Heartland

Hi. Is anyone familiar with the book by Dave Thomson - the Dark Reign of Gothic Rock: in the Reptile House with the Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and the Cure?

Saw it in play.com and was almost already ordering it but then got second thoughts...anyone to make the decision easier or not? Is it only the author's opinionated account of these bands and gothic or does it actually have some sense to it, perhaps even interviews etc?

Thanks,
dei

i find it quit interesting

definetely worth having

Agreed. Very interesting book. A much more satisfying read than Mercer's "Black Book" which was pure twaddle. Thompson talks about the development of the goff scene and places it in its historical context, using the three bands mentioned as examples. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Thank you both. Will get it.

dei

I don't own that book.

No sir.

Really, it's rather good. It certainly documents the early years of Goff and all the stuff leading up to it very well. Goes off the boil as the 80's progress I think, and it's coverage of the 90's and beyond is really poor.But let's face it, certain people weren't doing very much after the 80's anyway!

No mention of a lot of bands, nor the merging with the industrial scene, EBM and all that. Starts talking about Manson and Ministry at one point... ... but not for long. He seems to have certain "pet" bands - Flesh For Lulu springs to mind, Doctors Of Madness - to whom he gives more credit than is perhaps due.

That said, there's plenty of good stuff. You should definitely get it.

Yes, what was important to me was to know that it's not a book for sad goths with a distorted view of the whole thing but rather a more critical account of the development of the whole sub-genre.

i feel that if goth hadn't so quickly deteriorated and turned into the freak show that it is now, and a subculture for social failures to immerse themselves with, perhaps even Mr. Eldritch wouldn't feel so bad for being held responsible for its birth and development. Even outside Sisters, the genre holds some true gems and obvious talent and intellect (not to push my personal views in any way but while the Cure always seemed dim to me Joy Division for example is just almost as good as Sisters; incidentally, while Marilyn Manson has little to do with original goth-thingie, people who take his silliness at facevalue do miss out on some interesting and pointy stuff).

Hopefully the book will arrive soon, can't wait.

dei

just if you want to read the whole thing in german:

klick!

itnAklipse wrote:
i feel that if goth hadn't so quickly deteriorated and turned into the freak show that it is now, and a subculture for social failures to immerse themselves with, perhaps even Mr. Eldritch wouldn't feel so bad for being held responsible for its birth and development.

dei

Hear, hear. If the guy wants to be taken seriously as a performer, he'll need to find a better audience than that crowd, bless their hearts.

Yep, good book. I enjoyed it.
I did get a little bored when it was going on & on about bands I don't like but then The Sisters popped up so I was happy.
Definite purchase!

==whoops==

A much more satisfying read than Mercer's "Black Book" which was pure twaddle.

Hmm. To my knowledge, Mercer is the only author to have been singled out for criticism by the Sisters in that Virgin.net interview, viewable 'ere. Mercer's response is to get more acidic in each successor to Black Book.
So, the twaddle may simply be a direct attack on the ILG's...

itnAklipse wrote:Hi. Is anyone familiar with the book by Dave Thomson - the Dark Reign of Gothic Rock: in the Reptile House with the Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and the Cure?

Saw it in play.com and was almost already ordering it but then got second thoughts...anyone to make the decision easier or not? Is it only the author's opinionated account of these bands and gothic or does it actually have some sense to it, perhaps even interviews etc?

Thanks,
dei

no interviews but worth to get.

fact is theres not really any other books covering the subject matter so you may as well buy it,but bare in mind this guy is just another self-important muso-bore of the pub-without-a-pool-table type who" was actually there,maaan".unfortunately this means that the book is written with the assumption that you weren't;and are therefore either some sort of unlikely sub-culture historian who reads about music they're not into(personally i would rather eat glass than read about,say,freeform jazz)or you are some sort of johnny-come-lately fifth-generationer,gratefully prepared to be patronised by one of the ancient and wise.perhaps that seems a bit harsh,however i)its nearly all his opinions-hardly any first-hand input from the players themselves(f**k-all from TSOM,and its fair to say therein lies your best indication of its accuracy) ii)the photos are almost non-existent;dismally printed on the same paper as the text instead of the glossy-bit-in-the-middle that fifteen quid should warrant iii)theres far too much "you can trace goth back to..."pre-history;mostly irrelevant/inaccurate and all dull as t'water in t'ditch iv)theres a lot of people/bands represented disproportionately to there importance v)its all (badly) written in a flowery pseudo-literary style that serves only to emphasise the authors lack of respect for his reader.as a complete anorak i read it cover to cover(natch)but can honestly say i didnt enjoy it...could you tell?

yeah, i'd agree with quite a few of your points, but stiiiiiiiiilllllllllll............. it was better than nowt

eastmidswhizzkid: The said book has not yet arrived on me doorstep and from what i can tell from your rather incoherent, or if you like stream of thought-like (i swear somehow Rimbaud was associated within my head), yet strangely communicative ramble, it's exactly the sort of thing i was afraid it would be, though perchance with slightly less poisoned view of the whole goth scene.

Oh dear.

However, as this obviously has not detracted from the sheer entertainment value of the book for several people, and as several people have actually still been moderately happy with it's content, i'm still looking forward to it. And i can tell you exactly why: it can't be worse than the Oxford Dictionary of New Words which i once bought after vigorously explaining the virtues of such a book to my suspicious wife, solely for the reason of Eldritch being mentioned in the definition of gothic. No, it wasn't sheer stupidity on my part. It was zen.

dei

PS: If any evidence as to the truthfulness of my interest in zen is needed, consider how utterly devoid of any content relating to anything remotely interesting this post is.

don't get me wrong-even if i'd read it before i'd bought,it i would still have bought it!you're talking to the man who saved his pocket money for a month,waited outside HMV for it to open for an hour,and,by ten past nine on the day of its release,owned every format of "this corrosion".anyway-just how many new products can you expect to find with the sisters on the cover these days?

timsinister wrote:

A much more satisfying read than Mercer's "Black Book" which was pure twaddle.

Hmm. To my knowledge, Mercer is the only author to have been singled out for criticism by the Sisters in that Virgin.net interview, viewable 'ere.

Er, no it isn't but, anyway, Ian Shirley wrote a book about Bauhaus called Dark Entries. Bit late, I suppose, but better late than never. Pete Murphy was quite a loooker, wasn't he? A past girlfriend always said she thought Bauhaus were "put together by a record company" and were always carefully filmed (seen those two live videos?) to hide the fact that Murphy was short. Dunno. She might be wrong on both counts.

black biscuit wrote:Er, no it isn't...

...well, I'd encourage you to elaborate on any other author's who suffered the wrath of the Groove Machine!

I became a fan of the sisters of mercy when I bought an issue of classic rock, they had an article about goths.

I read the article and decided to check out the sisters because Andrew looked so cool in the photos, he dressed how a rock star should dress.

I got my hands on the album "Floodland" and was blown away, after that I was a fan for life.

I went to my local CD store and got two more of their albums plus a magazine about GOTH by the NME.

almost certain the NME was talking crap I went out searching for a proper book on the history of goth.

luckily I found "the dark reign of goth:" and it's defintly worth buying

I recomend you buy that book.

one question - why do people class the Sisters as a goth band?
I always thought they were a classic heavy metal band.