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The Goths (band) are a goth-pop/goth rock duo from Brisbane, Australia, formed in 1987 by singer-songwriters/frontmen Johnny Stowmarries (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Percy Blakeney (bass, vocals), that began resident early hours weekend performances on New Year’s Eve, 1989, at the Bohemian Café, 81 Elizabeth Street in Brisbane, growing to successive performances at Bertie's & Metropolis, The Sitting Duck, West End, The Dead Rat, The Osborne, and were one of the first performing acts at The Zoo, Fortitude Valley. After a lengthy hiatus commencing in 1993, The Goths came back with a string of singles from the late 1980s/early 1990s. In 2018, ten debut singles were released through Ditto Music, Tree, Citadel, Skin Feature, Put It On, Midnight, Gloom, Smashed, Neck Romancer, Crusade, Wilderness, and by November 2019, The Goths had released a further twenty two singles, from the same period, this time through both Ditto and Fortitude Valley music publisher, Gyrostream.

History
The band's moniker is a reference to the Gothic tale, a style of writing which tells tales that more often than not have a supernatural element to them or that fall into the category of the traditional ghost story, both of which were popular in the Victorian era. In October 2018, The Goths arranged distribution of eighteen singles from the late 80s early 90s period through Ditto Music. They then released a follow-up fourteen singles with Gyrostream through the latter half of 2019. The Goths were joined by award-winning producer James North as drummer and multi-instrumentalist, to produce all thirty two of The Goths singles.

Members
Percy Blakeney – vocals, bass (1987–present) Johnny Stowmarries – vocals, guitar, keyboards (1987–present) James North – drums, percussion and all other instruments (2013–present)

1987–1992: Early career and hiatus [edit]

Johnny and Percy came from the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore, where they had lived most of their childhoods, and had regrouped there as The Goths through 1989 and 1990 when they first secured a longstanding residency at The Bohemian Cafe on Elizabeth Street throughout 1990, 1991 and 1992.

By 1993, performances had spread to Bertie’s & Metropolis, The Sitting Duck and The Dead Rat, and The Goths were also among the first performers at The Zoo, a still popular live venue in the heart of Fortitude Valley. The band also performed a live to air in support of 4ZZZ radio's Coronation Drive studios after the radio station was forcibly evicted from their University of Queensland premises by the then UQ Union ALSF and Young Nationals student union executive. The tracks were recorded as a remix EP and are available on the Brisbane Music Graveyard.

Plans after 1992 to re-enter the studio stalled and the duo went on lengthy hiatus soon after producing a promotional music video for their instrumental track Grave Rock recorded at Grevillea Studios, Albion.

By 2013, after long periods of sporadic contact between Blakeney and Stowmarries, The Goths finally moved to enlist the help of record producer James North to re-enter the studio.

Blakeney in conversations with Stowmarries in December 2012 stated, “We may as well get something out there that people can listen to”.

Stowmarries had approached North with the undertaking to produce The Goths planned three-album’s worth of material amassed during the late ’80s and early ’90s.

By April 2013 the painstaking work of unravelling and re-recording the entire catalogue of works, which as Stowmarries observed, had ‘been lying in the earth for three and twenty years or more’, had commenced at North’s studios in the Brisbane suburb of St Lucia.

After serial setbacks and delays, while multiple iterations in the recording projects ensued, The Goths at last began the process of sharing recordings online toward the end of 2017.

1991: Lost Art [edit]

The Goths first home recorded album Lost Art initially was released on cassette in 1991.

November 2019: Creature Feature & Evocations [edit]

By November 2019, The Goths had shared their three LPs worth of tracks, comprising the studio recordings of tracks from Lost Art, along with tracks from two further planned LPs Creature Feature and Evocations, marking the group’s first new recordings since their 1991 cassette.

Musical Style
The Goths music has been described as "a blend of ambient, ethereal and classical/rock sounds" with melancholy guitar and evocative lyrics. The songs are a collaborative effort as Stowmarries explained: "We both write the lyrics, yet the songs or music also initiates from the both of us. I will write an entire song in one go, melody, harmonies, vocals, guitars both lead and rhythm, keyboards, bass, drums, the lot, or else Percy will have something else a lot more planned and already devised, such as a bass part, with or without a chord structure in mind, and I will then add some guitars and so on. Percy’s vocals then tend to form around or out of that."

Discography
Main article: The Goths discography


 * Lost Art
 * Creature Feature
 * Evocations