THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 'Mr Clarinet'/'Happy Birthday' RARE
£
25
$
33
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Description
The Birthday Party 7 Inch single 'Mr Clarinet' / 'Happy Birthday' on Missing Link Records (MLS 18) Year : 1980.
The Birthday Party (originally entitled The Boys Next Door) were an Australian post-punk group, active from 1976 to 1983.
Despite being championed by the enormously respected UK radio DJ John Peel, The Birthday Party found little commercial success during their career. Though often indirect, their influence has been far-reaching. They've been called one of "the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early 1980s."
While their early music was sometimes classified as gothic rock, the band disdained the term, and their sound was very different from most goth music, closer to the No Wave sound at the time. However, the Birthday Party did have an influence on deathrock, a genre of music related to gothic rock.
After recordings and moderate success in Australia as The Boys Next Door (including hundreds of live shows) they headed for London in 1980 changing their name to The Birthday Party, where they had a 7 inch few singles released on a tiny independant UK label, Missing Link records. (The 1st and rarest of which is on offer here) They resided in London, with trips back to Australia and tours throughout Europe and the U.S. before relocating to Germany around 1982.
They disbanded in late 1983, due in part to band in-differences, and work and drug-related exhaustion. Several groups rose from The Birthday Party's ashes however with the most succsessful being Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, followed by Crime and the City Solution, and These Immortal Souls.
Rock acts that have cited The Birthday Party as an influence include White Zombie, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Coil, My Bloody Valentine, Deerhunter, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, Cocteau Twins, The Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid, Melt-Banana, 16 Horsepower, Big Boys, Dinosaur Jr, Billy Raygun, Tindersticks, The Horrors, The Witch Hats, Turn Pale, The Wahas, The Devastations and Frog Eyes.
On 13 Jan 2009 a copy of the single for sale here in 'excellent' condition sold on the internet for $160 Australian dollars (around £75 ), and as I personally paid £20 for the item a few years back, there will be a minimum bid of £25 on the item.
Grading wise I go by Record Collector and would say the vinyl is an 'excellent' at the very least. It is a 'barely' played record and has only a few of the most minor of hairline marks on the vinyl that they hardly show at all unless closely inspected. The sleeve is also in 'excellent' condition, with a small minor piece of wear about an inch long on the right side of sleeve, as some other wear on the other 2 edges of the sleeve, but again, the wear is minor.
Postage :
UK 1st Class : £1.62
UK Signed For : £ 2.37
Europe 1st Class : £1.70
Europe Signed For : £5.40
World 1st Class : £2.70
World Signed For : £6.40
price rating
