The Birthday Party: When a Car Factory Met Music

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Everyone knows a goth. They might be in your family, or a friend. They might be a particularly moody pet. They might just be that one person who you occasionally see in the Co-op on a Saturday morning. Whoever they are, whatever bands they like, the way they dress, act and think was influenced by one band who they’ve probably never even heard of: that band is The Birthday Party.

The Birthday Party began in Australia, the brainchild of a group of bored public schoolboys. These schoolboys, namely Nick Cave, Tracy Pew, Mick Harvey and Phill Calvert, had experienced a musical enlightenment through listening to The Stooges, the New York Dolls and Lou Reed.. This inspired them to create The Boys Next Door, who enjoyed some success on the Australian punk scene in the late 70’s. However, they decided that the shores of England would be the territory to flourish as a band, so they set off, with Cave on vocals, Harvey on rhythm guitar, Pew on bass and Calvert on drums, as well as two new additions. Rowland S. Howard, on lead guitar, would be crucial to the sound and the attitude of the group in the coming years, but would also play a role in the breakup. The other new addition was a new name for this group of malcontents, and that was The Birthday Party.

After establishing themselves with a series of chaotic gigs, The Birthday Party prepared to release their first record. Having had a terrible time in the recording studio as The Boys Next Door with producers trying to manipulate their sound, the Party vowed not to use a producer and went it relatively alone, with only trusty sound engineer Tony Cohen to aid them. Cohen ended up sleeping in the studio air vents due to the band over-running and nobody wanting to chuck them out. The result was Prayers on Fire, a wild, distorted record filled with Gothic imagery. While there were darker songs (‘Zoo Music Girl’, ‘Nick the Stripper’, ‘King Ink’), there were lighter, more accessible moments such as ‘Kathy’s Kisses’, ‘Cry’ and ‘Just You and Me’.  Despite this and some critical praise, the album didn’t get any mainstream attention apart from BBC DJ John Peel playing a few tracks on his show. While it established the Birthday Party as a force on the UK music scene, it was disowned by the band soon after its release, due to it being “too polished”. A shame. It’s a great album, worth listening to if you don’t like the later, more claustrophobic, inaccessible music.

After frightening people and being banned from various clubs in the UK, Europe and Australia, after various run-ins with the law, bassist Tracy Pew was arrested for drunk driving and sentenced to 2 months in Pentridge Prison, Victoria, Australia. Barry Adamson of Magazine (and later of The Bad Seeds) filled in for Pew on the new record. Another, more permanent change of personnel soon followed. Calvert was ejected from the band mid-way through recording, with Mick Harvey taking over drums for the remaining tracks. As well as this, every member of the band was seriously addicted to at least one drug during recording. Topped off with an Ed Roth picture on the sleeve, this album, appropriately named Junkyard, was the epitome of musical chaos and destruction. There isn’t any kind of sweetness or trace of light. Hamlet is re-imagined as a joy-riding maniac, Dead Joe steals cars (seeing a connection between the pastimes of the band and the characters yet?) and various women are murdered, predictably drawing allegations of misogyny at Cave, the songwriter. Yet, it’s one of the best albums of the early 80’s, earning critical praise and getting to the giddy heights of number 72 on the UK album charts. Howard’s guitar screams with feedback for most of the album, much like The Jesus and Mary Chain. But the crucial track is ‘Release the Bats’. This was one of the early anthems for goths, with its juddering bass and rumbling drums. Goths would regularly demand the playing of the track at nightclubs, and it gained The Birthday Party a bit more exposure, as it proved to be their biggest hit. Unfortunately, it was meant to be a dry-humoured stab at the early goth scene, which Cave felt was obsessed with “vampire sex”.  Nobody got the joke.

Various tours around Europe followed the release of Junkyard. The band, disgusted by the popularity of New Romantic groups in the UK, relocated to West Berlin in the Autumn of 1982, surrounded by the Communist East. West Berlin was more to their liking, with bands like Einstürzende Neubauten and Die Haut sharing the same ideology and musical ideas as the  Birthday Party. The availability of cheap drugs also made Berlin much easier to settle into. The band, however, was fracturing. They went into the famed Hansa studios in Berlin, which was in extremely close proximity to the Berlin Wall at the time. They recorded 4 tracks: ‘Sonny’s Burning’, an apocalyptic jungle riot, ‘Wildworld’, a slow clautrophobic cry of fear, ‘Fears of Gun’, a paranoid, disjointed stutter, and ‘Deep in the Woods’, a sinister tale of murder. These are excellent tracks, with Pew’s bass providing the cornerstone, around which the guitar, drums and vocals are structured. This was The Bad Seed E.P , making reference to a Biblical passage. The Bible would later prove to be a point of fascination for Cave, but for now he had more important matters. After a damaging tour of the U.S, the band returned to Berlin to record. By now, the band was almost completely broken. Rowland S. Howard was looking for another band after realising he couldn’t work with the increasingly heroin-dependent Cave. Cave was wrapped up in writing and drugs, and Mick Harvey knew he was leaving after the ‘Mutiny!’ sessions. After recording three tracks, the split happened. Howard’s guitar was deemed unsuitable, and Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubaten stepped in for 3 more tracks. By the time the surprisingly brilliant sessions were mastered, the Birthday Party was dead.

So what of the members of the Party? Cave went on a powerful solo career with his band the Bad Seeds, taking Barry Adamson and Mick Harvey with him, blazing a trail of work which continues to this day. Rowland S. Howard joined Crime and the City solution and late These Immortal Souls. He began a solo career in 1999 which was unfortunately cut short by his death from liver cirrhosis in 2009. Tracy Pew studied English and Philosophy at Monash University, toured with punk band The Saints and collaborated with Cave and the Bad Seeds on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, in 1986 he experienced an epileptic fit in his bath, resulting in head injuries which caused a brain haemorrhage, which killed him at age 28. Phill Calvert joined numerous bands post-Party and is alive and well today.

The influence of The Birthday Party is overwhelmingly clear. Just listen to bands such as The Amazing Snakeheads to hear how their style of music lives on today. The Birthday Party were definitely not a well-known or famous band; given that their highest chart placing was #72 for Junkyard, they could be described as a cult band. How fitting, as most of the Birthday Party’s lyrics focus on murder, disaster and cults. Yet these lyrics are horribly real. They are blunt to the point where it may seem rude to even comprehend their meaning. The invocation of biblical imagery and the big, big hair was later used by a certain Robert Smith for his rather more successful band, The Cure.  While The Birthday Party may not be the most well-known band among goths, they’re certainly one of the most influential.

Words by Gabriel Rutherford

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