IN: The Birthday Party (originally known as The Boys Next Door) were an Australian post-punk band, active from 1978 to 1983. Despite limited commercial success, The Birthday Party's influence has been far-reaching, and they have been called "one of the darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s." The group's "bleak and noisy soundscapes," which drew irreverently on blues, free jazz, and rockabilly, provided the setting for vocalist Nick Cave's disturbing tales of violence and perversion. Their music has been described by critic Simon Reynolds as gothic, and their single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential on the emerging gothic scene.

The nucleus of the band first met at the private boys school Caulfield Grammar School, in suburban Melbourne, in the early seventies. A rock group was formed in 1973, with Nick Cave (vocals), Mick Harvey (guitar), and Phill Calvert (drums), with other students John Cocivera, Brett Purcell and Chris Coyne (on guitar, bass and saxophone respectively). Most were also members of the school choir. The band played under various names at parties and school functions with a mixed repertoire of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, Alice Cooper and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, among others.  After their final school year in 1975 the band decided to continue as a four-piece group, with friend Tracy Pew picking up the bass. Greatly affected by the punk explosion of 1976 which saw Australian bands The Saints and Radio Birdman making their first recordings and tours, The Boys Next Door, as they were now called, began performing punk and proto-punk cover versions, such as "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Gloria", and a few original songs. By November 1977 their set was dominated by fast original new wave material, such as "Sex Crimes" and "Masturbation Generation".  The Boys' second guitarist, Rowland S. Howard, joined in 1978, and about this time, the group's sound changed dramatically. The addition of Howard's guitar was certainly a catalyst (his later use of audio feedback being a hallmark of the group) but there were other changes, as well: their sound drew upon punk, rockabilly, free jazz and the rawest blues, but defied concise categorization. Many songs were driven by prominent, repetitive basslines and frenetic, yet minimalist, drumming. Though the band was tightly rehearsed, the instrumentalists often sounded as if they were on the verge of collapse, this quality only emphasising the newfound mania of Cave's singing, and his expressionist lyrics. In producer/engineer Tony Cohen they found a willing accomplice to their experimentation and their refusal to repeat themselves; and in manager Keith Glass they found an enthusiastic financial backer. Glass' label Missing Link Records released all of the early Birthday Party records.

Who wrote their songs?

OUT: 


IN: Woodes Rogers was the eldest son and heir of Woods Rogers, a successful merchant captain. Woodes Rogers spent part of his childhood in Poole, England, where he likely attended the local school; his father, who owned shares in many ships, was often away nine months of the year with the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Sometime between 1690 and 1696, Captain Rogers moved his family to Bristol. In November 1697, Woodes Rogers was apprenticed to Bristol mariner John Yeamans, to learn the profession of a sailor.

The ships then went to the Dutch port of Batavia in what is now Indonesia, where Rogers underwent surgery to remove a musket ball from the roof of his mouth, and the expedition disposed of the less seaworthy of the two Spanish prizes. Dealing with the Dutch there constituted a violation of the British East India Company's monopoly. When the ships finally dropped anchor in the Thames River on 14 October 1711, a legal battle ensued, with the investors paying the East India Company PS6,000 (about PS820,000 at today's values) as settlement for their claim for breach of monopoly, about four percent of what Rogers brought back. The investors approximately doubled their money, while Rogers gained PS1,600 (now worth perhaps PS218,700) from a voyage which disfigured him and cost him his brother, who was killed in a battle in the Pacific. The money was probably less than he could have made at home, and was entirely absorbed by the debts his family had incurred in his absence. However, the long voyage and the capture of the Spanish ship made Rogers a national hero. Rogers was the first Englishman, in circumnavigating the globe, to have his original ships and most of his crew survive.  After his voyage, he wrote an account of it, titled A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Edward Cooke, an officer aboard Duchess, also wrote a book, A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World, and beat Rogers to print by several months. Rogers' book was much more successful, with many readers fascinated by the account of Selkirk's rescue, which Cooke had slighted. Among those interested in Selkirk's adventure was Daniel Defoe, who appears to have read about it, and fictionalised the story as Robinson Crusoe.  While Rogers' book enjoyed financial success, it had a practical purpose--to aid British navigators and possible colonists. Much of Rogers' introduction is devoted to advocacy for the South Seas trade. Rogers notes that had there been a British colony in the South Seas, he would not have had to worry about food supplies for his crew. A third of Rogers' book is devoted to detailed descriptions of the places that he explored, with special emphasis on "such [places] as may be of most use for enlarging our trade". He describes the area of the River Plate in detail because it lay "within the limits of the South Sea Company", whose schemes had not yet burst into financial scandal. Rogers' book was carried by such South Pacific navigators as Admiral George Anson and privateering captains John Clipperton and George Shelvocke.

What was the homeward voyage?

OUT:
Rogers was the first Englishman, in circumnavigating the globe, to have his original ships and most of his crew survive.