Funeral Danceparty

Funeral Danceparty began in 1979 in Newcastle. Their debut cassette, The Curiosity Shop (1980), was advertised in the national weekly music paper Sounds in the established DIY fashion of the era: interested parties were requested to send a blank cassette and a self-addressed envelope. Approximately 100 copies reached destinations worldwide. A national fanzine review compared the music to Cabaret Voltaire, Faust, and The Residents. Their second cassette, The Attractions of Fixed Interest, was also distributed through Sounds, and reviewers noted their use of guitars, piano, violin, synth, and percussion alongside tape loops, white noise, and found sounds: "a mixture of Free music and collage." A demo sent to Industrial Records, Rough Trade, and DJ John Peel received favourable responses from all three. United Dairies expressed interest in issuing an LP but required a proper studio recording; one track was cut at a 24-track facility before finances and an incompatible in-house producer put an end to the project. Their third cassette, Qwertyuiop, combined studio recordings with an excerpt from their live debut at a local youth club YMCA, which drew mainly local youths who, as fanzine reviewers noted, found the music sounding like "the more unmusical elements of King Crimson and Throbbing Gristle."

A 1980 performance at Spectro arts centre in Newcastle, a venue known for Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and Tony Oxley, proved too demanding even for that audience: several attendees became enraged and left in disgust. The final Funeral Danceparty performance took place in early 1982 at Morden Tower, a 13th-century turret in Newcastle which in the 1960s had been a world-renowned poetry venue where Allen Ginsberg performed. Leaflets distributed beforehand read simply: Dada Siegt! with a map. Art students arrived alongside the curious; the evening involved costumes, props, multi cine-film projections, and the music itself. A local review compared it to a Fluxus happening and concluded: "Dada is alive and well." This double LP (VOD132.7/8), A Celebration of iDEATH: Recordings 1979–82, compiles the complete recorded output, with a bonus 7". The title references Richard Brautigan's In Watermelon Sugar. Limited to 200 copies individually, with 300 copies in the VOD Industrial and Avantgarde box set.