Off The Tracks

Off The Tracks
  • Blog
    • Interviews
    • Miscellany
    • Special Guests
    • Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • The Vinyl Countdown
  • Back Catalogue
  • About
    • About
    • About the banner image
    • On Song
    • Advertise
August 25, 2015 by Simon Sweetman

V/A: Nick Cave Heard Them Here First

Cave  1stVarious Artists:

Nick Cave Heard Them Here First

Ace

Here’s the latest in a wonderful compilation series. This time it’s Nick Cave (I’ve previously looked at versions devoted to Cliff Richard and Dusty Springfield). The way this series works is the good folk at Ace – one of those old-fasioned curator/care labels – put together an album that charts the influences of an iconic figure. This single disc replaces/streamlines the “Original Seeds” discs I had many years back – comprised of songs that Cave and his Bad Seeds had covered.

Here you’ll hear some songs he’s covered in their original versions (Bob Dylan’s Death Is Not The End, The Leaves doing Hey Joe, Gene Pitney’s Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart, Leonard Cohen’s Tower of Song and Lefty Frizzell doing The Long Black Veil) as well as songs that have clearly helped to form Cave’s aesthetic (Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore’s Bedazzled).

Where the Dusty and Cliff entries into this series stayed firmly in the Rock’n’Roll/R’n’B area (a bit of soul in the side) this one, being Nick Cave’s influences, moves a lot more stylistically. We kick off with The Stooges’ great, wild Fun House and then move to Nina Simone’s I Put A Spell On You before Johnny Cash sings Muddy Waters. Those three big-name players so crucially part of Cave’s world and work. We travel back to the blues via coutry’s dirt-roads (The Louvin Brothers, Hank Williams) to arrive at Blind Willie Johnson and John Lee Hooker doing the field-hollerin’ so obvious across Caves 80s and early 90s material. But only after we’ve checked in on a bit of punk, 60s garage bands and Pulp’s glorious Disco 2000.

As has been the way with the previous collections in this series from Ace you probably don’t need to be a fan of the artist on the title – but it helps to build a sonic picture of their influences if you are.

Posted in Blog, Reviews and tagged with Ace, Ace Records, Bad Seeds, Cliff Heard Them Here First, Cliff Richard, Compilation, Dusty Heard Them Here First, Dusty Springfield, Nick Cave, Nick Cave Heard Them Here First, Original Seeds, V/A, Various Artists. RSS 2.0 feed.
« The Vinyl Countdown # 832
Stubs: #133 – Tinariwen, Wellington, 2012 »

Popular

  • Janna Lapidus Leblanc: Four Years In Pictures
  • The Best Guitarist in The World: # 8 – Mark Knopfler
  • The Sad Story of Bob Welch: Fleetwood Mac’s Most Undervalued Member
  • The Faggets: WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT SHIT
  • Shit That’s Good! Crap Albums I Love # 41 – Gary Moore, “Still Got The Blues”
  • The Best Guitarist in The World: # 11 – Lindsey Buckingham
  • Poem: Promising Dumb Punchline
  • Revisiting Live at Knebworth (1990)
  • David Bowie’s Most Underrated Album: 1. Outside
  • Books That Blew My Mind # 3: “Can’t and Won’t” by Lydia Davis

Archives

Tags

Album Review Auckland Book Book Review Compilation DJ DJ Set DVD DVD Review EP Film Film Review Gig Gig Review Guest Blog Guitar Interview Jazz Jon Mcleary Live Live Gig LP Movie Music NZ Podcast Poem Record Records Simon Sweetman Soundtrack Spines Spotify Stub Stubs Sweetman Podcast The Ghost of Electricity The Spines The Vinyl Countdown Vinyl Wellington Wgtn Writing You can support Off The Tracks via PressPatron [OST]

Categories

  • Back Catalogue
  • Blog
  • Interviews
  • Miscellany
  • Mixtapes
  • Playlists
  • Podcasts
  • Reviews
  • Scene Of The Day
  • Special Guests
  • The Vinyl Countdown

Off The Tracks is the home of Sweetman Podcast, a weekly interview/chat-based pod. It's also home to my reviews across film, TV, music and books and some creative writing as well.

Off The Tracks aims to provide quality reviews and essays, regular blog updates about the shows, albums, books and movies you should be experiencing.

It's a passion project. Your support will help to keep Off The Tracks online.

All content © 2021 by Off The Tracks. WordPress Themes by Graph Paper Press