In Defense Of...Nick Cave?

He doesn't need it, but he's going to get it. Because sometimes, like the saying says, the best offense is a good defense.

Jesus: Denied three times before the cock crowed? At LEAST.

Andrew Tate. Joe Rogan (or as he is “affectionately” called around here, Hoe Jogan). Iron John. And any of the half a dozen pick-up “artists” spread out over the last few decades of zeta masculinity in search of alpha-tude. Add in its apotheosis in the form of the questionably masculine Donald J. Trump, and you have the setting for where we sit now: American men’s crisis-fueled cock concerns.

Masked in shibboleths about college — where men are seemingly falling behind — not being important for lifetime success, or an entire present day career built on the backs of some sort of trans-panic a la Dave Chappelle, or even in its nasty and most virulent counterpoint, incels (Involuntary Celibates), steeped in anti-woman agita actually murdering their objets d’hate, our boys are having a hell of a time becoming men. And our men? Lost in the swirl of “we can’t say anything anymore” punchlines.

All of which obscures what’s been there for all to see, in plain sight, for decades now: America now imports its macho. That is, the idealized forms of what constitutes a male essence. Sure, we’ve got our cartoons, essentially all of the copromaniacs in WWE, but in general with the exception of Sly Stallone, we’ve shopped it out for over half a century.

From Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max Mel Gibson to Eric “Chopper” Bana and Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth and his brother Liam, Guy Pearce, the very hot and not really very macho at all Jacob Elordi…the antipodes have had a defining touch on how men see themselves, in America, as manly.

“I did not join a rock and roll band to play rock and roll!” Blixa Bargeld purportedly screamed on quitting the Bad Seeds. It doesn’t get more confusingly authentic than that…

And these are film actors and therefore characters in an industry where the witchcraft is image projection and a good day hews to the old Hollywood line “Sincerity is everything. And once you can fake that you got it made!”, so, essentially, not real.

So we look places where authenticity is more part of the brand. As in Ja Rule actually once had a career when it was believed that he was putting the gangsta into gangsta rap. When 50 made the claim that Rule was having the gangsta put into him all that was left was Fyre Festivals and clapbacks. But music can reliably be counted on to at least play at being authentic.

“I did not join a rock and roll band to play rock and roll!” Blixa Bargeld purportedly screamed on quitting the Bad Seeds. It doesn’t get more confusingly authentic than that, this line reported by the Bad Seeds founder Nick Cave of all people. That is Nick Cave, the newly discovered Christian, father of two dearly departed sons, husband, singer, sometime actor and author, and more (and maybe most) importantly, an aging man.

Specifically an aging man, an artist, who has drawn a bit of ire these days for, pick ‘em…attending the coronation of some king or another in England, Christianity, being willing to play in Israel, refusing to sign on to canceling, for example, Morrissey. And further in the fault finder weeds (and maybe amusingly so): playing paintball (an unsubstantiated rumor that he does so), and hanging out with now-famous wife beater Brad Pitt (?!).

Cave, himself, has addressed each and every brickbat via his newsletter, and in interviews with the same sort of bemused, but earnest, resistance. Patiently, sometimes, explaining, demurring when it comes to apologizing and facing nearly all comers. Squint just right and you’ll start to get some of those Greatest Generation vibes. Think Audie Murphy. Lee Marvin. Clark Gable, who had a bounty placed on his head by none other than Adolf Hitler.

Now the cynic in you might make the claim that he does so because it directly benefits his brand but they’d be missing the point: he doesn’t have to do any of this to maintain his brand, as it was/is. All he really has to do is make music, collect checks and yeah, FTW. But he chooses to do so.

Quien es mas macho? No American corollary that’s for sure. All punk, and post-punk was, as described in A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, essentially sexless at best, anti-sex at worst. Machismo fell to hardcore and hip hop where most, like Morrissey, felt it to be cartoonish “pop thuggery”. Not at all a serious meditation by a man moving through space in the world and of the world.

Henry Rollins, the weightlifting, tattooed, former frontman for Black Flag quit music without looking back rather than make it answer the dictates of age and aging. Any musician ever described as “impish” or “bratty” (we see you Mark E. Smith, Jello Biafra, et al) is ruled out. As are the scolds, like Ian MacKaye and, again, Biafra. The musical equivalents of those “get off my lawn” guys.

The man who wrote “Stagger Lee” about crawling across good pussy to get to one fat boy’s asshole and then made a video that he sashayed through? Cave.

But get older and, by some measure, wiser? If you can think of someone please let me know because I can’t. So Cave is venturing into territory where there’s no reliable road map. Elvis (and Lux Interior) died when he was way younger than Cave is now. Elvis, like Lux, was also an American. And those that might have been but weren’t on account of other early deaths? Well, they weren’t.

So as you cast around looking for those role modeling what and how a musician who is a man ages well into a future of substance Cave, by virtue of more than his age, is the only name that’s appearing. The man who wrote “Stagger Lee” about crawling across good pussy to get to one fat boy’s asshole and then made a video that he sashayed through? Cave.

And whose first words to Roland Howard were to quiz him about his sexuality and then offer to punch him in the face? Cave again. As was the man who fathered two different sons with two different women at the same time.

And being friends with a Brighton resident whose kids went to the same school as Cave’s kids this gem: there was a Dad race at the school to raise money, or awareness, for some cause or another. Cave had signed on to participate. On the day of the race my friend told me that she was eager to see Cave in running shorts and shoes. It seemed so counter and even a skosh undignified, that it was not to be missed.

So when Cave showed up in a suit, she figured it was off. But when Cave stepped out to the starting line with the other Dads, most of whom were kitted out in expensive running shoes, Cave took his place among them. He was smoking a cigarette and on the starter gun’s call to get ready, set, GO, all of the Dads took off leaving Cave behind.

Cave walked across the finish line well after every one else. Dabbed out his cigarette and entered the history books as the man we all want to grow up to be. Sans the Dad jokes (and cigarettes) which, to my knowledge, he’s not let fly. At least not yet.

So why this, why Cave and why now? Well, OXBOW goes on tour with Mr. Bungle this June and it’s been on my mind. This, my desire to avoid becoming Fat Elvis, and doing music that’s commensurate with my actual inner life.

Critics haven’t always understood the changes that were wrought in OXBOW’s oeuvre when we slowed it down on Love’s Holiday but the math is simple: lyrics that answer the dictates of your soul, can’t often be reduced to a 1-2-3-4 genre of any kind. There’s nuance, sublime nuance, and authenticity, so for those looking for genre pieces (noise rock, post-punk) they’ve failed to understand in this journey we’re not explaining and not apologizing. And, if our luck holds out, still strolling across the finish line while looking fabulous doing so.

Is it, as Tony Montana claims, hard to be a man-g? Well, isn’t it supposed to be? Our goal, as in all other things, is to make it look easy. So get to work, stop complaining, and hope for the best.

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OXBOW will be at Caterwaul Festival in Minneapolis on May 25, 2024. Be there.

OK…So you have ordered the memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, from Amazon…Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here?

Might you consider giving it a review in either of those places?

I’ve been told it matters, somehow. So please: review away! Unless you think it sucks. Then, maybe, just keep that part to yourself. At last count there were 57 reviews…so yeah…GET AT IT!!! Every one helps. Or so they tell me.

AND if you want to come to see OXBOW in the US, very possibly for the only time remaining in 2024, please plan on coming to Caterwaul. You won’t regret it.

Maybe.