RIP Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey, former lead singer of Australian punk band The Saints passed away this April. I have to admit my knowledge of the Saints doesn’t go much past the classic single “I’m Stranded” But I was aware of the band. A friend with more knowledge than me encouraged me to pick up some Ed Kuepper discs from the cutouts in the 90s. I saw Bailey open for Nick Cave. Bailey had appeared on Nocturama and I’m sure Cave was paying tribute and homage to Bailey by including him on the song "Bring It On" and the tour which Bailey opened and joined for the song. Nocturama by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds is an unloved record. Released in the Web 2.0 days, the reviews are well documented and most of the regular players hated it. Allmusic gave it 2.5 stars out of 5. I remember being disappointed on first listen. Cave, known for his dramatic lyrics and themes, seems to be trying to be extremely accessible and simple. Over the years, I actually like Nocturama quite a bit. A Cave album I might be more likely to pick up for a listen than more critically acclaimed Cave records. “Bring it On” is a tour de force. Cave always had great duets with women, but I felt his male duets (Blixa Bargeld, Shane MacGowan) sometimes don’t reach those peaks. The video for Bring it On is over the top like a rap video, made for Web2.0 services like Yahoo Music and others that were filling the MTV void. Naively, one can almost imagine the song on radio, but even released in the golden age of White Stripes, Radiohead, the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs et al, Nick was always going to be too weird for that. (One of the paradoxes of the current music businesses is songs break through other ways than radio. Via Peaky Blinders, Cave songs have got tens of millions of views on streaming music services and YouTube. By any definition, that is a hit) But it is still one of my all time favorites. Bailey and Cave have so much swagger between them, that the result is a powerhouse (and on record, as it builds, to (presumably) Blixa’s piercing scream) I also recently read Heylin’s “From the Velvets to the Voidoids” which documents NYC punk but gets the fact (and a quick glance at Wikipedia) that Australia was already head of the game before “Ramones” was released. The Saints formed in 1973 and “I’m Stranded” released in September of 1976 predates any releases by the Damned, Buzzcocks, Clash or Sex Pistols.