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

Tue Jan 18 13:10:17 EST 2005

Well, yes, but a final word (unless you wish to debate further, please feel free) could go to Andi from Sex Gang Children himself, within the "new" ZigZag No 1 article (http://home.clara.net/antoni/zzoct83a.JPG) where he makes reference to the same band link I was suggesting. I saw it myself where friends got into the likes of the emerging SGC but no longer got excited about KJ with stuff like Firedances, Eighties, A New Day etc. Probably like commitment-phobes in their own relationships, some punters just like to take it so far with bands, ditch them mercilessly & just love falling in love time after time with their new obsessions !!!

The article reads :

TR = Terry Macleay (Guitar), Andi (Vox), MM = Mick Mercer (author, surprise, surprise)

MM : Alright, that's enough of that, on to weightier matters. This area of music, which I certainly regard as the most exciting, often fails to develop because the main bands have this insane habit of breaking up just when their time is coming. As one potential biggie disappears so another appears, follows that same course into oblivion and the vital work of breaking new ground remains in a faltering state. Why ?

Andi : "There's a lot of people and journalists who think of us as one of those bands but I don't see it as that. You do it for the love of the music. It's your art and you know you'll do it as long as it's struggle and a challenge".

Terry : "It's good in a way that there's an adverse reaction to us, as you can see by reading the Music Press. It's something you're pushing against all this time."

MM : But the fact remains that in this area the bands soon disappear of their followings head off for pastures new. If you don't believe me than analyse the Theatre Of Hate story. 

Andi : "That's why it's easy for a band to become a cult because there's always that certain audience who'll take them up for a year. They'll go and see them play the Lyceum if they get that far. Then maybe they drop that band and follow another up. You see people at our gig at the Lyceum who were there for Theatre Of Hate and Killing Joke". 

                                *********************************************************

Opinions, opinions ... how valid was that last statement ? I would chip in and suggest that Spear Of Destiny (retaining only Kirk & Stan from TOH) were a major let down & that for reason I myself lost interest in their work. As for Killing Joke fans at the SGC's Lyceum gig on 15/05/83. Don't get too excited Andi Sex-Gang - for fuck's sake, with Play Dead and Brilliant on the same bill, it was always quite likely the KJ legion would be well represented. Two months later the KJ hordes were well out in force for the Firedances tour. Anyway, this whole thread has started really as I just wanted to highlight the place that UK Decay had amongst it all. Seriously Alex & others, when that studio CD comes out, I'd dip into the coffers and experience one of the great forgotten UK post-punk bands ... 

Regards,

Antoni

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

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Alexander Smith 
  To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 2:59 PM
  Subject: Re: [kj] UK Decay & the great "goth" debate

  I'm not *ARGUING* with you, Antoni, this is just a discussion, but if you want to put the lid on it, that's fine too.

  Alex in NYC

  On Tuesday, January 18, 2005, at 09:54 AM, <antoni at clara.net> wrote:

    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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