Disco Sunday #33: Vaguely Dancey Goth Edition
I’ve blended, edited and reuploaded the MP3s for two posts I wrote last year, pre-Hype Machine. I thought I would save myself a Sunday morning in front of the computer by rehashing them instead of starting from scratch today but it’s taken nearly as long to do this as a normal post. Lesson learned.
Best known for being a founding member of seminal post-punk outfit Bauhaus (notice I didn’t say “Goth”, though I suppose I have now…oops), Daniel Ash has arguably made his best, and certainly most diverse music in the, er, wake of that band’s, um, ashes.
“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is a fantastic song for which the lyrics were written as Peter Murphy read randomly from the newspaper. But you already know that one, so here’s my favorite goth/dub reggae jam, “She’s in Parties.”
Mp3: “She’s in Parties” – Bauhaus
Official site: http://www.bauhausmusik.com
Buy music and DVDs by Bauhaus on Amazon
Ash’s most commercially successful band was Love and Rockets, who had a huge hit with the inescapable (in 1989) guaranteed-to-separate-the-old-fans-from-the-new-fans 120 Minutes-pandering radio-friendly single “So Alive.” Here’s a far, far better song from that album, a glam stomper about his love affair with a machine:
MP3: “Motorcycle” – Love and Rockets
http://www.loveandrockets.org
Buy music and DVDs by Love and Rockets on Amazon
But Ash’s most criminally underrated band was the utterly fantastic Tones on Tail, an experimental electronic-pop band he formed with Bauhaus’s drummer Kevin Haskins (brother of bassist David J) and their roadie, Glenn Campling. The band only lasted about 2 years, just after Bauhaus ended and before Ash and Haskins reconnected with J. to form Love and Rockets. During this time they recorded about 25 songs, most of which were released as singles and EPs. While they never quite got as big as the bands which precedeed and followed them, Tones on Tail did have one fairly successful single, “Go”, which is still being played in clubs to this day. Apparently Moby sampled it on his track of the same name, but I’ll never know for sure as I have a pretty strong “no Moby” policy and I don’t intend to change.
Going with the lesser-known tracks again, here is my favorite song in the T.O.T. oeuvre, the Moroderriffic “Performance” (a.k.a. “Shakes”).
MP3: “Performance” – Tones on Tail
Buy the aptly titled “Everything” by Tones on Tail from Amazon
Ash has been making solo records as well for the past 15 years or so, which you can check out here or at the Official Daniel Ash site.
Buy Daniel Ash solo music from Amazon. And for more blogified Ash-ness, our Rich Girl friends recently wrote a swell post about the man with some more tracks and video.
Before they O.D.’d on guitars and heroin and went all White Zombie on our asses with their limp proto-Industrial Metal (“Jesus Built My Hotrod”, anyone?), Ministry was rad. Nowadays every American chav and Suicide Girl-manquée at Mall of America looks like an Al Jourgensen clone, but at the time his post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior shtick fit perfectly with the dance/rock/goth/industrial/pop sound he helped invent. Both sonically and sartorially, for better or for worse, there’d be no Trent without Al.
But before he lost his marbles dropping acid with Gibby, Al wrote some super swell synth-goth ditties, a slightly harder-core Depeche Mode. Ministry’s second album “Twitch”, released in 1985, dabbles in the relatively new art of sampling and rhythmic noise in a pop context, and the result is catchy dark pop; even a bit, dare I say, funky (in a white way).
MP3:“Just Like You” – Ministry
I adore the Sisters of Mercy. Besides having the chutzpah to collaborate with fellow bombast-a-don (and Meatloaf collaborator) Jim Steinman, Andrew Eldritch is erudite, pretentious, and goddamn hysterical. In 1985 Eldritch produced a few tracks by a cat named James Ray and released the songs on his Merciful Release label. One track in particular, “Mountain Voices”, is fantastically dark and dancey, featuring very Sisters-like vocals, synthpop synthbass and beats, electric guitars and lots of melody. It’s pretty melodramatic and the chorus is kinda silly (sampled violins!) — and it even flirts with a Country twang. But it works.
MP3: “Mountain Voices” – James Ray and the Performance
I had to buy a filler-laden ‘best of’ CD for $20 on Ebay a few years ago to get this song, but now you can download it and every other song they recorded for free on the James Ray web site.
xx,
Baron von Luxxury is My Fake Name
RELATED POSTS:
%RELATEDPOSTS%
[...] Matthew Donovan wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI’ve blended, edited and reuploaded the MP3s for two posts I wrote last year, pre-Hype Machine. I thought I would save myself a Sunday morning in front of the computer by rehashing them instead of starting from scratch today but it’s … [...]
I love that Bauhaus track, ‘She’s in parties’! There’s also a very nice 12′ dance version of it, if I remember well. I like ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ as well (the Latin version from Nouvelle Vague is quite nice too).
I love that Bauhaus track, ‘She’s in parties’! There’s also a very nice 12′ dance version of it, if I remember well. I like ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ as well (the Latin version from Nouvelle Vague is quite nice too). Good post!
[...] tagged inescapableOwn a Wordpress blog? Make monetization easier with the WP Affiliate Pro plugin. Disco Sunday #33: Vaguely Dancey Goth Edition saved by 2 others zanessarox4eva bookmarked on 05/26/08 | [...]
[...] is your favorite maligned genre? Rap-rock? Electroclash? I’m proud and yet ashamed but overall mostly proud to say that mine is Goth. I’m not quite sure why Goth hasn’t reached the level of urban subculture cred that [...]