Мне всегда казалось, что писать о музыке как следует сможешь только если ничего не боишься. Поэтому по-настоящему хорошо у меня получалось очень редко или никогда. Текст Ника Кейва о группе Einstürzende Neubauten из книжки "King Ink".
Only fearless, reckless and ones full of love are good in writing about music. Thistles in the soul essay by Nick Cave.
The first time I saw EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN was on Dutch TV. It was the year 1982. The group I had back then - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY - was doing a string of concerts in Holland, and it was toward the end of the tour - we were all near the brick of death. I was just making my way down the stairs of our humble but obliging hotel when an eerie, hypnotic sound came floating from the TV room, insidiously seductive, irresistably sad. To these baleful strains I found myself drawn, and as I stepped into the TV room all the notions of music that I held so precious were obliterated - in toto - by what I saw upon the screen.
There was a young man, wearing thick glasses, blowing into a bent drainpipe. Later I was informed that the name was Alexander von Borsig. The name of the young man, that is - not the drainpipe. The drainpipe was called the "Thirsty Animal". Thanks to the typically unorthodox, if not downright primitive Dutch camera-work, we were make to watch the manic von Borsig without interruption for all of five or six minutes, seeing his naturally pale teutonic complexion deepen with the passing seconds to that of a ripe plum. How lonely the cry of the Thirsty Animal seemed, its weird pule hanging in the air like a wheezing, dying siren, I remember von Borsig's face turn the exact colour of the red stockings worn by Heidi, the hotel maid. Hello.
