The first nightclub I ever went to from aged 16-18 was one called Pips In Manchester. I knew it was interesting but didn’t know how culturally interesting until years later.
It had been going since 1973 and had various cave-like rooms that were hangouts originally for fans of Bowie/Roxy/TRex, plus others.
Had evolved through the punk years and then become more electronic in 79 with Kraftwerk and early HL/OMD/Numan being the norm, plus other avant garde stuff. Mixture of hardcore ex-punks and camp Bowie lookalikes. Warsaw/JD even played gigs there
Late 79 and early 80 I was informed, from the people I met with at the end of 1980, that the expression New Romantic had started to be banded about mainly because of a couple of club nights in London such as Billys and the Blitz.
(they got all the attention which pissed off the Pips lot who had been going for 6-7 years by this point).
By the time I managed to get in towards the end of 1980 there was even music being played that came from this newly-described cult, being Spandau and Visage.
I fucking loved it in there. So much music, fashion and posing for the sponge mind of a 16 year old lad where football had been just my thing until then.
Within a few months , so early 81, this import in of music from the charts into Pips had caused a rift. One room still played the same stuff, plus early synth-pop, but another room had gone darker.
Mainly the ex-punks had started dressing darker and 2 bands held sway on the turntables. Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus. I recall Bela Lugosi’s dead and Terror Couple Kill Colonel by the latter and Christine and the wonderful Spellbound by the former. Other stuff was played such as Berlin-era Bowie, Lou Reed and even modern bands like B Movie. This was where Goth started for me. Although I didn’t really know who he was I recall Pete Murphy from Bauhaus being there a couple of times. Think he did a tape advert at the time and they did a T Rex cover of Telegram Sam.
As I say not for me and as the music for me was too dark and lacking melody, but thought I’d give you my input to Goth.
p.s. The Cure are okay, especially Lullaby.