Gather round children as I tell you about one of the scariest albums I ever listened to…one so frightening that, when I first encountered it, it took me several tries to listen to it all the way through in one sitting.
I was introduced to The Birthday Party when my friend (hi Dean!) played their “Release the Bats” single for me. It was so infectious, driven by heavy, bouncing bass and drum. And the lyrics seemed to be tongue-in-cheek, gothy humor about bats, or sex, or both. And it was fun, even when the singer sounded a bit unhinged.
(Side note: I laugh out loud every time at Nick’s comment in the above video after someone in the audience steals his drumstick. “You win, you got the stick.”)
Pre-internet, I used to pick up a copy of the NME every week (it was imported by my favorite local record store) to try to seek out new stuff and to learn more about bands I had already heard. I recall reading two things about The Birthday Party: One was that bass player Tracy Pew, he of mustache and cowboy hat, had spent time in prison. The other was a brief interview with Nick Cave where he looked downright feral and talked about not having a home (always traveling, staying in hotels, etc.). I had a hard time getting my mind around what his life must have been like, but I was forming a clear picture of this band as true outsiders.
In any case, the next music I obtained was “Junkyard,” the album they released after that great “Bats” single. Before even thinking about the music, there is that amazing album cover. It was a variation of the old Odd Rods and Silly Cycles trading cards I used to have as a kid. But this was an over-the-top version of those drawings. It’s wild and funny and I thought was preparing me for more “Release the Bats” type fun and fury. Well, maybe I was half right.
Opening track “She’s Hit” turned out to be an unexpected, six minute, slow grind of a tune. Great bass sounds, snare snaps like gunshots, shards of guitar chords. And then Nick Cave moans in with his opening line “There is woman pie in here…” Wait, what? Oh, this was not what I was expecting. The rest of the album contains many songs with more slow and mid-tempo than I expected. The sound of the music was amazing; the band made a racket but each individual instrument could be heard clearly in the mix. But it was also, by turns, sinister and violent.
Lyrically, there are lots of dark and, at times, savage, and, at times, perverse themes. Oh sure, there was the occasional thing I found funny out of context, like the lyrics to “Dead Joe” which growled through my head when I found myself walking through a crowded mall at Christmas (“It’s Christmas time Joe – It’s Christmas time now for you – And all the little bells are hanging two-by-two – The holly and the nativity- Oh now speak to me Joe, speak to me Joe, speak to me Joe…”). And familiar references to Shakespeare (“Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)”) and A Clockwork Orange (“The Dim Locator”) were welcome. But honestly, taken as a whole, I recall thinking “I’m glad this guy can get his thoughts out in an artistic way because, otherwise, he’d probably kill somebody!”
Initially, I found it all to be a bit much; it ultimately felt down right malevolent. I probably got through half the album the first time I tried to listen. Then felt I needed to turn it off and go outside to clear my head. Several subsequent tries found me pushing further, but never quite to the end. Once I made it all the way through, though, this (probably) socially irredeemable but brilliant record clicked for me. And, as I think about it now, was probably my gateway to much of the beautiful ugliness I enjoy in music to this day.