Further Inside the Milky Way - Skeletal Family, Ghost Dance, James Ray

Further Inside the Milky Way - Skeletal Family, Ghost Dance, James Ray

From Inside the Milky Way - A Look at Early Alternative Music by ITMW Music

June 14, 2026 · 35 min · Season 2 · Episode 9

About this episode

This episode explores the connections between gothic rock bands Skeletal Family, Ghost Dance, and James Ray and the Performance.

This episode is part of our Further Inside the Milky Way series. These are shows that we will do from time to time where we go deeper into vast collection of the music and artists from the early alternative era. In these episodes we will discuss a few artists in the one show. We will try to pick artists that have something in common or a connection between them. In this "Further" episode all of the bands fit into the gothic rock style or genre in some form. The first is a band that has had a very long career after their 1982 start, Skeletal Family . One of the original Skeletal Family members was lead singer Anne-Marie Hurst, who left to form the second band we discuss, Ghost Dance . Ghost Dance was formed with Hurst and Gary Marx, who had just left The Sisters of Mercy. For the third band, Andrew Eldritch of The Sisters of Mercy brought in the singer and musician James Ray to his Merciful Release Label after the departure of Marx, and would lead to the band, James Ray and the Performance. (Pictured : Anne-Marie Hurst)

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Skeletal Family, Ghost Dance, The Sisters of Mercy, Merciful Release Label, James Ray and the Performance

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