I have decided to start doing this so that people can learn about the actual songs that were played at alternative and goth clubs during that time. These will all be songs I personally heard and danced to from the late 80’s to throughout the 90’s. The date will be when the song was released.
The minute this song was played the dancefloor would get filled with rivetheads, uber goths, deathrockers and just about everybody else. It’s one of those kind of songs that just about everybody could appreciate and dance to. Dancing to the entire thing may seem impossible but the slow bits let you do the infamous ubergoth back arch while waving your arms about so that you can more aggressively dance to the fast bits. I was actually rather good at the back arch move so I would always show it off when this song was played. It is the perfect song to master the clearing cobwebs dance move so get to it!
Most of you know that I still doom-scroll goth subreddits, because the drama always gives me ideas for articles. This is no different; a girl has claimed that a mall in her home area of Virginia kicked her out for looking ‘too goth’. I have been wanting to write a screed about how friends don’t let friends wear white-face make-up and this pops up out of the blue!
She was told by the mall security guard that she had to leave the mall because her make-up obscured her features. I used to go to malls all of the time in the late 80’s/early 90’s with friends to hang out because there was literally nowhere to congregate out of the sun and we were never kicked out. However, we didn’t wear white-face. In fact never in my life have I worn it. Back ‘in the day’ it was considered a very theatrical look and even in the clubs of that time I can count on one hand the number of people that I saw wearing it. I guarantee that there are more people wandering about wearing white-face right now than there was 30 years ago.
There are ways to look pale without resorting to white-face. All you need is a foundation shade that is a few levels lighter than the colour of your skin. That way you can easily blend it into you neck without it looking like a white mask. Honestly, that is what the vast majority of us did back then. When I could afford to buy MAC I started using their lightest shade. These days I very rarely use foundation. If I am feeling extra fancy I will wear lipstick and eyeliner and that is it.
The thing with looking over the top and theatrical while out in public is that you will get shit for it in one way or another. It sucks that people are assholes but you have to have a thick skin. Remember when the influencer Black Friday wasn’t allowed to enter the Louvre because of her very theatrical look? There is a time and place for it. In the end you can wear whatever make-up you want, but sometimes there are going to be consquences for that choice. The world that exists online is not the same world that exists outside your front door.
EDIT: Here is an exchange the chick and another person had on her Reddit thread. She is underlined in green. This got a little juicy…and racist. Fucking hell!
Before I start I would like to tell Gothic Booty, I mean Beauty, that I own the domain and website of this blog and that I answer to nobody as to how it is run. So take-down threats aren’t going to work on me. Hiya!!!!!
So, for the last few weeks a bunch of people have been calling out Gothic Beauty for the AI images that they are using in their social media posts. How have Gothic Beauty responded? By getting the posts of people sharing the AI images taken down for copyright claims. Does that sound like an innocent company to you? It sure as hell doesn’t to me and it is the major reason as to why I am sharing this information. Shit like this needs to be called out.
The thing that is really pissing people off, myself included, is the fact that the AI images are of thin white young women; a stereotype that needs to just die already. It really just shows exactly who they are trying to cater to; thin white young women and the men who have a fetish for them. Do they give a shit about those of us who are over fifty and have been into the music for literally decades? Nope. I am very used to not being represented in goth online spaces because of my age, but each time it happens it still pisses me off.
I am known for questioning Killstar and not once have they ever tried to copyright claim me. Not a single time. It is a sad state of affairs that a so called ‘goth’ magazine, that is supposedly catering to the ‘alternative’ community, can’t take criticism and choose to perpetuate a stereotype rather than listening to their readers. They aren’t using AI in their actual magazine right now, but judging by their response it sure seems like they want to go into that direction. Not to mention the fact that the images they use in the magazine are manipulated to hell and back. They are making their real models look like AI images by their overuse of blurring tools. You can’t be goth apparently if you have pores or wrinkles in your skin.
I think more and more ‘alternative’ companies are going to try to pull this and each time they do they need to be called out for it. Make your disapproval of this kind of thing known to them, because if you don’t it is going to get far worse than it is already.
Notice something a bit strange about Killstar’s LinkedIn page? They no longer have photos of the people running the show; no Director Head Of Global Operations or Operation Professional MBA photos. Proof that they are really trying to hide the fact that the private equity firm Bertram Capital has a major stake in the company. The funny thing about this is that the way I found out about Bertram Capital was from the photo of Tom Beerle whose profile said he was a partner with the firm on Killstar’s old LinkedIn page. One of them is probably Beerle and the other Tequila-Rose Hanses, who is the original owner. Too late Killstar, too late. Here is a linkof the article I wrote explaining Beerle and his role in the company in case you are catching up with the saga.
Since Killstar is laying off their remote workers who refuse to move to Brighton they have listed some job openings. I found something quite telling about the role Product Technologist. They have to report their findings not to a manager but to ‘stakeholders’. Oh, it gets better.
Working with a team and then having to report to multiple stakeholders? What I get from this is that Bertram Capital wants a say in every single product or idea that crosses their desk, even though they don’t really know anything about alternative subcultures. This has been proven with their Avril Lavigne collection disaster. I can’t imagine that it would be a healthy work environment at all. You know quite a bit about alternative subcultures and you design something that you know ‘alternative’ type people would like, and then being told by the ‘stakeholder’ from Bertram Capital that the design doesn’t work. On top of that you would more than likely also have to run the design past Tequila-Rose since she is also still a ‘stakeholder’. What happens if the two sides don’t agree, does she get the last word or does Bertram Capital?
I suspect that Bertram Capital are the ones who insisted that the company be moved from Glasgow to Brighton. They probably think the area is more ‘hip’ than Glasgow. Plus, it is closer to London. However, what they didn’t manage to fit into the equation is that it is very expensive to live in Brighton. Personally, I think all of this is going to backfire spectacularly.
Bertram Capital and Tequila-Rose have done fucked up and are in the stage of finding out.
Well it looks like things are coming to a head because they have decided to make their remote workers redundantif they don’t agree to work in their office located in Brighton. I find this interesting because their office used to be in Glasgow. I’m guessing that they let people work remotely instead of having to be in Glasgow, so something major must be happening to move the office to Brighton and to make people physically come into work.
My guess as to what is going on? They are making people come into the office because they want to consolidate positions and make people do more than just one role, which means that the company is more than likely in financial trouble. Since Bertram Capital bought a stake in the company the quality of the clothes has gone south and they have pumped out new clothes every single week, and sometimes several times in a week. Many of the designs look familiar because they keep copying the same silhouettes over and over again.
Killstar really suck for doing this to their workers and are behaving the same as any regular corporate entity. They stopped having any kind of alternative clothing credibility when they let the private equity firm Bertram Capital into the fold. As of right now they are just a corporate entity trying to make a buck off of alternative subcultures. That is it. When you buy clothes from them you are just filling the pockets of the venture capitalists that are running the company into the ground.
Personally, I will not shed a tear for Killstar and they deserve all of the hate they are going to get for doing this to their employees in this economic climate.
Full disclosure on this, I actually knew Vision online over twenty years ago during the deathrock revival. I stopped paying attention to him and the band when they started to look like rejects from a Motley Crue video. It was just a really bizarre shift and I lost track of the band.
I still go over to r/goth, even though I am banned from there, because the drama in that group gives me a lot of ideas for articles. Hi guys!!! Well, somebody over there made a long post questioning as to why Vision from Tragic Black was now a right winger. As proof they showed a few screenshots from Vision’s follow list and a list of all of his follows in a paste bin. I felt like the proof had to be a little more solid so I went over to Instagram and took screenshots of every one of his obvious right wing follows. I will post every screenshot and a brief commentary underneath each one. I know it sucks finding this shit out but if you are a fan of Tragic Black you deserve to be told the truth as to what kind of person Vision really is; a far right wing supporter.
Awwww…….look, he likes Charlie Kirk who is a very well known right wing grifter. How cute!
He even likes the rejected GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. What a nice lad!
Michale Graves is an admitted Proud Boy and Vision thinks that he is peachy-keen enough to follow. Right wing chuds supporting one another? Who knew?
Our boy is following Russel Brand AND Donald Trump. I guess the young lad really loves conspiracy theories. That’s so tragic! See what I did there?
Eric Trump? He is so enamored of the Cheeto that he also follows one of his grifter sons……and he also follows Matt Gaetz, a congressman who had been accused of sex trafficking minors.
He loves his fascist women blonde and extremely dumb; Marjorie Taylor Greene. So if you are a dumb blonde fascist bitch you may get a follow from him! How exciting!
I guess he also likes his fascist women with dark hair because here is Lauren Boebert! Or maybe he likes her because he wants her to jerk him off in a theatre? We will probably never know. Steven Crowder is a right wing grifter podcast idiot. I wonder if listening to his show helps Vision take a shit. Regular bowel movements are important!
Say hi to Josh Hawley, a GOP member of congress who thinks that women who are raped, either by a relative or somebody else, should be forced to have the child. So our little Vision is against a woman’s right to choose. What a peach!
He loves Lauren Boebert so very much that he has followed a second account of hers? Lovely!! Oh, and he follows the very problematic industrial band Nachtmahr, Not a shocker since Vision seems to be okay with racism and woman being exploited.
He follows yet another Donald Trump account and Kanye West. Just when you thought this crap couldn’t get any more stupid he throws us a bone! Thanks dude!
Ted Cruz is sooooo lucky to have a follower like Vision! Like OMG, right?
Awwwww…..I was wondering where his follow of Tucker Carlson was at. Vision doesn’t disappoint does he?
Both Tim Pool AND Ben Shapiro? Wow, Vision sure has his listening to far right wing grifters covered doesn’t he?
He follows Joe Rogan, because of course he does!
He also loves Andy Deane, a ‘goth’ musician who has been accused of rape among other really disgusting things. Bad birds of a feather hanging together. No shock.
We are now at the end of our saga, in which Vision forgot to remove his support of somebody that wasn’t a right wing grifter; President Obama. Vision fell down the far right rabbit hole and I can’t ever see him coming back from this. The end.
This is another installment in my series about 80’s bands that are generally ignored by younger folk; bands that I never hear anybody under fifty talking about. If you are over fifty you have definitely heard the music of Ultravox; their song Vienna was very popular throughout the decade and some of their other songs were regularly played on MTV back then.
If you follow me on social media you know that I have been getting into 80’s bands that I somehow skipped back in the 80’s when I was a teen. Ultravox is such a band, because I liked a few of their songs but didn’t dig any deeper for whatever reason. The band had two main phases; the early post-punk era led by John Voxx, and the more popular New Romantic era led by Midge Ure. I will be concentrating on the Midge Ure version of the band because that is what I am more familiar with.
Midge Ure is a very talented musician, who was also in the New Romantic band Visage. I did not know that until the other day, which is funny as hell because one of my favourite songs to dance to over thirty years ago was their song Fade To Grey. He also helped write the very popular Christmas charity song Do They Know It’s Christmas? back in the 80’s. So, to say that Midge Ure was a very influential musician back in the 80’s is an understatement.
With all of that being said here are my favourite songs from the Midge Ure era of Ultravox. I hope you enjoy them and have fun bopping around.
Geordie Walker, one of the founders and guitarist for Killing Joke, has died of a stroke at the age of 64. Killing Joke is a band that is impossible to fit into just one music style box, and that is the reason why they have always been such a highly influential band to so many different musicians. My thoughts go out to his friends and family. May his memory always be a blessing.
I have complained on here and on my social media accounts about how a lot of modern post-punk bands sound the same; same Joy Division sounding bass, same droning vocals, same Cure sounding guitar. In fact I have had a bunch of people mad at me for talking about this in the past, but am I wrong? No, I am not. Are there good modern post-punk bands out there? Of course, but they are the outliers and not the norm. Being that all of this is the case I have decided to start buying music from the 80’s that I somehow overlooked back then or that I just didn’t know about. I have also bought some newish metal and legacy band CDs.
I can well imagine some people looking at the above photo and wondering why I would buy a bunch of Now Yearbook pop album compilations. The secret is that they never contain just pop songs. Back in the 80’s the British charts would often have new wave and ‘alternative’ songs in their ranks. More so than in the United States. For instance, that above Now Yearbook 88 comp has Voyage Voyage by Desireless on it, which was a big club hit in the alternative clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area back then. Never heard it on the radio, only in clubs so I was quite happy finding it on this CD. Also, there are a bunch of songs on these from bands that I totally skipped over in the 80’s for whatever reason. Remember, there was no internet and it was easy as hell to accidentally forget about bands back then. All of these were below £10 a piece and some were even below £5.
The above left is a Devo: 50 Years Of De-Evolution 1973-2023. I got this because I don’t own anything by them and I thought that it was about time that I did something about that. The above right is OMD Souvenir, a collection of their singles. I owned some of their music on tape in the late 80’s but nothing since. They were the first concert I ever went to back in 86 so they will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason. The bottom left is Toya’s album Anthem. I have been meaning to buy her music for ages now. She is one of those 80’s musicians that I just totally missed back then, mostly because I was in the US where I never heard her music being played. I have been constantly listening to this and she is sooooo good!The bottom right is Fuzzbox’s compilation Bostin’ Steve Austin, that includes their first album and a bunch of singles. I was very, very pleased to find their music on CD, because I had their first album on tape back in the late 80’s.
Yet more compilations! The top two are pretty easy to sus out so really no need for an explanation. I love Lycia and a few other ethereal bands so that middle CD really pleased me. It is a new comp put out on Cherry Red Records called Cherry Stars Collide: Dream Pop, Shoegaze & Ethereal Rock 1986-1995. I barely own any shoegaze or dream pop so this was a bit of a must have for me. Through it I know I’ll discover more bands. The bottom two are synth-pop compilations, one based on 1980 and the second based on 1981. I love old synth-pop music so these were a no brainer for me to get. Again, listening to these two will lead me to older bands that I have totally forgotten about.
I am beginning to explore metal music a bit more. I have always loved early Danzig and thrash music so it is a genre that is ripe for me to explore. The upper left is Omen by the band Moyra. They are a female lead melodic death metal band and holy shit can the woman growl and sing. The upper right is EndEx by the industrial metal band 3teeth. I really want to explore that specific genre more because I really don’t own that much of it even though I do tend to like it. The middle left is Ofnir by Heilung, and the middle right is Futha also by Heilung. They describe themselves as “amplified history from early medieval northern Europe”. They are haunting as hell and they give off spooky pagan vibes which is perfect in my opinion. The bottom left is OMD’s new album Bauhaus Staircase. I listened to it multiple times yesterday and it has got to be the most political music that they have ever made. I highly recommend it! Finally on the bottom right is Danse Macabre by Duran Duran.
Well, that is it for now. I hope you enjoyed this musical journey of my psyche as much as I loved writing about it, and I hope I introduced you to some bands that you will grow to love.
About three years ago I made this post about how the fetishization of goth women needs to stop and instead of things getting better in online spaces things have actually gotten worse. If you don’t know who Angela Benedict is she has been into goth music since the 90’s and she makes videos about her experiences within the subculture. She also gives solid advice. A few days ago she put up a video explaining how goth women do not want to be seen as a BTGGF fetish, and the backlash she got from some very insecure entitled men was really disgusting.
For those of you who do not know what the initials BTGGF stand for it’s slang for ‘big tiddy goth girlfriend’. It started as a meme some years back but now it has spread so far and wide that there is a growing cohort of mainly men who think that all goth women are into kink and will be freaks between the sheets. They think that we will let them try anything sexual and that we love being submissive.
To these absolute losers we are nothing but an object to collect; a notch on a bedpost. We are not seen as human, instead they see us as demonic sex kittens. With all of that being said let us look as some of the responses that her video has received.
The spineless idiot first tells Angela that if she doesn’t want to be sexualized that she should stop dressing like a ‘304’. What is a ‘304’? It is slang for a prostitute. So, because she has broken his fetish into little pieces he turns around and victim blames her. Of course he does because mentally he has the maturity of a bratty teenager. A bratty teenager who thinks he is entitled to have his way with goth women. This attitude is dangerous as hell and quite frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes on to commit crimes against goth women. This is why it is so important to push back against this crap.
When Angela points out that he sounds very angry he then states that he can ‘ogle’ goth woman all he wants because we put ourselves out there to be ‘ogled’. What a total piece of shit. Would he ever say that in person to a goth woman? Hell no, and if anybody said that kind of shit to me in person I have a cane and I know how to use it. Just because a woman is wearing revealing clothing doesn’t mean that a man has the right to her body. Also, Angela is totally covered up in this video . The rise of ‘goth porn’ has some men thinking that goth women want sexual attention just because they dress in some lace and velvet. This is perpetuated by sex workers dressing in black and calling themselves goth when they are not. I have nothing against sex work BUT that shit is actually harming real goth women both on and off the internet.
Angela proceeds to call the dude Incel-Irving, which is a perfect name for the guy. I think one of the reasons why this dude is so angry is because he has been rejected by multiple goth women online. Remember, this guy doesn’t have the balls to go up to a goth woman in public and say this kind of shit. He is probably very unattractive and blames goth women for his inability to take a shower or change his crusty whitey tighties. Dude, we know exactly what you are: an incel who will never know the touch of a woman. I wasn’t lying when I told him that.
Angela then tells Incel-Irving that he is making her money every single time he engages with us. Which is the irony of all of this. The man-child thinks he is getting under her skin, when in reality he is showing everybody what an incel loser he is. I wasn’t lying when I said he gives off small penis energy, because he obviously is very insecure about his looks and his inability to score a goth woman. Poor little fella, literally.
The comments above are a little out of order because Incel Irving deleted some of his posts. I don’t think he expected other women to come in and tell him off Surprise!!! He tried putting Angela down by saying that she probably doesn’t make a lot of money being a bartender, while she isn’t a bartender. Proof the idiot hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about. Angela is right, the guy is probably going to end up losing his legs from diabetes because he drinks bottles of Mountain Dew while sitting in his mother’s basement. He also deleted comments that said that both I and the other woman defending Angela are both men white knighting for her, and that we weren’t going to get to fuck her. Seriously, the idiot mentioned this multiple times. Since he thought we were men he was angry that we were defending her instead of him. Poor thing!
We then proceed to make fun of the guy for his huge mistake and that is that. As of this morning on October the 9th he has not replied and is probably on another site somewhere bitching to other incels about goth women. Off we go to the next loser.
This complete douche canoe thinks it is flattering to be made into a sex object because that is what a ‘romantic goth’ is all about. According to him being a ‘romantic goth’ means you are into romance and that leads to sex. I am not even joking. Not only does this idiot think that sexual harassing goths is okay, he also doesn’t know what the goth subculture is about. Go figure. It’s like this dude got his information from the back of a box of Count Chocula. Angela’s video pissed him off so much that he rage types in caps telling her that she needs to get some self respect and that she isn’t a goth. These little boys always come in with the insults, throwing them about hoping one will stick: such as ‘how dare you not want to fuck me, that means you aren’t a real goth because real goth women would love to get attention from me.’
Angela is correct the people that sexualize goth women are almost always men, because they think that they deserve a goth woman’s attention. What he doesn’t realize is that he has nothing to attract a goth woman. He is an insecure little boy who thinks he knows everything about the goth subculture. He then tries to insult Angela by saying that she probably listens to My Chemical Romance. Proof that he is failing about like a toddler throwing Cheerios everywhere from his highchair. They all end up doing this, it’s textbook.
After insulting him by saying that he will never know the touch of a woman he then proceeds to tell me that I will never know the touch of a ‘real man’. Wahahaha! We all ask him what a ‘real man’ is but he ignores us, and then proceeds to call Angela gorgeous and asks her if she believes in love. I’m not joking, this idiot thinks that all of his insults will make Angela attracted to him? I forgot, he thinks that goth women are submissive and will put up with any sexually tinged insult that comes at them. Fuck off with that nonsense!
I feel that the rise of this sort of behavior towards goth woman is heading into dangerous territory. With that being the case I think it is very important for goth women to support one another when this kind of crap happens online and in person. Every single time I see this kind of thing happen to a goth woman online I jump in because how can I not? I would be a coward if I didn’t help out and that is not the kind of person I am. Listening to The Dead Kennedys for a few decades has primed me to do this. If there is one thing that the punk subculture has taught me over the years is that having somebody’s back in a situation like this is very important. Angela clearly understands this and talks about it in the video. As goth women we needs to stick together.
So, if you are goth and you see this kind of shit taking place online jump in and help. It is not enough to be passive aggressive and shit talk behind backs. If you witness this happening in person also jump in because if you don’t the creep is going to keep thinking that they can easily get away with this crap. They need to be shown proof that their actions are unwanted, Use your streetsmarts and act accordingly. Stay safe out there.