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.

Nineteen ninety-four was a good year for a new kind of goth. Previously, for the most part the men had been sensitive artists, and even the ones who could be pretty brutal -- such as Nick Cave -- never seemed to lose their sense of grace and elegance. But two men changed all that, one real and one fictional.

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The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1979

The first was Trent Reznor. Disguised as a hard-rock/industrial musician, Reznor shot into the spotlight with Pretty Hate Machine in 1989. That album alone would have cemented his place as a great goth musician, but it was his second album, 1994's The Downward Spiral, that showed that not only was he a rock star, he was a master of production and audio vision. "Closer" remains one of his biggest hits, if not in fact his biggest, while "Hurt" has become almost like a hymn thanks to honorary goth Johnny Cash's harrowing 2003 cover.

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There's something that happens every holiday season that always causes me to damage my eyes through excessive rolling. The Wife With One F is a tremendous baker, known far and wide for her ability to create fantastic desserts. Obviously, this means she spends a lot of her down time at the end of the year baking for various get-togethers and this necessitates many trips to the baking aisles in grocery and craft stores.

And every freakin' time we go, I catch soccer moms staring at us out of the corner of my eye. It's as if a chick in Bettie Page bangs and tattoos can't be conceived to want to make a cake since it doesn't involve drugs and leather. It's even worse at places like Michael's or, God forbid, Hobby Lobby, where we tend to get followed around the store by employees.

It's 2013. Goth has been around for, like, four decades. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to realize that we have perfectly normal hobbies and activities we enjoy that don't involve listening to spooky music or drinking absinthe. What do we do just like you? I gathered the Gothic Council to answer that question.

Joining me this week is the author of Psychonaut, Carmilla Voiez; founder of the Age of Decay festival, Aletha Carr; blogger at Night's Plutonian Shore Drusilla Grey; living historian Morrighanne Burns; Hex of the death rock band Culture Decayed; fashion designer Batty; Niki Marshall with the Braggart Family Side Circus; and Church of Melkarth's Justin Whitney.

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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.

Goth history does not have a lot of supergroups, unfortunately. Robert Smith briefly played guitar for Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Peter Murphy occasionally works with Trent Reznor; other than that, it's just not a genre known for epic team-ups. However, a few bands like Bauhaus, whose members went on to equally productive solo careers, have become retrospective supergroups, and none stand taller than the Sisters of Mercy.

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The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1979

In 1986, the Sisters were an extremely hot commodity because they were brilliant, and front man Andrew Eldritch was a consummate music businessman with great acumen for getting what he needed. In 1985, the band released First and Last and Always, which as we've pointed out before is the greatest goth album of all time.

First and Last featured Wayne Hussey's inspired instrumental writing combined with Eldritch's lyrics, laboriously composed during his split with a long-term girlfriend. If you own no other goth albums, you should own this one.

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

Just as Bauhaus was breaking up, a place in England opened up whose gothic importance cannot be overstated. Beginning in 1982, the Batcave intended to bring about a revival of the glam scene using bands more in line with T. Rex and Bowie. By 1983, it had transformed into the hub of gothic culture.

Rewind:

The 5 Most Important Years In Goth Music: 1979

The Batcave became a haven for people who were tired of the New Romantic movement and up for something a little darker. Peter Murphy, Nick Cave, Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux were all regulars at the club, and eventually its rather unique culture began to get exported.

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The cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures

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

Like any good structure, goth is built on the foundations of other previous cultures. You can walk back through David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and all the way to Chopin looking for the source, but what we really know as goth rock began in 1979. It was the beginning of a golden age where a subset of punks steered things in a more dramatic, elegant route.

It was the year that one of the most influential band managers in England, Tony Wilson, coined "goth" as it relates to music. The act he was talking about was his own Joy Division, which remains one of the most influential bands in the goth sound, although some would argue that they are more accurately classified as post-punk.

Unknown Pleasures isn't as groundbreaking as 1980's Closer, released posthumously after the suicide of Ian Curtis, but the 1979 debut still set the stage for the world of dark fantasy that goth would begin to usher in. It was a critical success, if not a major financial one, and remains a staple in the essential goth catalog.

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As head of the Gothic Council, a position I take as seriously as I take being known as an expert on video-game farts, one of my jobs is aiding those who seek the spooky side of life enable the transition. Now, goth is kind of like the Judaism of subcultures. We like to keep it members-only up in here, and we will definitely deny you three times via bitchy remarks before we let you in.

That being said, some of the more awesome people I run into have actually asked me what it takes to go goth, and so I gathered the Gothic Council to ask them the best way to get started.

Joining us this week is Age of Decay festival founder Alethea Carr, blogger at Night's Plutonian Shore Drusilla Grey, author of Psychonaut Carmilla Voiez, Niki Marshall of the Braggart Family Side Circus, DJ Martin Oldgoth, Hex of the deathrock band Culture Decayed, Jvstin Witney of the Church of Melkarth, and living historian Morrighanne Burns.

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My wife has a pair of boots she calls her "gig boots" that got that name because they have managed to be comfortable and reliable for over a decade, no matter how many crappy concerts she has stood around at. Recently the zipper broke on one of them and I took it in to get it repaired. The cobbler was of the opinion that I was wasting $40 by getting them fixed, and I told him that he didn't understand goths and a great pair of boots.

Every goth has that one pair -- the one that is not only fashionable enough to complement almost any outfit, but also allow you to fight, run, walk, and dance should any of those actions be required. Finding that perfect pair of boots is part of the gothic spirit quest... along with learning that whiteface needs prudence and vodka is wonderful. So this week I thought I'd check in on mein Gothic Council about the importance of boots.

Joining us this week is Hex of the band Culture Decayed, author of the Encyclopedia Gothica Liisa Ladouceur, DJs Martin Oldgoth and Regen Robinson, Niki Marshal of the Braggart Family Side Circus, and founder of the Age of Decay Festival Alethea Carr.

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Having just spent an afternoon absorbing the new kung-fu steampunk masterpiece Tai Chi Zero, I got to wondering on what the official gothic position was on the steampunk phenomenon. After all, we share an awful lot in common with the steampunkers, like a love of classic gothic literature, ornamentation, a predilection for dark music.

Should we consider them gothic brethren or not? I decided to ask the Gothic Council.

Rewind:

Top 10 Steampunk Songs

Joining us the week is Regen Robinson of Space Radio, model Scarlett St. Vitus, Jvstin Whitney of Church of Melkarth, Author of Starblood Carmilla Voiez, blogger at Night's Plutonian Shore Drusilla Grey, Niki Marshall of the Braggart Family Circus, Sara Rockey of the Dark Lantern Society, DJ Martin Oldgoth, and artist Michelle Weissman.

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Satan, seen here being all emo and shit

I'm here to do two things, talk about band names and further the cause of Satan. And I'm all out of... Oh, wait, no. I've got plenty of both. Awesome! Let's get started.

Lots of bands, mostly metallic but not always, decide that they're going to up the edge factor on their existence by adopting the moniker of a real-life demon. This was a fairly impressive feat in the pre-Internet days when, in order to know exactly which demons were what, you actually had to go to the library and check out one of those books that gets your name put on a list.

With Halloween approaching, I thought it might be fun to better-know the dark powers lending their labels to your favorite musical groups.

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You remember Town Monster, right? I brought them up a while to celebrate the legacy of Bela Lugosi in song, then ended up doing a feature on one of the most brilliant independently produced music videos I've ever seen.

It made No. 8 on our Best Music Videos list last year, beating out some pretty impressive work by Erland & the Carnival and Dudely Jones. That was honestly the last I'd heard from the band until now.

True to form for a group that has already proven themselves cinematically, the promo for their upcoming album New Life comes in the shape of a short film... and a massively disturbing one at that.

"I've always wanted to do something like this and it probably won't be our last attempt," says singer Nathan Photos, who stars in the short. "I loved Thriller when I was a kid, I would watch it over and over again on VHS. I think music video could be such a great art form if people would take more risks with it."

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