The Birthday Party
The Birthday Party hailed from Melbourne, Australia, and set
tales of death, bats and car crashes to a kind of decapitated
jazz-punk.
Their records came with swastikas on the sleeves and titles
like Drunk On The Pope's Blood. Violence was routine,
as was heroin.
Their second album, Junkyard, was a record that
sounded at once lobotomised and freakishly smart. The kamikaze
logic peaked on Dead Joe - a madly ecstatic depiction
of a car smash.
The Birthday Party disbanded in Autumn 1983. Rowland Howard
formed Crime & The City Solution while Nick Cave went solo,
forming The Bad Seeds, taking long-time collaborator Mick Harvey
with him.
Tracy Pew joined The Saints, but was to die in 1986 of an
epileptic fit at the age of 28.
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