Hey Mr DJ

[Maisey]

bumgrapes

[boudicca]

Deathrock is just Batcave twenty five years on.

I never wrote that! And I don't think it.

For what it's worth, I think the "Batcave" bands were generally those British post-punks that only half "got" goth at the time.
Deathrock is the spawn of the importers of that cheap product, (a bunch of Californians FFS! how much father removed can you get from the culture that post-punk, New Wave etc. grew out of?) most of whom I don't think ever "got" goth at all.

To me Deathrock is just straight up, unimaginative rock'n'roll music (though without the soul and authenticity to make it exciting), bedecked in ghoulish Halloween props.

Just my two Euros, you understand

[Episkopos]

I am very fond of (make that - have live and breathed for the past decade) the likes of Siouxsie and Joy Division (if not a the Neph and the Mish), and I'm not enamoured with a lot of the glowstick-waving stuff (though I do like a lot of the stuff that preceeded it, Front 242 etc, and I would much rather dance to Covenant or VNV Nation than some bog-standard pub goth band)...

But, I SO TOTALLY disagree with you

Few phrases depress me more than "Trad Goth" - it stands in opposition to just about everything that I have ever found appealing about so-called "gothic" music in the first place... i.e. that it was innovative and made by people creative enough to happily draw influences from all kinds of places.

I do think it's important to understand the history and origin of the music you like, but if "goth" has become nothing more than a bunch of sad old blokes with beer bellies digging out their old poet shirts once a week in a desperate attempt to hold on to their youth, then I only hope those who say it's dead are right.

What she said, with bells on.

It's the classic contest: artistic integrity vs. commercial viability. Not moving forward and relying on the back catalogue is an insult to everything the goff scene thinks it's about (and maybe used to be - I dunno, I wasn't there), but you've got a night to run and people like to dance to what they know... where d'you draw the line?

[Mr Mercy]

On a sidenote: Can I just clearify that the German term "Gruftie" doesnt origin from the english word "gruff" (as your spelling alludes to), but rather from the German word for grave "Gruft". The "Grufties" (or "Gravies" in strict translation)

Its from the german worf gruft like you say (sorry about the double f)
I was first called a Gruftie by my then German language teacher!

[6FeetOver]

I remember reading about some German grufties years ago, who tried to grow lawn grass in their apartment so they could pretend that they lived in a cemetery, hahaha!