| Author | Message | ||
     Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 3 Registered: 12-2004 |
Scott is one of the greats, I really can't listen to Nick Cave now that I have heard Scott sing so often. In fact I think Saint Nick is hugely overrated these days, particularly in Australia, but that's another piece of juicy bait. That SW combination of the grandiose and the mundane in his late 60s/early 70s music is something that the GoBs do show. Of course SW has veered far away from pop music (work with Pulp aside) in the last thirty years but can anyone else see the linkage to our GoB heroes? Spirit of a Vampyre maybe demonstrates it best. And some of Liberty Belle... | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
Hmmm. I also love Scott Walker (except for the dreadful pop country LPs in the 1970s). I would certainly expect Robert to be a Scott Walker fan, but I don't know whether either he or Grant would claim to have actually tried to emulate him in any way. Well, maybe Robert's attire. I agree that Nick Cave, at his worst, can be a bit of an incompetent Scott Walker wannabe but when he keeps it simple he's very effective. Rob, do you know whether Scott Walker made any records since "Tilt?" I still find that now-pretty-old record very challenging. | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 5 Registered: 12-2004 |
Randy, I believe Tilt is the latest from Scott. He has certainly been present on the UK scene of late, curating the Meltdown music festival in London a couple of years back and producing "We Love Life" for Pulp in ?2001. But in terms of musical output, nothing. Tilt is indeed challenging, squeaks and splutters and screams galore. High art! I loved the fact that one arrangement on the Pulp record was for twelve double basses, done by SW himself. That's a flash of the old SW genius. He leaves a long time between records, that's for sure. Whether we will ever hear anything more of the man himself as "Scott Walker" recording artist I don't know. But what I do know is that "Scott Walker sings Jacques Brel" is one of my favourite collections. Everyone in the late 60s was doing Brel, SW did it best!! I feel Nick Cave maybe kept it a bit too simple after The Good Son. The Boatman's Call I can barely listen to. From Her to Eternity, that was a record. But the post-Good Son piano ballads are shocking. Johnny One Note springs to mind. And he is still churning them out from his office in Brighton. What do people think of the latest double album? The single I thought sounded pretty lame, despite the Bad Seeds. A backing band that we can all appreciate. Too many words though and they were all too audible. More slurring!!! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
I love the Nick Cave double album and really liked the one that came before it. In fact I really like most of Nick Cave's albums. He is also superb live (I've seen him both in Dublin and Sydney) and was great at the Leonard Cohen night in the Opera House too. | ||
| Duncan H Unregistered guest |
Scott Walker signed to 4AD last year, and is apparently recording an album (and being filmed for a documentary at the same time). How long it will be before any news, or actual music, emerges is not known. It may be that nothing will ever be released, but my hunch is that we will see a new album within a year or two. Nick Cave is wonderful, in parts IMO. I loved the new single, and "There she goes my beautiful world", but like many other Nick Cave albums, I found the album a bit over-long and heavy going. I like some songs on every album he's done (except his first two), but there's always quite a lot of what I'd call filler on each one as well. | ||
| Rob Member Username: Rob Post Number: 6 Registered: 12-2004 |
Hey, great news about SW recording, Duncan! That does make one able to go on. About Cave, sometimes I wonder how the Bad Seeds would go with another singer... we had a view of it on Danger In The Past, and a great view it was. On the other hand a 1987 NC and the Bad Seeds show in Adelaide (supported by Screaming Jay Hawkins no less) was one of the greatest gigs of my life so far. The mark of that show was such that seeing Cave clean and sober in 2000 in his Australian tour left me a bit cold. I need to listen to the new NC double album. My problem is that I listened so intensively to The First Born Is Dead, From Her To Eternity and Kicking Against The Pricks when they emerged that I have been ruined for listening to his more recent stuff. I love TFORW and am getting to love BYBO, as well as the GoBs mark 1, so maybe I need to treat Cave in the same way. | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
Speaking of old Cave work, I've always thought that somebody should cover "Your Funeral, My Trial" which I think brilliant. For quite a while I bailed on Cave. I found "Henry's Dream" to be vastly too repetitious of "The Good Son" and not as good. I also saw him onstage here in Los Angeles around that time (say, 1988) and thought him a total crashing bore. Then, on a lark, I bought a copy of "No More Shall We Part" which I find to be superb compared to what he was doing when I dropped off. I haven't heard "The Boatman's Call" or "Murder Songs." The new double set duly complies with the tradition of being something that should probably be cut down to one very fine single disc set. I love the clunky drama of "Abattoir Blues" (the song). It's almost like something from Lennon's first solo album. "Easy Money" is also effective. "Spell" is one of those great mysterious Bad Seeds dissonant numbers which, thankfully, is nowadays more subtle and restrained than was the case in the olden days. For me, this more restrained approach promises to age better. It employs sonorities reminiscent of some of the better mid- to late 20th Century symphonic composers like Michael Tippett. On the other hand, I find the noisy "There She Goes My Beautiful World" to be totally predictable and tiresome and while the lyrics of "The Lyre of Orpheus" are amusing, I'm well tired of the song long before it's finished. I'm delighted to hear that Scott Walker is working on something and, yes, it is wise to be skeptical of its chances of ever actually being completed. I'll bet there are a bunch of great Walker numbers from unfinished albums hiding in various corners. Twelve double basses? Wow, Glenn Branca on barbiturates. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
Glenn Branca, now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. I have one of his albums which I loved at the time. Must dig it out and play again. To the uninitiated, the album I have (Symphony No 1) is an orchestral piece scored for 9 guitarists, including Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth, and various other instruments and musicians. | ||
| Eke Unregistered guest |
Scott contributed half a dozen tunes to the Pola X soundtrack which are well worth listening to as they're even more out there than Tilt. He also wrote and produced 2 songs for Ute Lemper's "Punishing Kiss" album (if you're straight off to amazon on reading this then be warned that one of the songs is only available on the Japanese version). | ||
| H. Unregistered guest |
One of those songs Scott wrote for Ute Lemper, Scope J, is really breathtakingly good and original. I can't wait to hear what he comes up with next. Although Scott singing the phone directory would still sound good to my ears. I imagine Robert and Grant would know and like Scott's oeuvre, but I don't see too many connections. I suppose Scott's sixties material has a certain campy doom about it that's a little Robert-like - but 'Tilt' is more like Samuel Beckett put to music. | ||
| Dusty Unregistered guest |
I am a big admirer of Nick Cave but haven't really given Scott Walker a chance. I think I picked up a mid-seventies album on vinyl from a charity shop some years ago which was really bad but get the feeling that he's a bit like Johnny cash in that he did quite a lot of exceptional stuff and also quite a lot of contract filler type garbage - would that be a correct assumption - if so, what would anyone recommend as an opening purchase. On the Nick Cave front I thought his albums initially got better and better peaking in 'The Good Son' which I absolutely adore. I then found his nineties albums to be generally very patchy and predictable - 'Henry's Dream' being the worst offendor - although he would splatter a couple of classics ('Nobody's Baby Now', 'Wild roses grow') amongst them. Although I agree that 'Boatman's Call' was a bit over-rated I think it was the start of a return to much better form which culminated in the recent double which I believe has only a couple of weak tracks. In fact Nick Cave's career, in my eyes at least, contradicts my earlier basic hypothesis that artists' creative output on a time graph is 'n' shaped. In Mr Cave's case I would argue that it is 'u'. | ||
| Peter Collins Unregistered guest |
Recommendations are easy: get Scott 1, Scott 2, Scott 3 and, wait for it, Scott 4, plus Til the Band Comes In (excellent first side, in pre-CD parlance, but not so good for the last five or six tracks), Climate of Hunter (which I prefer to Tilt - it's extreme, but not as extreme as Tilt) and Tilt, which has to be heard to be believed. Do avoid the mid-seventies stuff generally unless you want to be a completist - we're talking Any Day Now, Stretch and a couple of other unmemorable contract fillers. Also avoid a couple of lps that have the stuff he made as a teenager: it's not good. To be totally completist, you could go for the box set of a couple of years ago - Five Easy Pieces, which has quite a few bits of stuff from the Walker Bros as well as stuff otherwise hard to get, but is mainly stuff you could get elsewhere. The Walker Brothers reformed in the mid-70s for three lps: the first two are forgettable, but the third, Nite Flights, includes four tracks by Scott you really should have, including The Electrician, a bizarre meditation on torture that pre-figures Climate of Hunter and Tilt: the rest of the lp is tracks written by John Maus and Gary Leeds that doesn't really make the grade, though. | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
Peter is a fan! I love Scott Walker too and have most of those things. I'm guessing that for a starter, Dusty, it might be easier for you to start with the 80s album, "Climate of Hunter," which originally seemed pretty out-there and arty but now is just a great listen. If you aren't put off by 60's type productions, I recommend Scott 4 first because it contains all original songs and the arrangements aren't so heavy handed as on the first three albums. If you want a good overview of the first 5 albums on a single disc (and can find it) "Boy Child" is a very good introduction. It focusses on Scott's own songs with the exception of one entertaining spaghetti western theme. The 70s records are an aberration. Except for a few things like "Where Does Brown Begin?" they are unlistenable. I've wondered before whether that's where RF got the idea of covering "Frisco Depot," something I still find totally unlistenable. Concerning the return to form for Nick Cave, I expect this of the better artists. Somewhere along the line you decide to buckle down and actually put some time into your work where previously you were just cranking the stuff out to keep the commercial momentum going. Sometimes there is no substitute for experience; after a while you know when you are coasting and when you are really putting your shoulder to the wheel. I agree the new double is pretty good, but I still think it could have been a killer single LP with some judicious surgery. I hope Robert and Grant decide at some point to hunker down and work on something really carefully. Maybe "Oceans Apart" will be it, but "Here Comes the City" sounds very facile--there's just not that much happening there. | ||
| Dusty Unregistered guest |
Peter & Randy; many thanks for the useful info & advice - I think I'll kick off with Walker 4 or 'Boy Child' and go from there if it proves promising terrain ('Tilt' & 'Climate of Hunter'sound promising) - I'll let you know what I think. My hope is that it's more Nick Cave that Frank Sinatra & more rock than opera. By the way, the album I picked up was called "The Moviegoer". | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 49 Registered: 08-2004 |
It's good that Nick Cave is writing songs at all, after the 4 years between "The Boatmans Call" and "No more shall we part" . He has released 3 albums in 2 years + guest work and a solo single. O.K. Nocturama was patchy, but the new double is very impressive, he currently has a screenplay being filmed. There is a 3-disc anthology of b-sides and rarities out at the end of this month, which will add a digital twist to my scratchy vinyl originals. This is probably his most productive period since the Berlin days, "And The Ass Saw The Angel" part 2 is imminent. | ||
| Duncan H Unregistered guest |
The re-release of "Boychild" no longer contains "The Rope and the Colt", as I found when I went to replace it recently. It's probably for the best. I agree with the recomendations above: I do like one or two of the early 70s Scott songs like "Do I love you?" and "Glory Road" but they are just MOR. (Incidentally I spent several years in the early 90s in the Walkerpeople fan club for Scott Walker - the only fan club I've ever joined!) I've always found Nick Cave's problem to be overproduction and quality control, rather than any lack of talent. When he does it well, it's genius, but I always find his albums are too long - and continue to find this with the latest one. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 50 Registered: 08-2004 |
I don't know if Nick Cave has ever actually cited Scott Walker as a prime influence, there is definitely some on "The Good Son" and "Henry's Dream". The themes of Cave's songs tend to revolve around biblical themes, murder, unrequited love and more murder. Bob Dylan's Christian albums, Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams, Leadbelly and Robert Johnson are all much more evident throughout his career. | ||
| H. Unregistered guest |
Nick Cave invited Scott to host Meltdown, so obviously he's a fan. He also got Scott to record a version of Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" for the soundtrack of "To Have And To Hold". Cave and Walker are coming from pretty different directions, though. Cave harks back to the blues while Walker's roots are more in the chanson tradition and mid-century avant-garde. They both have a rather histrionic croon, although Walker's is better controlled. | ||
| H. Unregistered guest |
By the way, here's the best piece I've ever read on Scott, with lots of quotes from the man himself: http://www.mbdiscs.com/Scott-Walker-The-Fugitive-Kind-By-Joe-Jackson | ||
| Cameron Unregistered guest |
MMmm .. I actually like Nick Cave more as he has gotten older . I always thought the Birthday Party was over-rated but now he's like completley bonkers and pretending to be Neal Sedaka and writing really strange songs . | ||
| Duncan H Unregistered guest |
Thanks for link H., an interesting read. | ||
| Eke Unregistered guest |
Hmmmm, "The Moviegoer" eh Dusty? You could hardly have picked a less "classic" Scott album. I'd go along with the other recommendations here although I'd have to single out Scott 3 as worth investing in first. | ||
| Dusty Unregistered guest |
Randy & Peter - following your advice I got a copy of 'Boy Child' at last. I must admit I found it fairly heavy going to start with. However after a few spins, I found the stuff from Walker 4 and 'Til the band comes in' to be very listenable. The earlier stuff I found to be a bit ummmm syrupy - Radio 2ey and orchestralish (except track 3 which happened to be an "experimental" B-side) - not bad but just not my cup of tea. I have persevered however and have just bought 'Climate of Hunter' which has a satisfying bass-ey 80's sound - reminds me very slightly of a simpler sounding 'Hejira' by J. Mitchell (w/ drum machine). It's very cool in a bizarre way and I think it'll grow on me. Do I take the final plunge and procure 'Tilt'? | ||
| H. Unregistered guest |
'Tilt' is his best record. It's nothing like his sixties material, and it's not really like 'Climate of Hunter' either. 'Climate' is still 'rock', but 'Tilt' has a more operatic feel. It has a fierce reputation of inaccessibility, and it did take me a few plays to get into it, but I don't think it's that inaccessible really. The songs are all still pretty tightly structured and tonal. The lyrics are not as obtuse as on 'Climate' The opening track, 'Farmer In The City' is beautiful, rather reminiscent of Gorecki's Third Symphony. And the closer, 'Rosary', is haunting: 'I gotta quit' indeed. If Samuel Beckett had made records, they would have been like 'Tilt'. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 13 Registered: 03-2005 |
Dusty, my recommendation is that you live with "Boy Child" and "Climate" a bit longer before going to "Tilt." Bear H's description of "Tilt" in mind. It is indeed less rocklike in sound than "Climate." Your description of "Climate" is interesting. My description would be that it sounds like 80s era Roxy Music run through an art blender but I didn't want to put everybody off. Concerning the earlier Walker stuff that you currently find hard to listen to, this may eventually change for you. Some of the lyrics are quite remarkable. But, yes, you will have to deal with the florid crazy arrangements. Have a listen sometime if you ever ingest a psychedelic substance. | ||
| redrik Unregistered guest |
It's a shame Julian Cope's compilation 'Fire escape in the sky the God-like genius of Scott Walker' isn't available anymore. I haven't heard and don't know if it actually adds anything to the Scott IIV albums I already have (and cherish) but that _has_ to be the coolest compilation title ever. | ||
| Dusty Unregistered guest |
My analogy of 'Climate' on hindsight was a little woeful - I'm not sure if I can really compare it to anything. I shall certainly do my absolute best to listen to "Boy Child" tracks 1-11 when next digesting magic mushrooms - although it may have to wait as those halcyon days of self-exploratory youth are somewhat obscured now. However I still get together with a few old friends every few years.... I wouldn't imagine the Go-B's being a particularly good band to listen to when tripping mind. | ||
| daniel deranleau Member Username: Aaronfire Post Number: 1 Registered: 05-2005 |
Hey fredrik--there is a nice copy of Fire Escape In The Sky up on eBay right now... I'll return with my observations on the inestimable Mr. Engel later. I'll say now that Climate Of Hunter is one of the very few albums I'd never be without. A cornucopia of exotic narcotic music, as distinct from everything else as Otis Lee Crenshaw or Thomas Pynchon. PS Was anybody else here a teenager when "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" hit the charts? Scott Walker just gets more incredible as time goes on. I hope the 4ad recordings happen. Is he the Edvard Munch of pop? Is he the Real Jesus of Cool? Anyone know of a trading site? | ||
| spencer roberts Member Username: Spence Post Number: 14 Registered: 05-2005 |
I too love Mr Walker. My friend Bryn did a compilation tape for me in 1982 when I was 14, and I completely tuned in and identified with him. There was something that reminds me of Kafka when I hear his great stuff, especially the Brel period. The track was Amsterdam, hardly ever a feature of his complations nowadays. I thought Climate of a Hunter was ok, but patchiness and production values remind me of why I always cringed (again as a youngster) when I heard Big Log by Robert plant. It certainly was a big log, that much was true. Tilt, again, really could not recommend that one. I much prefer Wire when they stray into that sort of avant garde territory. Scott doing weird? nah, unless its conventional weird, like his first 4 albums! There was also a great slice of vinyl I bought years ago, sadly had to sell, The Moviegoer. There were some real stunners on that, i don't know if these ever got released oin the boxset or not, anyone know? i have a copy of Boy Child, the original 1990 release on Fontana from 1990 if anyone wants it, first to email me can have it. have a great bank hol. x PS Any fans of momus (Nick Currie) out there, if not, he did some fantastic covers of Brel on his first album Circus Maximus on Cherry Red, I think See a friend in Tears his version was the first time it was ever translated into English, haunting versions too. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 29 Registered: 03-2005 |
I think I was about 9 or 10 when "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine" happened. I just lumped it in with the Righteous Brothers at the time and I was not too keen on them. I was all Rolling Stones and Hollies at that time. My best friend was a record geek who would travel around the small towns of central California and buy bargain bin treasures. When I was about 17 or 18, he picked up a copy of "Scott." Things like "Montague Terrace" and "My Death" just blew me away. It was the first time I'd heard anything of Brel's other than the much-abused "If You Go Away." I've never heard or even seen "The Moviegoer." | ||
| Duncan Hurwood Member Username: Duncan_h Post Number: 6 Registered: 05-2005 |
I used to like Momus quite a lot, though I've not liked his recent stuff. His Brel EP was stunning - "Don't Leave" is my favourite version of "Ne me quitte pas". His other early stuff, like "Lucky like St Sebastian" is stunning in its lyrical power. But Momus is too clever for his own good, and has been subsumed into something similar to a Japanese version of the Sarah Records phenomenon - where everyone loves what he does, and he doesn't have to bother. As for Scott: I'm also quite partial to a bit of "The Moviegoer" - I love "Glory Road", though it is real MOR. I love Tilt, though I wouldn't really be able to actually recommend that anyone buys the album. The title track is one of the most moving/disturbing things I have ever heard. I don't know what exactly it means to Mr Walker, and I don't think I would ever want to - I wouldn't like to be involved in anything so disturbing. But it's so powerful - the vocals & music blow me away. | ||
| jim mcculloch Member Username: Wee_jim Post Number: 3 Registered: 05-2005 |
see, the trick with Scott is you`re allowed to love all his stuff!!! If you`re a real music fan you can`t fail to get off on the classic Walker Bros stuff,his own elemental solo work and,lately,his "high art". we desperately need him on the team.As long as he doesn`t disappear up his own discography.It`s not a sin to crack a smile once in a while.. ps...there was a great song by Jimmy Webb he sang which appeared on an Australian comp.it was about the planets?? anyone remember its name? |