Originally
published in Skyscraper
One refreshing thing about this collection of Nick Cave’s videos is how neither he nor any of The Seeds takes the proceedings very seriously. The DVD opens with Cave and the boys sitting on a couch where we’ll find them between each video, commenting on the video to come. “The thing I think should be made clear from the outset,” Cave says “is that we don't really don't like doing videos. Any excuse to get out of doing a video I think the band'd be quite happy.” That sometimes proves all too evident, but often to our amusement. The collection begins with the deliciously profane "Stagger Lee," which Cave sings with stabbing vocals while gyrating in his awkward yet graceful way. While wearing a tiny pink t-shirt. By the end of the song he’s kneeling on the stage and waving about in some sort of ecstatic Pentecostal frenzy. Ah, yes, this is what we came to see. The bloodier passages of the Cave canon are well represented. There’s a generous sprinkling of murder ballads, including the utterly gorgeous “Where the Wild Roses Grow” with Kylie Minogue (yes, that Kylie), which Cave describes as pretty literal: “It's about a guy goes down to a river with a girl and . . . kills her with a rock." And, yes, let’s not forget “Red Right Hand” and “Jack the Ripper” either. In the middle of these bloody bawdy ballads comes "Into My Arms," an unspeakably tender and humanistic song shot in hyper-minimal black and white by Jonathan Glazer. If the videos for “Are You the One I’ve Been Waiting For?” and “Henry Lee” prove simple, too, the performances are nonetheless affecting. On a couple of videos Cave does appear to be strolling through the proceedings. He admits as much in the commentary before his disastrous cover of “In the Ghetto.” Most atrocious, however, is “What a Wonderful World,” Cave’s duet with The Pogue’s Shane McGowan in which McGowan appears to be on the verge of passing out. None of the videos, of course, prove at all groundbreaking, though “The Weeping Song” does utilize black plastic sheets quite creatively and the turkey manhandling in the Jesse Dylan video for “Red Right Hand” proves quite disturbing. And if John Hillcoat’s simple video for “The Ship Song” gives you the creeps, Cave confirms your suspicions about why. But it’s not bleeding edge video production that we come to Cave and Co for anyway. Simply witnessing the eccentric physicality of Cave’s performances is alone worth the price of admission.
Official
site
Robert Stribley
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