[kj] UK Decay & the great "goth" debate

[antoni at clara.net]

Hello folks,

Recently I gained access to the first "UK Decay Communities Newsletter" ... after all these years, Spon (former guitarist of UK Decay) decided to establish a WWW presence for one of the foremost post-punk bands of the early 1980's. The newsletter is a 38 page PDF file which comes in at about 1.25Mb. In conjunction with the website, UK Decay are releasing a CD copy of their "A Night for Celebration" live tape, which contains their last ever gig at the Hammersmith Clarendon on 30th December 1982. For anyone who was either part of that scene or is interested in reading about that era, I would strongly advise you register at www.ukdecay.co.uk in order to download the PDF. As for future release, it is planned that a studio CD will be released of the For Madmen Only LP, Rising From The Dread 12" EP and various single A" and B" sides, which of course have only ever been available before on vinyl and are rare to get hold of.  

One of the interesting articles in the newsletter is by a guy called Paul Rab John who discusses the recent "NME Originals : Goth" publication for it's concentration on big label acts (Banshees, Cult, Bauhaus, Cure) and it's basic rewriting of history, NME style. Hardly surprising really as the NME used to devote serious columns inches to the likes of Blue Rondo a La Turk rather than report on the post punk bands who were filling out the venues & being covered spiritedly by the enormous network of fanzines. Back to 1980/1981 and PRJ refers to the big "4", who were an alternative to pop/punk, New Romantic or horrible sub-Sham pop music. They were (and he puts them in order of importance) : Killing  Joke, Bauhaus, Theatre Of Hate, UK Decay. 

Let's face it - there was a legion of young spiky haired guys walking around with these names (often all of them) painted on their leather jackets. PRJ goes on to rightly suggest that those bands spawned a further wave (Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children, Sisters Of Mercy, March Violets etc) and by the time that the NME admitted/accepted there was a scene going on, they grasped new bands Brigandage and Blood And Roses, stuck them on the cover, called the movement "Positive Punk" and everybody cringed with embarrassment & the whole thing became a laughing stock.

Personally, I found PRJ's comments closer to my own memories of that era than maybe Mick Mercer's "Gothic Rock" book was, mainly as MM seemed to feature his own faves in such a disproportionate way, hence numerous pages on Alien Sex Fiend, but a small paragraph on both KJ & TOH although UK Decay fared well.

If anything the relaunched "New" ZigZag magazine became the main press vehicle for these type of bands ... and pretty good it was too. I have a few copies lying about the flat. Nice to see that KJ were mentioned so favourably in PRJ's article, although he seemed to lose interest after Youth left. 

So, along with your Red Beat CD orders, get ready to place one for the UK Decay CD when it is released. You know it makes sense.

Regards,

Antoni

* http://home.clara.net/antoni/ *
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