Music
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Nick Cave Monday #21: “Nature Boy”
We’re stuck in a world where bad shit happens all the time. Nick Cave, our Nature Boy, watches the news with his dad and sees “ordinary slaughter” and “routine atrocity.” Dad tells Nature Boy not to look away, be strong…
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SONGS OF OUR LIVES: JOY DIVISION’S “LOVE WILL TEAR US APART”
She drew cartoon sketches of herself. I sent more mix-tapes. Within a few months, in the middle of a five- or six-page letter, she wrote that she loved me.
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New Music from Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down’s new album, We the Common, comes out Feb. 5, and we definitely recommend giving it a listen. Stephen Thompson, in his NPR review, describes Thao’s music as: Quirky but cutting, playful but forceful,…
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Nick Cave Monday #20: “Henry Lee”
Today we learn a valuable lesson. If you have a girlfriend, but you are in love with another girl and you tell your girlfriend that this other girl is way hotter than she is, do not stick around when she…
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Why Country Music Loves Me
In a lace-curtained living room of a cabin by the Greenbrier River, four men I had just met picked up a banjo, a guitar, a mandolin, and an upright bass and cracked my world open.
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Nick Cave Monday #19: “Straight To You”
Leave it to Nick to create a love song amidst the horrors of judgment day. When God strikes vengeance on us for our sins at Armageddon, Nick isn’t looking for survival, he’s looking for the woman he loves for that…
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Swinging Modern Sounds #40: A Miscellany of Musical Thoughts That Will Not Otherwise Appear
From June through December of 2012, I kept a diary of musical impressions that didn’t develop into longer pieces.
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Nick Cave Monday #18: “Lucy”
Who is Lucy? Nick’s ex-girlfriend? A ballerina? Whoever she was, we all have our Lucy. The woman who died too young. If you don’t have a Lucy yet, be assured, Lucy will come into your life. Perhaps a few times.…
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Nick Cave Monday #17: “The Curse of Millhaven”
We have embraced the love songs and feelings of the heart…this week it’s time to get our hands dirty. No more snuggles, let’s shed some blood. “The Curse Of Millhaven” was originally written for P J Harvey to sing. She…
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Swinging Modern Sounds #39: Interview within an Interview
In this piece, we are not at any time meant to use the word greatness to refer to a band from Boston, Big Dipper, best known during the late eighties, for the three fine studio albums, the last of which,…
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ALBUMS OF OUR LIVES: NEKO CASE’S MIDDLE CYCLONE
The year 2008 tumbled out of itself and took with it the things that consumed my days. Within a month I had lost my job to the upholding of liquor laws, my college education to an unavoidable graduation, and my…
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Nick Cave Monday #16: “Palaces Of Montezuma”
The last time I interviewed Nick I told him how much I loved “Palaces of Montezuma” from the new record. “You like that one?” he said with a smile. “It almost didn’t make it on the record.” “You’re kidding!” “My…