TS: Bauhaus vs. Killing Joke

Despite many other fine things, Killing Joke recorded Outside the Gate.

TEH WINNAH: BOWHOUSIE.

Now, I adore Bauhaus (and am seeing them again next week), but please....they're a weedy gaggle of anorexic, pancaked ponces in comparison to the `Joke.

While, yes, Killing Joke are guilty of the difficult birth of Outside the Gate (revisionist apologists might try to claim it's but a Jaz Coleman solo album, but really....just own up to it), there is just so much MORE to Killing Joke than there was to Bauhaus.

-- Stewart Osborne (stewart.osborn...), November 3rd, 2005 10:51 PM.

"Oh please.... KILLING JOKE EVERY. DAMN. TIME"

[snip]

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), November 3rd, 2005 11:09 PM. (later)

Blimey! 18 minutes??? Well, I certainly lost that little sweepstake!

KJ's first two albums are perfect.

mind you as much as i like bauhaus,killing joke are not the band i would have come up with for a _____vs____.

Also, it has much to do with the guitar sounds.

I liked Love And Rockets tho.

anyone who says killing joke bends over (the butt to take the cock) for jez "jazz" coleman (hello alex in nyc)

Take live shows: Bauhaus is highly stylized and pure poetry, like watching German Expressionist cinema recreated through rock and roll, which is about as cool a live experience as you can get, but then Killing Joke get points for sheer power and the ability to bring you the unexpected. With Bauhaus, you know what you're getting, with Killing Joke, you don't know what you're in for....which would suggest the nod goes to Killing Joke, but then you have to ask yourself: is their a better aesthetic out there than The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the correct answer is "Better? No.), so back to Bauhaus.

And it just keeps going back and forth w/r/t the live experience. Bauhaus at Hammerstein in NYC '98 was all sophisticated post-goths and hot art chicks dressed to kill, whereas Killing Joke at Shepard's Bush in London '95 was really big scary people who had started a third tattoo on their face, but it got infected so they just let it go, figuring they got plenty already.

Bauhaus less duds, but also less material. Both put out incredible songs/albums. Both aged perfectly. If the building's on fire, I have to go back for my KJ box set, and there's no way I'm leaving without those Bauhaus albums in hand.

for the new Kate Bush is here.

Hey, what if David Lee Roth did a duet with Kate Bush?

I love lamb tikka and I adore chicken pathia. I don't believe I've ever actually tried a lamb tikka pathia - but I think I can imagine what it would taste like; and although I reckon it would be OK I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to stick to having plain lamb tikka and chicken in the pathia.

Crucially however, I have never even heard of a chicken tauwa - and I can't even remember having seen it on the menu at any of the local Indian restaurants (I am of course assuming that it's another Indian dish - is this correct?).

I do know the guys in my local Indian restaurant quite well 'though, and if it's a reasonably well-known dish I'm sure I could ask them to make one for me; or failing that if you can let me have a recipe and it looks interesting I might even have a go at making one myself.

Given what I've already told you about my curry preferences 'though, do you think I'd like it? What are the defining tastes / ingredients - and how hot is it, 'cos I don't really like my curries too hot?

Personally I reckon Bauhaus are like sheik kebab followed by chicken jalfrezi with onion bhajee and pilau rice; whereas Killing Joke are more like chicken pakora followed by rogan josh with bombay aloo and naan bread; but maybe that's just me?

Yin and Yang lumber punch
Go taste a tart then eat my lunch
And force my slender thin and lean
In this solemn place of fill wetting dreams
Of black matted lace of pregnant cows
As life maps out onto my brow
The card is lowered in index turn
Into my filing cabinet hemispheres spurn

(In A Flat Field).

This muck makes Jaz Coleman's apocalyptic claptrap read like Keats. So my answer to the taking sides is Killing Joke - just.

AWESOME

Why you break heart all time?

Translation please someone?

Other than that, meh to the both of them.

OTM. I'm not going to argue Bauhaus wasn't overblown, pretentious slop, but there are moments so ungodly weird on the second half of The Sky's Gone Out that I have to give the monkey a banana. Taken as a whole, Bauhaus can be pretty off-putting, and they never made a great album, but there are specific moments ("Rose Garden Funeral of Sores", "Terror Couple Kill Colonel", "Double Dare", "Bela Lugosi's Dead") when they hunkered down pretty deep in a unique and rewarding pit of sound.

Daniel Ash's guitar sound was capable of forgiving a host of sins, and unlike many of their swooning goth bretheren, they were capable of rocking out in a convincing and straight-forward fashion. I'm convinced that a key to accepting Bauhaus is your abililty to accept Peter Murphy as a frontman; I'm a Bauhaus fan and, frankly, I think he needs to be slapped around like a little girl for his crimes against humility. I wouldn't blame anybody who said, "Press the eject and give me the tape out of it..." when he goes into Thin White Count overdrive.

Still, compared with Killing Joke, Bauhaus covered more stylistic ground during 1980 - 1983 than KJ did during a comparable period (and arguably during their entire career). I'm less familiar with KJ's entire discography (Brighter Than A Thousand Sun anyone?) but I did have the fortune of seeing them during a late 80s reunion tour. They were still rocking it stringent-style, pound pound pound riff riff riff, and whilst less offensive to refined sensibilities than Bauhaus, their own reductionist aesthetic ensured their reach never exceeded their grasp. Bauhaus were never afraid to look foolish, which sonically took them to some more interesting places, IMO.

xpostThe Sisters of Mercy are awesomexpost.

and yeah hands off SoM.

Your golden years obviously weren't mine. I don't find I have a lot of time for the Sisters of Mercy's stuff now, but they sounded pretty exciting at the time, and that had a lot to do with the surrounding ambience of Postcard dregs and duff white funk.

Hooray!!!

I respect KJ cause they rocked for a while and because of Flood's engineering. Can't be arsed to remember anything beyond the chorus to "A Love Like Blood". Alex in NYC or no Alex in NYC, it don't make a difference.
In our house.

Apparently facts don't make a difference in your house either. Flood has never engineered for Killing Joke. Novice.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I'll take your word for it....

How else can one parse this sentence then?

You are foaming at the mouth.

Don't flatter yourself.

Hard to say but I still think overall, KJ.

OTOH, throw in Murphy solo and it gets a hell of a lot more interesting, because Murphy's pop impulses trump KJ's general lack thereof.

Actually he's in the Hall of Fame for this category, so worth noting.

(x-post to Dada)

To be fair, they're equally prolific (and that whole "one name" thing could easily cause confusion). Sorry about the gratuitous "novice" comment. Couldn't resist. I'm a dick like that.

I like everything up through Holy Smoke.

KILLING JOKE because Orb founder Dr Alex Paterson was a roadie for them until age 30 and the bass player Youth has contributed alot more than any Bauhaus hipster sideproject. DO they even have side projects?

Hoho.

Oh please...
Tones on Tail
Dali's Car
Love & Rockets
The Bubblemen
The Sinister Ducks
David J.
...and I'm sure there's more.

Are you trying to permanently drive me away from ILX? `Cos I'll fucking go if this shit keeps up.

And not for nothing, but these are two of the WEAKEST reasons why Killing Joke are superior to Bauhaus.