Nick Cave pays tribute to The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart
nme.comNick Cave has paid tribute to The Pop Group‘s frontman Mark Stewart.The pop-punk pioneer’s passing was announced on April 21, with The Pop Group honouring the 62-year-old icon by saying: “Mark is in Communion with Love.
As Sufis say; there is no such thing as death, no one is going to die, but since death is so valuable, it has been hidden in the safe of fears.”Following his passing, Bad Seeds frontman Cave took to his Red Hand Files newsletter to share the impact that Stewart and The Pop Group have had on his career when he first moved to the UK with his early band The Birthday Party.“When The Birthday Party moved from Australia to the UK in 1989, it was partly because of The Pop Group,” he shared. “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.“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.Cave added: “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.
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