Blogging on Meds

(Left, Evan Mann caught Cave and the Bad Seeds in NYC a few weeks ago. Right, nice pony.)

Two aging musicians—both age 50—weighed in on the state of New York City. One’s an Aussie cult rocker/decent novelist/screenwriter/ex-junky. The other, a pop singer/bad actress who fakes a British accent and dates an one hit UK-caper director. Here’s what each said…

Nick Cave in NYmag:

Were you here then?
I was around in New York from the early eighties. I’ve lived here on and off. I lived in Chinatown for six months, with a political journalist who was also a junkie. He had the money, and it was my job to go and score for him. It was a special time.

Don’t you think it’s overromanticized?
No, actually. The city was so powerful. You could see the neurosis of the population in a way that you didn’t really see in cities in other parts of the world. In many ways, New York City is the one city that never disappointed me back then.

How were the drugs?
Not particularly good. The scoring experience was slightly extreme, but the drugs were not good—in America in general.

Don’t you find New York a letdown now?
Not at all. When you live in England, you see the corporateness of cities. It’s supposedly an American thing, and actually it’s not. It’s a European thing. On the English High Street, there are no small businesses at all. In New York, there still are. You can still eat in a family restaurant—it’s still very much got its character. There’s some idea that it’s cleaned up, which of course it has, but it’s still kind of deranged. You walk around the streets—it’s a completely different kind of ill. There’s nothing like it. The concept of humanity has gone to some other level.

Madge in VF:

“It’s not the exciting place it used to be. It still has great energy; I still put my finger in the socket. But it doesn’t feel alive, cracking with that synergy between the art world and music world and fashion world that was happening in the 80s. A lot of people died.”

So who’s right and who’s wrong? Let’s see. New York is on the verge of economic collapse, at the tail end of the largest commercial and residential building boom in decades (unlike the 80s, developers used great architects this time), the art market is at an all time high, more live music is played in our clubs (and subways) than ever before, the murder rate is up 30% on last year, Mayor Bloomberg just fired 1000 cops, the Governor just lost his job for fucking a club-slut/hooker, our female Senator is running for President, and Basquiat sucked compared to Kehinde Wiley. Fashion, art, and music will be one on Thursday when Kayne, Murakami, and LVMH synergize the BK Museum. You can still get heroin in Chinatown and Nick Cave, who never made a Pepsi commercial, still likes it here.

You lose, Cone Tits!!! Someone doesn’t “get” the level of humanity New York has gone to. Vogue your ass back to boring London. PS: The 80s—the most overrated decade—suck.

More of Evan Mann’s picks of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Terminal 5.