The Birthday Party

But I feel like a major part of why Nick Cave has had such luck and durability with the Bad Seeds is because his first band was such a [censored] show.

Before Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, there was The Birthday Party, the Australian post-punk band that Cave started with his friends while in Australian college.

The Birthday Party was first known as The Boys Next Door.

Ooh, boys.

And they became the most popular band in a really cool late '70s Melbourne, Australia scene.

The Boys Next Door were king [censored] of that scene by 1980.

And when they outgrew Melbourne, they relocated to London, which was a similar move to what hair honks bands did during the 1980s with their pilgrimages to Los Angeles.

The Boys Next Door changed their name to The Birthday Party in London, and then nothing went right.

So now we have rock stars who are doing that, though, Nathan.

The example I point to is Nick Cave, who began as a chaotic punk rock performer in a band called The Birthday Party.

I mean, really chaotic.

We're not talking like Blink-182 pop punk.

Um, and I think they just continue to get better, but, uh, certainly a strong first effort.

Moving on to The Birthday Party, their album The Birthday Party.

Eh, we have already heard songs off of this album, uh, entitled Guilt Parade and Happy Birthday.

Let's listen to the cut Mr. Clarinet.

Looks will she be last to stop.

I don't need to tell anybody that's been listening to the podcast that Birthday Party is a fantastic album, because you know I'm gonna say it's a fantastic album.

Uh, this, this is exactly what I hope for, what I expect, and what I love out of, um, out of Nick, out of Nick Cave and The Birthday Party.

It is a damn fantastic album from start to finish.

It's called Autoluminescent, a 2011 documentary about the life and times of the late rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Roland S. Howard.

It's a film that tracks his formative years in the post-punk scene in Melbourne, playing with Nick Cave in The Birthday Party, and his globetrotting years in Berlin, America, and then home again, playing until his death in 2009.

There are stories of love and friendship, depression and drug addiction.

Certain films rise above the sum of their parts, and Autoluminescent, which has a lot of different textures, is certainly one of them.

They captured his spirits with that wry smile as you would tell those stories.

And funnily enough, the people that knew him around that time thought, oh, no, he looks terrible, but we thought he looked dignified.

You know, he was looking like the true Roland of yesteryear and there was something about that spirit and also that... earlier interview, the 1988 interview where he's talking, um, it's, it's obviously after the birthday party and he's during These Immortal Souls and he's, he's talking in great detail about different stages of his life that he'd been through.

He's been quite candid as well about his regrets.

In 1957, Mick Harvey was born.

He was multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the band The Birthday Party, and also he collaborated for a long time with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

In 1963, Les Claypool was born.

He was bassist and singer, who was the frontman for the band Badseeds.