The Birthday Party – Junkyard + Bonus 7"

What do you get when you cross drunk junkies, sleazy scumbags, violent jazz, and a vampire? Well, my answer would be The Birthday Party.
Starting off with "Blast off", this record lets you know what you are getting yourself into. Loud, scratchy, off-kilter rhythms that bleed into your skull. One thing you will notice is there are two guitarists and they both love tinny, trebly, and glassy tones. Sometimes it sounds like neither guitarist has heard the same song they are playing before. There are a lot of riffs that sound like rockabilly from hell. Fucked up exercises in noise and dark slinking lines from some Middle Eastern purgatory. Some of the most disgusting and rebellious music is played on Junkyard. "Big Jesus Trash Can" is a perfect example of how to play some violent and mean jazz. With the drummer swinging on the ride and off-key horns swirl around drunken rambling, while hideous riffs fill up the cracks with noise, it's easy to see that the Birthday Party were really just doing their own thing. "The Dim Locator" is another stretch of the imagination of how far and fucked up you can take jazz. The rhythm section isn't necessarily jazz-like in the traditional approach. Many of the bass lines are simple and heavy, with emphasis on establishing the basic structure of the song. The drums follow along nicely with unique fills and many tom-based beats and syncopated hits. The drummer has a signature style on this album where he just SMASHES the crash and snare so hard at times it sounds like a gunshot or a curb stomp or something. Listen to the seemingly random SMASHES on "She's Hit" for a good example. He absolutely crushes the snare hits into absurdity. This aggressive way of playing complements the simple distorted bass very well.
We've already talked briefly about the guitarists and all their brittle annoying glory but this shouldn't be glossed over. Many of the riffs sound structure less and made up the night before the recording. However, the more you listen to this record their brilliance shines through. Creativity is in no short supply with these weirdos. And you got to think about how hard it would be to write guitar in a band like this. That's a testament to this record. The personality and character that each member brings is beautiful. Everyone brings their everything and bares it all.
Now, you can't talk about this band without mentioning the singer. Nick Cave needs no introduction, but it must be stated that this is one of his most memorable and brutal performances in his whole career. He's always written lyrics with imagery and violence and this record is not different. He squawks, shrieks, screams and hollers tales of death and despair. Cave sounds like a man possessed on this record. He ended up getting much more accessible and graceful later in his career but back in the early 80's he was a madman with a huge and very raw vocal range. Cave lends his ultra-unique vocals over an extremely unique band and the result is an unforgettable experience. No one else could sing a song like "Dead Joe" and get away with it. The guy is perfect for music this unsettling, and when the title track begins and you hear Cave's trembling voice cry "I am the king" it's hard not to believe him.

The Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire

The first album by The Birthday Party to this day remains one of the most disturbing pieces of music ever made. Beginning with tribal drumming and chanting, complete with a menacing bass-line on the opener “Zoo-Music Girl” and all the way to the sickeningly distorted “parody” of a blues song “Kathy’s Kisses”, the album works like a ride to a morbid party in Hell, happening in a deranged maniac’s mind. The word “sick” is probably the best adjective to describe any track on this record; this sickness is present on every song, taking over the listener in the process.

It’s an awesome kind of sickness.

After a few spins one starts to see some sort of logic in The Birthday Party’s music. The core of it is the rhythm section, which bears the most obvious traces of blues’ influence. Guitars provide disturbing hysterical coating for the songs, little creepy melodies crawling their way into the structure here and there; and sometimes there’s hardly any melody what’s so ever and guitars just make noise, intensifying the insanity. And then, of course, there are the vocals.

It’s a bit weird to think that the ranting madman behind the mic would go on to sing with Kylie Minogue in 1996. Cave’s vocals on this are blissfully crazy and intense and it’s hard not fall in love with his performance. He shrieks, grunts, yelps and screams, seemingly loosing himself in his own world, delivering delusional nightmarish lyrics that only a mind as twisted as his could come up with. There’s hardly any singing on this album: when Nick hits an actual note it seems like an accident. For this kind of music actual singing would seem inappropriate anyway.

The Birthday Party are closer to Joy Division (only more theatrical), the Pop Group (only spookier), or Pere Ubu (only more percussive). Though present on most of the tracks, the moody piano that would dominate much of Cave's solo work is never really prominent here. Instead it's the squiggles of Rowland Howard's guitar dodging the blows of the furious rhythm section that distinguishes The Birthday Party.

Overall, this album is definitely not for everyone, unless you want to torture other people with it, in which case, there more people hear it the merrier. But if you’re keen of dark, menacing music and the perspective of listening to jazz and blues being sodomized and bludgeoned to death sounds good to you, then surely give “Prayers Of Fire” a try.

The Birthday Party - The John Peel Sessions

Though a couple of Peel Session EPs had snuck out in the late eighties, it wasn't until this long overdue and utterly worthwhile collection surfaced that all the various recordings the Birthday Party had made over the years for John Peel finally saw official release. Combining both familiar numbers and a fair share of rarities or oddities, The John Peel Sessions contains four sessions recorded over the space of two years, conveniently documenting the band's England based career. The obvious debt owed to Iggy Pop and the Stooges gets repaid in full with a scorching take on "Loose", making for a reasonable studio alternate to the equally gone live version on the Drunk on the Pope's Blood EP. Another track that appeared on Drunk got its only released studio take here, "(Sometimes) Pleasure Heads Must Burn", a jazzy jump blues noir not far off from the work of fellow Aussie Foetus; while the same session produced a fierce one-off, "Roland Around in That Stuff." Whether or not the title's a bizarre dig at guitarist Howard, the whole combination of brisk drums, Howard's agreeably crazed work and Cave's practically barked vocals makes for an excitingly ridiculous vamp. Other obscure material includes "Bully Bones," which only appeared on the Live '81-'82 compilation, and "Pleasure Avalanche." Elsewhere, sessions focus on material from the main or upcoming releases of the time; the first four songs are all versions of Prayers on Fire songs, including fantastic versions of "Yard" and "King Ink," the latter of which is pure threat and drama set to music. Other great takes on familiar songs include "She's Hit," Howard's slashing guitar line in the chorus particularly vicious, "Release the Bats" and "Deep In the Woods."

The Birthday Party - Mutiny! EP

The final Party studio release has the band thrashing to its conclusion. Given that the various projects that rose in its wake; Cave's solo career, Harvey and Howard's work with Crime and the City Solution, Howard's own solo efforts; all sound like logical extensions of the Party's sound; artistic dissatisfaction can't explain what brought the Party to an end. Whatever went down, though, the group bowed out with artistic extremism intact, if not always exploding all over the place as in years past. "Jennifers Veil" sounds like a slightly lighter (but only just) cousin to Bad Seed's "Deep in the Woods," Cave singing more than intoning, calling to mind the burned romantic of his later years more than once. "Say a Spell" runs at about the same pace but with more feedback to burn, a good torchy blues with a fine howl or two to recommend it. "Swampland" turns up the energy level all around, a crunchy romp through the low and mean places, sonically and lyrically, the Party made their own. "Mutiny in Heaven" closes it all off with a final, worthy blast of fire. Blixa Bargeld guests from Einsturzende Neubaten, foreshadowing his role as key guitarist for Cave's Bad Seeds, with sudden edits and a roaring central refrain from Cave, when not otherwise detailing a world turned upside down with all the fire of a travelling evangelist.

The Birthday Party - The Bad Seed 12"EP

Reviews for The Birthday Party's The Bad Seed EP (often bundled with Mutiny) highlight its raw, venomous post-punk, showcasing Nick Cave's descent into his darker, theatrical persona, blending violent punk with swampy, bluesy folk elements, seen as a bridge to The Bad Seeds, with tracks like "Sonny's Burning" praised for their savage energy and "Deep in the Woods" for its sinister atmosphere, marking a creative peak before the band's demise. 

The Boys Next Door - Knock, Knock

If one compares Door, Door to later albums made by these soon-to-be-infamous Aussies (albums released under the Birthday Party moniker) it sounds fairly tame and relatively straightforward. But that's not to say there's anything wrong with it. In fact, it's a frantic, edgy, and surprisingly catchy piece of post-punk mayhem; just don't expect anything as original or downright disturbing as "Big-Jesus-Trash-Can" or "Zoo-Music Girl." The album starts out in high gear with "The Nightwatchman," replete with ringing guitar figures, a boppy punk-pop chorus (yes, those are "ooh-ooh-ooh-oohs" you're hearing), and dirty sax lines. Sax pops up on "Brave Exhibitions" as well, providing a meaty partner to the lead guitar on circular, descending scales that bring some weirdness to a straight-up rocker. Things begin to get slightly more strange and troubled as the record plays on: "The Voice" and "Somebody's Watching" are filled with a paranoid mania and creepy, memorable musical phrases that make them two of Door, Door's highlights. (The lead guitar parts in the latter song make it seem as if Rowland Howard spent time listening to Television at the wrong speed.) And "Roman Roman" is a frenzied schoolyard chant that hints at some of the anarchic pandemonium the group could create on-stage. It's impressive how, even at this early stage, Nick Cave was a confident and unique singer, perfectly aware of the strengths and limitations of his voice; although he's not much for range, he knows how to come across in a scary and theatrical manner that perfectly complements the music. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the band's closing, mournful ballad, "Shivers," an unashamedly melodramatic example of post-adolescent anguish.

The Birthday Party - Release The Bats

Sex Horror, Vampire Glory. Release The Bats rumbles and stumbles through a wild night of campy debauchery flailing about on the edge of sanity. This is my least favourite release from the Birthday boys - mainly because it’s the single which got them forever stuck under the inappropriate label of "GOTH". There is just a bit too much dubious desperation to avoid that description if you ask me. Somehow dark but also humorous and totally just hanging in there. Why worry whether this counts as Goth or not? Just let it rip like the cool machine it is...

The Birthday Party - The Friend Catcher

This is the first of two early Birthday Party singles that are coming your way today. From October 1980 this is the second single (first in the UK on 4AD) where Nick and the boys start to get their screaming guitar and Post Punk attitude on. It’s not pretty, it’s not quiet, and it will go kicking and screaming. There’s a very tenuous nod to fellow band mates Bauhaus on Waving My Arms that always makes me smile when I hear it. 

The Birthday Party – Mr. Clarinet

Today’s second Birthday Party single is arguably their first (if you live in Australia) but released in the UK almost a year after its release down under. Mr. Clarinet could be the last single by The Boys Next Door as much as it is the debut single by The Birthday Party. Now there is no better a reason than ever before for connoisseurs, not unlike your good self, to dig around and have a damn good listen to Door, Door before this day is out. When life offers you a chance to redeem yourself before your next birthday, take it.