Music evolution is hard to notice while it is happening. When you are seeing a band at a local club, you don't know if the band will still be around years from now. Music history is often so hard to pin down because you don't realize it is history until after the fact, when the details might be lost to time, alcohol and other assorted chemicals.

      Punk and its many offshoots is such a point. There is no way the kids involved could possibly know the impact punk would have over the next several decades. Rock, pop, metal, goth, industrial and others would all take something from punk to create all-new sounds.

      One such offshoot was a movement that took some punk stylings and combined it with an artistic flair, outrageous clothes and shocking makeup. Due to the fuzziness of history, there is some debate on when bands became this new style. Some people uses the term deathrock, others used glam or glam rock. The term I was introduced to was simply goth-punk, the transition from punk rock to gothic.

      The Virgin Prunes are the oldest of these bands, formed in 1977 in Dublin, Ireland. Founding member Gavin Friday was friends with members of U2 and is the one that gave Paul Hewson the nickname Bono. Officially, Virgin Prunes are labeled as post-punk (a term reviewers use when they don't know what the hell it is).

      The Prunes had a fairly successful career, breaking up in 1986 when Gavin left the band. While not as well known in the goth scene as Sisters of Mercy or the Cure, Prunes tracks such as "Baby Turns Blue" and "Pagan Lovesong" are still played fairly regularly at goth clubs.

      Specimen hold a place in goth history not just for their music, but also because of the impact on the overall goth scene by opening the original Batcave club in London. Keyboardist Jonny Slut became the frontman of the band by visually embodying the glam and makeup appearance of the new goth movement. Despite their impact, Specimen never released a full-length during their career, only singles and one EP. Musically, Specimen were campy, flamboyant and outrageous, and also a hell of a lot of fun.

      Executive Slacks are the least well known of the three bands and also the most recent, forming in 1984. They had a more electronic sound and have even been included in some industrial compilations. At first the only track of theirs I was familiar with was "Say It Isn't So," included on some compilation. Upon hearing it, I needed to get more, as the song had such a unique sound to it. Not quite goth, not quite industrial, not quite new wave, but bounding on all sides of those genres. It turns out that some Executive Slacks material was produced by Youth from Killing Joke, and the influence is pretty obvious. Luckily, Fire And Ice, the original album that contained "Say It Isn't So," was recently re-released, so it's easy to obtain. On the other tracks of Fire And Ice the punk elements are easier to distinguish, especially the title song. On songs like "Wide Fields" the 1980s new wave sound can also be heard.

      What I most like about goth-punk is that there was still an element of fun to the music. The campiness and the resistance to taking yourself too seriously are found throughout the music and attitudes of these bands. I kinda wish some of that was found in today's bands as well.