Bauhaus’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” or…
The last sound a subway train hears before it dies.
The sound of God sucking it up.
Townsend’s tinnitus.
The Empire State Building snoring.
Beelzebub taking a massive bowel movement.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Peter Murphy, who in 1983 had only just recently departed Bauhaus, made “some brief dabbling with acting and dance – including a slightly odd televised performance to Bauhaus’s ‘Hollow Hills.’”
Wha? Naturally I googled this “slightly odd televised performance” and of course, there it was… His interpretive dance here is slightly odd, I’d have to agree (“naff” is a word that comes readily to mind as well). You’d have to think his former bandmates would have found this sand dune ballet on-the-floor, coughing-with-tears-hysterically-funny to watch.
Speaking of Peter Murphy, I heard the craziest story last night over dinner with my friend Adam Peters, a Hollywood composer who recently scored Oliver Stone’s Savages (and who arranged and played the famous cello part on Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon”).
We had been discussing Howard Devoto’s post-punk artrock band, Magazine and he told me about seeing Bauhaus open for Magazine in Guildford in 1980. The “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single was already out, but In The Flat Field had not been released yet. The third band was Crisis, with Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford later of Death In June and Sol Invictus, whose following included many skinheads.
Of course the Guildford skinheads had never seen anything like Bauhaus and, as skins do, started spitting at the band, Peter Murphy in particular. Adam said that Murphy tore his shirt off, grabbed a light on a stand and made like he was being crucified at the front of the stage, provoking a steady stream of gob as he stood motionless, shining the light directly into their faces, staring them down and daring them to continue. The band continued to vamp on the slow chords of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” he told me, for about a half hour as this went on, with Murphy absolutely drenched in spit.
Eventually it stopped and the skins left because this interaction had apparently freaked them the fuck out!
“That would be hard to top! Did Magazine actually play after THAT?” I asked him.
“They did, but they probably should have just tuned the house lights up. No one really cared about Magazine after that.”
If that isn’t the most Artaud-esque thing that’s ever occurred on a concert stage, I can’t imagine what would be…
Below, Peter Murphy’s “slightly odd televised performance” on Riverside, 1983:
First I stumbled across these photos of the Velvet Underground’s junkie chanteuse doing a guest turn with Bauhaus and wouldn’t you know it, someone kindly posted the number, a cover of the VU’s “I’m Waiting for the Man,” on YouTube.
Ian Astbury: “Nico just ended up in Manchester on heroin. Southern Death Cult supported Bauhaus at Salford University when she did ‘Waiting for the Man’ with them, and Pete Murphy had to hold her up, she was so smacked out!”
Peter Murphy “Nico was gothic, but she was Mary Shelley gothic to everyone else’s Hammer horror film gothic. They both did Frankenstein, but Nico’s was real.”
Recorded at Fagin’s in Manchester on October 23, 1981 and later added as a CD bonus track to the Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape
Gotham - Bauhaus in concert, filmed at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, on September 9th and 10th, 1998, as part of their reunion tour.
Track Listing:
01. “Double Dare”
02. “In the Flat Field”
03. “A God in the Alcove”
04. “Kick in The Eye”
05. “Hollow Hills”
06. “In Fear of Fear”
07. “Boys”
08. “She’s In Parties”
09. “Passion of Lovers”
10. “Dark Entries”
11. “All We Ever Wanted”
12. “Spirit”
13. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
14. “Telegram Sam”
15. “Ziggy Stardust”
16. “The Passenger”
Bauhaus - Shadow of Light. More lipstick and cheekbones from Northampton’s famous sons.
Track Listing:
01. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (live)
02. “Telegram Sam”
03. “Rosegarden Funeral Of Sores” (live)
04. “Mask”
05. “Spirit”
06. “In The Flat Field” (live)
07. “Ziggy Stardust”
08. “Hollow Hills” (live)
09. “She’s In Parties”
From @PAPPADEMAS
Via A Post Punk Tumblr
Here’s a classic British TV commercial from the ‘80s starring Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. You can read on the Internet that he was on the label, seen above, and in the print ads, too, but was that really Peter Murphy, too? I think it’s someone else.
Peter Murphy’s birthday was July 11. He’s 53 now and still looks like this. I guess drinking the blood of vestal virgins keeps you young, eh?
