The Southern Death Cult

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The Southern Death Cult
General information
origin Bradford United KingdomUnited KingdomUnited Kingdom 
Genre (s) * Post-punk
founding October 1981
resolution February 1983
Website www.deathrock.com
Founding members
Ian Astbury
Haq Qureshi
Mick Iles
Mick Brady
David Burrows

The Southern Death Cult was an English positive punk / goth punk band in the early 1980s.

history

Preface

Ian Astbury was born in Heswall , Cheshire and grew up in Canada. He showed great interest in North American Indian culture at an early age and visited a Mohawk Indian reservation when he was twelve. Their religion and spirituality fascinated him, which later clearly shaped him musically. In 1978 he left school and went into the army - but he quit military service after just four weeks. He saw a report on Canadian television about the punk band Sex Pistols . Impressed by the dying punk scene, he moved to England to experience this dynamic of punk up close. After a few stops in the United Kingdom, he finally resided in Bradford , where he eventually met the rest of the members of The Southern Death Cult under his stage name "Ian Lindsay".

prehistory

The Southern Death Cult emerged from the remnants of the punk band Violation , which was founded in June 1979 by drummer "Aki" Haq Nawaz Qureshi (now at Fun-Da-Mental ) and bassist Barry Jepson together with guitarist Mick Isles and singer Mick Brady. After appearing as a local opening act for The Clash , Brady got out and was replaced by the new singer Gary O'Connell. On October 18, 1980 Aki Nawaz hosted a concert with the anarcho-punk band Crass , where he first met Ian Astbury ; with the proceeds he bought the first real drum kit. On January 3 and 4, 1981, the band recorded a demo tape with 13 songs in a community center in Bradford, but then guitarist Mick Isles got out. The last concert took place in Newcastle in February 1981 , Justin Sullivan from the band New Model Army , a friend of mine, helped out on guitar. Then singer Gary O'Connell left the band.

Career

Aki Nawaz and Barry Jepson found a new guitarist named David "Buzz" Burrows and began rehearsing with Ian Astbury, who suggested The Southern Death Cult as the new band name .

The first performance took place in July 1981 at the reggae club "Mayflower" in Bradford, the band played 4 songs for a television report about the local music scene for Yorkshire Television , which was ultimately not broadcast. A camera team for a report on youth culture and youth unemployment accompanied the band and filmed the performance for the program What is Life . The concert was organized by the brother of the drummer Qureshi, who was working as a promoter in Bradford at the time. The first real public appearance followed on October 22, 1981 in the "1 in 12 Club" at The Sun Hotel in Bradford.

On December 14, 1981, the band played their first concert in London in support of Chelsea at the prestigious Marquee Club and first attracted the attention of the national music press; however, the concert report in the music weekly Sounds called the band Sudden Death Cult .

After The Southern Death Cult had been booked for five appearances with the band Theater of Hate , the band came in contact with guitarist Billy Duffy , who was so enthusiastic about Astbury's stage presence that he later became part of the band The Cult and was with Theater of Hate got out. After the concerts were successfully completed and the scene at the time showed great interest in The Southern Death Cult, further appearances with Theater of Hate and The Cash were booked over the next few months.

A peel session in May 1982 was successfully used by the band to further promote themselves and record more songs. With success - The Southern Death Cult signed a single with Situation 2, a descendant of the Beggars Banquet label, in the fall . Further appearances with bands like Sex Gang Children , UK Decay and other bands from the field of early Gothic Punk followed over the next few months. In October 1982 they were able to expand their success as a support act for the upcoming tour of the gothic band Bauhaus .

The 7 ″ single Fatman was finally released in December 1982, took first place in the indie charts in England and was described in 1983 as the closest "rival" of the same genre, the Sisters of Mercy's gothic rock piece Temple of Love . The EP Moya / Fatman / The Girl that was released afterwards also reached the top of the charts in England.

Sudden end

After a tour with Bauhaus , things went quiet around the band for a short time. Ian Astbury flew back to North America to visit his family. This was to be crucial for the development of the band, as he returned to Bradford fascinated by the American music market. Although record label interest was never greater, and EMI and CBS lured the band with an offer of £ 300,000, Astbury hesitated. The English media were critical of the band at the time. The NME wrote in a 1983 article about a concert at the Manchester Poly that "it would take a long time for The Southern Death Cult to deliver an actual musical performance and they still had a long way to go". In addition, Ashbury was now of the opinion that he had gotten the full potential out of the band, factors that reinforced his intention to open up to the American market and to want to deal even more with music and songwriting.

“I wanted to deal more with songwriting. It was so damn serious for me [...] It was so much about success [...] You can't go to America if nobody knows you there and in Europe you can only tour on a small scale. I didn't want us to feel that way. That's why I broke up the band "

- Ian Astbury

On February 26, 1983 The Southern Death Cult played their last concert. A month later, Astbury broke up the group for good. Shortly thereafter, the group Death Cult was formed, which was later renamed The Cult . At the same time she stripped off the Gothic image completely in order to ensure success in the USA.

Death Cult & The Cult

The band Death Cult was also short-lived and released only one single ( Gods Zoo ) and one EP ( Horse Nation ) with four songs, which was promoted with a short European tour. Ian Astbury was inspired by books like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee . Stylistically, the single and the EP can still be assigned to post-punk and gothic rock . Even so, Astbury still firmly believed he had to make a breakthrough in the States, and in his view that was impossible with a name like Death Cult , he later admitted.

The compilation Ghost Dance was released after the renaming to The Cult and, like the EP, shows a much more rocking style of play and gives an idea in which direction The Cult should develop later. Some songs from this compilation can be found on the Dreamtime album. Nevertheless, the entire output of the band as well as the Ghost Dance is still located in post-punk as well as Gothic rock .

"It was too Gothic, too dark, and nobody in the USA could do anything with it. In addition, it lumped us in with too many bands that were on the decline with this story about positive punk."

- Ian Astbury

He therefore only called his new band The Cult and in September 1984 released Dreamtime, one of the first rock albums to emerge from the scene. Only a few songs like Go West and A Flower in the Desert still have the usual sounds for Gothic Rock. Despite the similar sounding band names, The Southern Death Cult differs significantly from The Cult - both musically and in line-up. The other members of Southern Death Cult formed the band Getting the Fear, which broke up in 1985. Aki Qureshi later founded the Islamic hip-hop group Fun-Da-Mental and the Nation Records label.

style

The music and visual appearance of Astbury reflected the intense Native American motifs and interest in North American Indian culture that he had experienced as a child in Canada. For example, he dealt with topics such as the Wounded Knee Massacre in his texts. The band - and especially Astbury - performed extremely make-up in his day and adorned his outfit with feather earrings and other accessories that corresponded to or were related to Indian culture. Astbury was not the only one, however, as other early iconic icons such as Siouxsie Sioux were influenced by optical influences from Indian and Egyptian cultures.

“The singer is strange, really strange. Your eyes run over. His face (I assume he has one) is hidden behind an avalanche of red and black hair and pompons made of rabbit fur, and he walks across the stage in true Western B-movie fashion "

- Steve Keanton

Musical style and definition

Musically, The Southern Death Cult is subordinate to Gothic Punk / Gothic Rock , and musically recorded a high level of reference and similarity to post-punk bands such as Joy Division or Theater of Hate . As is usual for early Gothic bands, The Southern Death Cult also has a style of playing that is rooted in punk.

So are z. For example, songs like Moya can be identified by their long, clear melodies, which are typical of Gothic-Rock. The electric bass takes on an accompanying role here, while the rather slow guitar is played with a bright timbre and dominates the foreground.

Songs like B. Crow , Apache , The Crypt , Vivisection , False Faces , The Girl or Fatman , however, can be assigned to Gothic Punk . These songs are faster and more hectic, lighter and more dominated by the rhythm. The bass in these songs is often an equal to dominant instrument. The guitar often only fills gaps and is seldom a central instrument in Gothic Punk. In addition, the guitars are rarely played across the board, so that the bass and the guitar can be heard at the same time. Often the guitar also shows the picking style of playing, which is not unusual for Gothic Punk / Rock . Meanwhile there are no solos.

Songs like Today can best be attributed stylistically to post-punk . The drums are, typical of the style, very rhythm-oriented, while the deep bass and the bright sounding guitar play dominate and the melancholy vocals take a back seat.

The drums, in which the following bands such as The Southern Death Cult or Siouxsie and the Banshees minimized the use of the cymbals, sounded like “hypnotic funeral marches or Tom-Tom-heavy” in Gothic Punk , with mostly “fast-paced guitars” and “ high post-joy division bass runs ”, while the vocals were either almost“ operatic ”or sounded deep and plaintive in the style of Ian Curtis and Jim Morrison .

perception

The Southern Death Cult is considered to be one of the most important early musical representatives of the Gothic scene, although bands like The Southern Death Cult always saw themselves as punks and could not do much with the then still new Gothic scene. The NME wrote a report on The Southern Death Cult in late October 1982. At the same time, Astbury was on the accompanying cover. With the opening sentence Post-Punk comes the last Tribe , The Southern Death Cult was already classified as a post-punk band. At the beginning of 1983 the currently up-and-coming bands Birgandage , Blood and Roses , as well as the Sex Gang Children and The Southern Death Cult mentioned earlier in 1982, among others, were representative of the mass of bands around the Batcave , and those who stylistically matched it as Titled Positive-Punk .

Perception of the artwork & effect

The cover artwork of the 7-single Fatman was seen by critics as a demonstrative prime example. According to statements from sites like Plunder the Tombs , the cover shows how “thin” the wall between punk / post-punk and what would later be understood as early Gothic was ultimately. Thus, Southern Death Cult was seen by critics as a typical representative of Gothic Punk in this respect and thus visually clarifies the style of playing of Gothic, which is rooted in punk.

"The Fatman 7" - Southern Death Cult cover art here demonstrating just how thin the wall really was between punk and what would become understood as early "Goth". "

- James Von Sutekh

Discography

  • Moya / Fatman / The Girl (EP)
  • 1982: The Southern Death Cult (7 ″ single)
  • 1983: The Southern Death Cult (12 ″ single)
  • 1983: The Southern Death Cult (compilation)

credentials

Individual evidence

  1. julio-online.net
  2. answers.com
  3. godsandalcoves.com
  4. http://www.mtv.com/artists/the-cult/biography/
  5. http://historyinaminorkey.blogspot.de/2012/12/the-southern-death-cult-southern-death.html
  6. http://de.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=deathrock
  7. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , pp. 10ff.
  8. Steven "Johna" Johnson: Violation, Bradford. Boredteenagers.co.uk website, 2006.
  9. Violation. In: Andy Ashton, Andy Farrow (Eds.): Apathy # 1 -Fanzine, Bradford, 1980.
  10. ^ Bradford, St. George's Hall, Jan. 29, 1980.
  11. John Robb: Punk Rock. An oral history. Ebury Press, 2006. pp. 520-522.
  12. ^ A b John Robb: Beyond Good And Evil. In: Vive le Rock magazine No. 33, February 2016, pages 78–81.
  13. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , pp. 13ff.
  14. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 14.
  15. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 14.
  16. ^ Google Books
  17. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , pp. 196ff.
  18. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 196.
  19. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 196.
  20. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock . 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 212.
  21. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock . 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 222.
  22. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 11ff.
  23. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock. 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 141
  24. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock . 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 199.
  25. Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up and Start Again - Post Punk 1978-1984 . Faber and Faber, April 2005, ISBN 0-571-21569-6 , p. 433.
  26. http://www.popmatters.com/post/158763-death-disco-the-death-cult-visit-gods-zoo/
  27. Dave Thompson, Kirsten Borchardt: Shadow World - Heroes and Legends of Gothic Rock . 2004, ISBN 3-85445-236-5 , p. 199.
  28. Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up and Start Again - Post Punk 1978-1984 . Faber and Faber Ltd., April 2005, ISBN 0-571-21569-6 , p. 432.
  29. scathe.demon.co.uk
  30. http://plunderthetombs.blogspot.de/2011/02/southern-death-cult-moya-12-situation.html

Web links