What music would you choose to listen to?

This is often the first thing people ask. It’s followed by, “Do you like …’?”. The answer to this question seems to confuse, and you are forced to tell them that you like The Cure. They’re like a meeting place between the underground culture and the mainstream music industry. It’s a shame, but it’s what I would have done. I love being part of small, intimate bands.

Goth, sometimes called “Eoepositive” punk, was an underground movement that emerged from the ashes and grew over the years. This was when I started to get into it. The punk scene of 1979/80 was beginning to fade as I knew it. The newer generation of bands didn’t interest me. The Exploited and Angelic Upstarts pulled in a lot of skinheads, and once you had a good kick from them, they were the last people that you wanted to spend too much time with. The more “Eoetuneful” bands were what I preferred, perhaps I grew up, but that’s a debateable since I was only 19.

Beginning of Pop

My earliest interest in the scene can be traced back to the first time that I saw Bauhaus perform “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” A on Top of The Pops. This was a program that offered a chance of at least one “Eoealternative” act per week. 1979 was the year that things changed for me and this new movement began to take shape. While there will be many arguments about when goth started, 1979 is where I will always remember my roots. This was the year I discovered The Damned’s “Love Song”A and their “Smash it Up”A albums. It also marked a shift in my listening habits to The Cure, Joy Division and The Psychedelic Furs. This was a subtler version of the bands I had previously listened to.

Transition to Punk

25 years ago, it was still a rebellious spirit from its punk roots. I still know many people from that era who stood against poll tax, for example. Today, that rebellious streak isn’t as evident. The younger generation has all but forgotten what it was like to be that way, and that what you wear is just as important as what you think.

Goth, A lost Cause
Unfortunately, the idea of goth has been lost. The music of the nineties was very dark. This may have been due to the influx of new people at the end the eighties, many of whom didn’t have punk roots and brought their own set of influences, which greatly diluted the scene. Nowadays, it is acceptable to play bands such as Rammstein at a lot of goth club, something that would not have happened 25 year ago. Can you imagine what would happen if a goth DJ played Iron Maiden in 1985? They would have been lynched. Yet, we continue to tolerate the same thing today. You shouldn’t put me down on EBM.

New Transition is Must

It is high time that the scene looked back and reinvented themselves. There are opportunities in newer post punk bands breaking through and with some help from some of the deathrock band members and a few goth rock bands, we can make it great again and bring back the tribalism which made it so special. A,A There will be casualties. But, it’s war. It is time to take back the name of Goth and make it great again.