Birthday Party - Classic or Dud

the gun club (outlying, but really pretty damn goth)

good call. and fire of love = all time classic hereabouts.

thing about sonic youth & no wave vs. goth is that both were in there and not separated from one another. i mean, by the time they got around to recording "death valley '69" w lydia lunch, she'd become at least as much an icon to goths as she'd ever been a no wave poster girl. and that was relatively early in their (SY's career). it's hard for me to listen to their output from the bad moon rising through evol and not hear it as alternate-universe gothmusik. i mean, i remember playing sister for these two diehard christian death fanatics back when it came out, and they were blown away, saw it as totally goth, totally of their scene, right or wrong.

i need to re-listen to them more seriously (it's been at least 10 years) but my initial inuiation and memory says "yes"

xxpost

no wave was pretty much a musical blip

i always thought as Evol os THE sy goth-influenced record. and it'a a great record.

i guess the thing that bother me the most about Goth is the lack of humour

I think your memory is faulty - Bauhaus is probably one of the least one-dimensional goth bands i can think of.

i like the Lydia Lunch 13.13 record very much:

the awesome Live Skull are actually a combination between this and sonic youth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0plWUmzpdwI&feature=related

ok, maybe i was somewhat exaggerating about Goth.
i'm gonna wear black , put some heavy make up and make a big nose pierce for atonement

sarah OTM re bauhaus. though zeno does have a point about humor and goth: it's too often (though not always) absent. helps if you include black humor, natch. plus the inherent comedy value of self-seriousness and extremity.

on that note, khanate as goth

humour is not meant to be diggen deep and hard to find.

i dunno - i thought the lyric "o classic gentlemen with your ... fish" was pretty blatantly hilarious

xp sez you! lots of things seem serious on first viewing/reading and reveal their humor only to people willing to dig deeper

cf. the entire careers of david lynch & stanley kubrick

and faulkner

kubrick isn't the best choice - see Dr. Strangelove (which i'm sure you have)

david lynch is sometimes funny - no need to dig deeper to find that.

about goth - in the end it's a matter of taste and subjective pov i guess.

no way is it subjective, goths rulin everything all day, everybody gotta realize

it's sexy, thats for sure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAM6I1DGPAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcSZTa_5PRM&feature=related

goth is like one of the few genres that people feel 100% comfortable describing (and dismissing) monolithically, ascribing outliers some not-of-the-genre-because-they're-good status

I was just writing about this a few days ago, trying to figure out why. A band can follow 100% of the tropes and cliches of Nuggets-style garage or 77 punk, adding nothing more, and be totally adored. But if you moan over a Roland with some phased arpeggios, everyone goes, "ugh, Goth."

I think comes down to the whole notion of "gothic". I really depends on weirdness. And you conjure any weirdness if you're following a predictable blueprint- so if a band does nothing but follow the templete, it sounds throwaway. Like slasher film set at a summer camp. The band that builds on goth gets accolades by being "goth, but then they add _____". And you could insert almost anything in that blank spot- metal, punk, techno, avant, folk.

I think it's because straights know goths are totes sexing it up all day everyday & it makes them jealous

i guess the thing that bother me the most about Goth is the lack of humour

It is crazy that this shows up on a thread about what is one of the world's funniest bands, imo.

I remember my first roomie I had was a goth and we would just get the giggles at every fucking thing we listened to. Like I remember her putting on "Hour of the Wolf" by Christian Death and it just fucking slaying us for hours. I know this is what happens when you give 19-year-old girls marijuana but OTOH I think a lot of gothics music is secretly winking at you, is secretly-humor inducing in that it brings me a lot of giddy pleasure. Like I don't dig that it is only 0-3% funny maximum.

A band can follow 100% of the tropes and cliches of Nuggets-style garage or 77 punk, adding nothing more, and be totally adored. But if you moan over a Roland with some phased arpeggios, everyone goes, "ugh, Goth."

this is true and not true. i mean, recycled nuggets garage & 77 punk appeal almost exclusively to an audience of people specifically and often fanatically dedicated to those things (barring the circa 00's "real rock" blip). everybody else just rolls their eyes and goes "ugh, that again. snooze." same with goth. by-the-number gothmusik (of this or that stripe, as there are many subgenres) appeals to die-hards and bores everyone else.

...if a band does nothing but follow the templete, it sounds throwaway. Like slasher film set at a summer camp. The band that builds on goth gets accolades by being "goth, but then they add _____".

honestly, i think this is likewise true of most genres. you can appeal to the faithful by replicating a beloved formula, and sometimes these conservative, flame-maintaining "true cult" aesthetics briefly break out into the mainstream, but for the most part you have to do something novel with the received formula in order to appeal to a broad/non-cult audience.

abbbottt OTM. plus like not-so-secretly funny shit like alien sex fiend.

cramps may not be goth, but goths love 'em, and they're funny as hell

I saw them on a double bill with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on the From Her to Eternity tour

another thing about goths is they've often been around for a minute or two

no way is it subjective, goths rulin everything all day, everybody gotta realize

raggett

lol, was supposed to be [/raggett] joek fail

This conversation is responsible me for me putting my Alien Sex Fiend CDs on my compy, so it's been worth it.

you know what goth band deserves more love than they currently get is sex gang children. "mauritia mayer" is awesome.

otm about Alien Sex Fiend

http://retromaniafootnotes.blogspot.co.il/2012/05/800x600-normal-0-false-false-false-en_5119.html

http://retromaniafootnotes.blogspot.co.il/2012/05/800x600-normal-0-false-false-false-en_5119.html

poll anyone?

nick cave and rowland howard - portrait of the artist as a consumes

Classic...absolutely...but definitely not an easy listen!

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/04/05/the-birthday-party-junkyard-round-64-toms-selection/

Classic. Deep in the woods, six inch gold blade, "hands up who wants to die", heck, there's no BP track I don't like.

Classic, but I have reservations of the Boys Next Door era

Not that the music is bad or anything, I just prefer to think of them coming out of nowhere and fully formed with Prayers On Fire

Howard and Pew by some distance the best part of this band

there aren't many records with a sleeve as good as junkyard's.

If you go straight to Prayers on Fire you miss the acidic scatterfunk of the s/t/Hee Haw lp which I have always loved. THat seems more in line with what became POF anyway.
& from what I recall they were saddled with a non sympathetic producer when they cut Door Dor which was outof step with where they were when it was released anyway. Not solely because half of it was from a much earlier point in their career prior to Rowland joining if I'm remembering right.

I did start with Prayers on Fire and only heard scattered songs from before that. Should try to check out the earlier stuff.

yeah I love the first lp. Pretty psychedelic with the screeing guitar and stuff. It was released on the Hee Haw cd which contains most o fthe material recorded around that point but I don't think has been remastered in decades.

WEird middle eastern riffs over skittering funk beats or whateveyr Calvert is playing & RSH with a tone that's half feedback and very trebly. Must have music methinks.

yeah there are plenty of tracks on the hee haw cd that are as essential as anything on prayers on fire.

this surfaced today, p great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM6mr_MGITw

God can you even imagine

this is great, i saw them four weeks after this in nz

classic

Incredible!!

gonna share the shit outta this