Three weeks at number one from 14th June 1986
I thought I’d kept my admiration for her on the downlow, but obviously not, because one night outside the local nightclub one of my friends drunkenly blurted out “Oi Dave, it’s that goth girl you fancy!” while she was within earshot. Clearly my poker face needed work. After she split with her unbelievably lanky, long-faced and permanently weary looking boyfriend, who it seemed had been her other half since birth, she awkwardly initiated further conversations with me and gave the impression she might be interested.
Reader, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered, it didn’t happen. I can’t remember the reasons, but her finding another suitor who was just more gothic than me was almost certainly the prime factor. I had something of a quiet aversion to the key things that made her world revolve, feigning interest whenever we spoke but probably never being able to successfully conceal my doubt. Some time before this, a friend or acquaintance gave me a C90 compilation tape of current goth sounds and I listened, trying to get to grips with it. By the thirtieth minute, I was bored shitless and realised I was never going to commit to a lifestyle that had so much dreary sludge as its soundtrack.
Thanks to this blog, I’ve been thinking back to that sliding doors moment a lot lately, and wondering if maybe my friend did me – and goth in general – a disservice. He focused on the long, soporific aspects which leaned towards the seriously morbid and epic. While ploughing through the indie charts for this blog, I’ve been forced to remember that musically speaking, goth was actually a much broader genre than that, to the point of near-meaninglessness. Besides the punk originators (The Damned, Siouxsie And The Banshees) and their Batcave heirs, there were also groups who performed camp electronic nonsense (Alien Sex Fiend), arena-eyeing rock God goths (The Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel, *coughs* The Stone Roses) and also a bunch of groups I now think of as paisley bloused goths, adding loose-fitting hippydom to their sound (The Cure, The Bolshoi, All About Eve). These little sub-genres don’t necessarily always make sense or fit, and the groups I’ve mentioned tended to jump between them periodically, but they’ve helped me to make sense of a movement which stylistically sprawls in a number of directions.
This was perhaps demonstrated by Wayne Hussey and Andrew Eldritch's falling out while both were members of the Sisters of Mercy (which we’ve already covered in quite dramatic detail). One of the issues seemed to be that Eldritch had written new songs for the Sisters Of Mercy which were far too minimal for the rest of his group’s tastes, whereas Hussey’s were seen as too unusual. It’s not really clear how much of that eccentricity found its way into his subsequent group The Mission, but on the strength of their debut single “Serpent’s Kiss”, it would seem not much.
It starts predictably enough, filling your ears with dank guitar lines, wilted flowers and lyrics like “Ash on the carpet and dust on the mirror/ Chasing shadows and the dreaming comes clearer”, proving that Hussey had the poetry of his audience down pat. Where it suddenly shifts gear and shows its true colours – which aren’t entirely black – is in that zippy, celebratory chorus. “Screaming howl and the children play/ Serpents kiss for the words you pray” may be words which sound as if they need a reverberated steady backbeat and a gravelly vocal, but The Mission launch into them as if these child-bothering snakes are actually a good thing. It’s closer to Jim Morrison celebrating the dark arts with a forceful chorus than Bauhaus, shimmying and shaking its tight-trousered butt around the imagery rather than screaming about it.
Hussey, like Robert Smith, also gave the impression that taking the piss and even misleading the public was one of his motivations in life as well as trying to write great songs. When asked if he had “a type” when seeking out ladies, he responded with glee that his slogan could be “Wayne Hussey – he’s not fussy”. You can’t imagine Andrew Eldritch giving his game away so easily. The cheap and cheerful promo clip for “Serpent’s Kiss” is a thing of strange colour and joy too, filled with lipstick kisses from Uncle Wayne, while the group twirl multi-coloured umbrellas, and leap, lark and generally tit around in the country. Visually it has more in common with a Dukes of Stratosphear video than the rainy, rockist visuals which accompanied The Sisters “This Corrosion”.
During the chorus it’s also possible to hear the rings and drones of an earlier era through the cod-mysticism, those guitar lines jangling gently while the basslines try to pull the track in a more desolate direction. It creates a not entirely serious tension which makes “Serpent’s Kiss” a much better and more enduring single than you might expect. Very few records manage to carry off being anthemic, macabre, psychedelic and flamboyant all at the same time without collapsing into a confused heap, but this gels because the group seemingly understand that if you’re fronted by a man like Wayne Hussey, and you have a probable dancefloor friendly chorus at your disposal, you can afford to relax and contradict yourselves as often as you damn please.
I’m not a fan of The Mission but for me, “Serpent’s Kiss” is one of the most enjoyable goth singles of the eighties era, and certainly one of their career bests – it's not exactly a complicated piece of work, but its playful enough to bring pleasure and joy to a movement which, for all its occasional forays into camp daftness, was sometimes afraid to sprinkle some glitter and stardust into the mix. Like the gothic godfathers The Damned, The Mission give you permission to wiggle your backside while pondering the dark side here, and I for one am enticed.
If this had been on my compilation tape, would I have ended up with that girl for more than one date? Probably not. At least it might have got to one date, though.
New Entries - Week On
18. The Cherry Bombz - House Of Ecstasy (Lick)
Peak position: 15
More thundering, rolling sleaze from Anita Chellemah and her gang – if anything, “House of Ecstacy” presents a more convincing case for stardom than their previous single “Hot Girls In Love”, but despite her charisma, it was not to be.
Their presence in this chart as well the Heavy Metal and Rock rundowns published elsewhere is indicative of what the word “indie” meant in 1986. While the NME and others were increasingly using the word to highlight a particular sound, The Cherry Bombz were a not so gentle reminder that it meant nothing more than who happened to distribute your records. That probably shouldn't need emphasising, but the 1986 charts are so generic right now that it's worth reminding ourselves.
21. The June Brides - This Town (In Tape)
Peak position: 21
The final June Brides single, seeing the group exit just at the moment where everything exploded for the bands they had inspired. They were victims of their own career planning, or lack of it – Go! Discs had approached them with a record deal the year before which the group turned down to continue with the slightly more chaotic (but more independent) In Tape. By the time they started to regret their decision, their appeal was beginning to wane, and no other major or major backed label came to the rescue.
“This Town” is a suitably mournful exit, the sound of a group shuffling away as exiles from a movement they helped to build. Sometimes being the first people through the thicket doesn’t pay off. Lead singer Phil Wilson would move on to a solo career on Creation Records.
22. The Soup Dragons - Whole Wide World (Subway)
Peak position: 2
As The June Brides exited the stage, so the The Soup Dragons burst on with a rush of energy. Bellshill’s most prominent eighties group went through numerous changes of style over the coming years, but it’s the earliest material which feels the most neglected and also most potent. If you don’t own a copy of the recent compilation “Raw TV Products – Singles and Rarities”, remedy that immediately.
“Whole Wide World” starts as they probably intended to continue for the foreseeable, being a two-minute burst of skin-grazing pop which feels as if it couldn’t have existed without the Jesus & Mary Chain, but also wouldn’t have occurred without The Buzzcocks either (a group whose influence on the mid-eighties underground probably shouldn’t be understated).
It’s not their finest early moment, but it got the ears of critics and indie kids alike, and set them up for much greater and bolder things.
30. The Brilliant Corners - Fruit Machine EP (SS20)
Peak position: 25
The Brilliant Corners were often fondly defined as cheeky chappies with amusing lyrical twists in their singles. This ignores the fact that, along with The Pastels and The June Brides, they were early pioneers of the mid-eighties sound and so much more than court jesters with jangly guitars. “Meet Me On Tuesdays” shows that they had long worked out their strengths and forged an identity of their own while all around them, other younger groups were still working out how to restring their guitars.
Week Two
17. The Primitives - Thru the Flowers (Lazy)
Peak position: 17
For the second week in a row a future major player emerges. Coventry’s Primitives became famed for their brief rushes of no-nonsense fuzz pop, one of which (“Crash”) eventually became a national top ten hit. There’s no hint of that in “Thru The Flowers”, though, which was equal parts sixties popsike and eighties twee. Its cute, breezy and sounds like it belongs on a Pye compilation of one-shot female sixties record makers as much as any indie list.
20. Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction - Wild Child (Food)
Peak position: 5
Zodiac Mindwarp, aka Mark Manning, was signed to Food by ex-Teardrop Explodes keyboard player and Zoo Records manager David Balfe, who was impressed by his intelligence and vision. The Zodiac Mindwarp alter-ego was essentially a caricature of biker culture, closer to the leathered up Hells Angel wannabe who crashes through the front door with a sneer in a studio sit-com than any Easy Rider fantasy.
A lot of metallers subsequently gave the group short shrift, preferring their bands to pretend to be performing live in their music videos rather than shooting down spaceships or crashing their way into girl’s boarding schools. Those who stuck around enjoyed the mayhem, though, and “Wild Child” is a good example of how Manning warped the culture around him into new and interesting shapes – Motley Crue this patently isn’t. It’s too cheap sounding, but it’s also too funky and unpredictable as well.
22. Big Stick - Drag Racing (Blast First)
Peak position: 9
Big Stick were a confusing New York duo who spat out records in the eighties which often defied comprehension or categorisation. “Drag Racing” is probably the best known, which features vocalist Yanna Trance talking about putting on her tube top so her partner Eddie can take her to watch the drag race. It’s delivered flatly, joylessly and repetitiously, so eventually you start to wonder if there’s something sinister about the whole arrangement – is he forcing her to do something against her will while she’s there? The menacing approximated engine noises just add to the sense of unease. Definitely an impressive minute-and-a-half of inexplicable ideas and sounds, but not a straightforward one.
28. The Triffids - Wide Open Road (Hot)
Peak position: 15
29. The Pastels - Truck Train Tractor (Glass)
Peak position: 11
The Pastels return with another fantastic 45 which proves that while they were frequently dismissed as “just another twee band”, they also had energy, hooks and imagination alongside their innocence. “Truck Train Tractor” stutters and shimmies, and beckons you forward with such force that you’d have to be a determined cynic not to be charmed.
30. Razorcuts - Big Pink Cake (Subway)
Peak position: 24
Week Three
10. Virgin Prunes - Love Lasts Forever (Baby)
Peak position: 10
Dublin’s Virgin Prunes were a confusing art-rock collective initially, appearing on Gay Byrne’s Late Show ("There's nobody else in the business doin' what they're doin' - what exactly they're doin', I'm not too sure, mind you, but there's nobody else doin' it") and disturbing the assembled pensioners and middle-aged studio audience members by offering them sweets after a particularly eccentric performance art inspired appearance.
By this point, though, their approach was more straightforwardly gothic. “Love Lasts Forever” finds its groove in the first few seconds and never strays much, stomping its way threateningly through its simplistic romantic ideas. Of course love and death are explored as closely uniting themes. Of course they are.
Doctor & The Medics - "Spirit In The Sky" (IRS)
Note - if you cast your minds back you'll remember that Doctor & The Medics peaked at number two in these indie charts not long ago with "Happy But Twisted". They were thwarted by The Cult's not-really-indie release "She Sells Sanctuary", which always felt like a bit of an unfair blow to me, but actually peaking at number one in the national charts with their cover of the Norman Greenbaum classic presumably makes up for everything. Not that they'd ever ride so high again, of course...
Wham! - "Edge of Heaven" (Epic)
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