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

[Alexander Smith]

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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