Grinderman

In the spring of 2007, Grinderman’s debut album turned up in record stores. Behind this name are four musicians ordinarily found in Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. On vocals, guitar, and keys we have the duke of dark and dismal rock, Nick Cave. Together with Bad Seeds members Warren Ellis (also a member of Dirty Three) on violin and guitar, Martin P. Casey on bass, and drummer Jim Sclavunos, he makes a rock’n’roll racket noisier than anything to come out of the Cave camp in a great many years. Grinderman continues the madness and brutality of The Birthday Party and the early Bad Seeds albums. Nick Cave & co. spit out blues-sprinkled and angry rock with sassy lyrics on tracks like “Get It On”, “No Pussy Blues”, and “Love Bomb”. This is ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, ‘The Shining’, dingy whorehouses, and wild whisky benders all neatly wrapped in one package.
In Grinderman, Cave has strapped on a guitar for the occasion and prefers it as a companion when writing songs. Therefore, Grinderman’s material is a lot more aggressive than Cave’s piano-driven ballads from the past fifteen years. Several of the songs have come to life through improvisation and thereby gotten a wonderfully unpolished sound. This is the sound of dank basements, dusty garages, and fervent, suit-clad gentlemen playing rock with a punk attitude few can match. The involvement in Grinderman has also rubbed off on the latest Bad Seeds release, ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’. Nick Cave has revealed that he wants to record the second Grinderman album towards the end of 2008. If it turns out anywhere near as potent as the debut album, it will be yet another mandatory part of your record collection.
So far, Grinderman has played a few gigs in the US (with The White Stripes) and in Australia. Now they’re ready for Oslo and the Medieval Park. On Wednesday Aug. 6, this rock monster will climb onto our biggest stage and grind to pieces any notions that they’re stuck on the ballad track.

www.grinderman.com
www.myspace.com/grinderman