1984 APR

With both records, there's afeeling of something intangible, of aband an insect with an odd number of wings, she loves him not. Finally, "Box reachingwhere they ought not to go-they provoke imagination and For Black Paul" begins as aWho Killed Cock Robin-style elegy for the inspire hyperbole. Both are testaments of romantic daring and sick destruction of The Birthday Party, and develops into ahuge and bloated obsessiveness, full of feverish images of guilt, pictures of murder that are dirge that aches with ayearning beauty, the voice dredging the loss to simultaneously horrendous and secretly attractive. produce the loneliest sound you've ever heard. It was at that point that it first became clear that Nick's songwriting was Of course it's not constructed without acertain humour, but even by departing from every mode known to rock music and developing into the standards of The Birthday Party, it's adark variety indeed -there's some new, iridescent form, in turns trenchant and direct, epic and not alot to laugh about. It's awork more contemplative than Marc overblown. Meanwhile, the band's music was hurling itself into astate of Almond's TormentAnd Toreros, but one that shares its total ambition. wild, epileptic disorder that seemed to be driven by astate of frenzy, even From Her To Eternity is astatement of romantic irrationalism, stretching in its most dangerously restrained moments. to the very limits. With The Birthday Party literallyfalling apart-Rowland SHoward had already gone and Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubauten 1ALK TO NICK Cave and you're talking to avariety of characters. was deputising on guitar-they made their glorious exit on "Mutiny!", Like JG Ballard, he views external reality as asinister novel, and smashing themselves spectacularly against their own reflections. And 1he seeks to play more parts: the irresponsible artist, the wounded yet in the midst of the crash, Nick captured the mood of modern Britain romantic, the hunched grotesque, the Nietzschean individualist. He with an acute perception that the desperate, depressing worthiness of plays with the cartoon personae of Nick Cave in the same manner that aWeller could never have approached. he manipulates the images of Elvis Presley or Iggy Pop. "At night my body blushed to the whistle of the birch," he raved. "With a Right now he's playing acharacter very close to the hag displaying her little practise Ilearned to use ¡ton myself" blood spots, as he indicates the cramped surroundings of his current With that line, ostensibly referring to religion, he encapsulated the living conditions. Look at my squalor! masochism of anation that seems to be yielding any notion of individual "Nice, isn't it?" he asks with ironic relish as we enter the single room he power to ahigher authority. It was astinging condemnation of asystem shares with Blixa and Hugo. At the moment, though, Blixa has fled to controlled by punishment and reward-both determined from above. Berlin and Hugo to Oxford, leaving Nick to share the room with ahandful It was arigorous statement of the individual's revolt against the of telephone messages, acopy of MobyDick and atreasured portrait of GI utopia as an opium of the people, areaction against any dulling agent period Elvis Presley. of the imagination. It ended The Birthday Party in the onlyway possible Staring from the wall, Elvis stands legs astride, facing forward with -violently. agrin, framed byyellow, peeling Sellotape. Nick stands framed by the From the wreckage of "Mutiny!", Cave has now yellow, peeling paint of the door that connects emerged with asolo LP, From Her To Eternity. to the tiny bathroom, long skinny legs astride, Recorded with the quiet and underestimated the toes of his pointed boots leaving the floor drumming force of The Birthday Party's Mick "My songs to curl back, pixie-fashion. The back of his Harvey, Blixa Bargeld crushes an unearthly black satin jacket is turned to reveal "Korea" sound from aguitar held together with nails, embroidered on it in large, lurid letters. Hugo Race (previously of Melbourne band Plays require you to He runs nicotine-stained fingers through With Marionettes) arhythm guitar background the backcombed nest of hair, an amused and BarryAdamson's bass holds an axis solid listen to and glance reflected in the bathroom mirror as enough to link the straining elements together. he watches the latest voyeurs stumbling Released from all controls, Cave's songwriting around in search of standing space amidst the has spiralled into awild and wheeling poetry of understand dirty laundry, sniffing the stale sweat of the cruelty, pursuing the most nightmarish strands artist's atmosphere. of The Birthday Party's fascinations. each line" "I always think it's important to show people It begins with an assault on the forbidden where you live," he continues. territory of Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche", with What was that line from the Elvis Costello Nick at his most supremely arrogant. In Cohen's words, he discovers song?" This propositionfor invasion ofyour privacy' Give yourselfaway an attitude that's remarkably close to his own philosophy of ugliness as andfind the take in me." So what are the chances that Nick Cave will give aplatform for individuality. "lam on apedestal," comes the grinding himself away? Show us the bleeding heart he delights in setting against vocal, "You did not place me there IYour laws do not compel me now to the swastika? kneel grotesque and bare." In such asetting it comes as astatement of Well, first we'd have to perform the impossible task of distinguishingjust messianic self-justification. which one of the many faces on show, both here and elsewhere, precisely In stark contrast, "Cabin Fever" is avivid evocation of chaos with is Nick Cave. What Cave's critics have often missed is that his art is one of Cave playing Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh on ametaphorical Ship dramatic fakery, executed with awicked delight in defying expectation. Of Fools, set on ablind course for disaster. "Well Of Misery" plumbs Of course there's the usual Wild Man Of Rock/Thinking Man Of The the depths of personal irresponsibility, Modern Age dichotomy between the most with the narrator using his own readily recognisable Nick Cave stage dissatisfaction as the means to murder persona and the calm and contemplative the one-time lover he sees as its cause. demeanour of Nick Cave the interviewee. Its vengefulness runs against another But his gallery of masks contains less contrast in the self-directed anguish of easily classifiable characters than that "From Her To Eternity". -some borrowed from history, some The second side, originally intended from classical fiction, or from the most to comprise the second part of adouble hallowed museums of rock'n'roll. EP package, further pursues Nick's In his songs, fiction merges into reality, fascination with the American Deep the shadow of Raskolnikov mingles with South, in the story of "Saint Huck", the Hamlet; Cave's own creations-Gun, King corrupted innocent who "trades in the old Ink, The Dim Locator- mixwith hybrids man ofthe riverI For the dirty old man of the like Saint Huck. All of them are partly, but latrine". "Wings Off Flies" is the nearest never entirely, Cave himself. His latest the LP comes to light relief, abizarre little fascination stares at us from the wall. joke that has the lead character playing "I've just joined the Elvis Presley Fan the old game of she-loves-me, she-loves- Club," he grins. "They're sending me some me-not, using insect wings instead of more posters; can't imagine I'll go to many flower petals. Inevitably, in the lack of of the meetings, though."

72 IHISTORY OF ROCK 1984