This Experience May Depend on Your Definition of “Fun”

Re: the question from today’s class (“Does Nick Cave have a sense of humor?”), I present to you the music video for “Nick the Stripper,” a 1981 song recorded by the band that he led at the time, The Birthday Party. I feel pretty certain that no one who had a hand in creating this video could possibly not have a sense of humor. (Fun fact: the clip was edited by John Hillcoat, who later went on to direct the films Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, The Proposition, The Road and Lawless, all of which are connected to Nick Cave by the screenplays, the scores/soundtracks, acting roles or – in the case of the first film – all three.) “Nick the Stripper” is 100% absurd, the title indicating How to Poke Fun at Yourself and Your Purported Goth Image 101. Had I just a little more chutzpah I would find an excuse to show this in school, gleefully terrifying my fellow students with this nightmarish (and in all likelihood, heroin-soaked) vision of London set ablaze by wayward Australians, but instead I’ll settle for terrifying you as you watch from the comfort of your home or perhaps elsewhere in public, wherever you happen to be with your viewing apparatus.

Should you find yourself wondering, “What other bizarre music did this weird band make and why haven’t I heard it yet?” I can point you in the direction of “Junkyard,” which will certainly be one of the most entertainingly strange (and possibly excruciating) TV-show performances you’re likely to see (from anyone, in general), and “Fears of Gun,” from a concert filmed not long before the band imploded in 1983 and during which, to the delight of the audience members pawing at him, Nick Cave is dragged partway off the stage and he sinks backward into the crowd. This results in a) Cave rejecting the assistance of a bunch of roadies and b) the other members of the band not actually attempting to help in any way. You may notice the sound of Rowland S. Howard’s guitar fading out briefly during the incident but the playing eventually resumes, a reminder that the show must go on, even after the frontman has potentially lost control of his senses and/or judgment.