I AM THE KING

As a kind of mission statement for this blog I am making this first post the album on which the title that this blog borrows appears. Aside from being an under-acknowledged, totally decrepit classic instrumental in influencing various 80s underground, post-punk movements, this album sets the tone for posts to come. The trajectory of Nick Cave's career - from proverbial punk rags to mustached cult-cred indie-rock riches - is indicative of the type material I will cover on this blog: Weird sounds surfacing parallel to the mainstream as well as forgotten and discarded albums that should have made it, and all between.
JUNKYARD
Cave and company stumbled through the bathroom door of the 80s, needle in arm, in much the same fashion as Iggy did a mere decade earlier, taking Michigan's biker bars by surly surprise. And their degenerate angst-y din did much the same job disrupting punk's already fragmenting aftermath as the Stooges had their unwitting audiences. But while Iggy shouted in the face of the every-man as they hurled beer bottles, the Birthday Party sought to alienate their audiences and more so themselves from any previously formed unity within a scene; by making an ugliness which was trendy, ugly again. Hailing from that isle of petty thieves down under, they made quick work of becoming almost as notoriously hated in London as they had back at home. Eventually the smack wore off, having claimed bassist Tracy Pew for greener pastures, and in its wake Nick Cave got a 'real' job writing songs and lyrics he remembered. But if this album shows us anything it's that the nightmare was beautiful while it lasted.    

  

BITE!