Haven’t bought it yet but I was having an idle flick through the Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan book in Waterstones the other week and landed on a bit about Mick and Blixa’s departures. With Mick it does sound like Warren’s role as Nick’s foil was growing and Mick was maybe starting to feel a bit sidelined. It also gives the impression that Mick and Warren have very different ways of working, Mick is a perfectionist and Warren is much more guided by ‘feel’ and embracing mess and imperfections and Nick was starting to gravitate more towards the latter.
Haven’t read Barry Adamson’s book but I feel like I remember reading something, maybe from Mick, about how when initially Mick was just the drummer and Barry was the bassist, Barry would eye Mick with suspicion the more Mick started picking up different instruments in the studio, particularly playing the bass part on Tupelo, so there might have been a bit of paranoia. Looking through album credits there do seem to be quite a few tracks on various albums where Mick plays nearly everything which is probably a product of perfectionism, but that seems to really reduce towards the end once Warren is there playing a million different instruments on everything.
This is a nice chat between them from fairly recently, not sure if you’ve listened.
They don’t go into specifics really, but sounds like there was a general breakdown in relationship towards the end that led to a pretty unhappy split, and they’ve since made up and Mick seems happier observing the Bad Seeds from a distance now.
Infinite Summer is probably my favourite album that came out in 2016 - it just nails that late summer night sci-fi voyage aesthetic so well - and I’ve wanted to see the project in some form live ever since. I had tickets for a gig in London before the pandemic and stupidly didn’t go which I ended up massively regretting.
I feel like Michael Lovett has been incredibly unlucky with how the cards have fallen with the project as well. That show would’ve probably kicked off a proper tour for the Pure Luxury record - some material from which he only played live for the first time at this show. He’s toured with Metronomy since so he’s been able to fill his time….
Given it was just Michael solo (I don’t know if he’ll flesh it out to a band of some sorts if he does any kind of tour) with previous members having left, I was really impressed by how much he got out of a fairly minimal set-up. Sure, the backbone of the set was backing tracks in some form but he was still playing keys, (bass) guitar and doing looping and other synth bits as well. Those five squares at the back had moving images (projected) onto them as well which was cool in the pretty much pitch black venue. With a bit of a better set-up, I think it could become a pretty slick and seamless production.
Interested to see where he goes with the EP - the last record leaned into funk and disco whereas the two new songs sound a bit more rooted in synth pop.
The only sad part is that there were only about 25-50 people there because 1) he says on Instagram he needs to pay off some debts and 2) I would’ve loved to have been in a tightly-packed, sweaty, dancing mess for this one. I hope the London date tomorrow night does a bit better and there’s some kind of tour off the back on the cards.
Ah man. I’m sad he’s struggling. Seems like a lovely man and above all I agree with you that Infinite Summer is an absolute classic. I can’t begin to think how many times I played that record the year it came out. And since.
Erland Cooper and the Scottish Ensemble at The Stoller Hall
Slight change of pace after seeing Swans and 65dos last up. Really dug the album he released earlier in the year so thought I’d go for a rare sit down gig. Thoroughly enjoyed it tbf, frightfully posh compared to my usual fare but tbh I’d had a long old day and sitting in a cushioned seat letting the music wash over me was probably just what I needed. He seemed a proper nice fella too.
The new album won’t be winning any AOTY awards on the end of year write ups but is just a great fun pop rock album with one very needless guitar solo which oddly works very well. Might even be my top pick of the month.
Despite not being a huge fan, I’ve probably seen them 15-ish times over the years. Tonight was an acoustic and a Q&A thing. They did mention oddly quite a few times during the questions a gig they did at The Dubin Castle in 1995 which was the first time I saw Ash and also an unknown band called Placebo who were supporting. A band called Huge Baby were the actual listed band for that night who didn’t show but instead we got that excellent double bill.
They remain one of the nicest people in rock and very glad they’re still going and I’ve kind of grown up with them. I’ve been dipping into their stuff now and again since I first heard them which was on an early 90s thing called Naked City; some late night music/talk show on Channel Four with Caitlin Moran and Johnny Vaughan.
Really loved the whole evening. I got my CD signed on behalf of my mate that couldn’t make today but was there for The Dublin Castle gig with me over 28 years ago. Also, as I was wearing my Desperate Journalist hoodie it gave me an excuse to say a quick hello to their drummer who was in the crowd too.
Couple of interesting things - apart from their relationship stuff - was the bands low opinion of Dig! Lazarus! and Nicks thoughts on the Mark Mordue book. Dig! is one of my least favourite Bad Seeds albums (probably below even Nocturama) but I’d mainly seen positive stuff about it. Didn’t realise Nick had tried to stop the Mordue book being released, it was quite an interesting read.
Me and my mate saw Huge Baby a few times in the mid-90s. Once supporting SMASH (I won’t put the asterisks in between the letters as it’ll mess up the format) and definitely once again supporting Drive Like Jehu at The Garage in 1994.
Bumped into a bloke wearing a Huge Baby t-shirt who was behind the merch stall at a Shonen Knife gig about ten years ago and turned out he was a band member. Great guy and the pair of us oldies had a nice conversation about early/mid 90s bands.
It was probably the likes of me boring him with that Dublin Castle mention that slowed the queue down.
Usually I’d go for a pint after a RTE gig. I was completely soaked through last night and went straight home and had a biscuit and cup of tea before bedtime. rock n’roll.
I’m a big fan so really enjoyed it, thought the Q&A was interesting and good to hear the new songs live and think the new album’s one of their strongest, certainly more immediate than TOTI or Kablammo.
I hadn’t heard of her until a month ago or so. She was on the playlist on 6 Music recently during that 11pm show whoever hosts. They were playing a song of hers called 170. A song about someone claiming to be 170cm tall but Erhard isn’t having it; they’re definitely shorter.
Her stuff is often brilliant catchy moody bedroom pop but her style does vary but always fun. Kicking myself that I didn’t get into her earlier.
I went with the bloke from the pub and so I didn’t have to bore him about the gig during my post gig pint at his pub.
Was expecting a good gig but got a brilliant one. One of those where the artist, venue and crowd just clicked…but only because the artist was so great.
170’s doing the rounds I guess and so I’ll post this instead as a rough indicator of Erhard’s style. They’re currently on a UK tour. If they’re playing near you treat yourself to a great night out.
I saw her/them at Great Escape Festival in May this year, after really loving the Guestroom song, giving me great Albertine Sarge’s vibes.
But it was an outdoor venue and there was an unexpected (for me) queue to get in to see them, as people were foolishly wanting to just drink in the sun. So most of their set I was watching them from a queue, and then eventually got nearer to them for the second half. They were good but not as great as I was hoping, but I fully accept that might have been the chatty crowd helping to sway me that way!
I’ve realised recently that, for all I love loads of music and am always checking out new bands, I only go to gigs of people I know I like - I don’t really take chances on a whim. So earlier this week I had an urge to just see a band, which I never really get. Checked the listings, saw that these guys I’d never heard of were playing at the smallest/cheapest/dive-iest local venue and thought I’d give them a go
Well well worth £10 and an hour of my life in the end. Very Gilla Band indebted, along with a bit of Model/Actriz - visceral noisy post-punk with dynamic shifts that means tracks hit really fucking hard. Quite a lot of guitar work just based around making nice sounding walls of pedal noise rather than actual riffs, which I’m always in favour of. Got an actual little mosh pit going on as well
Big recommend from me if you can catch them on the rest of their next 10 or so dates. Feel like they’ll be back soon up a venue size or two, definitely felt like they were poised to get a lot more attention
(Also made me think I need to hit up Sneaky’s much more often, nearly always get into bands 6 months after they played there)
My advice is go to everything while you can. I did for years and years, saw at least two or three gigs a week if not more of smaller bands and never regretted it. Learned loads about music, got into loads of new genres and made new friends from it.
Now that I have a small kid I can’t do it anymore but I still get out for two gigs a month, just because I enjoy it so much. Go to gigs!
rock n’roll.
