6. Birthday Party - Release The Bats (4AD)

 

Number one for three weeks from 5th September 1981

While many interviews have revealed his uniquely dry sense of humour, Nick Cave isn’t particularly renowned for his way with a catchphrase or punchline. In the mid-nineties, you could shove Jarvis Cocker – a man who isn’t averse to a bit of spite and darkness himself - on a panel show and be assured of a few cheeky giggles, but it’s safe to say that nobody called Nick Cave’s manager about putting him on Pop Quiz.

So it's strange to listen to “Release The Bats” afresh for the first time in decades, years after it last pummelled my ears during Friday nights at the Rayleigh Pink Toothbrush (goths welcome), and notice both how camply brilliant it is and how indebted to simple sloganeering. For a track which is largely regarded as spearheading the gothic movement, it owes a far bigger debt to Joe Meek and Screaming Lord Sutch than Joy Division or Bauhaus, taking the ketchup and cleavage gore of a thousand cheap Hammer spin-offs as its source text.

“Bite! Bite!” demands Cave at the start, before asking loudly but almost incoherently “Tell me that it doesn’t hurt/ a hundred fluttering in your skirt?” an image which is immediately ludicrous rather than disgusting.

The track, like many Birthday Party singles, starts as it means to continue, like an unchallenged steamroller slowly crumpling up the edge of the street where the parked cars live. There’s no discernable chorus, just a continued barrage of stabbed guitar lines, catchphrases (which as the song progresses descend into excited gibberish such as “sex horror sex bat sex sex horror sex vampire”) and Cave ripping himself into a state of either ecstasy or fury. He seems conflicted about the bats, wanting to destroy them (or “explode” them) as much as he wants to celebrate them, like a wildlife preservation officer who happens to have some living in his attic.

The drumming is also worthy of mention here; in common with a lot of the indie chart entries I’ve been listening to for this period of 1981, the near complete aversion to a cymbal or a hi-hat is both notable and strangely typical. Martin Hannett famously got the ball rolling on this percussive style with Joy Division, but it also became adopted by acts whose debt to Joy Division was less immediately obvious – Felt, for example, were also adding bottom-heavy percussion to their otherwise airy indie-pop compositions at this point. In The Birthday Party’s case, it anchors the sound down with those jazzy basslines, making “Release The Bats” bit-part punk racket with a strange unwieldy swing on top.
Other members of the group have confirmed that “Bats” was never intended to be any kind of serious statement. Guitarist Nick Harvey has stated that it was supposed to have been a “comedic interlude” which appears to have taken on a life of its own. Comedy is usually sure-footed about what it’s parodying, though, and the source material for “Bats” – Joe Meek at his most coffin-creaking, rockabilly, Hammer Horror, punk, jazz – feel like disparate things which, despite their opposing nature, just about hang together, in the way that so much post-punk was thrilling in its unsteady tightrope act. A cruel critic might argue it’s Cave’s “Monster Mash”, but “Monster Mash” is pure, uncomplicated and clearly signposted novelty. If “Release The Bats” has any signposts at all, Cave’s fingers jab at them far too quickly to allow any to sink in properly.

Back in my alternative clubbing days, “Bats” also sorted out the po-faced from the fun seekers. I’ve always carried flashbacks of an image in my head of a lantern-faced male goth snaking and grooving on the dancefloor, occasionally pouting and turning to me to scream “Bite!”, with a wide grin and mad eyes. Christ knows who he was and when it happened, but it’s anecdotal proof that while goth rock was portrayed in the media as a serious business for morbid adolescents, it frequently contained an element of high camp which was no more meant to be taken seriously than the scattier, trashier ends of the punk movement which birthed it.

The Birthday Party would not, however, mature into a mainstream act like other forebears. Inter-band relationships were as chaotic as the noise they made, and two albums into their “career”, they called it a day in 1983, leaving Nick Harvey and Rowland Howard to form the under-appreciated Crime & The City Solution, and Nick Cave to form the endlessly referenced and admired Bad Seeds.

“Release The Bats” proved to be a deathless moment and still gets played periodically by club DJs at the right sort of night, and 6 Music DJs having a rare moment of levity. It could be regarded as one of those signature moments which curses a group, but in fairness, its sound is so close to most of the rest of The Birthday Party’s material that it can’t be seen as unrepresentative – it’s just that, unlike “Sonny’s Burning” or “The Friend Catcher”, it unapologetically sticks a huge dayglo pumpkin outside its front door in place of the group’s usual “trespassers will be burnt” warning signs. Every band has to send out party invitations and put down a welcome mat occasionally.

Trivia

The comedian Sean Hughes and Cathal Coughlan out of Fatima Mansions/Microdisney (both sadly departed now) recorded a swing version of this track for their Bubonique "20 Golden Showers" project. It bears only a passing resemblance to the original single, but that should probably surprise no-one. If anythnig, it sounds like the theme to a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that never was. 

Away From The Number One Spot

The 4 Skins climbed to number 7 with the furious and almost incoherent rush of “One Law For Them” – timeless topic there, lads – and in a similar rage, street punks Blitz were tucked behind the number one spot with the “All Out Attack” EP. Be honest, when was the last time you heard these huge indie hits on the radio, in a club, or indeed anywhere?




Even more buried than either of those two tracks by modern day standards is Water Mitty’s Little White Lies with “Brave New England”, a New Wave track which has left utterly no trace on the internet (either on YouTube or streaming sites) despite peaking at number 21 on the indie chart and later being picked up for reissue by RCA. Do you know them? Have you seen them? Do call.

Meanwhile, the dependably identifiable Robert Wyatt hovered around the lower reaches of the thirty with “Grass”, perhaps feeling slightly out of sorts with some of the other company (and with sales to match).

Bunny Wailer – apparently keenly admired by Prince Charles at this time (and yes, I do mean that Prince Charles, and not some Jamaican musician who had assumed the title of the royal) also managed an idle week at number 19 on Rough Trade with “Rise And Shine”.




Vivien Goldman’s “Launderette”, co-produced by John Lydon and Keith Levene of PiL during Image Limited downtime, also notches up one week of infamy at number 26. Unbelievably, this one actually has a music video too; have we turned a corner here?




Pop pickers are likely to be more interested in Bananarama’s only appearance on the chart that doesn’t count, though, with the original issue of “Aie A Mwana” on Demon records managing a barely noticeable number 28 peak. The track would shortly be reissued by Decca on their Deram imprint before the group became one of the biggest acts of the eighties on London Records. Must admit it would have been very interesting to get stuck into this one if it had managed to get to the number one indie spot, but it missed by miles.

The Indie charts for this week are available on the UKMix Forums.

Number One In The Real World

Soft Cell - "Tainted Love" (Some Bizarre)

Adam & The Ants - "Prince Charming" (CBS)