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

[Alexander Smith]

Always been curious to hear UK Decay after reading the embarrassingly 
titled book, "The Dark Reign of Gothic Rock" (which, to its credit, 
does *NOT* lump Killing Joke in with said scene). Killing Joke are 
*NOT* Goths, dammit. I'm not knocking the Goths --- I'm a huge fan of 
lots of that stuff, but facts be facts.

Alex in NYC




On Monday, January 17, 2005, at 05:01 PM, <antoni at clara.net> wrote:

> 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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