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| Honeymoon in Red | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio album by Honeymoon in Red | |
| Released | 1988 |
| Recorded |
|
| Length | 37:11 |
| Label | Widowspeak |
| Producer | none given |
Honeymoon in Red is a concept album by a band of the same name, released in 1988, primarily written by Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard. Honeymoon in Red is sometimes referred to as a band or alternately as a collaboration between Lydia Lunch and members of The Birthday Party.
Honeymoon in Red is musically eclectic, combining elements of burlesque, no wave, singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, American Underground, the use of a "varispeed" for atmospherics, a song by country pop songwriter Lee Hazlewood, dissonant piano and guitar and muscular bass guitar and the darkly charismatic personas of Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch.[ citation needed ]
The album generally resembles the angular pop of The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire , although the song "Dead in the Head" recalls the strident guitar playing of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Unlike The Birthday Party, Honeymoon In Red emphasises vernacular speech akin to 1970s American television and film, instead of emulating the Southern Gothic literary genre.[ citation needed ] In a 1983 television interview, Lunch spoke of the experimental music as "religious music" that was "not rock".[ citation needed ]
The album's graphic design resembled a lurid 1950s Saul Bass movie poster, with cockfighting motifs. The liner notes from Lunch titled "THE TERRORTORY" comments on commercial and religious puritanical attitudes. It included an Annie Sprinkle photograph of Lunch's body superimposed onto a rural roadmap, also a photograph by Chris Stein of Lunch wearing a "suicide blonde" wig and heavy make up, holding up a large pistol.
Mick Harvey has stated that the project was originally conceived as a new band; a collaboration between Harvey, Lunch, Genevieve McGuckin and Rowland S. Howard. After the initial recording sessions in Berlin in June 1982, the tapes languished without a release. In 1987 Lunch readied the tapes for release on her own Widowspeak label, with added contributions by J.G. Thirlwell and Thurston Moore. Lunch had already fallen out with Nick Cave and Harvey, and they insisted that their names not appear on the release, as they had no hand in the remix and overdubbing.[ citation needed ] Lunch subsequently used pseudonyms for Cave and Harvey (including "A drunk cowboy junkie" and "Dick Strum", respectively) and obliquely criticized them in her liner notes as "tight asses" and "sheep in wolf's clothing". The album originally appeared in this reworked form but has subsequently been reissued with the mixes from the original 1982 Berlin sessions.
A 12" single of "Done Dun" (a Cave/Lunch duet) was released on side B of the Lydia Lunch/Thurston Moore/Clint Ruin single "The Crumb", and referred to The Honeymoon in Red Orchestra.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 7/10 [2] |
| Trouser Press | mixed-to-favorable [3] |
Trouser Press called it "not a great album by any means, but of definite interest to fans of those involved." [3]
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Come Fall" | Rowland S. Howard | Rowland S. Howard | 4:54 |
| 2. | "So Your Heart" | Lydia Lunch | Thurston Moore, Clint Ruin | 2:20 |
| 3. | "Dead River" | Lydia Lunch | Mick Harvey | 2:40 |
| 4. | "Three Kings" | Genevieve McGuckin | Genevieve McGuckin | 7:26 |
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Done Dun" | Lydia Lunch | Murray Mitchell | 4:28 |
| 2. | "Still Burning" | Rowland S. Howard | Rowland S. Howard | 5:32 |
| 3. | "Fields of Fire" | Lydia Lunch | Rowland S. Howard | 3:54 |
| 4. | "Dead in the Head" | Lydia Lunch | Rowland S. Howard | 5:57 |
The Birthday Party were an Australian post-punk band, active from 1977 to 1983. The group's "bleak and noisy soundscapes," which drew irreverently on blues, free jazz, and rockabilly, provided the setting for vocalist Nick Cave's disturbing tales of violence and perversion. Their 1981 single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential on the emerging gothic scene. Despite limited commercial success, The Birthday Party's influence has been far-reaching, and they have been called "one of the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s."
James George Thirlwell, styled as JG Thirlwell and also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus, among other pseudonyms, is an Australian musician, composer, and record producer known for his use of a variety of different musical styles.
Tender Prey is the fifth studio album by Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 19 September 1988 on Mute Records. Produced by Flood, the album was recorded during several sessions over the course of four months in West Berlin—where the band were based at the time of its release—and London and dedicated to Fernando Ramos da Silva.
Kicking Against the Pricks is the third album released by the rock music group Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. First released in 1986, the album is a collection of Cave's interpretations of songs by other artists. The title is a reference to a biblical quote from the King James version of the Bible, Acts 26, verse 14.
The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is a compilation album by Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 11 May 1998.
Tuff Monks were a short-lived band consisting of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Rowland S. Howard with Robert Forster, Lindy Morrison and Grant McLennan. Their only release was the 1982 7" 45 rpm single "After the Fireworks", on the Australian label, Au Go Go Records. The lead track was co-written by Cave, Forster and McLennan.
Michael John Harvey is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Rowland Stuart Howard was an Australian rock musician, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the post-punk group The Birthday Party and his subsequent solo career.
The Immaculate Consumptive was a collaborative group featuring four stars of the no wave scene, that existed for three shows in 1983. Its members were Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch and Clint Ruin.
These Immortal Souls were an Australian post-punk band formed in London in 1987 by Harry Howard on bass guitar, his older brother Rowland S. Howard on guitar and vocals, Epic Soundtracks on drums and Genevieve McGuckin on keyboards. They issued two albums on Mute Records, Get Lost 1987 and I'm Never Gonna Die Again 1992. The group relocated to Australia in 1995 and played less frequently before disbanding there in mid-1998. Soundtracks died in November 1997 and Roland Howard died in December 2009.
Genevieve McGuckin is an Australian musician, songwriter, film producer and graphic designer who was born in Brisbane. In 1986 she was a founder of These Immortal Souls on keyboards and has collaborated with fellow founder, and sometime domestic partner, Rowland S. Howard, and with his earlier band, the Birthday Party, on their album, Prayers on Fire.
Stinkfist is a collaborative EP by Clint Ruin and Lydia Lunch. This outing from the ex-Immaculate Consumptive bandmates was originally released as a 12" in 1987 on Lunch's Widowspeak label.
Tracy Franklin Pew was an Australian musician, and bassist for The Birthday Party. He was later a member of The Saints, and worked with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Mutiny/The Bad Seed is a compilation album by The Birthday Party. It is compiled from 2 EPs, The Bad Seed recorded in October 1982, and Mutiny! recorded in April and August 1983, and both were released in 1983. The Bad Seed and Mutiny! were released as a compilation in 1989. It is written by Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Rowland S. Howard, and Tracy Pew.
Hee Haw is the second release and first EP by the Australian post-punk band the Boys Next Door. The Hee Haw EP was released in 1979 by the independent label, Missing Link Records.
Teenage Snuff Film is the first solo album by Rowland S. Howard. Former The Birthday Party bandmate Mick Harvey contributes drums, organ and guitar, while Brian Hooper of The Beasts of Bourbon features on bass guitar. It contains eight original songs, and two cover versions: "White Wedding" by Billy Idol, and "She Cried".
Just South of Heaven is an EP by Crime & the City Solution, released in 1985 through Mute Records.
Shotgun Wedding is the sole collaborative studio album by Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard. It was released in May 1991, through record label Triple X.
Drunk on the Pope's Blood/The Agony Is the Ecstacy is a split compilation EP by the post-punk acts The Birthday Party and Lydia Lunch, released on February 18, 1982, through 4AD. It contains live material from a show performed on November 26, 1981, at The Venue in London. Three of the four Birthday Party tracks were included on their Live 1981-82 CD. Their version of the song "Loose" and the Lydia Lunch piece have never been officially reissued on CD. The Lydia Lunch side is a single track recorded up to the run-out groove, causing the song to play endlessly on manual turntables.
Live 1981–82 is a live album by The Birthday Party and released in August 1999. The performances were "[c]ulled from the private collection of founding member Mick Harvey with assistance from super fan Henry Rollins".
