All too often, cover nights are the domain of either overreaching distortions or unoriginal, note-for-note versions of somebody else’s music. On rare occasion, however, a cover night comes along that pledges to do actual justice to the original songs.
    In keeping with its mandate to promote the unusual and unexpected, RAMP – a concert series held on the first Thursday of every month at Broken City – will be hosting such an event in honor of the one and only Nick Cave. The event will feature performances from three local acts: The Brenda Vaqueros, Lucid 44 and newcomers Una Corda (the Summerlad’s Garrett McClure and Woodpigeon’s Annalea Sordi). Each will be representing a different part of Nick Cave’s discography.
    “The cool thing about Nick Cave is that he has such variety in his musical approaches, so you can have acts as diverse as Una Corda and The Brenda Vaqueros do covers of his stuff and not have any of it fall into novelty conceptualization,” says RAMP organizer Arran Fisher. “People get tempted to think of things like, ‘Wouldn't it be cool to do Leonard Cohen covers, but in an emo style?’ No, that's not cool. That's kitsch, which we're not really into over here at RAMP.”
    Clearly, the name of the event was carefully chosen. “The Nick Cave Appreciation Night is just that,” Fisher says. “We're not making it ironic at all, we're trying to give his songs and approach justice. Luckily for us, Cave himself has a great sense of irony, so it's not all about seriousness either.”
    Making his second appearance as part of the RAMP series will be Lucid 44, a.k.a. Markus Overland. Joining Overland for the night will be Jzero Shuurman of Psychic Pollution fame.
    Cave’s influence on Overland is clear. In the late ’80’s and early ’90’s — some his formative years as a music lover and musician — Overland would make mix tapes of Nick Cave’s music by recording his songs off of the radio late at night. “I forever will love the sad ballad,” Overland says. “Hence Lucid 44.”
    Several years ago, Overland took a solo road trip to Seattle to see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live. The experience was the pinnacle of his longtime Nick Cave fandom. “I lost my lunch,” Overland says of the show. “I would hope I could harness some of that energy and dance like him, maybe flail my hands in the air.”
    Flailing hands or not, the event is certain to please Nick Cave fans and followers of the local scene alike. Overland’s performance will feature select ballads from “No More Shall We Part” and “The Boatman’s Call,” plus passages from Cave’s 1989 novel “And The Ass Saw The Angel.”
    The Nick Cave Appreciation Night — the twelfth installment of the RAMP series — takes place August 2 at Broken City.