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From: h808
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  • is this the same as deathrock????

  • @Toxiejunkie no

  • Stewie easily found The Batcave

  • lol really Vincent Price is awesome.

  • Aw i wish i was alive back then so i coukd go to the batcave but i was born in 1989 :(

  • Haha legendary Vincent Price 2:00

  • deathrock wins!

  • That was amusing, but not really all that informative for a "documentary."

  • You know that the early Batcave scene started with drag queens and was a crossdressing club. They played glam, new romantic and goth. It was just as much a kid clubber movement and only johnny slut looked like johnny slut.

  • @MrRjmac i never played 'goth', it hadn't been invented!

  • Hal Who?

  • Alien Sex Fiend!!!!

  • Hello, does someone know how the song is called that is played 0:54 to 1:56?

  • no drug yes synistre aparencie no drugs no bodka yes gothic music batcave brutal phantasm

  • @TheErnestocore que?

  • no drug yes synistre aparencie no drugs no bodka yes gothic music batcave

  • Heh, awesome! :)

  • That's my wife at 1:43, she'll be 47 this May, and still looking great :-)

  • I just pooped a little in my diper

  • this is where glam and punk meet. this is all thanks to alice cooper.

  • @gigfydotcom Glam and punk for sure but it goes way beyond Alice...what about Elvis, Lennon, Bolan, Bowie, Iggy, the Fugs, Screaming Lord Sutch, psychedelia, Bram Stoker, Theda Bara, B-movies, Bela Lugosi, the Stones, Warhol, porn...?

  • @h808 Which are the groups of music batcabe that go out I am a fan of the dark batcave

  • @h808

    Rozz Williams?

  • @h808 anti glam punk psychedelia, Bram Stoker, Theda Bara, B-movies, Bela Lugosi, the Stone for life

  • @h808 and gothic too bro, don't forget it

  • @Screaming Jay Hawkins was doing it years before Alice Cooper.Alice Cooper looked up to Screaming Jay Hawkins as a youth.

  • Another one for Sir Moz this fine September evening :)

  • @MikWishville that is the most obscure comment - if u refer to morrisey, well he didn't go to the batcave, he came to astralflight (saturdays) in the embassy

  • @h808 Sir Moz is my mate who is Mrs Fiends keyboard tech and all around Space Cadet, currently on tour with said Fiends in Germany.

    I thought I was posting to Facebook, instead I was posting here :)

  • @h808 Which are the groups of music batcabe that go out I am a fan of the dark batcave

  • how come there's no fat or black or fat and black people?

  • @katachikani  Yes.

  • @katachikani are you a fat black person by any chance?

  • @katachikani there were 'fat' people who came, but most of the crowd were the type who didn't eat or sleep for days; also, the look some chased was of wasted death, and the decadence of 'fat' appealed to only the few. Many 'black' people were part of the vibe too, we always played some reggae toons, some dub; Lenny Henry go-go dancing to the left of my decks is a long-term memory; some dreads always used to share their lambs bread with us.

  • @h808 wen ama tis band wen ema himen fla

  • @katachikani thank god.

  • @katachikani The same reason hip-hop scenes doesn't consist of skinny queer white boys... Stupid question.

  • What the fuck... nothing was said.

  • Interesting documentary! I`m looking for a long time for this psychedelic song with the chorus in the beginning. Can someone tell me what`s the name of the song?

  • Club X.

  • Love the video. So many fond memories of going to The Batcave. What a brilliant club and no R & B or Hip Hop to be heard. Absolute bliss.

  • damn why did I have to born in this shitty generation filled with posers and people completely oblivious to the actual gothic culture...is this place still running?

  • loved the batcave, was always open till 6 in the morning, lots of celebs always ignored, even the amazing Siousie, lots of very young kids having a great time, mt club as a kid

  • The begining makes the goths look like Black Metalist

  • did this actualy come on t.v.?

  • @birinbirinbirin oh yes , 1983 when the media were all trying to figure out what came after punk....remember that the batcave was born of punks and glam rockers, trannies, psychos and people turned away from other clubs - we let anyone in, trainers or no trainers, businessmen and dustmen, strippers and nuns....

  • 4:54

    Bowie?

  • Batcave is long gone. Cosey at ICA, Endurance, A Rebours, Dice Club, Slimelight, probably something at the Electric Ballroom.

  • woooow, this must be a fuckin' paradise!

    does it still exist? I'm going to london next month so can someone recommend me some good old goth club????! tnq

  • That's my wife at 1.43 LOL soon to be 46 years young.

  • Thats me at the beginning ha ha

  • i really enjoy everything about the goth lifestyle any guys want to chat with a goth girl

  • My gods, it hard to believe this is over 25 years old and yet against all the odds the fashion and the music has endured....at the time I thought the Batcave was one of the key signifiers for the transformation of "gothic culture" into a superficial commodity and yet I listen to the Alien Sex Fiend 12 inch dub and remix tracks and they still sound as though they could have been made next Thursday (and at the time my snobbish self would not be caught dead listening to them! I apologise!)

  • Gotta love the little kids talking about culture, philosophies, darkness = beauty, Gothic Metal, 666, yeah!!... and stuff.

  • Why is this video a spam magnet?

  • Not to knock on my own people, but the Britkids always did this miles better than the American kids with similar attachments. When I was a young'un in the 1980s, I used to wish I could have visited the UK and run into a few "goths" or "New Romantics" for myself. Much more artful, and not just because of the clothes and hair.

    They seemed to wear their hearts on their sleeves more than anything else....

  • Huh,so interesting to read your comments,guys!:D

  • I wish I could have gone to the batcave in london at that time! ..But I was only 10 yearsold....I guess I stick with the one in L.A.

  • this is a great video. great good fun.

  • @GothhAngell88 hahaha seriously? I can't tell if you are sarcastic or not.

  • yeah right , this is a trap !!!

    XD

  • The key points are expressed towards the end of this documentary. Gothic culture is more than what you see on the surface such as clothes and make-up. It is neither as silly as it is made out to be (from 21st century skin-deep point of view) nor is it necessarily gory and obscenely violent. I think the heart of the whole culture lies in the attitude, a thirst for understanding the mysteries of life and expressing them in a dramatic or theatrical style.

  • Could you name some new goth bands worth listening? I'm starting to really get into terror EBM and industrial but I don't know if there are other dark subculters so complex and fresh. I mean I like Persephone and Emilie Autumn, but most of the bands I know are exclusively electronic which is not a bad thing, I love electronic music, but I'd like to discover other genres if they exist. Thank you very much! :)

  • *subcultures, sorry

  • The Cramps - Human Fly

  • Thank you.

  • hey h808

    What´s the name of the song at the end of the video?.

  • this moment of cohesion for what became goth did curdle into a cartoon but not at first when we were a club with no labels and one rule - no funk (there were plenty of discos doing that). i dj'd at the lyceum, palais, clarendon (klub foot), etc, did a lot of gigs as well as batcave and watched the followers of bands like banshees, cure, bauhaus, damned, pistols, killing joke, joy division, cramps, meteors, adam & antz, etc coalesce into a vibrant primal indie dance scene in the batcave

  • Such a shame how the term goth has mutated to encompass things such as Marilyn Manson nowadays.

    Which film was the clip playing at around the 6:18 mark lifted from?

  • no idea sorry, the bbc put it in

  • It hasn't, I've said this about a million times here on youtube, but that's just what the poser concept has come to be, goth is still goth, regardless of the time or place, not Marylin Manson...

  • @Jesus4loves4me I'm told its "The Furies"

  • @Jesus4loves4me I know...

    And how goth is also something spiritual U_U

  • Comment removed

  • @Jesus4loves4me That clip was from the film Dead of Night (1945).

  • @Jesus4loves4me i cant be goth cuase i like lots of different bands like marilyn manson and stuff but i do like the goth style and the music they liked but im to mixed to be anything lol!

  • Like Pantomine, I never called myself Goth. I was heavily influenced by Dave Vanian's looks and dressed like him from 78 onwards, into Bowie/Caberet/Siouxsie etc, Saw Bauhaus supporting Magazine and had my mind blown away. At bauhaus early gigs there was a motley collection of people in black , who kind of gravitated together into Nosferatu etc, Saw Bauhaus about 30 times before 'Spirit 'ruined it all! Never went to Batcave -too cartoonish, besides it was called Goth by then - time to move on.

  • awesome

  • I was a Goth in the early 80s - we called ourselves Futurists, or Futurist Punks then - but by about '85 we were calling ourselves Goths, or Gothic. We were influenced by Punk, and also New Romantic but this is definitely not film of the English Punk scene - that happened way earlier, between '76 & '79 approx.

  • Are you still a goth?

  • Yes, but not exclusively. Back then, the % of people who were alternative was much lower than it is now, most towns could only support 1 alternative club night for everyone so you rubbed shoulders with rockabillies, skinheads, punks, hippies etc & heard/danced to their music as well as Goth. I'm the wrong side of 40 now, so I've had plenty of time to discover & appreciate all these other types of music. I still love Gothic music & wear Gothic clothes a lot, but I like having more options.

  • Rozz' Christian Death, Bauhaus, Throbbing GrIstle, Birthday Party, Mass, Joy Division, Minny Pops, early Section 25, early PIL, Cramps, Virgin Prunes, Insane Music For Insane People-Bene Gesserit, Bowie 76-80, Nico-Velvet Underground, Psychic Tv, Barrett Floyd, Lustmord, Live Skull, early Flying Lizards, Nina Hagen, Lene Lovich, Tense Experts, Deliriants/Perplexions (Milwaukee), early Certain Ratio,

    early Killing Joke, Test Dept, Savage Republic, Zoviet France, Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins,

  • They were the only Goths ever lol

  • yeah but the term goth didnt come around till the late eighties? wasnt this just the english punk scene?

  • Mid-eighties would be more correct even though Bauhaus "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is much older than that...

    See, for some reason the first so called Traditional Goths are very reminiscent of Punk scene. Batcave generation was the core of Goth subculture - they didn't even know at the time they were starting this kind of wave.

    Unfortunately, Goth scene has been decaying since the 90's. I was born in the 80's, I wish I could have been born 10 years before...

  • cool music, interesting ppl, what else u want.

    'as long as the kids' werent skimping on their homework, its ok with me...

    ps-wots the music as it finished?

  • 'Human fly' by The Cramps

  • I am completely clueless, what is bat cave and deathrock. Sorry, but atleast I can admit to not knowing.

  • batcave was a club that spawned so much without knowing it was going to !! it was the first non-disco non-funk club and played a selection of punk, trash and glam....the attenders were a mixture of dave vanian, robert smith or siouxsie clones, punks, fetishists, psychobillies and roadies....hence the goth wardrobe today!

  • wow, Thanks! Learn something new every day.

  • WAS IN LONDON.....

  • 'Reminds me of the Batcave in mid-Manhattan that I went to back in '94.

  • right on, i hope your refering to todays goth(mall goth)

  • VINCENT PRICE! *swoons*

  • I was a massive fan of ASF.. but wasn't let in the Batcave because was a Psychobilly!! Seriously!! I was really upset!

    I was a Psyche but.. that wasn't the point!

  • alright mate, i was a PSYCHOBILLY who useto go 2 The BATCAVE with my punk friends good old times,,,,

  • I do not think marilyn manson is goth and i dislike him very much. i would like to hear what you fellow goth rockers have to say on this.

  • He's a talentless twat, enough said.

  • well the term "goth" has changed over the years, i guess now, it refers to marilyn manson and the murder dolls, but back in the 80s it was joy division, specimen and the creautres( to name a few). :P

  • mmh, very well stated

    i dont like any modern "goth" really, just the classics

  • Comment removed

  • I'm 16 and I say Alien Sex Fiend for the win

  • Goth is still the same it was in the eighties...Marilyn Manson plays Industrial-Rock, and the Industrial genre is associated with Rivitheads...

    As for the dolls..They play Horrorpunk.

  • true, but goth nowadays IS considered Marilyn Manson whether or not he fit in that genre. im not trying to be a bitch or anything im just trying to add insight, people tend to group things and, i guess, whoever puts on black lipstick and outline their lips is what most people consider, goth.

  • It's only because that's what the media says it is. Most people don't bother reasearching things and only listen to what the t.v. says...Probably a reason why people are half brain dead.

  • ive never doubted that for a second. :/

  • There's some truth in what you two say, I disagree in the part where you say "goth nowadays...."

    Goth hasn't become Marilyn Manson, It's just what people think it is, but goth is still...goth, no matter what the media says or what people think.

    Only posers and ignorant people (most people) think that goth is Marilyn Manson or Nightwish or any other similar band

  • Im so goth

  • meaning what?

  • Well said.

  • Marilyn Manson, is not industrial. *eye twitches* he is a shock rocker. More emo than anything now. Gothic industrial is a good scene dont group people like manson in with it.

  • Manson is nowhere near Emo. Emo is Post Hardcore, and it died in the early 90s. Post Hardcore and Manson have NOTHING in common. I never said Manson was Goth based Industrial band either. They play Industrial Rock, which hardly has anything to do with actual electronic based Industrial.

  • Manson was industrial metal. Industrial/electronic goth is called ebm im not realy a fan im into the 70s/80s goth scene

  • Gothic Industrial? You mean EBM? LOL

  • como me gustaria que hubiera mas propuestas como estas

    larga vida al batcave

  • i saw my mom shes so wierd...

  • i loved the batcave ,no label, true individual anti-style,not goth, i was on the cover of the face leopard jacket... back view.! we had that flat in wimpole st.  .. Hamish' birthday party jan. 8th '83 , yea the revolution was not videod... bless!! Johnny

  • to shakenhanska: 'Human Fly' by the Cramps

  • hello, somebody knows the song that we hear at 7'30" please?

  • THANK YOU for this lovely documentary :D

  • check out the new incarnation: Batcave at the Embassy club London on May 24 09 with Specimen and Sexbeat plus original Batcave DJ Hamish

  • OLLIE WISDOM

  • Yeah but THE KNIVES were the gods of this club - their lead singer was awesome...what a fukin band.

  • I like Alien Sex fiend in the earlier clip was that the lead singer of specimen?

  • Cool footage, but almost no talk of the subject matter.

    The Batcave! A place of dark legends.

    There must be many many stories to be told.

  • Amazing, I recognise so many of my old friends in this! Did the live stuff come from Steve Darnley?? It looks like it's from the hellfire club??

  • the batcave was the original. the hellfire didn't come into the pic till much later. this is alien sex fiend live at batcave when it was at fouberts. it was all filmed by the bbc.

  • Amazing to see this! I went a few times when it was at 69 Dean St. and still have my membership card as well. Would never let go of that piece of memorabilia! Fabulous London daze.

  • Good documentary ;) Some of my favorite bands are connected with the batcave and deathrock!

  • does anyone know what film that soundtrack is from at 6:21?

  • its from "psycho"

  • i could sell my soul and also kill all my friends to come back to live in those ages T_T

  • How sad your life must be now

  • yes maybe not that much...but now there are only stereotipyes when u go out...they must follow one style,they must follow the rules of the style...where is the originality?and now who listen to gothic metal call himself a gothic too...there is too ignorance around the wold...

  • What's Goth metal?

  • Shitty symphonic metal labeled as gothic.

  • You're a complete dumbass. Congrats.

  • interesting, you call me a dumbass, even though you claim that goth has something to do with metal... that'S funny

  • What?! Absolutely not!

  • for christ sakes, stop it!, goth started when me n me mates put our lasses tights on wa arms n hung roond sleazy pubs wiv a face full o panstick on. visigoths? fuckin ell

  • Dude , does somebody here know some nice classic horror movies that inspired the Goth scene ?

    Oh yeah , and how do the Batcavers here feel about the "Gothhead" (Gothic Metal) scene ?

    But about the video : The Batcave looks awesome , the paradise for every

    " 'dark'Rock/'dark' genres inspired by Rock"-fanatic.

  • I guess I could speak for the Goth community seeming that I'm 1 of 9 that represent 4,542 in a Goth group...Gothic Metal has no ties to Goth Rock or anything, and it's simply NOT Goth at all...people think it is b/c of the word "Gothic" but that's an adjective...not a noun in which "Goth" is...anything could be "Gothic", a scary tree could be "Gothic"...but if it's not Goth Rock or Deathrock then it's not Goth, we believe Gothic Metal gives out the wrong impression

  • Gothic Metal is said however , to be a fusion between Goth Rock and Heavy Metal. But then again , people say so much. I'm still a 13 year old newb into the harder Rock (Metal , Punk) scene , so I have my age as a excuse to believe it all.

  • Here let me describe that for you...

    Gothic Metal came from Doom Metal, as you may know Black Sabbtath, Gothic Metal came from that stuff...not Goth Rock...they blended the same lyrics style, it's Gothic Fiction...that's it, otherwise there's no connection despite what people think...

  • Well then , I suggest you could listen to a song from Paradise Lost's album Draconian Times. It's Goth Metal , and in my opinion it clearly has Goth Rock influence ;) . Respond to me after you heard Yearn for Change , it can be heard on youtube

  • You just don't get it do you? IT IS NOT GOTH! And every single TRUE Goth would agree that Gothic Metal is NOT Goth...

  • i get it :P , I only *thought* goth metal is goth... While the only common thing the share is the lyrics style. Voila , that's another thing made clear.

  • Here's a GREAT thing to go by..."Lyrics don't make music genres" except Deathrock, Horror Punk/ Horror Metal and Christian genres...

    Otherwise we could say Johnny Cash made some Goth songs...and wouldn't that be fucked up?

    You can't say lyrics define music otherwise it'd fuck up A LOT of genres...

    But as long as you understand Goth I will critisize no more...

  • Well said.

  • luna Mora, from Mark of the vampire 1935, + the vampyr 1932, Back in 82/83 The batcave was a bitchin place to hang out.

  • Els Lanchester The Bride, + Mala Nurmi Vampira, check em out.

  • Maila Nurmi, even

  • I have no problems with metal and even listen to some. To suggest that metal = goth is an insult to both completely separate genres. Metal is not Goth no matter how much record company executives and the pricks behind Hot Topic might like the public to believe that it is.

    Again, I'm not bashing on metal heads but when all is said and done there is no such thing as "Gothic" Metal. It's just Black Metal and Doom Metal with a new name so record companies can expand a customer base.

  • I agree with everything you said...

    EXCEPT! "there is no such thing as "Gothic" Metal."

    There is actually...is was created with Paradise Lost's album "Gothic" when it eventually became a new sound that many bands picked up on and became its own genre. It's a mixture of the "dark lyrical"(lyrics don't define genres) part of Goth Rock and Doom Metal style of playing...

  • Oh I know they CALL it "Gothic Metal," but I refuse to acknowledge that because it helps perpetuate all of the crap about what Goth supposedly is. So yeah, they may call it such, but I still say otherwise. Screw their marketing scheme.

  • Then you claim ignorance? Call it Gothic Metal as IT IS Gothic Metal! Just state to someone that you talk to about it, that it is, indeed, NOT Gothic Metal...

    Goth and Gothic are two different terms...Gothic is an adjective and Goth is a Noun...my keyboard here could be Gothic if I made it look dark and creepy...but I am the Goth b/c I listen to Goth Rock and Deathrock, understand?

  • I understand that plainly enough, but certainly you understand that the whole reason it's "Gothic Metal" is because some record companies wanted to try to expand the market of black metal bands.

  • Gothic Metal is an offshoot of Doom Metal (doom = slow , black = fast), the term "gothic metal" originated after the release of Paradise Lost's album and song "Gothic". Its origins can be found in Death/Doom Metal with minor GothRock influence (here comes GothDeathrocker's wrath again). + Black Metal's lyrical theme is much more "evil". While Gothrock is somewhat romantic , Black Metal is "pure evil".

  • Like chibikain said (which is also quoting me) Gothic Metal came from Doom and Black...BUT it wasn't marketing trickery...it was people making it up...just like in the EBM world..."Futurepop" was made up by the band VNV Nation...it was never a genre before hand...it was just made by people...

  • I do stand corrected.

  • I hope you're learning and not taking this insultingly...I don't want to insult your intelligence...I'm not meaning to be offensive if you are...