The information on The Birthday Party as listed at last.fm is incomplete.

The Boys Next Door, the original version of the band, featured as members, Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Phil Calvert (who is left off both band's member lists) from their high school days. After this time the band added Tracey Pew on bass and Roland S. Howard on guitar. This line up was the mainstay of both bands for most of their career.

The Boys Next Door had a minor hit in Australia with the song Shivers, which also featured on the Dogs In Space soundtrack (the film starring Michael Hutchence documenting the Melbourne "little band" post-punk scene of the late 1970s).

The first album, was released in Australia on Channel 7 records (who licenced it from Missing Link Records). In Australia at least, the album, featuring the songs Mr Clarinet and The Hair Shirt among others, was titled "The Birthday Party" (a Harold Pinter play), and the artist was "The Boys Next Door", as I can verify from my personal copy of the LP.

Later versions of the album credit it to the "The Birthday Party" as it release was around the time the band changed their name and left for England.

This album doesn't seem to exist in the last.fm system with either artist/title combination so I cannot link it - even though it is a seminal and highly influential post-punk album.

The offical Birthday Party web site says of this album;


Originally credited to Boys Next Door. 1982 rerelease has a different cover, and doesn't mention Boys Next Door anymore.
Mr. Clarinet
Hats On Wrong
The Hair Shirt
Guilt Parade
Riddle House
The Friend Catcher
Waving My Arms
The Red Clock
Cat Man
Happy Birthday


Poor Phil Calvert (drums) also seems to be done hard by here as he remained a member of the band until 1982 just before the "Bad Seed EP" when he was unceremoniously dumped from the band.

Tracey Pew (bass) sadly died in 1986 from complications due to epilepsy.