Wonderland Burlesque: Wonderland Burlesque's Down The Rabbit Hole: The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door

Sunday, April 05, 2026

Wonderland Burlesque's Down The Rabbit Hole: The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door

Wonderland Burlesque's

Down The Rabbit Hole:

The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door

Down The Rabbit Hole merely places a spotlight on something slightly unusual that's caught my interest. With the help of Wikipedia, YouTube, and other sites, I gather information and learn something new.

Today, we take a look at the history and music of the influential Australian band The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door.

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From Wikipedia and other sources:

The Birthday Party/The Boys Next Door were an Australian post-punk band, active from 1977 to 1983. They began life as The Boys Next Door, but then changed their name to when they headed for London in 1980. The nucleus of the band first met at the private boys school Caulfield Grammar School, in suburban Melbourne, in the early seventies. A rock group was formed in 1973, with Nick Cave (vocals), Mick Harvey (guitar), and Phill Calvert (drums), with other students filling in various roles. Most were also members of the school choir. The band played under various names at parties and school functions with a mixed repertoire of glam rock.

After their final school year in 1975 the band decided to continue as a four-piece group, with friend Tracy Pew picking up the bass. Greatly affected by the punk explosion of 1976, The Boys Next Door, as they were now called, began performing punk and proto-punk cover versions. The Boys' second guitarist, Rowland S. Howard, joined in 1978, and about this time the group's sound changed dramatically with the introduction of the use of audio feedback. Their sound drew upon punk, rockabilly, free jazz and blues, defying categorization.

In producer/engineer Tony Cohen they found a sympathetic collaborator who encouraged experimentation. In manager Keith Glass they found an enthusiastic financial backer and a record label. Glass' label Missing Link Records released all of the group's early records. The Boys Next Door's best known song, Shivers, written by Howard, and first performed and recorded by his band The Young Charlatans, was banned by radio stations because of a reference to suicide.

After numerous live gigs, recordings and having found moderate success in Australia, the group moved to London in 1980, prompting a name change. Their new environment launched a period of innovative and aggressive music-making. However, they quickly grew disillusioned with the state of the music scene in London, only finding like-minded groups in the Fall and the Pop Group.

After tours in the UK, Australia and the US, the group relocated to West Berlin in 1982. Here, their sound became noisier, with Nick Cave barely being heard above the din. Though Cave drew on earlier rock and roll shriekers such as Iggy Pop and Suicide's Alan Vega, his singing with the Birthday Party remained powerful and distinct, with his lyrics also drawing on the likes of Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.

Their single Release the Bats came out during the emergence of the gothic scene. The song, about "vampire sex" was promoted by an advertisement with the words "Dirtiness is next to antigodliness". The group's 1982 album Junkyard was inspired by American Southern Gothic imagery.

Then the band was rocked by several changes. Calvert was ejected from in 1982 due to his inability to "nail down the beats". Harvey then moved to drums. Then Pew was jailed for drunk driving and petty theft. He would rejoin the band in July of 1982.

After a one-off recording project with Lydia Lunch, which Cave and Harvey disavowed, the group toured in January of 1983. They soon found themselves whittled down to a four-piece. By this point, tensions between Howard and Cave had grown intense, leading to Harvey's departure from the group.

The Birthday Party played their final show at the Crystal Ballroom in St Kilda on 9 June 1983 and disbanded not long after, due in part to the split between Cave and Howard, as well as work and drug-related exhaustion.

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