Track Listing

1. Get It On
2. No Pussy Blues
3. Electric Alice
4. Grinderman
5. Depth Charge Ethel
6. Go Tell The Women
7. (I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free
8. Honey Bee (Lets Fly To Mars)
9. Man In The Moon
10. When My Love Comes Down
11. Love Bomb

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6260 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Dimensions: .11 pounds

Album Description
The story of Grinderman begins within the working processes of another band: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. At the start of 2004, when Nick Cave took a small team of Bad Seeds members -- violinist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn Casey and drummer Jim Sclavunos -- off to the tiny Misère studio in Paris for a songwriting session, they effectively established a new band. The small combo configuration of Nick, Warren, Marty and Jim had its public debut in a showcase performance to promote the Bad Seeds Nocturama album; the foursome continued working in this streamlined format, getting together frequently for Nick Cave "solo" tours. Born of babbling lyrics hatched from Bosch eggshells in the Hyde-bound apocalyptic margins of the Cave brain, the Grinderman sound is an instinctual yawlp that also resurrects the demons of each musician's past: the trashcan proselytising of Birthday Party -era Nick; Sclavunos' late 70s New York no-wave noise wisdom; Martyn Casey's ominous Triffids bass reverb; plus Ellis' avant-garde soundtrack work and his teenage love of Black Sabbath. Destination: Out! Grinderman sound different from everyone, including themselves. As Memphis Slim put it back in 1941, "While everything is quiet and easy/ Mr. Grinder can have his way." It's a new day. God help you all.

From Amazon.co.uk
Grinderman is the sound of indie rock legends growing old disgracefully, and that is by no means a criticism. From the opening rant of "Get It On," this is an album with all the menace of an angry drunk, dripping with anger and testosterone (as the surfeit of facial hair in the band's interior photo will attest). It could even be the sound of Nick Cave's midlife crisis, but it doesn't matter, because Grinderman rocks. It's the sound of four musicians having a grand time, turning the volume up to 11 and really cutting loose. For that reason, it's the more upbeat tracks here that are probably the best: "Honey Bee (Let's Fly to Mars)" with its driving electric organ, the primal urgency of "Depth Charge Ethel," and the strutting album closer "Love Bomb." After all the po-faced seriousness he's displayed in recent years, it's good to know that Cave has rediscovered his sense of humour: "I cleaned the sheets on my bed, I combed the hairs across my head, I sucked in my gut and still she said, 'I don't want to,'" he sings on "No Pussy Blues," with his tongue firmly in cheek (amongst other places). Simply put, Grinderman is a hoot. --Ted Kord

About the Artist
GRINDERMAN SONG BY SONG

On the 5th of April 2006, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos entered RAK studios, London, for a week with producer Nick Launay and recorded thirteen songs. Here GRINDERMAN discuss the songs from their self-titled debut album.

Get It On

"This song is sung across an excoriating mandolin loop based on an obscure lute melody from the 11th century," suggests Ellis, getting the ball rolling.

"It is a lament for the messianic rock n' roll hero," says the virile and youthful Cave, "and begins, of course, with a statement of intent."

"Mice, dogs, baboons, hyenas", says Marty, Zen-like in the corner.

"Yeah, well, for me all the enemies of inspiration assume animal shapes," explains Cave, "they are all around us...and of course, inside us."

"From all the loops I originally sent you, this was the first one that really cried out to be used," mumbles Ellis, from the black hole in his shovel-shaped beard.

No Pussy Blues

"While our dreams and desires are hung on the butcher's hook of rampant consumerism, and the mirage and the illusion and the Nike trainers are served up on the trembling quim of an impossibly nubile girl-thing, No Pussy Blues tells it like it is," suggests Cave. "It is the child standing goggle-eyed at the cake shop window, as the shop-owner, in his plastic sleeves, barricades the door and turns the sign to "CLOSED". It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman."

"Set over a throbbing pornographic bass line, the world holds its breath for the onslaught of the wah's shriek of frustration and dirty water," counters Casey. "No Pussy Blues continues in the blues tradition and its timeless fascination with getting laid...or not."

"It's `Back Door Man', it's `Crawling King Snake', it's `Tiger Man'," says Ellis.

"It's `Shake Rattle and Roll'," says Sclavunos.

Electric Alice

"Electric Alice shows Grinderman as a small tight unit playing a wholly improvised piece of music," someone mutters.

"I really love this song," says Cave. "I could listen to this song forever," blushing at his rare display of candor.

"What is this song about?" asks Ellis, slack-jawed, his beard like an inverted burka.

"It's an hallucination, it's a dream," explains Cave. "It's about memory and loss and silver rain."

"Of course, any journalist worth his salt will recognize instantly that Electric Alice is a reverential nod to Alice Coltrane," says Ellis.

"And of course, Larry Young. There was no coming back after I heard Lawrence of Newark," adds Cave.

"Whatever it is, it's a pile of glorious music," says Casey.

Grinderman

"The narrative of the album continues with the song Grinderman, Electric Alice's evil twin. I dig its predatory ape-like loop, the violent and impotent boast of the vocal and its primitive lead guitar," gushes Sclavunos.

"Well thank you, Jim. So do I," responds Cave.

"But it's vulnerable," says Ellis. "It feels kind of flayed."

"It is the Night Mare mounting the trembling dream," says Cave.

"It's the monster in the boiler-room," suggests Sclavunos.

"Grinderman is an evil haiku," adds Casey who has traveled extensively in the East.

Depth Charge Ethel

"This song is about a girl I used to know back when I was young. She was a drug addict and a prostitute and one of the happiest people I've ever met. It started life as a slow blues number, but I never thought it did Ethel justice. She was a force of nature and the song needed to burn, to blaze, to move forward and to never, ever look back," says Cave, beneath all of his hair.

Go Tell the Women

"I really like this song," enthuses Ellis, who has a lot of hair on the top of his head. "It's an old-time toe-tapper led by your intricate Clapton-esque fretwork, Nick."

"Well, thank you, Warren. Go Tell the Women sings a song of existential bondage, of our enslavement to progress and the pursuit of pleasure."

"It's science fiction," says Casey.

"Actually Marty, it's anything but that," says Cave. "It's a talking blues, with its feet set firmly in the present."

"Yeah, it's `Beware, brother, beware!'" says Sclavunos.

"An alert listener will see that the album's narrative continues," observes Ellis, "in its deference to the blues tradition."

"The album seems to tell a story," suggests Jim.

"Yes, in the very broadest sense," replies Cave.

"A la The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway?" asks Marty.

"Well, yes, though it differs in two ways: our record has a more forceful dramatic arc and, of course, a more pleasing and humane denouement," confirms Cave.

"It seems that phrases and words call back and forth throughout the songs," notes Ellis.

"Indeed," avers Cave.

(I Don't Need You To) Set Me Free

"I was trying to find a way into what I wanted the lyrics to be concerned with," says Cave. "I was listening to John Lee Hooker and I heard these lines buried deep in one of his songs: I went down to my baby's house/And I sat down on the step

"And in that instant, I knew I'd found a way in, you know, to the album. That's all you need, a way in. Lyrically, the whole album rests on those two lines," says Cave.

"How does that relate to Set Me Free?" asks Sclavunos.

"Well, the protagonist in Set Me Free is disconnected from things whilst his `other' has left him in order to engage in the world," explains Cave. "The protagonist no longer has a "witness", he is alone, and left to metaphorically "sit down on the step".

"Oh," says Jim.

"The drums and bass are copasetic," says Warren. "That applies to the whole record. The rhythm section is really solid and provides a lot of freedom for the other instruments to roam.

"If I remember rightly, attention was paid to keep the songs short and direct as possible; most of them come in under three and a half minutes", says Casey.

"One needed to get to the nub of things... fast," says Cave.

Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)

"This is Joseph and Mary's Flight into Egypt, but you know, re-worked," says Cave.

"A sonically overloaded, blistering rocket ride," says Sclavunos.

"Well, exactly," affirms Cave. "The narrator is literally repulsed into orbit by the banal horror of the world: the cynical deployment of fear as social control (first verse), the slaughter of the innocents (second verse)... "

"This song's shot from a cannon," interrupts Ellis.

"And there is vigorous blood-and-guts backing vocal action," notes Casey, rolling out his yoga mat.

Man In the Moon

"Man in the Moon attaches itself to Honey Bee like a lamprey, don't you think?" suggests Ellis.

"What's a lamprey?" asks Cave.

"A lamprey is an eel-like fish that attaches itself to other fishes by sucking with its mouth and clamping with its teeth. It feeds on its victims' blood and other body fluids," explains Sclavunos.

"Well, actually, Man in the Moon attaches itself to Honey Bee with great tenderness, by the tips of its fingers," says Cave. "It feels like it could fall away at any moment, tumble off the face of the world and float forever in deep space."

"Like a lost astronaut," says Sclavunos.

"Exactly, Jim. It's a song of abandonment and loss," continues Cave.

"Familiar territory then," says Marty assuming "The Corpse" pose.

"Although less histrionic, more redemptive" offers Cave. "It is simply a moment, not the whole enchilada."

When My Love Comes Down

"When My Love Comes Down is a densely layered grind. Built around a mind-warping loop, relentless rhythms and floating wigged-out vocals: this is Grinderman," states Sclavunos.

"Has anyone experienced that wonderful feeling when you're surrounded by people, and noise and chaos, yet you feel you're a million miles away?" asks Cave.

"What?" responds Ellis.

"When My Love Comes Down seems to embody that sense of displacement. It is, on the one hand, turbulent and frenetic and full of sonic remonstrations; but on the other hand, it sounds like it comes at you from a great distance."

"It's like a maelstrom...faraway..." says Jim, dreamily.

Love Bomb

"Nifty guitar work, Mr. Cave", suggests Ellis. "Thank you, Warren, and not a small nod to electric Miles Davis with its zombie drum and bass thing", says Cave. "Well, everything comes from something", says Sclavunos. "Absolutely. The lyric itself is a modern-day take on Bosch's depictions of Hell, where each figure is consumed by the fires of his own private anguish. Bosch's Hell is the inability of the individual to recognise the suffering of others", says Cave.

"That a silent and unresponsive God is his only witness", says Casey. "In the video we made for the song Grinderman, the ape, trapped by the lurid porno lights, flails ineffectually, while off-screen, the organ-grinder, God, the Grinderman, cranks the handle that makes him dance. This would seem to be some kind of clue", says Cave.

Customer Reviews

Don't buy the import
This import contains no extras for the additional cost, but DO BUY THE ALBUM!
Do you remember when Jesus and Mary Chain released their first album? When NIN released Downward Spiral? When you first heard From Her to Eternity?
This album is better than that.
Being a Nick Cave fan for years, I'm totally in shock and awe over how GREAT this album is. Sometimes musically reminiscent of Velvet Underground and original Stooges, with post industrial noise, and Nick Cave's dramatic poetic vocals, Grinderman creates a sound here that is intensely original and just mercilessly rocks.
Grinderman is the best album I'm going to hear this year.
It's just incredible that after all these years; Nick Cave had this album in him. It just rocks. If you can listen to Love Bomb without getting goose bumps, you're just not human.
If I have one criticism it's that I miss Blixa.
I never thought I'd hear music as cool as this created in 2007.
Play it loud.

Liberate your invisibility
It's fascinating to hear a band address themes of aging and sexual longing in a youth-obsessed culture, in terms of the withering knowledge that sexual desire does not decrease as one reaches mid-life and beyond. The ability to fulfill that desire, at will, is another thing entirely.

The resulting, bewildered frustration is brilliantly captured in the Grinderman sound: it's the noise of longing, of sorrow, of powerlessness, of an animal shrieking for release from a cage with no gate. It's also about finding humor, passion, and self-effacing acceptance of all that life has to offer - of refusing to be crushed under the gravity of encroaching age and jaded experience. That would be too predictable.

To put this all in context --

In a recent interview with Salon.com (April 12, 2007), Nick Cave said that, as one gets older, one becomes more invisible, and therefore, more powerless, to impact the world. On some level, he was observing that the inevitability of social and physical death are demons we must confront as we turn the corner on our 40s and smack into the hard brick wall of 50. On the other side of that wall is liberation, i.e., the freedom to re-invent onself and to remake the rules of the game. To please oneself.

That's the lesson to be learned from Nick Cave and the Grinderman songs.

Give this record a serious listen. Please don't try and compare it to The Birthday Party sound. This music is immediate and unique. It is Nick Cave, as he is, now. It is meant for all of us, still-rocking, still-lusting, still wildly alive, `invisibles' -- as we are, now.

Special Packaging?
This product is listed as "Limited Edition Special Packaging" at a cost of $30.99. It's nothing but an ordinary CD in a plastic jewel case with a "Made In Hong Kong" sticker on the back. It's the import version. There's nothing "special" about the packaging. Save your money and get the domestic version for $14.

The album itself is awesome by the way. Nick Cave continues to make fantastic albums. Even though I feel ripped-off by Amazon's inaccurate advertising I must say this album is totally worth having. This is raw and noisy. It's removed from the introspective albums that Nick Cave has produced with the Bad Seeds recently but is better conceived than any Birthday Party record ever was. It's not The Bad Seeds. It's not The Birthday Party. It's GRINDERMAN!

To be fair, I asked Amazon to refund the price difference between this misleading product and the domestic version, the difference being about $17.. They agreed and I got my refund in no time. Thanks Amazon, great customer service.