with a belief in the divine and a penchant for swimming in cold water. In his younger days, says Cave, his was an adversarial relationship with fans. "You went to war with the crowd in some kind of way," he says. Now, he sees music's role as creating a transcendent experience, a sharing of love between him and the audience. …" -
www.abc.net.au
I’ve noted the Nick Cave "controversy" in this thread. I’ve long had a fascination with Cave. He was born and spent his early childhood in the small Wimmera town of Warracknabeal, close to where I was born and raised. He then moved to Wangaratta, where I also have relatives and know the place fairly well. My attitude to him has tended to bend and sway between antipathy and admiration at different points in time, as his music evolved and matured along with him. As so, I would have agreed with all of the following posts -
XXXXX said:
YYYYY said:
But is it somehow really possible for all of these contradictory statements to be largely true? I believe so, for as this very timely (for this article) ABC article explains, there have been many changes over the years in Nick Cave, who once bucked and sought to outrage the old suit-wearing conservative church going establishment - and now, when few go to church in this secular age, or wear suits, the now family oriented Nick wears well pressed suits and goes to church on Sunday -ZZZZZ said:
"For most of his life, admits Nick Cave, Australia's baritone bard of the dark and deep "I was in awe of my own genius" and everything else existed on the periphery. Then his 15-year-old son, Arthur, died and that way of living "collapsed completely. I just saw the folly of that ... disgraceful sort of self-indulgence. ... I'm a father and I'm a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist"...
… He's been many things. The post-punk, emaciated frontman of The Birthday Party, thrilling and terrifying audiences with wild, often violent, gigs amid blood-curdling calls to "release the bats". .., A heroin addict in a lime-green suit, busted by New York police ...
... A big part of that meaning has come through Cave's growing commitment to Christianity, a direction which alienated those fans who prefer a more godless idol. But, says Cave, he and the Bad Seeds have never been afraid to lose fans. … dressed, as usual nowadays, in a well-pressed suit.
The shrieking, scrawny servant of Beelzebub who landed in London in 1980 is now the besuited grandfather with a belief in the divine and a penchant for swimming in cold water. In his younger days, says Cave, his was an adversarial relationship with fans. "You went to war with the crowd in some kind of way," he says. Now, he sees music's role as creating a transcendent experience, a sharing of love between him and the audience. …" -
The moment that ended Nick Cave's 'disgraceful self-indulgence'
For most of his life, rock star Nick Cave says he was "in awe of his own genius". Cataclysmic life events fundamentally "re-arranged" him.
www.abc.net.au