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The Birthday Party

Birthday Party, The

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The Birthday Party/The Virgin Prunes: Ace Cinema, Brixton

Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982

WITH CHANNEL 4's cameras peering over their shoulders, both sets of Wild Men of Pop felt a little inhibited. Mindful of television's cold, reducing stare, ...

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The Birthday Party: Mick Harvey speaks

Interview by Clinton Walker, RAM, November 1980

Nine months ago, the Boys Next Door packed their ambition and what little equipment they possessed and beaded for London. They left Australia simply because ...

The Birthday Party, Mass: Moonlight Club, London

Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 11 April 1981

WALKING THROUGH the doors we were confronted by a half-demonic Greek grin from Harry Pop. From behind it the unmistakeably masochist vowels soon intoned: "You've ...

4AD Records: Bloodless Revolutions

Interview by Tony Fletcher, The Face, May 1981

TONY FLETCHER TALKS SMALL BUSINESS WITH A SUCCESSFUL ALTERNATIVE ...

Theatre Of Hate, Modern English, The Birthday Party: London University

Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981

LATE AGAIN, so I missed most of the Birthday Party — who I was looking forward to the most, as it happens. Theirs is the ...

The Birthday Party: Abbo — The Album

Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981

WHEN THE Birthday Party were recording their Prayers On Fire LP back "home" in Melbourne, Split Enz were recording Waiata in the studio next door. ...

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Report by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 1 October 1981

Merit Badges Goes To Dianaland ...

Sometimes Pleasure Heads Must Burn - A Manhattan Melodrama starring the Birthday Party

Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981

IT'S A CHILL, exposed night in New York City. The East Coast has only just recovered from a week of torrential rains, and winds sweeping ...

Primal Pain at the Psychos' Party: The Birthday Party at the Venue, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 13 March 1982

WHEN The Birthday Party last desecrated this tabernacle of modern nightlife, a generally sloppy show produced the intemperate engorgement of Drunk On The Pope's Blood, ...

After The Pope's Blood: Gatecrashing The Birthday Party

Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 3 April 1982

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY? Well, yeah, like in blowing out candles on a cake. This party is a crashed party and anyone with a part of ...

The Birthday Party: The Bad Seed EP

Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 5 February 1983

"IF, LOVING a woman more than anything in the world, or anticipating the possibility of such a love, one were suddenly to see her chained ...

The Birthday Party: The Sound and The Fury

Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 26 March 1983

Reared under the hothouse conditions of Melbourne, London and Berlin, The Birthday Party's bad seed has finally blossomed into a magnificent demon flower. On one ...

The Birthday Party

Profile and Interview by Peter Silverton, Smash Hits, 28 April 1983

A celebration of lunacy and loud noise imported from Australia. Peter Silverton finds it quite inviting. ...

The Birthday Party: Mutiny! (Mute 29); Siouxsie & the Banshees: Nocturne (Polydor Shah 1)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 November 1983

TO HELL AND BACK ...

The Birthday Party: Mutiny

Review by Clinton Walker, Rolling Stone (Australia), January 1984

AND SO THE Birthday Party finally — well what? ... "break up" seems an inadequate term. Implode? OD? Burn-out? It's a difficult task to do ...

Nick Cave: Sad Nick

Profile and Interview by Clinton Walker, Stiletto, February 1984

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY are probably the most important rock band Australia has ever produced. They made music that was blatantly rock at a time when ...

Nick Cave: If This Is Heaven I'm Bailing Out

Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984

THE ENIGMA of The Birthday Party, like that of Kaspar Hauser, begins with grunts in the darkness and ends in murder. ...

Exit The '80s — Goth: Bats Out Of Hell

Overview by Cathi Unsworth, Sounds, 23 September 1989

It's been the decade of the goth — but, somewhere along the line, the innovation of the Birthday Party, the Banshees and the Sisters gave ...

Nick Cave: Worshipping The Son

Interview by Cathi Unsworth, Sounds, 24 November 1990

For the second of our special Fan Files, we look at Nick Cave, the singer who's so damn slinky and shaggable that even women want ...

Nick Cave: A Boy Next Door

Retrospective and Interview by Michel Faber, Rock's Backpages, August 2002

Novelist Michel Faber remembers the Young Nick Cave. ...

The Lyre of Cave: An Interview

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, September 2004

RBP: Could you have imagined, all those years ago, that you’d have this amazingly even and consistent career? ...

Want To Rule Britannia? Australian Bands Breaking The UK

Report and Interview by Jenny Valentish, Drum Media, 2005

As a rash of homegrown bands start to make waves overseas, Jenny Valentish looks at the long and bloody history of Australian bands and the ...

Goth: Back to the Batcave

Overview by Jenny Valentish, Australian Guitar, October 2005

"WE HATED BEING called goth," muses the impeccably suave Flesh For Lulu frontman Nick Marsh. "If they called you a goth then you couldn't be ...

Rowland S Howard: Storm Und Twang – The Prophet Of St Kilda

Interview by Jenny Valentish, Australian Guitar, May 2006

From icy reverb to noirish twang, Jenny Valentish pays tribute to Australia's most influential guitar fiend, Rowland S Howard... ...

Nick Cave: Back to the Ballroom

Book Excerpt by Clinton Walker, 'Cultural Seeds: Essays on the Work of Nick Cave', 2009

I FIRST MET Nick Cave in Melbourne in early 1978 when we were both, I daresay, players in a new music underground that was still ...

30 Years On: We Return to the Birthday Party's Junkyard

Retrospective and Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 30 April 2012

Julian Marszalek talks to Mick Harvey about Australian post-punks' high watermark statement. ...

4AD Records: The "pure" label behind Pixies and Cocteau Twins

Retrospective and Interview by Martin Aston, The Guardian, 10 October 2013

Little was known about Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, the enigmatic founders of celebrated indie label 4AD, until they were tracked down in the US. ...

4AD Records: Labelled with Love

Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, November 2013

A new book, Martin Aston's Facing The Other Way, tells the story of a label that scored just a single number one hit during the ...

The Man Who Inspired Nick Cave: Mick Harvey on the Greatness of the Late Rowland S. Howard

Retrospective and Interview by Ken Scrudato, BlackBook, 18 February 2020

THE CULTURAL landscape is littered with the faded memories of those who came and went without the honours corresponding to the levels of their actual ...

see also Boys Next Door, The

see also Nick Cave

see also Crime & The City Solution

see also These Immortal Souls

see also Mick Harvey

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