The Danse Society, March 1983

Was “new punk” the next big thing?

The word you are looking for is “goth”.

I came across the first wave of goth bands at the Futurama festival in September 1982. By 1983, they were everywhere.

But it took a while before the new movement settled on a name. It was “positive punk” for a while, which I always found nonsensical, and at the time of this gig people were using “new punk”, which wasn’t much better.

Strange really, because people had been using the word “gothic” for years to describe everyone from Joy Division to Siouxsie and the Banshees.

DANSE SOCIETY

Liverpool Warehouse

Melody Maker, March 5, 1983

HAVE you been waiting for something since 1977 finally died at the turn of the decade? Are there times when too many groups leave you impatient and unsatisfied? Are there times when you wonder what happened to imagination, or when you yearn for some good honest noise in your music? Does the promise of something coming to change make you cynical?

It's always a problem when a band finds itself turned into a representative of a larger group, and this Danse Society appearance unavoidably took on the function of a taster, and a test, for the so-called new punk movement.

The punk label, really, is inappropriate. What we hear is noise, but it's a musical noise, with possibilities of beauty. And it's not so much "new" as a development of a particular strand, temporarily neglected.

The smoke and echo that open the set makes it clear that atmosphere is important, but, despite the singer's passing resemblance to a vulnerable Nick Cave, there's no image-building about this band. They look and act like real people, and they're actually seen to be enjoying themselves. That guitarist was definitely having fun.

They show a rediscovery of a musical, instead of metronomical, purpose for every instrument. The bass and drum have a freedom of speech that enriches the whole - the bass has a particularly potent voice, if owing a lot to Joy Division - in a way that's far more than just punctuating the spaces between footsteps.

In fact, there are no spaces here. The keyboards are so closely entwined with the guitar that you're not even conscious of any distinction. The resulting fluidity is welcome but at times in danger of becoming a torrent. The sound has identity that, though initially exhilarating, came to be overwhelming. The question is, how much do you want to be overwhelmed?

It's this characteristic which is shared with other "new punk" bands, which is a stumbling block. The actual approach to music-making has the right factors, but when the ultimate effect is submission instead of stimulation there's something wrong. Yet at least there's something right too, and the possibility for future development. I'm still waiting, but at least there's hope.

Watch The Danse Society

Here are the band in 1984. Very gothic!

Back in the 21st century

The Danse Society re-formed in 2011 and are still going, with a new lineup.