The Birthday Party (band)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 The Birthday Party, circa 1979
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| Background information | ||
| Origin | Melbourne, Australia | |
| Genre(s) | Post Punk Art Rock Gothic Rock Gothabilly |
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| Years active | 1977–1983 | |
| Label(s) | Shock Records | |
| Associated acts |
The Boys Next Door Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds |
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| Website | http://www.thebirthdayparty.com.au/ | |
| Members | ||
| Nick Cave Mick Harvey Tracey Pew Barry Adamson Rowland S. Howard |
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The Birthday Party was an Australian post punk rock group, active from 1977 to 1983.
Despite being championed by John Peel, the Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career. They've been called one of "the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s." [1] Though often indirect, their influence has been far-reaching.
While their early music was sometimes classified as gothic rock, the band disdained the term, and their sound was very different from most goth music, closer to No Wave at the time. However, the Birthday Party did have an influence on deathrock, a genre of music related to gothic rock.
Despite their limited success, the creative core of the Birthday Party have gone on to acclaimed careers: singer and songwriter Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and singer, songwriter and guitarist Rowland S. Howard.
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[edit] The Boys Next Door
The nucleus of the band first met at the private boys school Caulfield Grammar School (in suburban Melbourne) in the early seventies. A rock group was formed in 1973 with Nick Cave (vocals), Mick Harvey (guitar), and Phill Calvert (drums), with other students on guitar, bass and saxophone. Most were also members of the school choir. The band played under various names at parties and school functions with a mixed pre-punk repertoire of Lou Reed, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Alice Cooper and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, among others.
After their final school year in 1975 the band decided to continue with friend Tracy Pew picking up the bass. Greatly affected by the punk explosion of 1976 which saw Australian bands The Saints and Radio Birdman making their first recordings and tours, The Boys Next Door, as they were now called, began performing fast original New Wave material in 1977.
Rowland S. Howard joined in 1978, and about this time, the group's sound changed dramatically. The addition of Howard's guitar was certainly a catalyst (his later use of audio feedback being a hallmark of the group) but there were other changes, as well: their sound drew upon punk, rockabilly, free jazz and the rawest blues, but transcended concise categorisation. Many songs were driven by prominent, repetitive basslines and drumwork that sounded like an angry Gene Krupa. Though the band was tightly rehearsed, the instrumentalists often sounded as if they were on the verge of collapse, this quality only emphasising the newfound mania of Cave's singing, and his expressionist lyrics. In producer/engineer Tony Cohen they found a willing accomplice to their experimentation and their refusal to repeat themselves; and in manager Keith Glass they found an enthusiastic financial backer. Glass' label Missing Link Records released all of the early Birthday Party records.
[edit] London and beyond
After recordings and moderate success in Australia (including hundreds of live shows) they headed for London in 1980, changing their name to the Birthday Party and launching into a period of innovative and aggressive music-making. They resided in London, with trips back to Australia and tours through Europe and the U.S. before relocating to West Berlin in 1982.
Above the barely-controlled racket, Cave's vocals ranged from desperate to simply menacing and demented. Critics have written that "neither John Cale nor Alfred Hitchcock was ever this scary." [2]), and that Cave "doesn't so much sing his vocals as expel them from his gut"[3]. Though Cave drew on earlier rock and roll shriekers; especially Iggy Pop and Suicide's Alan Vega, his singing with the Birthday Party remains powerful and distinct.
Calvert was ejected in 1982; he was reportedly "unable to nail down the beats for 'Dead Joe' to everyone's satisfaction" [4], and Harvey moved to drums. When Pew was jailed for drunk driving and petty theft also in 1982, Barry Adamson and several others replaced him on records or live appearances. He rejoined the band, but died some years later during an epileptic fit.
In 1982 a spin-off group with Lydia Lunch, Honeymoon In Red, recorded an album which was eventually released in 1987. Harvey and Cave were reportedly so unhappy with the mixing and overdubbing done after their involvement, that they requested their names be withheld from its liner notes. Howard and Pew apparently had no objections to being credited by name.
In 1983 Blixa Bargeld from the German band Einstürzende Neubauten played guitar on some Birthday Party recordings, effectively replacing Howard, as tension between Cave and Howard came to a head. The Birthday Party disbanded in 1984, due in part to the split between Cave and Howard, and drug-related exhaustion.
[edit] Legacy and influence
Several groups rose from the Birthday Party's ashes: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (featuring Cave, Harvey and Bargeld), Crime and the City Solution (featuring Harvey and Howard, later just Harvey) and These Immortal Souls (featuring Howard). All of these bands shared a similar aesthetic, though perhaps they showed unequal deftness in expressing it.
Due in part to their legendary status and to the continuing success of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Birthday Party's back catalogue has been re-released on CD several times. In recent years Mick Harvey has overseen releases of rare or previously unissued recordings.
Rock acts that have cited The Birthday Party as an influence include Coil, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, AFI, Big Boys (band), Dinosaur Jr., Tindersticks and The Devastations.
U.S. Indie label 31G Records has released a tribute album to The Birthday Party called Release the Bats.
[edit] Trivia
- Some sources say the band took its name from the Harold Pinter play The Birthday Party. [5], others say it was prompted by Cave mis-remembering a party scene in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
- Door Door, as "Boys Next Door" (LP, 1979)
- Hee Haw (EP), as "Boys Next Door" (EP, 1979)
- The Birthday Party/Boys Next Door:The Birthday Party/Boys Next Door (album with diff track listing)(MISSING LINK w/l rubber stamp catalog number MA 12 243)(LP 1980)
- The Birthday Party/Boys Next Door (LP, 1980) - later released on CD with the band's early recordings, under the title Hee Haw EP
- Prayers on Fire (LP, 1981)
- Junkyard (LP, 1982)
- It's Still Living (LP, 1985)
- Best and Rarest (LP, 1985)
- Hee Haw (full-length LP) (1988)
- Mutiny/The Bad Seed (CD, 1989)
- Hits (CD, 1992)
- Live 1981–82 (CD, 1999)
- Peel Sessions (CD)
- Pleasure Heads Must Burn (DVD, 2003)
[edit] Singles and EPs
- "These Boots Are Made For Walking" as "Boys Next Door" (7" single, 1978)
- "Shivers" as "Boys Next Door" (7" single, 1978)
- "Hee Haw" as "Boys Next Door" (EP, 1979)
- "Mr Clarinet/Happy Birthday" (7" single, 1980)
- "Nick the Stripper/Blundertown/Kathys Kisses" (12" single, 1981)
- "Nick the Stripper/Blundertown" (7" single, 1981/82)
- "Release the Bats/Blast Off" (7" single, 1981)
- "Mr Clarinet/Happy Birthday" (7" single, 1981)
- "Drunk on the Pope's Blood/The Agony Is The Ecstacy" with Lydia Lunch (12" EP, 1982)
- "Dead Joe" (7" flexidisc, 1982)
- "The Bad Seed" (12" EP, 1983)
- "The Birthday Party" (12" EP, 1983)
- "Mutiny! "(12" EP, 1983)
- "The Peel Sessions" (12" EP, 1987)
- "The Peel Sessions" (12" EP, 1988)
[edit] Further reading
- Inner City Sound, Clinton Walker (2005)
- Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991, Clinton Walker
- Bad Seed: A biography of Nick Cave, Ian Johnstone (1996) ISBN 0349107785
- The Birthday Party & other epic adventures, Robert Brokenmouth (1995)
- The life and music of Nick Cave: An illustrated biography, Maximilian Dax & Johannes Beck (1999) ISBN 3-931126-27-7
- Kicking Against the Pricks: An Armchair Guide to Nick Cave, Amy Hanson (2005), ISBN 1-900924-96-X
[edit] External links
- The Birthday Party Official Site
- From The Archives: a site with discography, concert history, videography, bibliography, etc. Also features Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten and related artists.
- Article on The Birthday Party from HowlSpace
- The Birthday Party discography from Nick Cave Online
