p u n k b a r¡@
for questions or comments, email yuannahui@aol.com
b o o k r e v i e w s - b a d s e e d
reviews from yuanna hui, q magazine, new musical express, addicted to noise
date 05.04.2001 headline "in excess - reading bad seed in the light of early suede stage(d) success", by yuanna hui
ian johnston's well-written account of the versatile singer is apt for both fans and non-fans, whom, after reading it, might consider being one. cave's life story reads like one dark movie, a dostoevskian hero caught in those bloody, "erotic" tales of georges bataille. (according to johnston, one of dostoevsky's big texts, crime and punishment, had influenced cave to name his band the birthday party - the evolution of the boys next door, cave's first proper band. p. 30-31). but if you are, as you read this, going to rush to a nearby bookshop to get the book, prepare to be disappointed. i'm not suggesting the biography is fascinating because of cave's sex sandals or dramatic criminal charges. there is no sex scandal at all; no stories of groupies who would stop at nothing for an autograph. the ethos of "sex drugs and rock n' roll", as critic johnny walker states, is only partially true in cave's situation. there are, however, many scenes of the singer's excessive drug uses and violent acts on stage, which i think johnston has presented without bias. here, comparing with suede, i would narrow my discussion to cave's role as a writer, a lyricist, and see the connection of his works and behaviour, which make a lot of people cringe in horror.
during their early days, suede were often referred to as an outrageous band, usually because of brett anderson's unconventional lyrics. the band's transgression lied more in their songs which challenge our assumption of a heterosexual discourse. anderson's effeminate outfit came but secondary - it helped reinforce the message anderson wanted to convey. his make-up, his clothes are all part of an act. an act like the camp, the punk, pushing the marginal back to the spotlight. the dynamics of the band changed with the departure of guitarist bernard butler and we now have a more "laddish" anderson. but the purpose of cave's violence on stage is not much different to anderson's, only more intense, more shocking, more blood.
cave screamed on stage "express yourself, express yourself!" (p.77) he urges audiences to express themselves in extreme, in excess, in the sense (where there is no sense at all) that is "too much" for you and me, for the norm. as cave comments on album kicking against the pricks (almost an uncanny reminder of virginia woolf's accusation of the word "i" that is "as hard as a nut"), "it was basically a fuck you to all the people who thought they could tell us what we should or should not be doing." (p.185) another good example included by johnston would be: "sometime during 1983, nick cave got onto the london underground, pulled a syringe from his arm and began writing a letter in his own blood." cave smears blood on our clear-cut, paranoia environment that excludes the other, as if flaubert smears animal dung on the kitsch bourgeoisie in the nineteenth-century france with the banned madame bovary, and as if those five kids who write "suede" by pissing on the wall at the end of the love and poison video - "fuck u" all indeed.
johnston traces cave's life back to his adolescence as "a corrupting influence" in the eyes of parents and teachers. he was a cynical, mischievous but extremely clever young australian who worshipped people's hero ned kelly, a local robin hood in the nineteenth-century. kelly and his gang took every opportunity to break the law by robbing landowners and banks and shooting policemen. he later becomes "a symbol of australian anti-authoritarianism" in "the era of the anarchic individualist standing beyond the law" (p. 25-26). cave, a vandal, a drug addict, took his opportunity as well to stand beyond the law.
the face-journalist jessamy calkin had observed just before cave was sent to rehabilitation: "it wasn't so literal as 'i'm doing that so i'll get arrested and then i don't have to go to the drug clinic.' it wasn't like that, but he was taking so many drugs at that point it was almost like he was trying to alter the course of fate in a way. he wanted to change what was inevitably going to happen to him. he was just pushing it, he was seeing how far he could go." (p.239-240) cave was not only against authoritarianism, he is also subverting the "authorship" of pre-destined life. he is the rimbaudian figure who would stick fork in his companion's hand whey they admit "i love you", and walks away in disgust. cave aims to wake us from the false fantasy of comforting reality.
using the singer's obsession as backdrop, johnston moves to and fro to talk about cave's inspiration for lyrics. cave's excesses, however, should be interpreted as more than just something physical. later, the bad seeds would cut out the violence as part of their performance because audiences' reaction, no matter how bloody it could get, had became tasteless - something expected out of an equation. johnston notes on the change, "the frenetic rush that had been the hallmark of his former group had gone, but the musical range, extremity of emotion and overall coherence had increased tenfold." (p.155) when in rehabilitation, cave realised he did not need drugs to write sad songs that have the profundity of breaking listeners' finger into three pieces. physical violence eventually gives way to textual violence - "nick was interested in the horror of the situation and people who had crossed the line, delving into the imagination of a murderer," said scriptwriter and director john hillcoat (a la ghosts...of the civil dead, 1988). this takes us back to the point i have made earlier, on how writing is always fundamental, while the act is secondary. like bataille's erotic tales, the essence of his works is less about sexual perversity than textual revolution. writing becomes cave's new site of violence and violation. from lyrics to the play co-written with lydia lunch theatre of revenge (in the path of antonin artaud's "theatre of cruelty"), and to his debut novel and the ass saw the angel, cave pens "the perpetual onslaught of violence and pornography" (p.93) which is symbolic; a form manifesting his complaints. words are used to overthrow "-isms" - our accepted, much assumed, take-it-for-granted discourses. his "bloody" writing is a slap on your face, or to quote anderson in the wild ones, a tattoo that bleeds and stains the name (the name / the law of the father you may say). at the beginning, cave acted out the excess in form of physical abuse, in form of drug-taking, of self-destruction. he did all that to go beyond the law, to break things down so as to start all up again. to keep finding new limits to transgress. the most unbearable thing in life is when nothing is unbearable - cave makes sure he does not fall into the clichés of rock and roll. if he isn't going to do things in a different way, he might well not do it. but what remains important at last is writing - the ultimate battlefield for his "self".
johnston takes us to visit cave on stage and off. the question is not about choosing a version between to be or not to be. it is rather about how to be and not to be simultaneously. an act or not an act are all the same as the two (or more) spheres of humanity are constantly conversing in cave's world of imagination. the writer has done a good job in presenting both sides of the story. we come to understand how his stage presence is an act-on and it is not. bad seed is an impressive book, a good read and a work that raises the stakes for all future rock biographies. a lot better than the one i have on suede. so do get a copy before the last one has gone for auction at ebay.
