Grinderman: Thoughts

My face is finished, my body's gone.
And I can't help but think standin' up here,
in all this applause and gazin' down,
at all the young and the beautiful,
with their questioning eyes:
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.

No, that isn’t Christina Aguilera singing words of self-affirmation, but Australian rock-genius Nick Cave, fronting his new side-project, Grinderman, who appears to be having a mid-life crisis and is feeling the urge to prove something to the youth who’ve seen enough Super Bowl halftime shows to seriously question the ability of a 50-ish musician’s ability to rock. But unlike most rockers over 50 (here’s looking at you Aerosmith, U2, Stones), Cave isn’t going quietly into adult radio, or seeking to find his youth on the counter of Starbucks (hello, Paul McCartney). Affirmation itself has always been a hallmark of Cave, although never with his audience—that gathering of sycophants—as much as with his own soul, scorned lovers, and God. But now, the above lyrics spoken like a mantra at the beginning of the best song on Grinderman’s self-titled new album, “No Pussy Blues”, Cave confronts the youth besieging him and senses a landscape fraught with decades, separating him from the generation that has made the music of Paris Hilton and Lyndsay Lohan popular; an audience in no way interested in the things he’s interested in (the old poets: Dylan Thomas, Yates, Elliot; and the old gospel blues singers of the American South)—the rub being that the population curves towards youth and the fact that rock and roll will always be the gospel of the young, while old fans from his Birthday Party days are now buying SUVs, sipping lattes, and discovering that new Paul McCartny album at Starbucks. Cave may be old, but he can still write a song like “Love Bomb”, that blows your ears off with an electric sound framed as a personal crisis cum rock gospel in the age of Terror. But Cave is getting old, and, according to Grinderman, the young girls (the bread and butter of the music industry) are skeptical of his oddly thin and narrow frame, unimpressed by his existential intelligence, and wondering what’s so cool about the old dude. As much as “No Pussy Blues” is about a man’s frustrated attempts at copulation with a woman who never seems to “want to”, it’s also a song about the music industry and the hoops musicians jump through to remain virile in a market of teenyboppers. For a man Cave’s age (and, to be honest, looks), such things (virility, seduction, need) ooze creepiness (something Cave has never lacked), but now he’s got a bad-ass mustache and a kicking electric guitar—so fuck those Bad Seed violins and pianos, there’s nothing youthful there (it’s practically classical music), for now the plan is to rock out on electric riffs of thrash rock. Grinderman is Cave (and, who are we kidding, most of the Bad Seeds) rousing call to clean house. The moral being we’ve got to fuck it up to fuck. We have to leave church for the bar next door, have a beer, punch a stranger in the face, and maybe then we’ll get somebody’s attention. There are, of course, other songs on this album, none of them long (the album clocks in around forty minutes): “Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)”, is a dancabilly plea for a love escape to Mars with an odd vocal buzz that doesn’t intrude because you’re having so much fun; “Depth Charge Ethel”, is a metal-meth-rave for gothed-out ghosts shredded with early 60’s Motown do-wop razors; “(I Don’t Need You to) Set Me Free” is the closest thing on the album to the Bad Seeds, the piano and strings making their only appearance and sounding like something straight off the Nocturama cutting room floor (a good thing). Cave is aware of the humor (but isn’t he always) associated with such testosterone fueled rock coming from a man his age, sending himself up in “Go Tell the Woman”, a beatnik slink-a-thon praising life over routine, a call to “action” in the most literal wink-wink manner—be sure to observe the smirk between the lines. This isn’t Cave’s most sophisticated album (that would be The Boatman’s Call or No More Shall We Part), but it’s his most danceable album since… well, never, really. Again, not his best album, but a pretty good testament to the rejuvenating powers of rock and roll.

Oh, and if you want to see an amazing performance of "No Pussy Blues" click here.

Song I advocate paying money for it's so good: "No Pussy Blues"