N°88 NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS - THE CURSE OF MILLHAVEN

I hardly need to introduce Nick Cave so I’ll keep it short. He’s and Australian musician, author and (occasionally) actor. He was the frotnman for three different Australian bands. In the early eighties he fronted The Birthday Party, a violent gothic but also punky band. After the split he founded Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds together with his friend Mick Harvey, also a memeber of The Birthday Party.

The Bad Seeds evolved to a more alternative rock format and left the earlier gothic edge Cave had. You’ll still find the darkness in the music from time to time, especially when listening to the lyrics on the album Murder Ballads. This is the album which gave us the singles Henry Lee and the duet with Kylie Minogue ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’. All songs are about death and murder and serial killers. Although the posted song has a happt up-tempo sound it still is a scary and dark story. The latest Bad Seeds album was released in 2008 and named ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’. After that Cave tried to launch a solo career but also came up with a slim fit sizes Bad Seeds band called Grinderman. With that group he released two albums simply called ‘Grinderman’ and ‘Grinderman 2’.

Murder Ballads is the ninth studio album by Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds and was released in 1996 and as said it’s all about crime and murder. If you make the total body count on the album you’ll come up to 65 dead people. Knowing the album contains 10 songs makes it an average of 6,5 killings per song. Quite a nice rate. The Curse of Millhaven must be the worst of ‘em all counting at least 23 bodies. The album contains quite a few duets. We all know the one with Kylie Minogue but also PJ Harvey, who was once Nick Cave’s girlfriend, Shane McGowen and Anita Lane accompagnied Nick Cave on the singing part.

To me it’s one of the best albums on the globe. I love the sounds, the duets, the subjects (evil laughter from myself accompagnies this remarks). It is also the album in which I first discovered Nick Cave’s sounds and I fell for it although I must say that most of the times I like his Grinderman records even more. I’ve also chosen The Curse … since it’s a very up tempo song and it sounds like a big party, which it isn’t, and it has the most body counts. 

A little slip of the curtain for the next link: It’ll be either PJ Harvey, Grinderman or Kylie Minogue. I still have a few days tot hink it over. Now let’s kill some people in a little town called Millhaven.

N°87 JACE EVERETT - BAD THINGS

Jace Everett is quite an unknown American singer and guitar player who normally works as a recording artist for different other musicians. But on his own he also recorded 3 records so far; the first in 2005 which holds the song I’ve posted. The song has something dark and reminded me of the Murder Ballad album by Nick Cave which I like a lot. Bad Things was also chosen by HBO as theme song for the series True Blood. And this is how the link goes from  Fake Blood to True Blood.

Following the succes of the serie Jace started planning a tour throughout the USA, a part of Europe and Australia. He also released two albums within 8 months . ‘Old New Borrowed Blues’ in 2008 and ‘Mr Good Times’ in 2009 with a re-release of the True Blood theme song which was earlier released on his 2005 debut record Jace Everett.

You can’t really put Jace in a single genre since he’s crafting rock-and-roll, rock, instrumental, country and all different kinds of music. He says for himseld “Whatever comes to me I create”. He hasn’t reached the big fame yet but he’s respected as an artist and for sure I know we’ll hear from him again in the future. The only question is with what kinda style song that will be?

Now don’t do too much bad things folks !

N°86 FAKE BLOOD - MARS

A long time ago ET wanted to go back home to his planet. I don't know if it was on Mars or anywhere else but Martians are also extra terrestrials so that's where Fake Blood ties in.

Fake Blood is the name for British producer and DJ Theo Keating. He does also perform under the nickname 'Touché' and is part of the hip hop collective named The Wiseguys.

Keating is best known for his 2009 hit 'I Think I Like It' but for my own reasons I've chosen the single Mars.

Many deejays produce records and albums of their own but so far Keating didn't. Maybe it's because he's having more than one project under his wings? Who knows you might here from these as well.

Time to party !!!

N°85 NANA MOUSKOURI - GOING HOME

Fleet Foxes were singing about Mykonos and that’s a Greek island so I thought I’d go searching in the history of Greek singers and came up with THE Greek singer all times: Nana Mouskouri. Nana, as I may call her, is born in 1934 on Crete, another Greek isle but she grew up in the capital of Greece. At the age of 78 it is logical she doesn’t perform anymore yet again she quit only recently in 2008 after her last tour. She was 74 then . There was only one single concert given since 2008. A 50-year career celebration concert in Berlin.

Nana is a multilinguist and she recorded almost 1500 songs in different languages. Some of her original songs she re-recorded in different languages for release in their respective countries. All together she has recorded about 175 albums. Not all of them unique since many of them were also recorded in the natives tongue of the country of release. I’ve chosen an English song for the simple reason that I already have the newxt few links in mind. (for the next link just think of someone who was desperate to go home in 1982)

One of the songs you oughta know Nana from is Ennio Morricone’s composed ‘Once Upon A time In The West’ since she’s the singer accompanying the song. Nana has always been wanted for duets as well since her voice leant easily for it. She sung with Charles Aznavour, Cliff Richard, Julio Iglesias, Will Tura, Olivia Newton John, … I’m forgetting many. She also performed a few times on Eurovision Song Contests.

At a later stage in her music career she became politically motivated. It all started with a mandate as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1993. For this cause she gave a few fund raising concerts and donate the profits to UNICEF for charity work. A Year later Nana got elected for the European Parliament where she’d be seated for almost five years.

Allright, time to listen to one of the biggest ladies in the music buisiness ever.

N°84 FLEET FOXES - MYKONOS

Fleet Foxes are a five man strong  Seattle based band bringing a mix of indie and folkrock to their public. Originally the band’s name would be Pineapple but in competition with another already existing local band with the same name they changes their name into The Fleet Foxes. This later became Fleet Foxes.

A first EP was produced and released by in 2006/2007 and the band got picked up quickly by the Seattle music scene. Fleet Foxes existed then by the grace of Robin Peckhold (singer, songwriter) and Skyler Skjelset (lead guitar) who met at school. The also created a myspace page on the internet and their talent was spotted by many music lovers throughout the world. No single was released  at that point so their only succes was to be seen online and still in the local circuit. Early 2008 they’d sing for the Warner Music studios. Creating their first successes by sharing their music online, Fleet Foxes frontmant Robin Peckhold still doesn’t hold a grudgde against illegal file sharing. A second EP was recorded by the name of Sun Giant and the band started planning to go on tour. Christian Wargo and Jay Tillman joined the band on their first tour. 

Both EP’s ware joined together into a first album also by the name Fleet Foxes. Release date: June 2008. Big reviews followed and they got picked up by the European scene when they ware asked to tour around different festivals. Their popularity grew higher in Europe than in the States.

More songs were written and last year both their second full album with the title Helplessness Blues and a live EP called The Shrine/An Argument were released. Both of them are beauties in their genre.

I’ve chosen the song Mylonos since I already have the next link in mind. Apart from an easy link it’s their biggest succes on Belgian radio. So far that is because I’m sure you’ll here them again soon in the charts. For those who don’t know the link with Gorki: Luc De Vos, Gorki’s leadsinger is translated in English as Luke The Fox. Need I say more?