Albums That Meant Something - Part 4 - Dying to Be Written

(from Skeleton Key, Volume 3: Telling Tales, by Andi Watson)
While I never self-identified as a goth back in the embarrassing old days, I did listen to and purchase quite a bit of "goth" music. By the time my twenty-first birthday rolled around, I had already started to evolve past my punk rock persona phase, as the stock set of subcultural trappings felt less like sincere act of rebellion and more like a cul-de-sac of clichés. Musically, too, my tastes had begun to shift from the aggro to the atmospheric -- postpunk, synthpop & wave, anarchopunk stuff mostly.

It was a period when I revisited a lot of previously acquired material that had been filed at the back of my collection when it failed to pass my punk puritan criteria -- a sequence of small epiphanies which collectively added up to a paradigm shift in my listening habits. Even albums I'd liked well enough before, such as Unknown Pleasures and Entertainment, fairly well blindsided me with sublime charm that until then I'd been oblivious to.

So it was with UK Decay. My love of "For My Country," the Luton band's epic and artsy contribution to the Punk and Disorderly compilation, led me to pick up a copy of the "Unexpected Guest" single, whose spookshow subject matter, operatic vocals, and dub-influenced basslines was utterly lost on my ignorant Cock Sparrer-listening self. I passed the single onto a friend, only to ask for it back a couple years later after I'd smartened up...and this time around it sounded like the greatest thing I'd ever heard.

A short while later, Maura and I were flipping through the bins at the Tower Records store in Harvard Square. While the store's prices ran on the high side compared to other shops (which I suspect is the real reason -- not p2p applications -- that the chain eventually went belly up), it did have an section dedicated to indie and import releases. The usual ritual for the import CD stock involved being marked up to extortionate prices for a few months before inevitably being dumped unsold in a discount bin at the end of the aisle...which is where I found the subject of today's post.

It's the original 1992 release of the companion compilation disc to Mick Mercer's Gothic Rock encyclopedia. It was purchased for a fiver on the basis of having an otherwise unobtainable (for me, at least) UK Decay track culled from the band's amazing Rising From the Dread EP, but it also introduced me to (or washed away the taint of negative personal associations from) a half-dozen or so other acts that would loom large in my listening and purchasing habits into the present day; bands like Alien Sex Fiend, Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children, and Danse Society that, unlike the guitar rock sound that the gothic rock genre eventually coalesced into, took their cues from punk/postpunk and and ran in a host of strange, dark and quite often playful directions.

Much like Mercer's book (purchased after it got an American release), the Gothic Rock compilation does an excellent job at fostering an appreciation for the scene, music, and participants that doesn't attempt to gloss over the silly and/or pretentious aspects therein. The compilation was eventually given an American release, padded with extra tracks and eventually expanded into a multi-volume set, but I've never felt the need to upgrade from the original. That's partially due to sentimental reasons, but also because I've gotten past the place where I need such roadmaps.

UK Decay - Testament - By all rights, it should topple over the precipice into pretentious self-parody, yet it somehow manages to retain a precarious balance that gives gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.

Sex Gang Children - Dieche - Fuck you, AFI, and the My Chemical Romance you rode in on, too.