A Short History of Bauhaus

Gothic originals Bauhaus came from Northampton, England. A town that has never had any kind of music scene, with few if any other bands coming out of the town and making any kind of statement. Their stick-insect thin singer Pete Murphy had an unusual voice and needed a band to give it a setting. He found the perfect setting. He formed Bauhaus, along with Daniel Ash and brothers David and Kevin Haskins, who had previously been in a local band called Craze. They struck up an immediate musical connection. Key to the Bauhaus sound was the spindly guitar of Daniel Ash. He wasn't a great musician by any means but had the ability to add dark textures to the music. Theses textures suited Pete Murphy's voice perfectly. It could be said that he was Ronson to Murphy's Bowie.

When they first started Bauhaus were keen to write and record as quickly as possible. There was a spontaneity to their early recordings which has been lost on the later generation goth bands who go in for an over-produced, over-blown sound. This spontaneous approach didn't stop the band's music being epic in feel though.

The key moment in the history of Bauhaus was their debut single. It was called 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' and it was nine minutes long. Most of it was recorded in one take and it managed to give birth to a whole genre by itself, namely goth. The song's foundations are in the bass, which everything else is built around. There are sparse drums which would late be copied by drum machines. The guitar was intricate and mostly improvised. Ash was more interested in the volume and effects than the actual chords he was playing around with. But then there's the vocals. Murphy's voice. And the classic line of 'undead, undead, undead'. Unforgettable.

The single was released on the small Axis label. Axis changed their name shortly after to 4AD, just before Bauhaus released their debut album 'In The Flat Field' in 1980. The album marked the starting point where 4AD would come to symbolize all things goth, arty, and ethereal. Bands like This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance would all be on the seminal label, as well as Pixies and Throwing Muses later.

Bauhaus were labelled as gloomy and morbid by many, yet their songs, although sometimes sinister, dealt with more everyday issues like relationships, love and desire. They had a sense of humor too. One of their early singles was a cover of David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust'. Not a re-working or a re-interpretation, but a carbon-copy version. Maybe it was a jibe at the many music critics who had labelled them, not only gloomy and morbid, but retro glam rockers and Bowie copyists. This claim of a Bowie fixation may have originated from their earlier cover version of Bowie's 'Telegram Sam'. The Bauhaus version of the song was in Bowie's film 'The Hunger'. Murphy also gained some notoriety for his appearances in a Maxell tape TV advert.

They released number of decent albums after their debut. But it was the band's influence over a whole new genre of music which really cements their place in music history. The other band members, minus Murphy, went on to achieve some commercial success in their offshoot band Love And Rockets based out in California. But along with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus pioneered gothic imagery in modern music as well as injecting some theater into a rather dull and grey post-punk UK alternative music scene.