Live 1981–82
Live album by
The Birthday Party
Released10 August 1999
Recorded
List of dates
Venue
List of venues
  • The Venue, London (tracks 1-10)
  • Aladin, Bremen (tracks 11-16)
  • Sporting, Athens (track 17)
Genre
Length73:53
Label4AD
The Birthday Party chronology
It's Still Living
(1982)		 Live 1981–82
(1999)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide[3]
NME[4]
Ox-Fanzine[5]
Record Collector[6]
Release Magazine[7]
The Stranger[8]

Live 1981–82 is a live album by The Birthday Party and released in August 1999. The performances were "[c]ulled from the private collection of founding member Mick Harvey with assistance from super fan Henry Rollins".[9]

Reception

The album received very positive reviews from various sources. "Though various live releases had emerged over the course of the band's existence," writes Ned Raggett for Allmusic, "no full-length capturing of the Party's particular bacchanalia approved by the group had officially emerged until this release [...][The album] threatens at all points to leap from the speakers and throttle innocent bystanders."[1] Tim Peacock of Record Collector called it "a vital addendum to the pioneering Aussies’ oeuvre."[6] Matt Mernagh of Exclaim! writes: "the only live album from these Australian bastards is a brilliant effort in capturing pure chaos. Whether it’s Nick Cave’s howls and murderous screams, Harvey’s squalor of blues guitar playing, Rowland S. Howard’s high pitched guitar riffs, Tracy Pew’s thumping bass being buried in the background and Phil Calvert’s hammering drum sound, this beast finds the band at their peak. [...] By performing so well together, the frenzied noise has been planned, although it doesn’t seem like that could be humanly possible." He notes the audience response as being "enthused and stunned at the same time." He finds the only downside of the album to be the fact that it "has been taken from three different locations and melded into one piece of music" instead of being from a single live show.[9] The sound quality of the performances received praise, as did the band's cover of "Fun House", the latter of which has been described as "viciously maul[ed] and deface[ed] [in comparison to the original]"[10] and a "relentless eight-minute thrash [...] with Jim ‘Foetus’ Thirlwell riding shotgun on sax that provides a suitably Bacchanalian climax."[6]

Track listing

Live 1981–82
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Junkyard" (from Junkyard)Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard6:26
2."A Dead Song" (from Prayers on Fire)Cave, Anita Lane2:41
3."The Dim Locator" (from Junkyard)Howard3:09
4."Zoo-Music Girl" (from Prayers on Fire)Cave, Howard3:05
5."Nick The Stripper" (from Prayers on Fire)Cave4:08
6."Blast Off" (from Junkyard)Howard2:39
7."Release the Bats" (from Junkyard)Cave, Mick Harvey3:05
8."Bully Bones"Howard3:04
9."King Ink" (from Prayers on Fire)Cave, Howard5:53
10."Pleasure Heads Must Burn" (from Drunk on the Pope's Blood EP)Cave2:47
11."Big-Jesus-Trash-Can" (from Junkyard)Cave, Harvey3:33
12."Dead Joe" (from Junkyard)Cave, Lane3:47
13."The Friend Catcher" (from The Birthday Party)Cave5:02
14."Six Inch Gold Blade" (from Junkyard)Cave, Harvey3:41
15."Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow)" (from Junkyard)Cave, Howard5:11
16."She’s Hit" (from Junkyard)Cave, Tracy Pew7:11
17."Fun House" (from The Stooges' Fun House)The Stooges8:29
  • Tracks 1 - 10: Recorded at The Venue, London, UK, 1981
  • Tracks 11-16: Recorded at Aladin, Bremen, Germany, 1982
  • Track 17: Recorded at Sporting, Athens, Greece, 1982[11]

Personnel

Birthday Party

Credits

  • Mixing — Lindsay Gravina
  • Mastering — David Macquarie
  • Photography— Bleddyn Butcher

Release history

Region Date Label Format Catalogue
United Kingdom 1999 4AD CD CAD 9005 CD
29 July 2013 LP, CD CAD 9005
United States 30 July 2013

References

  1. 1 2 Live 1981-82 at AllMusic. Retrieved April 24, 2015. Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  3. ↑ Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian David (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. ISBN 9780743201698.
  4. ↑ "Live 1981-82 | NME". NME. 12 September 2005.
  5. ↑ "Reviews : BIRTHDAY PARTY / Live 81-82 :: ox-fanzine.de". www.ox-fanzine.de.
  6. 1 2 3 "Live 81-82 - Record Collector Magazine". recordcollectormag.com.
  7. ↑ "The Birtday Party: Live 1981-82 - Release on Line review".
  8. ↑ "CD Review Revue".
  9. 1 2 "Birthday Party Live 1981-82". exclaim.ca.
  10. ↑ Murphy, Peter. "Live 81-82". Hotpress.
  11. ↑ "The Birthday Party - Live 81-82". Discogs.
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