{"id":1576,"date":"2008-07-21T09:34:59","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T13:34:59","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-07-21T09:34:59","modified_gmt":"2008-07-21T09:34:59","slug":"artists-who-learned-to-have-some-fun-alr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-who-learned-to-have-some-fun-alr\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Cave and Other Artists Who&#8217;ve Learned to Have Some Fun, Already"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S0HJfjWWLPs?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nDo you ever notice when a once-<strong>deadly serious artist<\/strong> suddenly (or slowly) emerges with a sense of fun in his or her work? Maybe it was always there and you didn&#8217;t notice it, or maybe the artist actually evolved. One artist, in particular, surprised me in this way.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\nWhen Nick Cave first hit the rock scene with <strong>The Birthday Party<\/strong> did he project anything but doom, gloom, and junkie rage?<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KvlS4BwTUQw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Beside being tuneless crap to my ears, it was too much heavy for this guy. I quickly left The Birthday Party in the dust during my early &#8217;80s record collection boom<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t think of Cave much except for his Jim Morrison-style poetry scenes in <em>Wings of Desire<\/em>. Ugh!<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pfT_8uym8VI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\nThen, in late 1993 or early 1994, I saw the following <strong>Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds<\/strong> video for the first time:<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lOiUPl5GjTE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I was mightily amused. Over the next few months, I looked forward to catching this video on MTV Europe, where I was stationed at the time. Each time I watched it I laughed. I was never sure if I was supposed to laugh or not, but it was much more enjoyable than anything I&#8217;d recalled from The Birthday Party, when I first spun their records at my college radio station in 1981.<\/p>\n<p>Cave also showed a sense of humor acting in <em>Johnny Suede<\/em>, which I saw in the early &#8217;90s. Since that time I&#8217;ve read interviews with Cave, and he seems like a good egg, like a guy who knows what&#8217;s going on in his life, like a guy with a sense of humor. Now when I see a new Nick Cave video and laugh, I&#8217;m pretty sure that&#8217;s what he wants me to do. Right?<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7kV5XkBQsKU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>What other formerly humorless artists have come around to the notion that rock &#8216;n roll can be fun?<\/em><\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-who-learned-to-have-some-fun-alr\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-who-learned-to-have-some-fun-alr\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/artists-who-learned-to-have-some-fun-alr\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you ever notice when a once-deadly serious artist suddenly (or slowly) emerges with a sense of fun in his or her work? Maybe it was always there and you didn&#8217;t notice it, or maybe the artist actually evolved. One artist, in particular, surprised me in this way. Pages: 1 2 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}