A-Z: Bauhaus (the last entry today, but it's a biggie)

BAUHAUS: I have to admit, this is a segment of the listening project that I initially dreaded. Bauhaus is a band I was introduced to by a friend 'round abouts late '94, w-a-a-a-y past their heyday. I had heard *of* them, but that was about it. My friend was an avid and obsessive fan of the defunct band. Neither of us was old enough to have (intelligently) followed the band in its prime, but my friend had been a fan for several years. (Hello, Genarro, wherever you are!) I enjoyed the music at the time and procured some of the catalog, although I never shared my friend's sometimes disturbing religious zeal. (As a sidenote, his roommate Jeff is incidentally responsible for transforming my weekend chippie with Elvis Costello into a full-on addiction. Thanks, Jeff!)In subsequent years, I listened to the band very little. Not only did I start listening to a broader range of music in general, leaving an unfortunately lesser time for *everything* in my pursuit of entertainment, avant-challenges and straight up RAWK, but I also started to consider Bauhaus to be a bit too brooding, depressive and melodramatic for my shifting tastes.For the uninitated, Bauhaus is most frequently credited as the founding family of gothic rock. They are. Some also credit Bauhaus with giving birth to the genre of industrial rock. They didn't. 'Nuff said.Only when I elected to digitize my music collection did I rediscover Bauhaus. This might also be my collection's earliest example of a complete discography worth mentioning. (Which is to say that a discography of two or three albums is no big deal, but seven or eight starts edging towards "worth mentioning" territory. Wait until I get to Zappa. If I live that long, that is.) As I stated earlier, I dreaded hitting this patch of albums. Although I had enjoyed the occasional selections that came up in my normally random digital listening, I balked at listening to the whole discography, which evoked a frame of mind that wavered in indecision between first sharpening the razor blades or running the warm bath water.That said, I loved it. Really. I started (alphabetically) with Burning From The Inside, the band's final album and widely considered to be the group's magnum opus. Also, this is the album that bore the most repetition for me years ago, and is probably responsible for my overall narrow impression of their collective output. It's more straight-ahead than their earlier albums and therefore appeals to me far less than their earlier, more experimental material. Some of the earliest stuff ("Bela Lugosi's Dead", anything from "In The Flat Field") features some brilliantly minimal synth-rock structures executed tastefully in a time that synth-rock was really still wet behind the ears. If you're reading, Bobby Fripp, I'm not neglecting you. I just haven't gotten to "K" yet. If you knew that I would be hitting "Giles, Giles and Fripp" well before that, I'm sure you wouldn't sneer so. And stand up once in a while, while we're chatting. It'll be good for your posture. And no, Mr. Fripp, that time I saw you rock forward onto your toes while soloing over "Elephant Talk" does *not* count. In order to fully rock my world, you're gonna have to go full-on bipedal, muthafucka. I believe that was what we call a tangent.In many ways, and sometimes in spite of the music, Bauhaus was always all about Peter Murphy's signature vocal stylings. He is also responsible for the overwhelming *darkness* that typifies the bulk of the band's output. The man could make "Jingle Bell Rock" sound like a funeral dirge, forchrissake, but his lyrical bleakness was not always reflected in the actual music.Blah blah blah. Short story shorter: I love the band now more than I ever have. Mind you, I still refuse to venture out and see the reunited Bauhaus until they come up with some new material, but it might happen. I'm pretty jaded out the reunion craze anyway, and tend to denounce most of its parishoners. (Okay, I went and saw the Pixies. I *had* to. They were playing acoustic at the Newport Folk Festival for fuck's sake. Besides, I was still kicking myself for that time in '91 when I skipped a free show. More fool me.) Besides, last time Bauhaus came around these parts, they were touring with Nine Inch Nails, and I certainly wasn't putting myself through *that* again. (For more details on that, wait until I get to "N", sucka!)I'm keeping it. All of it.*K-Scale: 8/11*Fun fact: The first Bauhaus material I ever heard was a mashed-up cover by Jane's Addiction called "Bobhaus". It featured the music to the song "Burning From The Inside" with the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone". In retrospect, it was pretty awful to listen to, but funny and notable.Favorite album: MaskFavorite track: "Kick In The Eye"Honorable mention: "Crowds"