Nicktape 10, A National Anthemby Sam Kinchin-Smith |
***Cross-reference with: XIII, “Our True Intent is all for Your Delight”
Throughout my essay, I’ve invested heavily in the notion of Nick Cave finally finding a kind of quasi-patriotic resolution, after years of (conscious and subconscious) national tension and anxiety, on the stage and on the paths between the chalets of a Butlins holiday camp in Minehead, England. More than he bargained for, perhaps, considering that he was only there to headline Warren Ellis and The Dirty Three’s ATP Festival, which ran between the 27th and the 29th April, 2007. TDT had managed to curate a line-up that Barry Hogan, founder of the festival, still considers his favourite ever – a set of wildly influential and important musicians, particularly for Cave, who booked many of the same artists for the Bad Seeds’ own ATP in Sydney, a couple years later.
In short, Cave would have been engaging with much of the bill throughout the long weekend, and their influence on an incredibly significant moment in his imaginative life therefore shouldn’t be underestimated. The following mixtape is, then, an attempt to recreate the soundtrack to Nick Cave’s Butlins revelations, so that this crucial immediate facet isn’t ignored, however convincing the long-term context that I identified in my essay. I can’t remember how many of these songs, specifically, were played, but that doesn’t matter really – it’s about energies, rather than specifics. Energies that I’ve tried to organise via their national roots, in order to show that Warren’s bill traced a very similar geographical path to Nick’s own creative (and actual) life. And suggest, in doing so, that the selection of bands here represented necessary aesthetic context, facilitating the resolution of Nick Cave’s national question in a parallel manner to, say, the tattered glamour of Bunny Munro’s Empress Ballroom.
That the majority of the below artists also moved between Melbourne, Berlin, the USA and London – criss-crossing with the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, indeed – represents further evidence that Butlins played a microcosmic role, as well as a metaphorical one, in locking in place Cave’s Englishness once and for all.
Five from Australia (mostly Melbourne, obviously):
1. ‘Holy Joe’
Laughing Clowns (Ed Kuepper with Jeffrey Wegener), 1980
2. ‘Blood Red River’
The Scientists, 1983
3. ‘My Pal’
GOD (Joel Silbersher), 1987
4. ‘Last Horse on the Sand’
The Dirty Three, 1998
5. ‘Nothin’ At All’
Bird Blobs (Ian Wadley), 2004
Four from the USA:
6. ‘Theme de Yoyo’
Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell), 1970
7. ‘Johnny’
Suicide (Alan Vega), 1977
8. ‘Bathysphere’
Smog (Bill Callahan), 1995
9. ‘Glass Museum’
Tortoise (Douglas McCombs and Brokeback), 1996
Three from Berlin (sort of):
10. ‘The Garden’
Einstürzende Neubauten, 1996
11. ‘A Király’
Félix Lajkó (is Hungarian, but Warren was given Lajkó’s first record Lajkó Félix Es Zenekara after a show in Berlin, and listened to it constantly while writing Ocean Songs, so there you go), 2005
12. ‘Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell’
Josh T. Pearson (recorded in Berlin), 2011 (I should really have included Devastations here, but Lajkó and Pearson are way more interesting. Could have included Mekons below as well, via Sally Timms, but that would have undermined the whole declining section size thing…)
Two from the UK:
13. ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’
The Only Ones, 1978
14. ‘Come Together’
Spiritualized, 1997
AND one composite:
15. ‘Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)’
Grinderman: USA (Jim), Australia (Marty), Berlin (well, Warren lives in Paris) and UK (Nick – don’t start), 2007
***Much of TDT’s ATP was filmed for All Tomorrow’s Parties, the Warp Films documentary about the festival series (2009). Consider that track 16, if you can get hold of it. The full line-up looked like this:
THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA, ALAN VEGA, ART OF FIGHTING, BILL CALLAHAN (SMOG), BROKEBACK, CAT POWER, CONWAY SAVAGE, DEVASTATIONS, DIGITAL PRIMITIVES, ED KUEPPER WITH JEFFREY WEGENER, EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN, FAUN FABLES, FELIX LAJKO, IAN WADLEY, JOANNA NEWSOM, JOEL SILBERSHER, JOSH T. PEARSON, LOW, MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC COMPANY, MARY MARGARET O’HARA, MATANA ROBERTS, MICK HARVEY, MUM SMOKES, NICK CAVE (SOLO), GRINDERMAN, NINA NASTASIA AND JIM WHITE, PAPA M, PSARANDONIS, ROSCOE MITCHELL (ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO), SALLY TIMMS (MEKONS), SECRETARY, SHANNON WRIGHT, SMALL KNIVES, SPIRITUALIZED: ACOUSTIC MAINLINE – performing Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized songs, TARA JANE O’NEIL, DIRTY THREE, THE DRONES, THE ONLY ONES, THE SCIENTISTS, TREN BROTHERS, WE RAGAZZI, WHITE MAGIC, YANN TIERSEN, YOUPI YOUPI YEAH.
– S.K.S.