I do not know if this fits in to be a Berlin portrait because Mick is all over the place, but it was taken in Berlin. I was in Berlin filming interviews for Richard Lowenstein´s documentary about Rowland S. Howard and at the same time I was completing the filming of my documentary about the band Fatal Shore. I met with Mick Harvey to film an interview with him for the Fatal Shore documentary, which is kind of interesting how these two projects crossed over each other because of Mick´s history with Rowland S. Howard. It was more than nice that Mick made the time to meet with me considering that he arrived in Berlin on Friday night, had to work on a film early Saturday afternoon, met me for an hour at about 4PM and then had to be at the airport to fly back to London at 7PM to work with PJ Harvey on her new album. We managed to do the interview properly with the help of Chis Hughes interviewing and the use of Christoph Dreher´s balcony overlooking Berlin. We even rushed through some photographs and this is one of them. I certainly appreciate Mick for taking the time to do all this and it was a true pleasure to meet Mick in person finally. He is someone I consider a legend and a major influence.
Mick Harvey is a musician that I have always respected. I grew up on the legendary Australian band The Birthday Party and I remember ages ago in New York at Danceteria watching and listening to the screeching guitar of Rowland S. Howard, Nick Cave screaming into the mic and there was Mick Harvey playing guitar. Mick´s guitar playing reminded me of James Williamson of The Stooges somewhat, but he had a unique style of his own. I have always thought that The Birthday Party were the logical heir of Iggy and The Stooges. My opinion anyway. If you click on all of the highlighted names you can find out much more information about the bands and the people involved. I am only here to give my perspective. After the breakup of The Birthday Party, Mick moved on from guitar to drums and reformed with his friend Simon Bonney the Australian band "Crime and the City Solution" and then finally with Nick Cave formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The rest is history pretty much after that. Mick went on to do many solo projects which I personally love. He did these amazing two solo CD's of Serge Gainsbourg songs, translated from French into English: Intoxicated Man and Pink Elephants.He has gone on to work with PJ Harvey and has produced the musicians Anita Lane, Robert Forster, Conway Savage and Rowland S. Howard. Mick produced and played drums on Rowland S. Howard´s last album "Pop Crimes". For the last 3 years Mick has been focusing on his solo career putting out two really good albums "One Man´s Treasure" and "Two of Diamonds". Mick is presently in the process of co-producing and playing on the new PJ Harvey album. I have been listening a lot to his song "Out Of Time Man" which is featured in the TV series "Breaking Bad". I can´t stop listening to it. A brilliant song and to be honest it is a song that really captures my state of mind these days. I can´t heap enough praise on Mick. Any kind words will never be enough to match his talent. Please, to find out further information about Mick and what he is doing please go to his website or click on his name. All names and bands highlighted take you to their respected sites: http://www.mickharvey.com