Jul 212008
When Nick Cave first hit the rock scene with The Birthday Party did he project anything but doom, gloom, and junkie rage?
Beside being tuneless crap to my ears, it was too much heavy for this guy. I quickly left The Birthday Party in the dust during my early ’80s record collection boom
I didn’t think of Cave much except for his Jim Morrison-style poetry scenes in Wings of Desire. Ugh!
I’m not too sure if Iggy Pop ever took himself too seriously, but when I first saw the Dead Man cameo, there is no doubt in my mind, that he could have fun:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pKVVkiMIkM0
There was Elvis Costello singing Crawling to the USA (I think?) in Americathon (1979).
I don’t know that Iggy ever took himself seriously, Mac, and BigSteve, were 2 years of somewhat serious Costello enough to qualify? Maybe I never thought he was THAT serious in the first place… Thanks to both of you for trying, though.
By the time I got into Richard Thompson’s work with Fairport Convention and his pre-suck (ie, pre-Froom) solo albums, he was already making a name for himself as a surprisingly funny folk rocker with a dark bent. Before that time, when his music did all the talking, was he known as a bit of a clown? Would he have been expected to record the ’70s equivalent of a Britney Spears cover in those days? I don’t know. If not, he’d be the kind of artist I have in mind.
I think The Birthday Party was funnier and less serious than you’d suspect. “Release the Bats” is a case in point.