[kj] RE: UK Decay - For Madmen Only

[Rob Martin]

Antoni
What excellent news!
You made my day when I read that UK Decay's 'For Madmen Only' will be
released on CD eventually.
I have had to resort to making a CD out of my tape that was itself a copy of
the original LP.
It's better than nothing but I've been hoping for a 'real' version for
years.
Excellent album (IMHO), although I think it's definitely a case of love it
or hate it.
Kind of like KJ albums really. You don't get many people who say "KJ are OK,
I can take them or leave them".
I once cleared a party within 5 minutes when a fellow guest suggested I
played the first KJ album.
If you want to get people out, it's worth a try.
If they go, they shouldn't have been there in the first place!!

Regards
Rob Martin

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From: <antoni at clara.net>
Subject: [kj] UK Decay & the great "goth" debate
To: <gathering at misera.net>
Message-ID: <006b01c4fce0$24630700$194f08c3 at NervousSystem>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

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


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