robert thefamilyghost wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:They sound like a great, screwy Texas punk band that were influenced by the Birthday Party, not just ripping them off.

i didn't say they were just ripping them off...just everything that's good about them reminds me of The Birthday Party...The Birthday Party were so great and original that their sound can stand to take a lot of influence/ripping-off/whatever before it starts to remotely become a bad thing...i like Scratch Acid, my "OKAY" statement was probably seemed a little more derogatory than i meant it..."good-not-great" would maybe be better...but *at their best* they were ripping off The Birthday Party to a degree, which again isn't necessarily a bad thing...

That I will accept. Sorry to be so pedantic.

Which album is your favorite BP?

robert thefamilyghost wrote:Hee-Haw is easily my favorite...

a compilation more than an "album" but that's (in my opinion) their best stuff...(then Junkyard, then Prayers on Fire, and lastly Mutiny+Bad Seeds...)

SecondEdition wrote:

robert thefamilyghost wrote:

Ace wrote:I would argue that they aren't as good as their "followers" Scratch Acid, because their songs just aren't composed as well.
However, I know most Birthday Party fans would disagree. I just love Scratch Acid

ooh..and here's some disagreein'! Scratch Acid is OKAY...i listen to them and think "ah, a 3rd rate Birthday Party that waters down their sound with some straightforward good ol' fashioned rock and roll...3rd rate watered down Birthday Party is still a good thing to listen to..." (and from here we can move to the unrelated topic of why i do not like The Jesus Lizard at all: they sound like Scratch Acid stripped away of the parts imitating The Birthday Party and just left with the boring drek...i'm sure i'll be flamed for that, it's not like it'll be the first time...)

Ace: Gotta say...no. Sorry. Scratch Acid weren't the postpunk titans the Birthday Party were.

But to robert: Bullshit. I'm not flaming you, just disagreeing heavily. To me, Scratch Acid don't sound much like the Birthday Party at all. They sound like a great, screwy Texas punk band that were influenced by the Birthday Party, not just ripping them off. The first Scratch Acid EP is perfect - not even the Birthday Party made anything that consistent, where every song is a complete and total winner, and much of Just Keep Eating is brilliant as well. The Birthday Party, however, were a better band than Scratch Acid - more innovative, had better and far more difficult songs - but Scratch Acid could have made one of the all-time greatest punk albums ever: Use the first Scratch Acid EP in its' entirety as the first side, then on the second side, use almost all of the first side of Just Keep Eating barring the 29-second untitled instrumental, with "Amicus" and "Cheese Plug" tacked at the end. 45 minutes of pure genius.

Don't get me wrong - i LOVE the birthday party. Prayers on Fire is one of the greatest albums of all time, Rowland S. Howard is one of my absolute favorite guitar players, and I am completely aware that I am in the minority - and possibly unique - in my preference for Scratch Acid. However, I see the Birthday Party as borderlining genius and, well, improvisation, and improv doesn't always work. Maybe I prefer SA because they seem to have more of a focus on writing set song structure, rather than what always seemed to me to be an intensified ad lib.
PLEASE don't misinterpret this while disagreeing... I'm not saying the Birthday Party ALWAYS did this, just sometimes.
And artists sometimes DO surpass their influences, contrary to popular belief...

"cannibal" and "junkyard" are almost the same song.

SecondEdition wrote:Mr. Maiolo - if you could record the intro to Friend Catcher I would be honored.

I found a video snip of us playing it!
I can either email that to you or I can post it somewhere.
I'm not sure where to post it though. I don't want to put it on YouTube.
Any ideas?

-A

The second-greatest band of all time. Who knows?--if and when I ever hear The Weirdness, they might move up to first.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:The second-greatest band of all time. Who knows?--if and when I ever hear The Weirdness, they might move up to first.

Depending on the wholesale shafting The Weirdness has been getting, you may want to hold off on that...just read that magazine Wire for the first time today (with Nick Cave's new "garage band" - ha! - on the cover...weird coincidence), and they pretty much ass-raped it. I think the guy must've had something against Steve, because he said something about how there was no funk on the record (which may be a legitimate criticism, seeing as how some of the greatest moments on Fun House were like JB funk roasting in hell), and that Watt's playing was just session-man stuff, that it was produced like the son of Never Mind The Bollocks (huh?), and that Steve hated funk...guess the guy never listened to "Kerosene," but whatever. I haven't listened to The Weirdness yet, though, so who knows.

I think, personally, that it's just ridiculous to compare The Weirdness to the three other albums...I mean, this is a reunion album - the last Stooges album, which I consider to be Raw Power, was made in 1973 - that is 34 years ago. How could it possibly be the same as Fun House? A lot of the criticism just sounds like whining (see Pitchdork).

What do you think, Brett? (also, which birthday party album do you prefer?)

SecondEdition wrote:

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:The second-greatest band of all time. Who knows?--if and when I ever hear The Weirdness, they might move up to first.

Depending on the wholesale shafting The Weirdness has been getting, you may want to hold off on that...just read that magazine Wire for the first time today (with Nick Cave's new "garage band" - ha! - on the cover...weird coincidence), and they pretty much ass-raped it. I think the guy must've had something against Steve, because he said something about how there was no funk on the record (which may be a legitimate criticism, seeing as how some of the greatest moments on Fun House were like JB funk roasting in hell), and that Watt's playing was just session-man stuff, that it was produced like the son of Never Mind The Bollocks (huh?), and that Steve hated funk...guess the guy never listened to "Kerosene," but whatever. I haven't listened to The Weirdness yet, though, so who knows.

I think, personally, that it's just ridiculous to compare The Weirdness to the three other albums...I mean, this is a reunion album - the last Stooges album, which I consider to be Raw Power, was made in 1973 - that is 34 years ago. How could it possibly be the same as Fun House? A lot of the criticism just sounds like whining (see Pitchdork).

What do you think, Brett? (also, which birthday party album do you prefer?)

I guess I just meant that, other than a couple of songs here and there, everything The Birthday Party put out was great--though I wouldn't say the best of The B.P. is better than The Stooges' best. Then again, The Birthday Party has not attempted to reform long after their heyday (and one hopes that with Tracy Pew, the soul of that band, dead, that they never will. Interesting that both bands lost their bass players.) I would say that Nick Cave's solo output has been far more consistent than Iggy's though. And better.

My favorite Birthday Party record is Junkyard--I like every fucking song on it, and I think it sounds the best of their albums--but I'm very partial to both The Bad Seed and Mutiny, too. The CD that contains both of those EP's is the record of theirs I listen to most. For some reason I've never gotten into Prayers on Fire quite as much. Not sure why.

My favorite Birthday Party song is "Release the Bats."

Or "Wild World." Or "Junkyard." Or . . .

this is the first time ive heard this band. Yowzers.

Bonham lives! wrote:this is the first time ive heard this band. Yowzers.

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