The Birthday Party was an Australian rock music group, active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It launched the careers of the internationally renowned singer and songwriter Nick Cave and of the respected musicians and songwriters Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard. Their early music found them sometimes classed as goth rock, but they disliked the label, and in retrospect, sound very different from most goth rockers. Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Simon Le Bon lead singer of Duran Duran in concert, 2003. ... A songwriter is someone who writes, in part or in full, the lyrics to songs, the musical composition or melody to songs, or both. ... Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian rock musician, songwriter, poet, author, actor and screenwriter, best known for his work in rock and roll band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and his fascination with American music and its roots. ... Mick Harvey (born Michael John Harvey, 1958 in Rochester, Victoria, Australia,) is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. ... Rowland Stuart Howard is an Australian rock musician, guitarist and songwriter best known as a member of The Birthday Party. ... This article is about notable bands within the goth scene. ...

Their sound drew upon punk, rockabilly 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; after two decades, Howard's stinging guitar remains distinctive. Though the band was tightly rehearsed, the instrumentalists often sounded as if they were on the verge of collapse, this quality only emphasising the mania of Cave's singing. Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Rockabilly is the earliest form of rock and roll as a distinct style of music. ... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, tone, style, and voice). ... A bassline is a series of notes with tones that are low in pitch or frequency. ... Gene Krupa Gene Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was a famous and influential Polish-American jazz and big band drummer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style. ...

Despite being championed by John Peel, the Birthday Party found little 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. John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was a British disc jockey, radio presenter, and journalist. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock...

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 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. Caulfield Grammar School is a coeducational independent school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ... City of Melbourne Local Government Area State Victoria Lord Mayor John So (since 2001) Area 36 km² Population (2001) 57,960 Density 1,601/km² (1999) Greater Melbourne Subdivisions Local Government Areas Area 7,694 km² (1999) Population 2001 census (2nd in Australia) 3,555,321 Density 462. ... Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian rock musician, songwriter, poet, author, actor and screenwriter, best known for his work in rock and roll band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and his fascination with American music and its roots. ... Mick Harvey (born Michael John Harvey, 1958 in Rochester, Victoria, Australia,) is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. ... Phill Calvert (b. ... Lou Reed Lou Reed (born Lewis Allen Reed on March 2, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York), is a rock and roll singer-songwriter of Jewish descent. ... David Bowie David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in London) is an English rock musician and actor. ... Image:Roxymusic2004. ... Cooper in his official eye makeup Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948), is a rock singer and musician. ... Alex Harvey (February 5, 1935 - February 4, 1982) was a Scottish rock and roll performer. ...

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, bringing a chaotic feedback guitar style to the band. 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Saints are an influential Australian rock and roll band, formed in Brisbane in 1972 (see 1972 in music). ... Radio Birdman was one of the first punk bands. ... New Wave is a term that has been used to describe many developments in music, but is most commonly associated with a movement in American, Australian, British, Canadian and European popular music, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, growing out of the New York City punk rock scene, itself... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... For other uses, including Audio feedback, see Feedback (disambiguation) In cybernetics and control theory, feedback is a process whereby some proportion or in general, function, of the output signal of a system is passed (fed back) to the input. ...

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. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben London and the Regions of England London is the most populous city in the European Union, with an estimated population on 1 January 2005 of 7,421,328 and a metropolitan area population of approximately 13,945,000 [1]. Londons population includes... Boroughs of West Berlin West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ...

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. John Cale (born March 9, 1942) is a Welsh musician, songwriter and record producer. ... Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (August 13, 1899 – April 29, 1980) was a British-born American film director and producer, closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. ... Iggy Pop Iggy Pop (born James Newell Osterberg, Jr. ... Suicide is a 1970s and 80s punk/post punk duo, composed of Alan Vega (vocals) and Martin Rev (synthesizers and drum machines). ...

Calvert was ejected in 1982; he was "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. 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Drunk driving (drink driving in the UK) or drinking and driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcohol (i. ... Barry Adamson is a rock musician who has worked with Magazine, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Pan Sonic, and has worked on film soundtracks for David Lynch. ... Epilepsy (often referred to as a seizure disorder) is a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. ...

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. 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Blixa Bargeld, born Christian Emmerich on January 12, 1959 in West Berlin, Germany. ... Einstürzende Neubauten is an ever-changing band, originally from West Berlin, formed in 1980. ... This page is about the year 1984. ...

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. Nicholas Edward Cave (born September 22, 1957) is a musician, songwriter, poet, author, and actor. ... Crime and The City Solution were a post-punk rock band formed by singer Simon Bonney. ... These Immortal Souls were an Australian band active through the late 1980s and early 1990s. ...

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.

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born October 10, 1930) is a British playwright and theatre director. ... Fyodor Dostoevsky. ... Crime and Punishment (Преступление и наказание) is a novel written in 1866 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. ...

Discography

Albums

• The Birthday Party/Boys Next Door (LP, 1980)
• Prayers on Fire (LP, 1981)
• Junkyard (LP, 1982)
• It's Still Living (LP, 1985)
• Best and Rarest (LP, 1985)
• The Bad Seed/Mutiny! (CD)
• Hits (CD, 1992)
• Live 1981–82 (CD, 1999)
• Peel Sessions (CD)
• Pleasure Heads Must Burn (DVD, 2003)

Prayers On Fire, by The Birthday Party, was released in 1981 by 4AD. This was the bands first full length release on an international record label, after leaving Australia to broaden horizons in England. ...

Singles and EPs

• "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)

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch on June 2, 1959 in Rochester, New York, also the birthplace of female rock musicians Kim Gordon and Wendy O. Williams) is an American rock singer, poet, writer, and actress. ...

Further reading

• Inner City Sound - Clinton Walker
• Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991 - Clinton Walker
• Bad Seed: A biography of Nick Cave - Ian Johnston
• The life and music of Nick Cave: An illustrated biography - Maximilian Dax & Johannes Beck

Clinton Walker is a leading historian of Australian popular music. ... Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991 is a book about the Australian independent music scene from 1979 till 1991, as written by author and music journalist Clinton Walker. ... Clinton Walker is a leading historian of Australian popular music. ...

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