The End of the Eighties, Track 35

“Ziggy Stardust”
Bauhaus
Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions
1989

Track 35 was the final track of the original Bowling Green two-disc mix CD set. And it ended where it began: with Bauhaus. Never more popular, mainstream, or obvious than they were with their cover of Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”, this is where the boys wear their allegiances on their sleeve.

It seems obvious to the point of awkward just how much Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy wishes he were Bowie when you listen to this track. At the time of this version’s release in 1989, Rykodisc was gearing up to churn out well-produced and thoughtful reissues of Bowie’s own catalog on compact disc for the first time. (I devoured those discs as voraciously as anything else. Chock full of rarities and outtakes, Rykodisc did a great job giving the pioneer’s early work its due.) But this BBC session version by the Goth godfathers is as career defining as “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. There is a rawness to this version that belies its faithfulness to the original.

Bauhaus were as much a part of that first year of college for me as Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, Love and Rockets, and all the others. And an absolutely appropriate way to close out that original playlist and conclude the first half of this particular exercise. It’s a natural stopping point, and I’m going to take a break from these for a while.

End, Part 1

The End of the Eighties, Track 30

“Party of the First Part”
Bauhaus
Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions
1989

When I worked at the now long-gone Digital Daze CD store in Akron, I rarely took home an actual paycheck. I was always one for being compensated in the form of shiny little discs enfolded in cardboard longboxes or rare gems from the import case. Among my “take-home pay” over the years I worked there were the 1988 Beggars Banquet UK catalog issues of Bauhaus’ Mask, Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape, The Sky’s Gone Out, and Burning from the Inside with the “ripped” CD insert motif and full of extras.

Buried among those bonus tracks on the The Sky’s Gone Out was “Party of the First Part”. This quirky little bass-drum-keyboard workout consists of dialog sampled from the 1978 Canadian Halloween animated special, The Devil and Daniel Mouse by Nelvana Ltd. It’s like watching the show while the bad practices. The only non-sampled dialog is, I assume, a band member commenting that “the interview circus is so absurd, and so silly” near the two-minute mark. The song itself is nearly five-and-a-half minutes long, but the sampled dialog is finished before the three-minute mark, leaving two-and-a-half minutes of groove to carry the song out.

The song received proper US distribution a year later, with the release of Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions. As much as I listened to the original albums on the UK releases, it was Swing the Heartache that got the most airplay on my stereo because of the rawness of the Peel Session tracks and nice sampling of the band’s overall catalog. This is where “Party of the First Part” really became ingrained in my musical lexicon. It’s one of those eccentric numbers that helped endear Bauhaus to me. Like so many other pop culture artifacts, I know every word, every well-timed pause and vocal inflection of the dialog from the song. And, given how often I played The Sky’s Gone Out and Swing the Heartache in the dorm room freshman year, I would bet John could recite it, too.

There are a couple of tangential pop culture items of note regarding The Devil and Daniel Mouse source animation:

First, it was the basis for Nelvana’s 1983 animated full-length film Rock & Rule, featuring music by Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Earth Wind & Fire. Aired incessantly on HBO in the early and mid-’80s, it held a place alongside Heavy Metal among our regular late night viewing. The voice of The Devil and Daniel Mouse’s B.L. Zebub, Chris Wiggins, could also be found on Rock & Rule, among dozens of other classic ’80s animated shows, including The Care Bears, ALF: The Animated Series, Star Wars: Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids.

Second, Nelvana is responsible for arguably the only redeeming value of the mythically bad (and, yes, I remember watching it when it originally aired in November 1978) Star Wars Holiday Special. Apparently, George Lucas was a fan of the studio’s work and tapped them to create the 10-minute animated short that introduces the character of Boba Fett nearly two years before his feature film debut in The Empire Strikes Back.

Who We Used To Be

Nine Inch Nails
27 June 2006: Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is a folk hero in these parts. A musician friend of mine once observed, “Everybody in Northeast Ohio has a Trent story.” And she’s right. My wife has hers (tales of Trent dating her best friend and of watching Trent play in his garage), I have mine (memories of Trent frequenting the record shop I worked at, bringing in and playing demos of what would become Pretty Hate Machine) and our friends have theirs. Even now, over 20 years after he arrived in Cleveland, Reznor’s impact on the local music landscape is as legendary as the way he changed the face of industrial music on a global scale. Given all that history, when he plays here, the shows seem to be about more than just the music.

I have seen Nine Inch Nails in concert more times than I can count, and all of them at assorted hole-in-the-wall Cleveland bars and venues in support of Pretty Hate Machine in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The debut album was a perfect storm: The fury and passion behind the lyrics mixed with a completely different sound that bled into my world; I found it at a time when I was also discovering new sides of myself. The album came along at just the right time to be the single most influential collection of songs in my life before or since. For that reason, I originally approached Reznor’s homecoming show with reservation. But at the urging of my wife, and the opportunity to see Goth godfathers Bauhaus, I was persuaded.

And when Bauhaus strolled on stage amid fog machines and white light for their hour-long set, I knew I had made the right decision. It was strange to see the founders of the Goth movement playing while the sun was still up. The rains and humidity had created real fog just off to the left of the amphitheater stage, carrying the theatrics into the crowd of Goth girls in black prom dresses and punks who weren’t around when Bauhaus originally formed. We were close enough to the stage to see the band well, but far enough away to preserve my original images of the group in their heyday.

Songs like “Double Dare”, “In the Flat Field”, “Rosegarden Funeral of Sores”, and the one-two closers “Stigmata Martyr” and “Dark Entries” all sounded as fresh as they do on 1982’s live effort, Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape. Thoughts of an album of new material danced through the heads of the faithful as the new tunes, “Adrenaline” and “Endless Summer of the Damned”, were unveiled -- although the latter was slight on substance and long on cliché (as evidenced by the title), even for these guys.

The sibling rhythm section of Kevin Haskins and David J carried the show, and you could feel the muscular beats pulsing in your chest. Peter Murphy’s singing was spot on, and he sounded every bit the English gentleman, even as he bitched out the lighting people from the stage – pointing out the differences between left and right and telling them not to fuck it up again. Daniel Ash, sporting a white shag carpet vest and oversized bug-eye sunglasses, was the consummate glam rock guitarist. And his on-stage shtick was the same as it was 25 years ago – stalking the stage, playing guitar on his knees, and punctuating songs with his saxophone skronk.

During Bauhaus’ set, the rains stopped and the temperature dropped. Blossom’s lawn took on mudslide qualities and visions of Reznor’s infamous Woodstock appearance were replaying in my mind. Although the mosh pit in front of the stage was complemented nicely by a mud pit at the base of the sloping lawn, a recreation of the literal mud-slinging of that ’94 incident never materialized here. Shortly after sunset, the house lights dimmed, and the deafening roar of the crowd was supplanted by the slow build of “Somewhat Damaged” – the first of five songs off of 1999’s The Fragile. (The song selection was the most curious aspect of the show. Apart from the new song, “Non Entity”, the band only played three songs off of the support album, With Teeth, and three off of the critical and popular darling, The Downward Spiral. Four songs each were played off of Pretty Hate Machine and the stop-gap Broken EP.)

Hearing songs that I had never previously experienced live was a treat. The folding cage of lights that was lowered and raised throughout the show was partially down during “Closer” – where the center section slowly “filled” with red Matrix-style dashes and blips of light, but it was the funky workout of Broken’s “Suck” towards the end of the set that really stood out. The touring band, which includes Jordie White (formerly Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson’s band) and Josh Freese (who has played with Akron’s Devo), allowed the song to retain its aggressive nature while stretching and breathing in a groove.

While “Hurt” was an expected showstopper, it exceeded expectations. Reznor was exposed, alone on keyboards, and it was as intimate as any of the 100-listener shows I saw him perform over two decades ago. Something about the ringing piano and Reznor’s melodies never seem quite right, they always seem broken – musically, emotionally. Although the song isn’t a sing-along, per se, the crowd made it one in the most reverential of ways and as the band came in at the end for a beautiful slow burn, there was nothing left but passion.

Of the new songs, “Only” could be the next “Down In It”. From its emphasis on synthesizers to Reznor’s more-rapping-than-singing approach to the “tiniest little dot” lyrical reference, the song is a throwback to the Pretty Hate Machine material.

Things got arena-rock clichéd, though, during the chorus, when too-clever lighting took the focus off the band and put it on the crowd during “There is no you” and reversed the effect during the “There is only me” lines. The clap-along to “The Hand that Feeds” also treaded the cliché, but that is today’s Nine Inch Nails – including a Reznor who has transformed himself from skinny kid into Henry Rollins’ little brother, complete with ’roid-y muscles, sleeveless shirts, and a buzz cut.

Although I understand what Reznor has done with his music (and image, for that matter), I have had a love/hate relationship with him since the early days, when he wrote the soundtrack for my life and then turned around and marketed it to frat boys. And “The Hand that Feeds” almost seems like an acknowledgement, an apology for it – “What if the whole crusade’s a charade / And behind it all there’s a price to be paid... Just how deep do you believe? / Will you bite the hand that feeds?... Are you brave enough to see it? / Do you want to change it?” – wrapped in a neat industrial-pop package, of course.

This night, it was the Pretty Hate Machine cuts that were the most amazing. I had forgotten how powerful these songs are when played live. The synths of “Something I Can Never Have” were mixed behind the chest-rumbling bass and stripped-bare vocals, complete with a cough by Reznor that made it all the more real. Synths poked through the guitars’ wall of sound like glass stabbing at skin on “Down In It”, and the party spun out of control during the set closing “Head Like a Hole”. Ferocious, angry, exhilarating. Hands and voices were raised as one: “Bow down before the one you serve!” The crowd noise was deafening as the house lights came up, the cage lowered, and the “NIN” logo was flashed in lights on it. No need for an encore.

Regardless of the mixed up nostalgia and confusion that accompanies growing older and watching your heroes do the same, everything about this show felt right. And between songs, Reznor summed it all up perfectly when he told the crowd, “It’s good to be home. All grown up.”

(Edited versions of this piece have been published by PopMatters and Field’s Edge.)

The End of the Eighties, Track 08

“The Spy in the Cab”
Bauhaus
Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions
1989

Claustrophobic paranoia. That’s probably the most succinct way to describe this Orwellian descent into terror.

Bauhaus’ “The Spy in the Cab” is a perfect four-minute marriage between music and lyric delivery. Matching Peter Murphy’s portrayal of the madman’s descent into paranoia, Daniel Ash’s acoustic guitar slowly devolves to the point where, somewhere around the three-minute mark, it’s a feedback-laden fuzzy mess of nerves. Part of the brilliance of the composition is, amid this downward spiral of guitar and lyrics, Kevin Haskin’s unwavering drum/electronic heartbeats become both comforting and unsettling.

Close your eyes for even a second and you’re in that small, coffin-like cab on a damp London night, headlights reflecting back too brightly off the low-hanging fog. And your mind starts playing tricks on you… Is the camera really there? Can you trust your own judgment? Thrown completely off balance, by song’s end, you don’t know if the fear is real or all in the narrator’s head.

Clocking in a half-minute shorter in running time, the Swing the Heartache version of “The Spy In the Cab” winds things tighter and even more succinctly than the original found on Bauhaus’ debut album, In the Flat Field.

Because Swing the Heartache is a compilation of BBC sessions, there is an immediacy to the songs captured here. “The Spy in the Cab” is one of four tracks (including its musical brother “A God in an Alcove”) pulled from the band’s first appearance on the legendary John Peel Show recorded January 03, 1980. More polished than a concert recording, looser than a studio recording, the cuts find a striking middle ground of insistency.

Always my favorite Bauhaus album – probably because it was released while I was in the thick of it – Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions is a breathtaking document of Bauhaus’ abilities and “The Spy in the Cab” is one of their creepiest, on-the-verge-of-coming-unhinged tales.

Honestly, though, the paranoia of “The Spy in the Cab” can be easily disarmed by a couple of college freshman by simply recasting the ominous “boop” heartbeat of the song in a Monty Python “Machine that goes ‘Bing!’” setting. Yeah, I’m looking at you, John.

The End of the Eighties, Track 03

“Saudade”
Love and Rockets
Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven
1985
In the wake of Bauhaus’ dissolution in the early ’80s, band members went their separate ways with various solo and one-off projects. As the story goes, in 1985 when Peter Murphy failed to show up for a proposed Bauhaus reunion rehearsal, three-fourths of the band decided to jam anyway and Love and Rockets was born.

Amid the psychedelia-glam mash-up of Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, the debut closes out with a gorgeous 13-minute pairing of “Haunted When the Minutes Drag” and “Saudade”. The former is somewhat well-known for being featured in John Hughes’ She’s Having a Baby (an edited version of the song appears on the soundtrack). The latter is a five-minute instrumental I have always associated with my college roommate John.

For the last 20 years, I have operated under the assumption that “Saudade” is John’s favorite Love and Rockets tune. And knowing John, and how thoughtfully he walks through this life, there couldn’t be a more fitting choice because “saudade” is a Portuguese word analogous to nostalgia. Regardless, “Saudade” is one of my favorite Love and Rockets tunes and reason enough for inclusion on the playlist.

The synthesizer-guitar mix winds and flows around and between all the little reflective places in my head, easily conjuring memories of friends and girlfriends. It encapsulates those quieter moments I remember from Bowling Green… furiously trying to capture the thoughts in my head as my Sharpie (my writing utensil of choice at the time) flew across a page, watching Wonder Years in our dorm, hanging out with Kari (my girlfriend early that Fall semester).

Avoiding the Goth prototype they pioneered, Daniel Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins explored psychedelia and glam (Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven and Express), psychedelia and folk (Earth * Sun * Moon), and alternative rock and glam (Love and Rockets), before finally devolving into techno and house (everything after until I stopped following them altogether). But those first four albums contain some of my favorite songs of the era.

And given the backward-looking nature of this playlist, I can’t think of a more appropriate song selection than “Saudade”.

Related, irreconcilable memory: Not sure why it’s lodged in my head or if it’s even accurate, but I’m pretty sure Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven was the first compact disc I ever bought. What I do know for sure is that I started buying CDs before I ever had a player.

The End of the Eighties, Track 01

“Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
Bauhaus
Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape
1982

“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is the granddaddy of ’em all. Clichéd, bloated, completely lacking a sense of humor, and perfect in every way, this is where Goth begins and ends. It’s also the only logical jumping off point for The End of the Eighties playlist.

Originally holding the track one, disc one slot on the BGSU / Fall 1989-Spring 1990 mix, this is the first song I associate with Bowling Green State University.

Shortly after John and I got settled into our BGSU dorm room, we became close friends with Jen and Erin. As I recall, I met Erin during a campus visit sometime between early July and late August before classes started. I know this because I remember the first time I saw her she had on a black and white PiL concert t-shirt and these bright aqua blue shorts. I went up to her and asked her if she attended the show at Blossom (she had) and our friendship took off from there.

I seem to think I met Jen at a freshman orientation mixer kind of thing out on the lawn. I don’t think John and I introduced Jen and Erin to each other, though we might have. I do know that the first time Jen and Erin came back to our dorm room, we all hung out and listened to music, and I played Bauhaus’ Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape live album with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” on it.

I had picked up the disc while I worked at Digital Daze (now long gone) in Akron. I actually had all of Beggars Banquet’s Bauhaus reissues with the extra tracks and similar packaging. Those imports were crazy-expensive, but I loved them, often going weeks without seeing an actual paycheck because I poured my money right back into the store.

By the time John, Jen, Erin, and I were listening to it on that hot August afternoon, the song itself was already ten years old and considered the first Goth song released (as a single on the Small Wonder label in August ’79). For only having 15 or so lines of lyrics, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is a sprawling blueprint for Goth. Clocking in at nine-and-a-half minutes, the song fills the space between with heavy bass, a metronome drum beat, and winding dub guitar work. An “alternative night” staple in clubs, the song doesn’t unfold so much as it broods its way across the musical landscape. Atmosphere is everything here.

Back in the day, we would watch beat up second- and third-hand videocassette copies of Shadow of Light and Tony Scott’s The Hunger to see “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in its glory. (And how delicious the irony of Peter Murphy, who has unabashedly worshiped at the altar of Bowie, on screen with his idol in those opening moments of the film?) And I guess that’s as close to seeing the song live as I’m gonna get, because I've only seen them live once and they didn’t play it.

There are Bauhaus songs I like better than “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (and four more Bauhaus songs will show up on this playlist before I’m finished), but this one is where friendships began and the ’80s end for me.