New Wavey As Anything (Slight Surprising Return)

 

The almost obligatory ironic New Wave cover of a Sixties classic 

He looks like a more feral-demonic version of that hirsute fellow who fronted Supergrass

Would you believe despite once being such an obsessive Birthday Party fan - and indeed later on  doing an encyclopedia / comprehensive albums guide entry  on B.Party / Cave + Bad Seeds + offshoots - I have never yet listened to The Boys Next Door? 

I just took Cave at his word that it was best not listened to... 

"We made the unpardonable error of playing to the thinkers rather than the drinkers" - Nick Cave on the disgusting skinny-tie start of The Birthday Party as The Boys Next Door

You can just begin to hear something special in Rowland S's shrill scrapy guitar and Cave is starting to get a little hammy in his anguished tones 

But there's still that choppy, Vapors-ish element, the damped rhythm guitar chug...

This one is more like a foretaste of Nick Cave who loves "entertainment music, what some call 'corn'" - the epic ballads of Gene Pitney / Glen Campbell / Tim Rose 

Like he could skipped the Shaman stage (B. Party) and just gone straight to Showman. 

Transition from arty New Wave to something more primal and hacked and Ubu-Beefheart-addled is detectable in the shift across the record artwork

I wonder if this hand scrawlage was influenced by The Fall's record sleeves 

via Andrew Parker, a vintage interview with Boy Next Door Rowland S. Howard, wearing a classic New Wave tie

"We're much more based on ideas than other bands"