Gothic rock

[beyondthepale99]

Hi all,

How many people here do like this kind of music? I began listening to bands such as The Mission -which I personally love-, The Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Specimen and the like some 8 years ago. I really love these bands. What are your favourites? Cheers.

[HawkLord]

I like Bauhaus but I havent heard the others

[zakt]

Hmmmmm ...

Like any genre, there's good and bad bits, and generally the ones who classify themselves within the genre are derivative and fairly boring (imho).

Bauhaus were pretty (re)inventive, but my favourites from the original goth boom were Alien Sex Fiend.

[Mikey_C]

I was a great Bauhaus fan and saw them live a couple of times. Also Siouxsie and the Banshees; "Juju" and "A kiss in the dreamhouse" are my favourite albums. I've always thought of Joy Division as Goths, although they didn't need to dress like it. I'm out of touch with whatever Goths are listening to nowadays, but it seems like a fashion which never goes out of fashion, if you know what I mean. And, of course, there's various subdivisions.

I ended up getting a bit fed up with Bauhaus due to having a mate who was a drummer and insisted in playing 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' over and over whenever I went to see him. We used to have interesting unresolved arguments about hairspray and its impact on the ozone layer in those days of CFC propellants. There was no way you could wean him off of it. It was his religion.

[Typhoid_Mary]

I love Bauhaus.

I also like Alien Sex Fiend, Specimen, The Sisters of Mercy, Virgin Prunes, The Cure's early stuff, Danielle Dax, Sex Gang Children, Ausgang, The March Violets...

But not The Mission. I hate them with a passion.

I wouldn't call Joy Division a goth band, though their influence is obvious. Protogoth, maybe. :)

[Dead-Air]

I was pretty into it in the '80s when it was called "Death Rock" and the "Goth" title hadn't come around yet. Then it just seemed like the glammiest of punk and punk was a pretty broad term at that. I guess the Cramps were sort of part of it, and for that matter the Gun Club, and Seattle U-men (one of the greatest forgotten bands of all time) though those groups had a definite American roots take on all the death.

I recently started getting into listening to Bahaus again after serious burnout decades ago. I wish I'd seen Specimen back then, but couldn't care less about listening to their records now. I certainly like the more experimental tip of it too like Nocturnal Emissions, but most of that stuff just drifted out of the genrefication entirely. I don't think it's possible to be scary like the original death rockers were much any more, which is why most new "goth" fails in my opinion.

Marilyn Manson and his buddy Trent probably burried the genre for me permanently, though I must admit MM was quite articulate in Bowling for Columbine and I admire Reznor for releasing one of his tracks as a garage band track for fans to remix.

[Typhoid_Mary]

I don't think it's possible to be scary like the original death rockers were much any more, which is why most new "goth" fails in my opinion.

I don't think many of the original goths were trying to be scary. It was just an excuse to dress up and have fun! The morbidity and introspection wasn't as large a part of it as later on.

One of the reasons I tend not to like newer goth bands is that they try too hard to be scary. All that devil-worshipping vampire stuff... :roll:

[beyondthepale99]

I personally love the 80's goth bands but, to be honest, I also do like some of the newer ones. For example, bands such as Diary of Dreams. They've been around for more than 10 years now and they're pretty good. By the way, there is (or there was) an American band named Gossamer which released a very fine album entitled 'Closure'. If I'm not wrong, it was released in 1999 or early 2000 and Wayne Hussey of The Mission produced and arranged some of its tracks. I've been long searching for this cd. If anybody can help me find it, I'll be more than grateful. Thanks in advance! Obviously, I can search for you any Spanish items you'd like to be sent.

[Mikey_C]

Was anyone here into 'The Mob'? Kind of anarcho-crusty Goths.

I never thought Goths were trying to be scary - it was pure pantomime. Of course, a few old ladies (and old gentlemen!) may have crossed the road when they saw them coming, but they needn't have! It's all the lager-boys in their white socks and burgundy jumpers they should have watched out for.

Of course, these days when a high street chain store can get everyone to wear sweat shirts sporting the word 'FUCK' (spelt wrong, of course :roll: ), it must be so much harder to shock. And you've got the whole right-wing Christian thing in the States, making it almost a moral imperative. But are people over-reacting in the wrong way? There's a nasty death metal - Satanist - Nazi underground, which isn't good. Sid Vicious should never have worn that swastika, stupid shit-for-brains. :x

[DeeCrowSeer]

Beware, deeply shallow opinions follow...

I've always been a big fan of the Goth look, but I really can't bring myself to listen to the music. I'm not sure if it's the cartoonist in me, but I love the contrast between jet black hair and pale skin. I've also always been in to skeletons and vampire and so forth, so I felt there was a kinship between myself and Goths... but I just can't get on board with the musical side of things. I bought a few Bauhaus tapes back when I was in university, and was trying to find reasons to talk to a girl in one of my writing classes, who happened to be a goth (I first spotted her on Halloween, then that very evening a neighbour of mine randomly introduced me to a housemate of hers! It seemed like Fate, but really it was just Fate mocking me, I think), but it just never did anything for me. I enjoyed some of Peter Murphy's (?) solo stuff, but I doubt that would have got me anywhere.

I'm not sure Marilyn Manson is technically "gothic", but personally I've been listening to him since the mid-90s and I never get bored of his music... well, aside from his repeated use of old pop covers to get in to the charts. I don't think he's especially "shocking", or the coolest man who ever lived or anything silly like that, I just think he knows how to write good, heavy (often very funny) songs.

The problem these days is that the "goth" and "metal" looks have become highstreet fashion statements, and the "alternative" kids are now spending as much on their clothes as the "trendy" kids. Maybe that was always the way it worked in cities, but around here we had ex-German army shirts dyed black, and badly sewn patches on denim jackets. Last summer I saw some goths walking around town, and every item of clothing they wore was shiny and new and straight off the peg, and that made me sad.

Btw, I was just reading Mike's introduction for the book Dying For Tomorrow (aka Book of Martyrs) in which he comments:

To make a virtue of alienation is to lose perspective quite as easily as if one makes a virtue of orthodoxy.

And I think there's some truth in that.

Sorry, none of the above was really very musical. I'll shut up again now.

Hail Satan! :twisted:

[Etive]

The problem these days is that the "goth" and "metal" looks have become highstreet fashion statements, and the "alternative" kids are now spending as much on their clothes as the "trendy" kids. Maybe that was always the way it worked in cities, but around here we had ex-German army shirts dyed black, and badly sewn patches on denim jackets. Last summer I saw some goths walking around town, and every item of clothing they wore was shiny and new and straight off the peg, and that made me sad.

Aye, happen when I were on t'scene (goth/metal) we had to paint our own boots, jackets, T-shirts, faces e.t.c this is probably what attracted me gothwards anyway, I was good at the creative stuff.

I never considered myself a goth; I didn't/ don't like the music though I'm not exactly sure whether it is a particular genre or just any music (metal/industrial/other) marketed to those of a gothic persuasion?

[Mikey_C]

Beware, deeply shallow opinions follow...

Methinks you are too modest! The quote from Mike is spot on. Also the point about fashions. Sorry to sound like an old git, but everything truly is so manufactured these days. And (my profoundest comment yet...) there has always been something deeply horny about Goth chicks - they can get up to some twisted evil with me any day! :twisted:
(in my dreams )

[Dead-Air]

Beware, deeply shallow opinions follow...

Methinks you are too modest! The quote from Mike is spot on. Also the point about fashions. Sorry to sound like an old git, but everything truly is so manufactured these days. And (my profoundest comment yet...) there has always been something deeply horny about Goth chicks - they can get up to some twisted evil with me any day! :twisted:
(in my dreams )

Maybe that's the point I was making when I said that I didn't think Goths or anyone can be scary anymore.

I'd actually like to beg to differ with those who say the first wave of Death Rockers weren't trying to be scary. Christian Death skinned cats on stage! (An act that has forever poisoned me against them, though I do have a copy of Only Theater of Pain and was amused some years later when Motley Crue stole the title.) Death Rock (and again, the term Goth was never really used when Bauhaus and Specimen were still around though Bauhaus obviously embraced it later with the Gotham album) was meant to be dark, big, and scary. Certainly it was fun to get dressed up, but part of the fun was knowing that it severely disturbed "normal" people. Men wearing make-up at all was still pretty scary to most people back then, even on stage in a band. Bowie and co. had already pushed that envelope, but Death Rock did it on a post-punk street level that aristocracy couldn't emulate, and while there may have been some humor to it, that just wasn't as apparent as it had been with the New York Dolls.

Now fourteen year-olds can buy a "goth" image at Hot Topic, and though they are apparently actually more likely to do something really fearsome on a Columbine level, they just don't look scary at all.

[Typhoid_Mary]

Christian Death skinned cats on stage!

I've never heard that before. Can I ask where you got that information from?

[Dead-Air]

Um, everyone I ever knew who heard of the band. There's a picture of Roz with a skinned cat on the back of one of their records in fact. I don't remember which one, as I was incredibly revolted when I realized that's what he was holding and put it out of my head. I'm quite certain it's reality and not myth though.