Nick Cave

Nick Cave.

He's a music guy.

I don't like writing about music people. I guess I added him to the list before I fully understood that. I think I have a few more music people on the list, and then I'll hopefully be free.

I've heard some Nick Cave music. I like some songs better than others. The first song I heard was probably "The Ship Song."

I wrote a comment on Facebook about Nick Cave once, and one of my American friends said she was a fan. So I guess he's fairly well-known in America. See. I'm so out of touch with music. I don't know these things.

I have another Facebook friend...an Australian....who seems to be REALLY obsessed with Nick Cave. He assumed I was very interested in Cave too. When I told him I wasn't, he pointed out that, in my profile, I said I'm interesting in anything Australian. I went back and changed my profile. I forgot what I ended up changing it to. Maybe I said I'm interested in ALMOST everything Australian.

I guess I shall start torturing myself. I mean no offense to Nick Cave, of course.  Or his legions of fans.

Lord Wiki says baby Nick was born 22 September 1957. His birthday was recently. He turned fifty-two. Happy Birthday to him!

He was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria. That's four hours north-west of Melbourne....more north than west.

Cave has three siblings. It looks like he's in the middle...the second to the youngest. His parents had three sons, and then finally a daughter. I wonder if the mother wanted a girl and promised to keep going until she got that.

At some point, the family moved to Wangaratta, Victoria. That's about six hours east of Cave's birthplace. I MIGHT have mentioned Wangaratta before. Edward (Weary) Dunlop lived there at some point. The name doesn't sound familiar to me. I don't know what disturbs me more.—the idea that I failed to mentioned Wangaratta when I did my post on Dunlop; or that I did mention it, and have now totally forgotten.

Daddy Cave was a teacher and a man who loved literature. Mommy Cave was a librarian. I can imagine that books played a big part in Cave's childhood.

Cave sang in a choir with the Anglican church.

Lord Wiki says Cave wasn't very happy with small town life. He often got himself in trouble.

In 1970, Cave was sent off to boarding school in Melbourne. He went to Caulfield Grammar School. He'd be about thirteen then. There, he joined another choir.

About a year after Cave started going to the school, his family joined him in Melbourne. I wonder why they decided to move. Was there a job change? Did they want to be closer to Cave? Maybe they planned to move all along and just wanted to send Cave there a bit earlier?

Life got a bit rough for Cave. When he was nineteen, his mom came to bail him out from the police station. Cave had been charged with robbery. She had news when she arrived. His father had been killed in a car accident. Yikes. Shit.

Cave attended university to study fine art at the Caulfield Institute of Technology. That's now part of Monash University.

Cave dropped out to pursue his music.

Lord Wiki says he started using heroin at this time.

This is one of the things that I'm the least interested in....musician druggies. I don't know why. I know some people find that stuff fascinating. It's just boring to me. For some reason, I've never liked those rock-bio movie things.

Lord Wiki has a section on Cave's personal life. I think I'll get back to that later. I think I need to get to the music.

Cave formed his first band in 1973 with fellow Caulfield classmates. He'd be about sixteen then. This was before he was arrested for burglary, and before his dad died.

At first the band called themselves The Boys Next Door. Later they changed that to The Birthday Party. The Birthday Party did their thing from 1977 to 1984. Oh, it was 1980 that they changed their name. So, The Boys Next Door did their thing from 1977 until 1980. Then the Birthday Party did their thing from 1980 until 1984.

In 1980, the Birthday Party ran off to Europe. They did London first, and then moved to West Berlin.

Cave had a lot thing going on with one of the band members....Anita Lane. Wait. No. She wasn't one of the band members. I guess she just knew some of the band members. She came with them all to London.

Nick Cave and his mates became very popular in Australia and Europe. He became known for his wild performances on stage.

In 1984 Cave formed a new band with some of The Birthday Party members. This was the Bad Seeds. I guess this group is still actually together.

He also does solo work.

I'm being very bad right now....not going into depth. What can I say? I don't have the desire or energy to work on this all day.

Lord Wiki says a lot of Cave music has been featured in soundtracks. Wim Wenders is a fan. He put two of Cave's songs in Wings of Desire. Here's a scene from the movie. It might feature Cave's song. Well, I put Wings of Desire and Nick Cave into the YouTube search....and that's what I got.

Oh! He's actually IN the clip. I figured his song would just play in the background. But the scene shows him doing a concert. That's cool.

Wenders has done other movies featuring Nick Cave and/or his music. There was a sequel to Wings of Desire called Faraway So Close. Cave did the title song for it.

Lord Wiki says Cave's song "Red Right Hand" has been featured in various TV shows and movies, including X-Files, Dumb and Dumber, and all the Scream movies. Really? They played the same song in all three Scream movies? I wonder if the song will sound familiar to me. I'll listen to it now.

The instrumental parts sound a little familiar. I think I might have thought it was the movie's score. It's a pretty cool song.

One of his songs was featured in Shrek 2. Someone used the song in the soundtrack to make a video about Final Fantasy. I'll watch that. That Final Fantasy stuff has pretty graphics. Is it the game....or wasn't there a movie version of Final Fantasy?

Cave did the soundtrack for the movie The Proposition. I think I mentioned that when I wrote about Guy Pearce.  Or was it Hugo Weaving? I really can't get those two guys straight in my head.

Okay. I just checked. It was Pearce.

Here's a song and clip from the movie.

Oops. It wasn't a clip. The same picture was there throughout the video. It's a nice song, though. I like it.

Cave took part in the X-Files compilation CD. I don't remember there being a compilation CD. I guess I missed that one. On it, Cave quotes from the Bible. Lord Wiki says Cave doesn't watch a lot of TV, but he was a fan of the X-Files.

Here. I think this is the song. The album was called Songs in the Key of X. You know, maybe I DO remember it. The title sounds familiar.

My favorite song ever played on the X-Files was Come and Go With Me to That Land. I love gospel music sometimes.

Cave has written and published novels. His first was called And The Ass Saw an Angel. It sounds like a good book. I'm going to look out for it. It's about religion and abuse. Lord Wiki says one of the themes is man's inhumanity to man and their innate ability to fear what they don't understand. I like that theme. There's so much truth to it. People so often make judgments without taking the time to understand. Stephanie Meyer does a beautiful job exploring this theme in the Twilight series. Okay. Yes yes. I'm TOTALLY obsessed with that series right now. Okay. I have succumbed to the Stephanie Meyer disease. What can I say? Maybe I'll be over it by the time I post this.

Cave had another novel published very recently. This is The Death of Bunny Munro. It's about a womanizer man. It features a serial killer. It sounds interesting. I'll look out for that book too.

Or maybe I'll just read Twilight over and over and over. No, no. Dina, snap out of it! Get a hold of yourself.

Okay. I'm better now.

Cave has done some acting. He was featured in the movie Johnny Suede. Here's a scene.

Brad Pitt stars in the movie. Brad Pitt played a vampire once.

Ah! I can't get vampires out of my head!!!

Cave did some screenwriting. He didn't just do the music for The Proposition. He wrote the screenplay as well. Russel Crowe asked him to write a sequel to The Gladiator. Cave did this, but it was rejected by the studio.

Cave also did the music for that upcoming Guy Pearce apocalypse movie....The Road.

Lord Wiki lists some of Cave's awards. He's gotten a lot. The Proposition won an AFI award for best musical score. I know I'm spending more time on Cave's movie and TV stuff. It's because I'm not interested much in music, but I AM interested in movies. So concentrating on that stuff makes this post more enjoyable for me.

I'm done with Lord Wiki. I'm sure there are a million trillion websites out there dedicated to Nick Cave. I'm not going to look at many of them. I'd like to find some interviews. I think that's what I'll concentrate on.

Here's an ABC interview. It was done in 2007.

Cave says, I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what I consider to be authentic Australian music.

What is the definition of Australian music? I would think it is any music sung by an Australian, but probably it's less Australian if they sing a British, American, Swedish, etc. song.

Someone interviewed for the show says Cave is prolific, has a good sense of humor, and is very Australian. This show seems really intent on making sure we know that Cave is Australian. I sure HOPE he is. Otherwise, he really doesn't belong on my blog, and I just wasted several hours.

The show was helping to promote a Nick Cave exhibit in Melbourne. The exhibit was at the Arts Centre, but it is now gone from there. It's out on tour. Currently, it's in Canberra at the National Library of Australia.

Here's an interview with Cave on New York website.

Cave says, being on the cover of music magazines was never an aim I had. I wonder if that's true, or is he using false modesty? How can someone be a rock star, and not imagine they might be on the cover of a magazine someday. Well, maybe he imagined it would happen, but it wasn't a particular dream or goal for him.

Cave says, When you're young you don't know anything about death. You don't even have an idea what death means. As you grow older, you're getting closer to it and one day you're going to wake up and realize that you'll die one day. You just wake up and realize that youth and life doesn't go on forever and you know you'll die, one day, sooner or later. The moment you find out about death, that you're going to die, it changes your life completely.

I don't know about that. I think I knew about death when I was young. I think most kids I've encountered know it about it as well. Some people say that kids might know about death, but they don't truly understand the finality of it. I think that's true, but it's the same with adults. It's like when you go to a funeral for someone. Then you totally forget, and think of calling them to talk about the funeral you just went to. It's stuff like that. I think we all get in that mindset sometimes.

I can't remember EVER believing that youth and life go on forever. I guess I'm very different from Cage in that aspect.

Cage still takes drugs, but he doesn't see himself as having a drug problem. I suppose that's possible. Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic.

I think I'm going to quit soon. Jack wants me to make him a sandwich. Then I want to work on my own artistic stuff. I'm putting my novel back online. I've been so self-conscious about it. But reading the Twilight Series inspired me. My novel is definitely not as brilliant as Stephanie Meyers. But it is in the same type of genre....supernatural romance. I figure maybe there's an audience for that type of stuff.

Anyway, I'm going to listen to one more Cave song before I go.

I like this song....."Where the Roses Grow". Actually, I think I might love that song. Some of my Facebook friends introduced me to it.


Read my novel: The Dead are Online