All this week we're going to look back over albums from undeniable goth icons and talk about their failures.

I have a feeling this one is going to get me into trouble, but hear me out, OK?

Both music editor Chris Gray and I agreed that the debut Sisters of Mercy album First and Last and Always was simply the greatest goth album in existence. While we were compiling the list that it topped, we both confessed that we preferred Floodland as a work, even though FALAA is clearly the better and more influential album.

So now, let's talk about Floodland, the first album Andrew Eldritch put out after the departure of Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams to form The Mission. It's just a spellbinding work that succeeds not only as a dance single generator with "Dominion/Mother Russia, "Lucretia, My Reflection," and of course and forever "This Corrision," but also a driving narrative opus that moves along magically throughout it's length like a Del James short story.

That's what Floodland was in 1987. Then Eldritch, ever the monomaniac, fired a bunch of people and birthed Vision Thing in 1990 through a hard and painful labor. Of the three Sisters albums it remains the worst, at least until Uncle Andy finally stops pouting at the recording industry and gives us the album for which we've been waiting for 25 years and can in no way live up to expectations.

More »

All this week we're going to look back over albums from undeniable goth icons and talk about their failures.

In 1999, Trent Reznor released The Fragile, which if not his greatest album... nah, you know what? It is his greatest album. Just huge and dark and there like the death waiting for us all.

In the years that followed that album Reznor lost a lot of himself in drugs and alcohol, and ended up with a case of writer's block that wasn't eroded away until he released With Teeth in 2005. The return to the mainstream was a critical smash hot, all over the radio like the old days and re-establishing Trent Reznor as one of the most preeminent alternative artists in the world.

Which is sad because that album is bloody awful, and a terrible thing to throw at people who had worn out three copies of The Fragile waiting for Reznor to get his crap together.

Don't get me wrong, I acknowledge that it's a necessary album. All those demons that Reznor was fighting to overcome needed to be exorcised, and it's not surprise to me that he chose to do it in song. So much of With Teeth reflects an expulsionary rage that is eager to cut, wound, and hurt.

More »

All this week we're going to look back over albums from undeniable goth icons and talk about their failures.

Thus far I've been focusing on endings, what with Siouxsie and the Banshees' last album and another that made Robert Smith seriously consider ending The Cure. Now I'd like to bring up something more hopeful, but ultimately a failure in the reunion of Bauhaus and their 2008 album Go Away White.

The contribution to goth from Bauhaus, both as a collective and from the later careers of its assorted members can not in any way be overstated. They didn't invent goth, but they perfected it. Bauhaus defined a certain time of darkness, and it's easy to forget that they were in reality only together as long as your average local garage act.

A quarter of a century -- that's how long it had been since the quartet had released Burning From the Inside. You can't possibly know what to expect from such a happening. All we knew was that the band had decided to get back into a studio after a reunion concert at Coachella just to see what would happen.

What happened was an amazing record. I'm sorry if you don't agree, but not only is Go Away White exactly what we should have seen coming in retrospect from the last several albums by Peter Murphy and Daniel Ash, but it was accomplished with style and an easy grace. Why then is it such a disappointment?

More »

All this week we're looking back over albums by undeniable goth icons and talk about their failures.

As we proved in Monday's entry in the series, the mid-'90s wasn't an easy time for the pioneers of the goth genre. On the one hand they were reasonably secure as established and proven acts, but on the other, in many cases they were outliving the creative connections that made them who they were in the first place.

It's hard to say that about The Cure because of how unique the band truly is. Though many consider the group to be Robert Smith plus a few other guys in black, the reality is that The Cure is a constantly changing and evolving series of lineups that interact with each other in different ways. Because of that, ranking Cure albums against each other can be very difficult.

Rewind:

The Five Most Disappointing Goth Albums: Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Rapture

That said, I'll tell you a story. A couple of years back a friend of mine was robbed, and the thief took among other things all of the guitar tablature books that my friend had. This included a complete collection of Cure books, all of which are out of print now.

More »

All this week we're going to look back over albums from undeniable goth icons and talk about their failures.

By the time Siouxsie and the Banshees released The Rapture in 1995, they had been together for almost two decades. They'd blazed a path with a dark and daring sound that still had just enough pop to entice two generations of spooky youngsters, and you will never for a second find me saying that Siouxsie and Steve Severin should be considered anything other than two of the most important names in goth composition.

But their final, 11th album remains a total mess. Even for a band that was always known for tackling a lot of different angles on their records there is an incredibly fractured feeling that you can't get past.

Part of it is that the band was pretty clearly staying together at that point because they were, commercially speaking, a very successful live band in the mid-'90s. They'd been a major act in the first Lollapalooza, and were enjoying the fruits of a long and productive career, even if they never seemed terribly comfortable with that label. Both Siouxsie and Severin said in interviews around that time they didn't consider themselves either old or iconic.

More »

Photos by Abrahan Garza

Peter Murphy
Numbers
April 25, 2013

Maybe Peter Murphy should get arrested more often.

That may be a horrible thing to say, but if you had seen him at Numbers, you'd understand. This tour had been previously announced, but whether his March arrest in California for DUI and alleged drug possession has left the undead Bauhaus front man in need of money (probably not) or just happy to get out on the road and have something to do (likelier), his performance Friday night was the work of if not a man possessed, definitely a man with something to prove.

It was inspired, at the very least. Murphy was courtly, sinister, sometimes atop the drum riser, and more a little peeved when the sound crapped out halfway through. He also stated in no uncertain terms that the three musicians onstage with him were "not some copycat band." Hell, the way he wielded his illuminated "wand" that resembled a Maglite, maybe he was a little possessed.

More »

Not long back I had the opportunity to explore the origin of the name of my favorite Houston club, Numbers. My source explained to me that the name originated from a late '70s slang term indicating a hot guy or girl during the club's original disco days. The upstairs area of the club also sported silver wall paper that was decorated with numbers on it, further cementing the moniker. Later, the wallpaper was painted over with black.

Rewind:

Daddy, Why Is Numbers Called Numbers?

That solved at least one mystery for me, but Numbers has had a fair share of tales told about it over its long history. And its history is quite long, having opened as Numbers in 1978. Along with Fitzgerald's and Anderson Fair, it's one of the oldest clubs still in its original building and still operating almost half a century later.

It's time to lay to rest some of the myths surrounding my gothic sanctuary.

More »

I hate working out unless it involves backflips and body slams. I used to do all my exercise in a bingo hall with no a/c, in a wrestling ring that was harder than Frank Zappa in a used-panty store.

Since I long ago left my wrestling dreams behind, I'm forced to go to the gym unless I want to become a doughy, pale man-boy since writing is not exactly good for burning calories.

The only thing that gets me through a session on a treadmill or StairMaster is Mortiis's album The Smell of Rain. It's the perfect workout soundtrack, full of driving energy and a sense of self-sacrifice, and montage-worthy lyrics like "How far are you willing to go?" make pointless running in place actually feel meaningful. What other goth music makes a good gym mix?

I decided to ask the Gothic Council.

More »

I am an egalitarian goth myself. I like to include all manners of acts under the banner as long as I feel their music in some way is in lockstep with gothic themes. That why I'll happily declare Johnny Cash goth, and Stevie Nicks as well.

But some acts came from way out of left field with a fine spooky hit, and today we celebrate them for sticking a toe in musical river Styx.

More »

Over the course of the week, Rocks Off will be looking at the biggest years for goth music and exactly what they meant for the genre.

Arguably the last big goth album by a new band to make a crossover splash was Evanescence's Fallen, released in early 2003. That one band led millions of mall-goths in one direction, towards the mainstream, while more traditional goths went almost the exact opposite way.

Rewind:

The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1979

The 5 Most Important Years in Goth Music: 1983

While no self-respecting goth purist would consider mentioning Amy Lee's melodramatic band in the same sentence as Siouxsie & the Banshees, no one can deny that Evanescence was obviously inspired by ethereal-wave bands such as Dead Can Dance, and was indeed even formed around the same time that Faith and the Muse got going. They obviously considered themselves goth, whether OGs did or not.

More »