Nick Cave pays tribute to The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart
Nick Cave has offered up his respects to Mark Stewart, the late frontman of The Pop Group. The passing of the post-punk figure was announced on April 21st, and the singer of The Bad Seeds has now taken to his Red Hand Files newsletter to pay tribute to Stewart and discuss his impact and legacy.
“When The Birthday Party moved from Australia to the UK in 1989, it was partly because of The Pop Group,” Cave wrote. “We truly loved them, were mystified by them, playing their strange, utterly unique music non-stop, barely able to comprehend what it was we were actually listening to.”
He continued, “One night we finally had the chance to see The Pop Group (in Brixton, I think) and, you know when bands walk on to stage and make a show of tuning their guitars and adjusting their drum stools and rearranging their crotches and stuff?, well, The Pop Group would have none of that.”
Going on to discuss that fateful night, Cave added, “I remember waiting in the darkened venue for them to come on, bummed out about England, listening to some ambient music wafting out of the speakers, when suddenly and without warning The Pop Group strode onto stage and ploughed into the opening song with such indomitable force and such sudden visceral rage that I could barely breathe.”
“It was the most exciting and ferocious concert of my young life – everything changed at that moment and we, as a fledgling band, knew then what we needed to do,” Cave wrote. “I think The Birthday Party truly became The Birthday Party that night – more musically adventurous, more anarchic, more confronting, more dangerous.”
Read the full tribute passage here.
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