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

[antoni at clara.net]

Alex, I don't disgaree with you at all ... as I said, I thought it was all post punk ... but I'm just reporting what I saw ... there's always been a suggestion that UK Decay's singer Abbo first used the term "goth" in an interview and therefore we have him to blame ... that NME publication also features heavily The Birthday Party but then again the Boys Next Door were an Aussie "new wave" who came over to the UK and then allegedly struggled with the climate & the poverty - their dishelleved drunken & drug crazed state was as much to do with that as anything else (according to the "Bad Seed" biography of Nick Cave) and they would sneak back to Oz to escape the harsh UK winter - again could you really call Mick Harvey, Phil Calvert, Tracey Pew goths ? Not at all. I dunno Alex. I've opened a can of worms here. It was just nice to read something about that 80-81 period that I identified with. I think we'll put this one to bed, yes ? Thanks.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Alexander Smith 
  To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 2:04 PM
  Subject: Re: [kj] UK Decay & the great "goth" debate


  Surely, but Post-Punk doesn't necessarily equal "Goth". Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four, the Pop Group -- these bands were also all considered Post-Punk, but I think one would be very hard pressed to make the argument that they were Goths in any way. 

  Of course there are elements to Killing Joke's music that go hand-in-hand with the Goth aesthetic (in much the same way there are elements of Killing Joke's music that have ties to Punk Rock, Heavy Metal, Funk, Disco and even Dub) yet the band handily transcends all of those other categorizations.

  Alex in NYC



  On Monday, January 17, 2005, at 06:58 PM, <antoni at clara.net> wrote:


    ... but to be fair Alex, you've always said that you picked up on KJ with Eighties so that was 1984 ... around 1980-81 there was an army of fanatics into these bands ... the term "goth" had not really been coined by then ... the likes of Siouxsie And The Banshees and The Cure were still seen as punk or new wave ... neither were Theatre Of Hate a "goth" band, rather a punky, sax driven sound with spaghetti-western themes ... but a large number of punters were into all 4 bands ... post-punk was what we (or at least I) called it ... and the fact was that Killing Joke was part of that "scene" ... a scene with no name, even before the The Face magazine decided to refer to the Blitz club scene with a similar moniker ... as the New Romantics horrors approached ...

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Alexander Smith
    To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
    Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 11:37 PM
    Subject: Re: [kj] UK Decay & the great "goth" debate


    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:

     
    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.
     

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