See the Birthday Party’s ‘Horror Movie’-Like Anticipation in New Doc Clip
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A new documentary, Mutiny in Heaven, will explore the history and legacy of the gothic-tinged art-punk group the Birthday Party, which featured singer Nick Cave and lasted from the late Seventies through 1983. The doc will premiere in the U.S. later this week.
A clip from the film shows how loose and unwieldy the band’s concerts could get. In the clip, drummer Phill Calvert describes gigs circa 1981 as “very violent and dangerous between the band and the audience.” Multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey, who is also one of the film’s producers, remembers how the tension grew throughout gigs. “Some nights just snowballed,” he says, as footage plays of a wild-eyed Cave screaming into a mic at the foot of the stage. “It was quite frightening sometimes. It was quite frightening being onstage.”
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Harvey tells Rolling Stone that that anticipation was the most nerve-racking part of performing in the Birthday Party. “It was frightening being onstage before things got out of control,” he says. “To be honest, if things collapsed into tawdry physical stuff, then the moment was lost. … I suppose it’s inside the tension that was created [in which] most of the nerves were experienced. A bit like a thriller or a horror movie, much of the best aspects are in the build-up and the holding of that tension.”
Looking back now, Harvey says violence materialized only occasionally. “The shows came to have palpable tension, and that was a big part of the experience,” he says. “There was often something quite menacing in the air, and it was carried by the music and our attitude, but the occasions when it actually deteriorated into semi-violent exchanges usually broke the spell that was being created and destroyed that atmosphere.
“Mostly there was a lot of animosity towards audience expectations, which contains within it a kind of contradiction in the very nature of [performing live],” he continues. “But that was a part of what we were trying to challenge, the easy assumptions about what that situation is meant to be in terms of entertainment and communication.”
The doc will get its U.S. premiere on Sept. 1, coinciding with Cave’s North American solo tour, and will get 55 screenings in 45 cities around the country in September and October. It will be available to stream on demand later this year.
The film, which blends archival footage and animation, is the first authorized documentary about the band, and features exclusive interviews with Cave, Calvert, Harvey, and late guitarist Rowland S. Howard. It traces the band’s roots in Melbourne through its moves to London and Berlin before playing a final gig in Melbourne. Cave and Harvey subsequently formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; Harvey departed that group in 2009. Filmmaker Wim Wenders executive-produced the picture, which Ian White (Before the Fall) directed.
Harvey got involved with the film, he says, mostly to make sure it was done correctly. “I felt it was important to have someone representing the band not to control the content but to guide it somehow, keep other surviving members in the loop and to help the makers avoid factual errors,” he says. “So, aside from not letting the truth get in the way of a good story, some of the anecdotal stuff, it’s very accurate historically, which is important.”
As for the band’s legacy, Harvey says he still doesn’t really have a handle on it – at least for himself. “We were primarily a live band and what happened there was hard to recreate in the studio, though we didn’t do a terrible job of that,” he says. “What people have had to experience has been our recorded output. I suppose now this documentary will or could add a new layer to that, to the understanding or misunderstanding of what the band was about.”
Mutiny in Heaven Screening Dates
Sept. 1-Sept. 10: Gainesville, FL
Sept. 10: Asheville NC
Sept. 15-Sept. 21: Durham NC
Sept. 14 & Sept. 18: Winston Salem, NC
Sept. 16-Sept. 17: Cary NC
Sept. 15-Sept. 23: Vancouver, Canada
Sept. 21 & Sept. 25: Silver Springs, MD
Sept. 22-Sept. 24: Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 22-Sept. 28: New Orleans, LA
Sept. 22: Cleveland, OH
Sept. 22: Kansas City
Sept. 23-Sept. 24: Portland, OR
Sept. 24: Chicago IL
Sept. 27: Jacksonville, FL
Sept. 28: Minneapolis, MN
Sept. 29: Chicago, IL
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Vancouver, WA
Sept. 29-Oct. 1: Columbus, OH
Oct. 1-Oct. 3: Downtown Manhattan, NY (DCTV FIREHOUSE)
Oct. 4: Brooklyn, NY (Nitehawk)
Oct. 3-Oct. 5: Cambridge, MA
Oct. 4: Montreal, QC
Oct. 5: Toronto, ON
Oct. 6: Schenectady, NY
Oct. 6: Brooklyn, NY
Oct. 7-Oct. 8: New York, NY
Oct. 9: Washington, D.C.
Oct. 9: Dallas, TX
Oct. 9: Fairfax, VA
Oct. 9: La Mesa, CA
Oct. 11: Philadelphia, PA
Oct. 12: Detroit, MI
Oct. 13: Portland, ME
Oct. 13: Atlanta GA
Oct. 13: Portland, ME
Oct. 16: Maitland, FL
Oct. 18: Dallas, TX
Oct. 18: Milwaukee, WI
Oct. 18: San Francisco, CA
Oct. 19 & Oct. 26: Rochester, MN
Oct. 20: Larkspur (Bay Area), CA
Oct. 20: Los Angeles, CA
Oct. 20: Santa Ana, CA
Oct. 23: Austin, TX
Oct. 27-Oct. 29: Los Angeles (Alamo Theater)
Date TBD: Seattle, WA
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