Nick Cave paid tribute to his friend and occasional collaborator, Mark Lanegan, in his Red Hand Files newsletter. Lanegan, who fronted Screaming Trees before embarking on a solo career, died Tuesday at the age of 57.
“I encountered Mark many times over the years — we engaged in some extremely dubious escapades back in the Nineties; he sang ‘White Light/White Heat’ and ‘Fire and Brimstone’ with Warren [Ellis] and me on the Lawless soundtrack; he recorded my favorite ever Nick Cave cover — an astonishing version of ‘Brompton Oratory’; we did something together for the Jeffrey Lee Pierce record, I think; and he toured and hung out with us on the Bad Seeds’ 2013 Australian tour,” Cave wrote.
With Lanegan, the feeling was mutual. In his 2020 memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep, he describe Cave’s music as one of his biggest inspirations. “I’d been a huge fan of Nick Cave for years,” Lanegan wrote. “I felt a deep connection to his music, and he and the Bad Seeds had been a central influence on the solo records I’d been toiling away at for some years now.”
Cave continued his tribute by praising the way Lanegan duetted with him on one of the Bad Seeds’ classic songs on the 2013 Australian tour. “Go online and watch Mark sing Blixa [Bargeld’s] ‘father’ part with me in ‘The Weeping Song’ on that tour,” Cave wrote. “As a frontman, I move around a lot on stage, I can’t help it, it is a habitual nervous thing, a kind of neurotic compensation for a voice I have never felt that comfortable with. But watch Mark, watch how he walks onto the stage, plants himself at the mic stand, one tattooed fist halfway down the stand, the other resting on top of the mic, immobile, massive, male. When the time comes to sing, he simply opens his mouth and releases a blues, a blues lived deeply and utterly earned, and that voice tears right through you, his sheer force on stage absolutely humbling. A greatness, Mark, a greatness — a true singer, a superb writer and beautiful soul, loved by all.”
A few days after Lanegan’s death, drummer Barrett Martin also paid his respects on Instagram. Martin joined Screaming Trees in time to record their Sweet Oblivion album, which contained the group’s breakthrough hit, “Nearly Lost You,” as well as its 1996 follow-up Dust. He was also a member of Mad Season, the supergroup that featured Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready; Lanegan co-wrote and performed on two songs from their only album, 1995’s Above.
“Mark was full of contradictions to be sure, but how else could he be, when he was destined to sing the blues?” Martin wrote. “Only those who understand the darkness of humanity can also sing about its light, and Mark could sing both, superbly. Because of that contradiction, we [in Screaming Trees] understood Mark in a way that only a literal band of brothers can understand, because we saw it all, firsthand, together, in those decades on the road and in the studio.
“Mark had a voice for the ages, truly one of the great American vocalists of all time,” he continued. “Critics often claimed that his voice came from whiskey drinking, but Mark sang like that when he was young and sober, an ancient voice transplanted inside a young man’s body. By the way, we never saw Mark touch a drop of whiskey — gin & tonic was his preferred drink, and a lot of cigarettes.”
Martin went on to write that after Screaming Trees broke up in 2000, the band joked that its members could finally become friends and that they kept in touch occasionally. When Lanegan published Sing Backwards and Weep — which contains several brutal passages about his Trees bandmates — Martin wrote that it took some time to make sense of it. “After the initial shock wore off, we all made peace and laughed at Mark’s wry sense of humor and great storytelling style,” he wrote. “Mark had the ability to tell the most horrific of stories, yet have you chuckling out loud as he spun the yarn to its conclusion. He had that sharp wit that all great writers have, because he also had a keen view into the hearts of people – and he showed us the full spectrum of humanity.”
Lanegan’s frequent collaborator, Isobel Campbell, also remembered Lanegan fondly in an essay for The Guardian. Between 2006 and 2010, Lanegan and the former Belle and Sebastian member recorded three albums together. “People said we were beauty and the beast,” she wrote. “Yet I witnessed your beauty and I could frequently inhabit beast. Light and dark. Angel and devil. Of our records, you said you were ‘happy for me to do the heavy lifting.’ Yet you brought my songs to life.”
Earlier this week, Eddie Vedder also paid tribute to Lanegan at one of his solo concerts, in Seattle. “There are a lot of really great musicians, some people know Seattle because of the musicians that have come out of the great Northwest,” he told the audience. “Some of those guys were one-of-a-kind singers. Mark was certainly that and with such a strong voice.”
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Lil Yachty usually does a great job at feeding his fans new music. It seems like every other week he's got new snippets to tease or loosies dropping on DSPS whenever he feels like it. Just several hours ago, the Georgia multi-hyphenate hopped on over to his SoundCloud page, tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem, to share some long-lost recordings.
Per HipHopNMore, there's 11 in total and the origins of them range from 2022-2025. Some of you may remember that Lil Yachty updated this account almost a year ago with 14 tracks. Back then he unleased some unheard collaborations with his 2016 XXL Freshman classmate 21 Savage and singer Vory.
In the time since then, Yachty did drop off a pair of freestyles as well. But this is the latest major collection to be added to tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem.
Overall, the cuts here feel reminiscent of his earlier material in that they are more trap focused. However, the main some extra charm with most of the beats featuring some slightly left-field quirks.
They definitely don't relate at all to what Lil Boat has been experimenting with solo catalog wise. His 2023 album Let's Start Here. was a psychedelic rock exploration. Then, there's his 2024 collaboration joint with James Blake, Bad Cameo.
On that, Lil Yachty stepped into the London artist's soundscape in some ways by bringing his warbly singing voice to neo-soul, alternative R&B, and ambient pop.
But unfortunately for the 27-year-old, him sharing of all of this music with his fans has been interrupted to some degree. That's because Yachty is still going back and forth with former Concrete Boys group mate, KARRAHBOOO.
Her initial split from Boat's collective was a shocking development when it originally happened about a year ago. However, as the two rappers repeatedly went at each other's throats, we began to learn more. Yachty was claiming that KARRAHBOOO was incredibly disrespectful to those involved with the group.
Moreover, it led to him claiming that he was writing all of her verses and tracks. KARRAHBOOO has since retaliated, of course, but she really went after him recently. Just two weeks ago, she alleged that he mistreats women poorly overall. "U have a daughter and u treating women like this is mindblowing like I know u never see her but still that doesn’t make sense how evil this man is to women (not just me)," she said in part.
