check out the first band first boys next door, door door

then birthday party, junkyard or prayers on fire

A selection on live stuff on You Tube

I'd go the other way - start with The Bad Seed and Mutiny in Heaven eps, then get stuck into Junkyard, Prayers on Fire, then that other lot.

Also the (fairly) recent live cd "Live '81-'82" is killer.

I can't see or really hear what anyone gets out of them anymore.

I saw them about half a dozen times and the power was all in the performance.

I think Mutiny in Heaven is the best thing they recorded in the end.

sonny's burning, fear of gun, deep in the woods were pretty good.

Thanks!

Watch this NOW! if you can. Tracey Pew is a legend. What is going on with his hip gyrations in this clip from german TV?

You should listen to that live cd, sister, if you have any interest at all. I'd pretty much stopped listening to them for the same reason but that reminded me why I loved them in the first place.

mmmm maybe it's worth a listen. looking at the songlist, I reckon it's a real pity it doesn't have their cover of Avalanche.

I had never heard Leonard cohen's Avalanche and for a long time I was really disappointed in it compared with the Birthday Party.
I love the way it used to start with an avalanche of sound.

really excellent.

see, i think the junkyard album is their best by an extremely large margin.

the rest is patchy or has dated really badly. couple of gems on every album though.

Did the Birthday Party do Avalanche? I thought that was part of the early Bad Seeds repertoire. I'd love to hear BP do it though.

other highlights: the live recording of 'pleasure heads must burn' and the demo of 'the friend catcher' on the drunk on the popes blood reissue

yes BP did Avalanche live. I agree with you about pleasure heads must burn. great song. carries well.

I think much of the BP's work sounds dated now.

i never got much out of the birthday party. much preferred boys next door. fantastic live performances by a bare foot and crazed nick cave at the tiger lounge and crystal ballroom are still vivid in my memory. let go of nick for a couple of years until he formed the bad seeds.

clarification: According to the better more capacious brain of my spouse, the Birthday Party did not do Avalanche.

However, between the BP and the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave played for a little while as Nick Cave, Man or Myth.

and according to mr sister, Man or Myth did the cover of Avalanche.

anyway it was really good and the opening music built up to a big loud crescendo and then came crashing down on you like an avalanche.

I'm with rach on this- go in chronological order.
Get hold of ''Door, Door'' and that BP comp. that includes stuff like ''Catholic Skin'' & ''Friendcatcher''. If you can figure out how they made that jump, I'll buy you a beer.
Then ''Prayers on Fire'' ''Junkyard'', etc.

Heroin?

Nah, it was before that kicked in I think.

Acid then.

good question tj.

I saw them at close quarters a fair bit, and they seemed to run mainly on booze and aggression.
Do you remember the first time you heard ''Mr. Clarinet'', sister?

I don't think he participated in any of the sporadic BP reunions (i.e. when RS Howard would join Nick and Mick on stage at a Bad Seeds gig) but he was there for most of it, so I gather something is amiss.

Robert Brokenmouth's Nick Cave book p. 155, Phill Calvert: 'I think I was perceived as a necessary evil in some respects. I think the band knew I could do what I did well, but towards the end I think they wanted to unload me earlier than they did.'

Mick Harvey on p. 166 'I liked Phill in a basic way, he just acts like an idiot most of the time. He's kinda difficult to deal with. He's a really good drummer in some ways. He was really good early on, but as things progressed through '81 and '82 he wasn't keeping up and I had to work out most of his drum parts and stuff. Phill's personality was very different from the rest of the gorup. He'd be happy in lots of groups. He was into rock 'n' roll... And as a personality he just wasn't cool enough.

On p. 167 PC says he was playing more complex stuff than they wanted, that he didn't want to go to Berlin.

I think the last bit of the MH quote above is the best reason for his ejection and subsequent cold-shouldering but it has to be read analytically.

He's a house painter + owns a shop that sells jewelry and babooshka doll money boxes and a bee that helps with back pain.

By 'gorup', incidentally, I meant 'group'.

He still works with bands re: recording and what not. Not us no more but he did do a few tracks with Pat vs. Russel

i have 31 live BP concerts...............

Here is a good article with Mick Harvey about the end of the BP and the start of the Bad Seeds and These Immortal Souls. Phil is mentioned, but I get the feeling they weren't really mates.

My quotes were more useful that what's in that article when it comes to the matter at hand. But it is an interesting interview.

Is that Robert Brokenmouth book on Nick Cave any good? I need a good book for my beach holiday.

It's actually not bad. It's certainly the best of the Nick Cave books, which in itself is saying nothing. It's an unusual NC book in that it's written by an Australian, so it's not full of half-witted things about St Kilda being an outer suburb of Melbourne or whatever.

FB response from MH about his relationship with Phill:

Mick Harvey 08 July at 21:28 Report
I am still in touch with Phill, though we haven't ever made music together since the old days. MH

I'm glad to say I'm good friends with Phill and wanted to stand up for him here as he's one of my best friends. He's a fantastic unique person (when I say unique I'm not talking retarded or anything, just a very sharp and defined set of opinions but still huge warm personality with a healthy humors, often talked about take (with total glee from most who'll listen) on his own musical past.

Having not known the rest of the BP but being a speculative music nerd..It's very very easy for me to see why he didn't last and fucked everyone off. I love the last 2 great ep's at the end but I'm for ever impressed by his contributions to everything pre this with special mentions on the fucking drums on ''the Friend Catcher'' ''Mr. Clarinet'' ''Nick the Stripper'' actually basically the whole of Junkyard, Prayers + everything that came before.

And I'm not generally open with my praises on anything other than truly great music/musical contributions also very drunk

He is blessed with a real 'disregard public history' take on things and that has amazed me after meeting about 400 people who have the exact opposite bitter take on their 'this and that' fuckoffs with people who went on without them and became successful musicians

Well put Adrian....based on the period and songs you've mentioned...yeah sure, huge contribution to the sound. I can't remember what the name of the band was he was playing with at the time but years ago (like 6-10) a band I was playing with were gonna do a gig with this band Phil was playing with. Didn't end up happening and was a bit bummed. I really wanted to meet him AND get him to sign my copy of ''Junkyard''...I'm not really one for autographs usually but this record is signed by everyone except Phil & Tracy...it was a completion thing...as complete as could be Tracys name will never unfortunately make it there.

wow Lax.

I've always wanted to find tracey's plot but never got around to it. I found out where his ashes plaque was once but never got around to visiting

But at the end of this rant I've made- Tony Cohen's contribution to the band is beyond measure

at least for those who were unfortunate to be born later than their live days

ewwww is there a way to delete posts?

or a way to not look at what you've already written?

THE Birthday Party