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.

The End of the Eighties, Track 29

“**** (Jungle Law)”
Love and Rockets
Love and Rockets
1989

Appropriating the Signifyin’ Monkey found in African folklore, Love and Rockets apply the trickster persona to a writer “spreading ugly lies like it’s some horrible disease” in “**** (Jungle Law)”. Assuming bad blood between the band and the press adds an extra layer of subtext as the song’s protagonist confronts the “signifying hack,” knocking him around a bit before letting him “go back to the trees” and to his typewriter. But when “the mother” eventually falls to his death, he notes that “there’s a new one in the obituary, and it shows four stars where the name oughta be!”

Musically, Love and Rockets is a 180-degree departure from the folk leanings of their previous album, Earth * Sun * Moon. Peppered with driving, feedback-laden tracks, the album feels considerably harder than anything they produced earlier in the decade.

The album was released just before graduation. It’s one of those CDs that I can tell you exactly where and when I bought it: Magnolia Thunderpussy. Pam and I drove the two hours south to Columbus after prom. We wandered around the Continent and actually ran into John and Julie at the Columbus Museum of Art. (I still have the little card with a black and white image of John Singer Sargent’s Carmela Bertagna on the front and information about the painting on the back that I picked up at the museum that day filed away somewhere with my senior prom mementos.) We also hit the record stores around the Ohio State University campus, and I bought Love and Rockets that afternoon at Magnolia Thunderpussy. I’m certain it was from Thunderpussy and not Singing Dog because for the longest time I actually had the receipt tucked into the CD booklet. In fact, it was probably still in there when I replaced it a decade ago with the two-disc expanded edition. (Replaced again with the new 5 Albums UK set just released earlier this year.)

“Bad Monkey”, a radical reworking of “**** (Jungle Law)” saw the light of day first on the “Glittering Darkness” EP in 1996, and later as a part of the Swing! project finally released on disc two of the Love and Rockets reissue. It’s fairly unremarkable, meandering even, interesting only as an artifact of just how pissed off the trio really was over whoever they were feuding with in the press.

Back in the day, oversized subway posters of alternative bands were all the rage. I had a Love and Rockets one for the song “Motorcycle” off this album mounted on the ceiling of my bedroom at my parents’ house, but I am not sure if it made it to the dorm room at Bowling Green. The weird thing is that I honestly can’t remember where I got the poster. I might have had to special order it from the CD store I worked at, but I can’t be certain. I also had a smaller Love and Rockets poster of the band that might have been Pam’s. That one did make it up to BG and hung over my dorm room desk freshman year.

The End of the Eighties, Track 28

“That’s What I Get”
Nine Inch Nails
Pretty Hate Machine
1989

Once again, it’s all about the flow within the playlist here. “Batdance” somehow fits perfectly against the synthesized steel drum percussion opening Nine Inch Nails’ “That’s What I Get”. It’s a song that is musically stark, devoid of softness. The only real emotion is conveyed by Trent Reznor’s vocals. Interestingly, though, the beats of Pretty Hate Machine’s leadoff single, “Down In It”, suddenly appear in the latter half of this song.

Thematically, “That’s What I Get” is all about the nihilistic place I found myself in between Pam leaving and my further self-exploration at Bowling Green in 1989. It’s as if every word of this song was ripped from my heart as I tried to navigate my victimized feelings over Pam’s departure. 

Just when everything was making sense

You took away all my self-confidence

Now all that I’ve been hearing must be true

I guess I’m not the only boy for you

That’s what I get

How could you turn us into this

After you just taught me how to kiss you?

I told you I’d never say goodbye

Now I’m slipping on the tears you made me cry

That’s what I get

Why does it come as a surprise

To think that I was so naïve

Maybe didn’t mean so much

But it meant everything to me

The song’s sentiment is echoed in hundreds of different variations throughout my writings of the era. Portrait of a Tortured Punk Poet as he attempts to find his way through both his feelings and the larger world, dressed in black, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and approaching his freshman college responsibilities more as “guidelines” as opposed to requirements.

The End of the Eighties, Track 27

“Batdance”
Prince
Batman (Original Soundtrack)
1989

Alright, this one might be hard to justify on an alternative soundtrack to the late ’80s, but hear me out…

Ten albums, including three soundtracks, one of the most infamous bootlegs of all-time, and a stunning complement of B-sides. Prince’s work from 1980 to 1989 is an untouchable musical evolution that spans R&B, funk, dance, new wave, pop, and rock. From guitar-soaked sex to lilting spirituality, Prince mastered the decade artistically and commercially.

In truth, I could have picked virtually any track from any Prince album from the ’80s, and it would have been appropriate here with regards to personal influence. Under the Cherry Moon was a foundational movie for Pam’s and my relationship, giving Parade an edge. John and Jen can tell you how I used to camp it up in the dorm room to Controversy’s “Jack U Off” when we were just hanging out. But the Prince track that probably most deserves to be on this playlist (but isn’t) is “Bob George”. Pam gave me my first copy of The Black Album on cassette tape in early 1989. Within a year I was laying down $50 for the bootleg CD at Madhatter Music Company in Bowling Green. For whatever reason, it was onto “Bob George” from that album that I transferred all my fury over Pam’s move to San Francisco to be with her ex-boyfriend earlier that summer. The distorted vocals, the self-deprecating references, the overt violence… it’s a track that completely encapsulates “dirty” Prince.

For the sake of playlist flow, however, I went with the Batman single, “Batdance”. Part of a campaign that changed the way blockbuster movies are marketed in the same way Jaws defined the summer tent pole nearly 15 years earlier, goth auteur Tim Burton’s Batman was ubiquitous in the summer of 1989. The movie worked for both the alternative culture denizens who worshipped at Burton’s quirky Pee Wee’s Big Adventure/Beetlejuice alter, and the hegemonic mainstream.

The collection of songs Prince offered up as accompaniment to the movie range from excellent funk workouts (“Electric Chair”) to downright silly (“The Arms of Orion”), and marked the beginning of the end for any level of consistent quality output from the artist. “Batdance” is a sample-heavy track (fitting in nicely next to Front 242’s “Welcome to Paradise V1.0”) that cleverly intertwines the words of Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger into the song. The omnipresent nature of both the movie and this song in 1989 resulted in snippets of the movie’s dialog permanently etched on the brains of virtually anyone consuming pop culture that summer – John and me included.

So maybe “Batdance” doesn’t fit perfectly under the “alternative” umbrella, but within the flow of the playlist and as a signpost for the end of the eighties, I’d be hard-pressed to find a more fitting inclusion.

The End of the Eighties, Track 26

“Welcome to Paradise V1.0”
Front 242
Front By Front
1988

Before I packed up all my worldly belongings and moved to Central Florida in the Summer of 1990, I threw a party. It was one of those amazingly cool events where all my worlds collided on one now-very hazy night. My parents were out of town, and I took that opportunity to throw a good-bye bash for myself. High school friends were there, co-workers from Warehouse Club showed up, and friends from Bowling Green all drove in town for the party.

I’m going to plead “hazy details” in order to avoid incriminating myself or anyone who was in attendance, but I remember playing DJ that night. Deep into industrial, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Nitzer Ebb, Severed Heads, and Front 242 were staples in my musical diet at the time. And, as much as I associate NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine with New Year’s Eve 1989, I associate Front 242’s “Welcome to Paradise V1.0” with my going away party.

The band brilliantly subverts samples of televangelist Farrell Griswold into twisted mini-treatises on sex, poverty, and religion. At the time, I just loved the shock value of the content (much in the same way NIN’s “The Only Time” and “Get Down Make Love” rocketed to the top of my Catholic Upbringing Rebellion playlist), but as an adult I see there was depth to the provocative challenges. “Welcome to Paradise V1.0” is a criminally underrated track that took what Brian Eno and David Byrne were doing with samples at the beginning of the decade on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and exploited it to take on everything from ’80s consumerism to the hypocrisy of religion in five-plus minutes of buzz saw synths and jackhammer percussion.

The End of the Eighties, Track 25

“Get Down Make Love”
Nine Inch Nails
Sin Maxi-Single
1989

It’s kind of shocking to me that Nine Inch Nails’ “Get Down Make Love” was nowhere to be found on either of the original playlists. It’s probably my favorite NIN song alongside “The Only Time”. The first time I heard “Get Down Make Love” was at the Phantasy Theater on the Pretty Hate Machine Promo Tour at the end of the decade. I attended the show with coworkers from the CD store I worked at, and when my boss (a classic and prog rock dinosaur) yelled over the din, “This is a Queen song!” my mind was completely blown.

It was a crazy thing to see Nine Inch Nails live in the late ’80s. Surrounded by anger and bathed in aggression, those early shows were physically demanding of both the band and the audience. The ferocity of the performance lent an unpredictable air of excitement to the proceedings. It was antagonistic. It stirred you, pulled you in. I’m not a big guy, but this is the music that could draw me into the fray. Jostled and bruised, you would emerge from the cornstarch haze of the venue and head out into the Northeast Ohio night carried on an adrenaline surge. 

This was the first of an inspired list of Nine Inch Nails’ covers, leading directly to Pigface’s “Suck”, Adam & the Ants’ “Physical”, Joy Division’s “Dead Souls”, and beyond. Recorded or live, “Get Down Make Love” feels so much more raw than the rest of Pretty Hate Machine. This song is all about attitude. Opening with a sampling of the insistent sexual history interrogation from 1962’s The Cabinet of Caligari (co-starring Glynis Johns of Mary Poppins fame!), the slow menace of Queen’s original is transformed into a spiraling nightmare. There is a sense that this shit was just thrown together – the raging percussion, the screaming chorus. It’s all open wounds and bloodied knuckles. And, frankly, some of the best industrial pop you’ll ever hear.

The End of the Eighties, Track 24

“Her Way of Praying”
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Automatic
1989

A polarizing album, Automatic is The Jesus and Mary Chain one that finds the Reid brothers acting as a duo, splitting vocal duties and fleshing out their sound via drum machine and a synthesizer for bass. Embracing late ’80s bombast, the album sounds big and encompasses everything from fuzz-laced feedback to acid-fueled trips. “Her Way of Praying”, though, has always been my favorite JAMC song.

The sex-as-prayer analogy of “Her Way of Praying” fell right into my religious-questioning, lust-craving late teenage wheelhouse. It’s a song (and album) I have always associated with Maria, who I dated after my relationship with Kari imploded. Here’s what I’ve said about Maria previously…

That fall semester at BG, I took a music appreciation class of some kind (it’s a little fuzzy at this point) in the Moore Musical Arts Center. The first day of class, this cute girl and I chatted briefly and began a classroom friendship, but neither pursued anything beyond that until the end of the semester rolled around. Through small talk in class, we realized we were both from Northeast Ohio. She went to Central Catholic and grew up right in the geographic center of my high school social world. We decided to get together while home for the holidays.

I was at the peak of my punk phase at the time... my hair dyed jet black or blue-black or maroon or purple depending on the week, eyeliner, black nail polish and lipstick, my ears pierced a half-dozen times. She had a simple, girl-next-door beauty. And a boyfriend. Despite my appearance and her ties, her parents and I got along well-enough, and Maria and I spent a large part of those weeks home together. There were many late nights getting to know each other while we drank bottomless cups of coffee and I chain-smoked Marlboro Lights in a booth at the Denny’s on Everhard Road, and hanging out at her parents’ house.

Perhaps not the healthiest of relationships, in retrospect I suppose that’s what dating and youth are all about – the mistakes are a means to an end for finding one’s identity.

Automatic was released just a few months before the holidays, and I was hot and heavy on it through the winter. It got plenty of airplay while home for break and well into the spring semester back at school. All of this plays into the notion that a current album by an artist while you’re deeply immersed in a genre is more important than any other album that artist will release, and that is certainly the case for me and this collection of songs from 1989. While another track from this album will appear later on the playlist originating on the Thursday’s compilation, this album track will always evoke Bowling Green and those Northeast Ohio nights while home for the holidays.