Nick Cave - The Birthday Party Nicholas Edward Cave (born September 22, 1957) is an Australian musician who fronts the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Known for his baritone voice, Cave's music is characterized by emotional intensity, a wide range of influences, and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love, and violence. The Birthday Party (originally known as Boys Next Door) was an Australian post-punk band active from 1977 to 1983. The band's music has been described as a "dark, gothic take on garage rock," characterized by "dark, noisy soundscapes." Additionally, the band's music incorporated elements of blues and rockabilly. Stephen Thomas of AllMusic called them "one of the darkest and most defiant post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s." He described Nick Cave's lyrics as "difficult, disturbing stories" that explore themes such as religion, violence, and perversion. The band's later material is considered darker, "alternating between dirges and blunt sonic assaults." Their 1981 single, "Release the Bats," was particularly influential on the emerging goth scene. Despite limited commercial success, the Birthday Party's influence was far-reaching. The core of the band first met at the private boys' school Caulfield Grammar School in suburban Melbourne in the early 1970s. A rock band was formed in 1973, featuring Nick Cave (vocals), Mick Harvey (guitar), and Phill Calvert (drums), with fellow students John Cocivera, Brett Purcell, and Chris Coyne (guitar, bass, and saxophone, respectively). Most were also members of the school choir. The band played under various names at parties and school events, playing a mix of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, Alice Cooper, and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Saxophonist Chris Coyne joined the Paul Kelly Band in the 1980s. After their final year of school in 1975, the band decided to continue as a four-piece, with Tracy Pew taking over on bass. Deeply influenced by the punk explosion of 1976, which saw Australian bands The Saints and Radio Birdman make their first recordings and tours, the Boys Next Door, as they were now known, began playing proto-punk and punk covers. The Boys' second guitarist, Rowland S. Howard, joined the band in 1978, and during this time, the group's sound changed dramatically. The addition of Howard's guitar was a catalyst (his later use of audio feedback became a hallmark of the band). Audio feedback is a (usually) unwanted sound loop that occurs when sound from a speaker is repeatedly picked up by a microphone, amplified, and played back again, creating a high-pitched, screeching sound. Many songs were driven by prominent, repetitive bass lines and frenetic, minimalist drums. In producer/engineer Tony Cohen (June 4, 1957 – August 2, 2017), they found a collaborator sympathetic to their experimentation and refusal to repeat themselves, and in Keith Glass (born September 17, 1946), an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist, musical theater actor, record label owner, producer, and journalist, they found an enthusiastic financial backer. Glass's label, Missing Link Records, released the Birthday Party's first albums. Name Change and Relocations (1978–1982) The Boys Next Door's best-known song, "Shivers," written by Howard and first performed and recorded by his band, the Young Charlatans, was banned from radio due to its reference to suicide. After moderately successful recordings in Australia and hundreds of shows, they moved to London in 1980, changed their name to the Birthday Party, and were promoted by radio host John Peel. They subsequently released two albums: Prayers on Fire (1981) and Junkyard (1982). Disillusioned with their stay in London, the band's sound and live performances became increasingly violent. They made trips back to Australia and toured Europe and the US before moving to West Berlin in 1982. Cave's vocals ranged from desperate to downright menacing and demented. Critics wrote that "neither John Cale nor Alfred Hitchcock were as frightening," and that Cave "doesn't sing his vocals, but expels them from his gut." Although Cave drew inspiration from vocalists like Iggy Pop and Alan Vega of Suicide, his vocals in Birthday Party remained powerful and distinctive. His lyrics were inspired by Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. The single "Release the Bats" was released during the rise of the goth scene. The 1982 album Junkyard was inspired by the imagery of American Southern Gothic, addressing extreme subjects such as the murder of an evangelist's daughter. Southern Gothic is a subgenre of fiction, music, film, theater, and television heavily influenced by Gothic elements and set in the Southern United States. Common themes in Southern Gothic literature include deeply flawed, disturbing, or eccentric characters, ambivalent gender roles, decaying or abandoned settings, grotesque situations, and other sinister events related to or stemming from poverty, alienation, crime, or violence. Later Years (1982–1983) When Pew was arrested for drunk driving and theft in early 1982, Chris Walsh, Barry Adamson, and Howard's brother, Harry, filled in for him for live performances and brief studio work. Pew rejoined the band in July. Calvert was kicked out of the band in 1982; he was reportedly "unable to nail the beats for 'Dead Joe' to everyone's satisfaction," and Harvey moved to drums. The EP Mutiny/The Bad Seed contained lyrics that evoked blasphemy, words as dark as Lautréamont's Gothic poems. Count de Lautréamont (the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse; April 4, 1846 – November 24, 1870), a French poet born in Uruguay. His only works, Les Chants de Maldoror and Poésies, had a major influence on modern art and literature, particularly the Surrealist and Situationist works. Ducasse died at the age of 24. Regarding the recording of Mutiny/The Bad Seed, Cave called it a portrait of a band in collapse, and Howard called it a nightmare. This EP marked Cave's first collaboration with Blixa Bargeld of the German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, who recorded a guitar part on the track "Mutiny in Heaven." A tour in January 1983 marked a return to a quintet, with Jeffrey Wegener playing drums and Harvey returning to second guitar. Wegener did not remain in the band, and they returned to a quartet soon after. Tensions between Cave and Howard soon reached a boiling point, but it was Harvey who first left the band—their final tour saw Des Hefner join the band on drums. The Birthday Party played their final show at the Crystal Ballroom in St. Kilda on June 9, 1983, and disbanded shortly thereafter, due in part to the separation between Cave and Howard, as well as drug-related exhaustion. Post-Breakup, Legacy, and Influence Several bands rose from the ashes of the Birthday Party: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (with Cave, Harvey, Adamson, Bargeld, and briefly Pew), Crime and the City Solution (with Harvey and Howard, later just Harvey), and These Immortal Souls (with Howard). Pew died of an epileptic seizure in 1986. On September 1, 1992, there was a brief reunion of The Birthday Party when Rowland S. Howard joined Nick Cave and Mick Harvey onstage at a Bad Seeds benefit concert in London to perform "Wild World," "Dead Joe," and "Nick the Stripper." Due in part to their legendary status and the continued success of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Birthday Party catalog has been reissued on CD several times. Mick Harvey oversaw releases of rare or previously unreleased recordings. The Birthday Party's initial impact was on the gothic rock genre. According to New Musical Express, "The Birthday Party was indirectly responsible for the rise of a new, visceral rock, ranging from Sex Gang Children to Danse Macabre to March Violets." In October 2007, Cave was the only inductee into the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Hall of Fame. During his acceptance speech, Cave took it upon himself to "induct" the Australian members of the Bad Seeds (including Harvey), as well as Howard and Pew of The Birthday Party. Rowland S. Howard passed away on December 30, 2009, from liver cancer. In 2012, Howard's first songs were performed live as a tribute in Melbourne: a four-piece band consisting of Harvey, Calvert, Ron Rude, and Rowland Howard's sister, Angela. Alex