Tonight on Darkside Radio

Earlier this week I was asked why my taste in music is so diverse. The inquiry was based on my music collection and my musical tastes. You see, I have been know to quote lyrics from Public Enemy and The Cure in the same sentence. While this makes perfect sense to me, it did not necessarily make sense to everyone else.

This got me to thinking: where exactly did my interest come from? It was a short thought process. No matter where my mind ventured, everything made sense to me. For starters, being a child of the John Hughes Generation, many of the movies that I took in back in the day featured much of the music that I listen to currently, and subsequently feature on my show. In case you have forgotten, bands such as New Order, The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, etc. often appeared on soundtracks for movies in the Eighties. Not to mention the simple fact that the blurring of musical lines was already occurring, many just did not notice...

Back when the Sex Pistols were causing a scene, Debbie Harry was hanging with Sid and Nancy. Tina Weymouth and others had ventured on a side project from the Talking Heads, created the Tom Tom Club and began to experiment with rap. Bands such as The Art of Noise, New Order, and Kraftwerk were fueling the boom boxes for the cardboard-on-the-street breakdancing crews. Malcolm McClaren somewhere in there began to take proto-hip hop to Britain and instead of promoting Anarchy in the UK he began to sing of "buffalo girls coming 'round the outside..."

In a nutshell, the Gothic movement has always been an undercurrent of the music scene. When Bauhaus split up and left the world with Peter Murphy and Love and Rockets, the movement split with it. After Ian Curtis left this world, the surviving members of Joy Division went on with New Order. The Gothic world just remembered the roots of many of these new artists who began to enjoy commercial pop success. Remember Oingo Boingo? Danny Elfman went from having a "...Dead Man's Party..." to teaming up with Tim Burton, Matt Groenig and others to produce soundtracks for television and movies (ever wonder why a song by Siouxsie and the Banshees happened on the big screen? I do not. It is as it should be.).

I guess where I am going with this in a hurried, get done with this writing and prepare for the show tonight kind of way is that Goth has always been here. It is the darker side of New Wave, Rap, and Pop. It is what gave hard rockers and metal heads the dark kick they needed to form death metal, speed metal, and whatever. It is the music of old-school, skinny skateboards and broken wrists in illegally drained swimming pools. It is the Screamin' Jay Hawkins that invaded the world of the Blues. Goth is. It just is.

Tonight;s show will feature songs and artists that had an impact on the direction of Gothic music, at least from my impression. Some will say that much is not Goth, I say it is Dark Eighties. I say it is New Wave. I say it is a time to kick it old school for a night. From Punk to New Wave to Goth and in between, this is my interpretation of the roots of Goth. With the exception of maybe two or three songs, tonight's line up comes completely from the Eighties (possibly Seventies on a song or two). Be warned, this list of tonight's artists does not necessarily mean that they appear in this particular order.

So, tune in tonight and enjoy the show. To do so, click here, or copy and paste the link in another browser window or something. Follow me on Twitter for other updates or to make requests.

Darkside Radio - http://darksideradio.com

DJ Xavier on Twitter - @XRothechilde

Tonight's Featured Artists

The Art of Noise

Morrissey

Thomas Dolby

Oingo Boingo

Pat Benatar

Ben Charest (I really think the artist of this particular song goes by "M" however.)
Big Pig

R.E.M.

The Police

Switchblade Symphony

The Sex Pistols

Dead Kennedys

Bad Brains

Big Black

Black Flag

Soundgarden

Ozzy Osbourne
Snake River Conspiracy (Shout out to KJ)

Ministry

Nine Inch Nails

Fish Karma

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Southern Death Cult (A shiny farthing to who can tell me how many times some version of this band appears in tonight's line up).

The Smiths

Enya

The Fugees

Depeche Mode

The Cure

Love and Rockets

The B-52's

XTC

The Cult

Love Spit Love

Berlin

Bob and Tom