Then again, the two young ladies who make their presence felt during the Australian dark lord’s readings from his just published novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, clearly beg to differ. Although they only get vocal when the main character gets punched out by a chick who’s a black belt in tae kwon do, and when a male praying mantis gets his

head bitten off by his female partner. In truth, this promotional tour to tie in with the novel’s publication reveals Cave as the ultimate renaissance man.

Accompanied by fellow Bad Seeds Martyn P Casey on bass and Warren Ellis on fiddle, drums and everything else, Cave gangles between piano, microphone and a comfy chair from which he reads four excerpts from the novel. Following archive documentary film footage which chirpily homages the loneliness of the long distance door to door salesman, Cave sets the tone with the book’s opening passages, in

which “sexually incontinent” beauty products operative Bunny cruises through the streets of Brighton eyeing up potential sales with a baroque bump and grind absurdity.

In between sparse and lovely arrangements of a back catalogue dating as far back as the dirty blues of 1985’s Tupelo, Cave proves himself a dry-as-bones raconteur. He takes questions from the floor, apologises to the moustache-clad acolytes on the front row for shaving off his own facial hair and even draws a picture of a sheep. Incoming Edinburgh International Book Festival director Nick Barley should take note. This is the sort of rock’n’roll literary event the August jamboree is crying out for.

Nick Cave

HMV Picture House

Edinburgh

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