Category: deathrock (Page 2 of 4)

Madi Danger’s Goth Discord Server History Raises Some Red Flags/Part 1

January 16, 2023 / dystopiagal / 6 Comments

I stand with Jello. People who get it….get it.

EDIT: Since this post is the most viewed on my blog I would like to add another screenshot that makes everything crystal clear. This is a screenshot of a past cache of Madi’s black metal Spotify playlist. On it she has the white nationalist band Burzum not once but twice. Spotify playlists take forever to update so I got lucky. I underlined them in green. Solid proof she has some white nationalist sympathies.

I just want to start out by saying that all of the info in this article was gathered by reading a very long PUBLIC post that somebody made of this entire situation seven months ago. They also included some screen shots to prove their side of the story. So, none of this was created out of thin air. Why didn’t it gain traction? Because the person in question claims that they were hounded online by Madi, her husband, her fans and their friends. However, they kept their post up in the hopes that others would see it. This is going to be a long and detailed post so get your seatbelts on; it’s going to be a very bumpy ride. I will be sharing photos and commenting under each one. By the way they are all in order of appearance, nothing is left out.

The fact that Madi’s friend G, who is one of the mods running the server, says that they are more comfortable around Norwegian black metal musicians really, really raises a red flag. The person above is correct in saying that the black metal genre, and specifically the Norwegian variety, has a history of racism and white supremacy. Varg Vikernes is a racist murdering piece of shit, and to think otherwise is basically condoning his actions and white supremacist beliefs. This isn’t rocket science.

So, the poster feels uncomfortable about all of this because they are a person who is regularly marginalized. They ask G what they meant, and they don’t really get a straight answer. Not a great look at all. Personally, I probably would have lost it by this time and would have just told all of them to go fuck themselves. They are showing extreme restraint and I commend them for that.

They tried to get a straight answer from G, but their question was still ignored. They even asked G’s partner and fellow moderator, R, and they also didn’t give a straight answer. They also talk about how a post in the discord that was deleted for no reason by G. What was the subject? It was about how Nazi clothing has no place in the goth and industrial subcultures. Why was it deleted? Because apparently it was off subject, even though it is a goth discord. Yes, you read that correctly. There is also an accusation about a Jewish member being called a slur by G, however there is no screenshot of that so it cannot be confirmed.

Above is G. Gee I wonder if he has racist white nationalist sympathies? We are next going to go straight into screenshots of all of the messages talked about above, because he starts talking about Madi next in his tale and all of that needs to be seen together on its own in a separate dedicated post(s). All of these will be in order so no claims of discarding certain messages can be made. This is pretty much a huge information dump and the reason why I am splitting this article into different parts.

The conversation starts with the poster, let’s just call them C, answering a question posed by G. There is some regular banter with C just giving their opinion about some problematic Soundcloud rappers.

This is where G openly states that he would feel more comfortable around Norwegian black metal musicians. As stated earlier in this article Norwegian black metal has a reputation for harbouring racist white nationalist musicians. Are all Norwegian black metal musicians racist white nationalists? Of course not, however there is something about that subculture that attracts those type of people. This raised a huge red flag for C, and when I personally read that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I immediately thought about when Brandon Pybus of Sonsombre was found out to be a member of a racist neo-Confederate organization.

That bottom comment that G makes about Varg being a ‘wild and crazy guy’ just really irks the hell out of me. No, you know what Varg is? A murdering racist white nationalistic piece of shit who deserves to drown in his own filth. That statement of his just hoists that red flag all the way up the flagpole for me.

His statement is cut off but C basically just told G that Norwegian black metal has racist white nationalist issues. In response G says that they aren’t going to talk about that there. Gives no reason, just tries to shut down the conversation. They could have said something like ‘white nationalists in the Norwegian black metal scene suck and I don’t agree with their views at all’ and that would have just ended the entire conversation. However, he chose not to do that. Hmmmm…..I wonder why?

Oh shit!!!! G just up and says ‘I don’t support politics on either side in the scene’. That ‘encouraging violence in any scene is intolerable’ is his reasoning and I am just so awed by this lack of self awareness on display here. C comments that they think that one side is definitely worse, and I agree. Racist white nationalists suck and should be punched, because that is a time honoured tradition in the punk and goth subcultures. Something that goes back all the way to the 1970’s. The simple fact that G doesn’t know or acknowledge this is sketchy as hell. G then says that he has to keep the place ‘safe for everyone’. Safe for who? Racist white nationalists?

C makes it clear that they want just a straight answer, and G fobs them off yet again. Being brave as hell C announces that they are going to have to leave the server if there are any white nationalists or people with Nazi beliefs. Then yet again they tell G that they don’t understand the status quote that G keeps trying to say is his opinion on white nationalism. G’s response to all of this just takes the cake. In other words G just doesn’t give a shit. What he really fails to grasp is that the goth subculture historically has always been left winged and not tolerant of right wing racist white nationalist bullshit. Remember folks, this is supposed to be a goth Discord community, not anything having to do with metal. Yet the moderator seemingly knows nothing about the history of the goth subculture. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

I can just feel C’s frustration at not getting a straight answer right now. At any point during this entire ordeal G could have just stepped up and said what they believed in, but nope they take the cowardly way out and say yet again that they don’t like letting politics ‘fuel’ their friendships or communities. Then G has the fucking audacity to respond flippantly when C asks him what his status means politically. The cold hard truth of this is G is a moderator of Madi’s dedicated goth Discord server, so this does not reflect well on her at all. Seriously.

C again asks for an answer to their question. What happens? G then claims, in all of his stupidity, that ‘finding’ politics in the goth subculture would ruin the scene because they assume that there aren’t any politics in the subculture at all. Let’s just take a minute to digest that before we go on. Ready? G obviously does not know crap about the goth subculture at all, because if he did they wouldn’t say something so amazingly ignorant. Why the hell is somebody who knows so little about the subculture put as a moderator of a Discord server that is supposed to be a resource for information about the goth subculture? Madi is putting herself out there as some sort of fount of knowledge about the goth subculture and this is what she comes up with? Oh hell to the no. The goth subculture has always been left leaning and political. Did Siouxsie wear stupid Nazi shit over 40 years ago? Yes, and she apologized for it because she realized how wrong she had been. Since the full formation of the goth subculture in the early 80’s musicians who espouse racist white nationalistic views are condemned by the majority and pushed away when found out. There are, of course, dumb racist idiots who will support such musicians but they are definitely in the minority, especially right now. If anything the subculture has grown even more political within the last ten years, which can only be a good thing.

Don’t look for trouble where there isn’t any? You know what I find troublesome? When somebody refuses to clearly state what their stance is on racist white nationalistic beliefs.

Dude, you literally told C that your political stance on racist white nationalism was in your profile. How the hell is somebody on a GOTH Discord server supposed to know that the quote you pointed them to is based on a METAL meme? Please don’t think that I have anything against metal music as a whole. In fact Danzig is one of my favourite bands and I saw the original line-up live back in 1992. So if anybody wants to claim that I know nothing about metal music they can full on kiss my ass. In fact I have been writing this post with the help of the first four Danzig albums. Oh, and I almost forgot. On top of all of that I was going to the punk club 924 Gilman in Berkeley over 30 years ago so I in turn know quite a bit about punk music. I am a triple threat; a woman who knows a lot about both goth and punk music while having a decent understanding of metal music. I hope that makes these moderators, and Madi, uncomfortable. C, yet again, asks for clarification which should earn them some sort of trophy for tenacity at this point.

In comes G’s partner R to the rescue! I’m sure they will have a rational explanation for all of this since R is G’s significant other. So asking whether or not a moderator has racist white nationalistic views isn’t goth? Oh, I forgot. We are supposed to be really meek and roll over and bark at your command because the goth subculture is filled with people with no political beliefs. Right? Fuck right off with that nonsense. I have absolutely no pity for people who are this damn ignorant. So G is stating that C is looking for ‘problems’ for asking the same damn simple question over and over again? None of this looks good for either of the moderators or for Madi herself, since she presents herself as knowledgable about the goth subculture and this is her dedicated goth Discord server.

Part two in this series will be up on Wednesday the 18th. I was not kidding when I said this is an info dump.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

My Dystopian Life Alternative Club Classics

January 12, 2023 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

EDIT: It is now 84 songs with no repeated bands. I hate the heck out of Spotify, and don’t use it, but I have decided to start creating a playlist based on the music that I heard in alternative clubs in 88-92. It is a work in progress so this isn’t its final form. During those four years I went clubbing on a pretty regular basis, even multiple times a week. So, these are actual songs that were played back then not some fever dream of somebody who wishes they lived back then. Yes, rap/hip-hop songs were played at all of the alternative clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area back then, and I had a whole lot of fun dancing to them! From what I understand this was not as common in other areas of the US, so this list only represents what I experienced and is not indicative of what happened elsewhere.

Hope you have fun listening to this and discover songs that are new to you.

My 50 Favourite Goth Songs Of All Time!!!

December 31, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

It would be fun dancing to these songs in this space.

For a start I would like to state that this list isn’t meant to be something definitive; a list of goth songs that you must listen to. These just happen to be my personal favourite goth songs. Don’t pay attention to the order because that changes all of the time, and I am only numbering them to keep them straight in my head so that I don’t repeat myself. Some songs are of the crossover variety, mainly synthpop meets goth, because the distinctions between the two back in the 80’s/90’s was more fuzzy than today, and there will be multiple entries for a few bands. A lot of them will be old, because I’m old. Off we go!

50. Lords Of The New Church – Dance With Me (1983)

49. Pawns – Broken (2019)

48. Nosferatu – Close (1993)

47. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Hand On Heart (1985)

46. Sex Gang Children – Sebastiane (1983)

45. Until December – Heaven (1986)

44. Samhain – Archangel (1984)

43. Lacrimosa – Kabinett Der Sinne (1995)

42. Die Form – Phenomena Of Visitation (1996)

41. Blancmange – Living On The Ceiling (1982)

40. Specimen – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1983)

39. Gene Loves Jezebel – Always A Flame (1985)

38. Christian Death – This Is Heresy (1988)

37. Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf (1981)

36. Virgin Prunes – Love Lasts Forever (1986)

35. TSOL – Beneath The Shadows (1982)

34. Killing Joke – Love Like Blood (1985)

33. Alien Sex Fiend – Hurricane Fighter Plane (1987)

32. The Cult – Rain (1985)

31. Love & Rockets – Love Me (1986)

30. This Ascension – Angel Light (1994)

29. The Tear Garden – Ophelia (1987)

28. Astrovamps – Vampira (1993)

27. Necromantik Sunshine – London Dungeon (2001)

26. Diva Destruction – The Broken Ones (1999)

25. Element – Red Meat & Beauty Queens (1998)

24. Cocteau Twins – Carolyn’s Fingers (1988)

23. Collide – Beneath The Skin (1996)

22. Samhain – I Am Misery (1984)

21. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult – The Days Of Swine & Roses (1990)

20. Red Flag – If I Ever (1989)

19. Ministry – Every Day Is Halloween (1984)

18. Fields Of The Nephilim – Blue Water (1987)

17. Corpus Delecti – Noxious (The Demon’s Game) (1994)

16. Tones On Tail – Go! (1984)

15. Christian Death – Church Of No Return (1988)

14. The Chameleons – In Shreds (1982)

13. Die Form – Rain Of Blood (1997)

12. Wumpscut – Mother (1995)

11. Rosetta Stone – Leave Me For Dead (1991)

10. Mephisto Walz – The Starveling (1993)

9. The Damned – Alone Again Or (1987)

8. Gene Loves Jezebel – Heartache (1986)

7. Sex Gang Children – Deiche (1984)

6. Killing Joke – Follow The Leaders (1981)

5. Fade To Grey – Visage (1982)

4. TSOL – Code Blue (1981)

3. Virgin Prunes – The Walls Of Jericho (1982)

2. Lycia- Pray (1995)

1. B-Movie – Nowhere Girl (1982)

People Desperately Want To Be Called Goth Right Now

December 29, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

I was minding my own business when I came upon this earlier today.

Sometimes I’ll sit around trying to figure out what the heck to write about next. Most of the time ideas pop right into my head out of nowhere, but sometimes the social media gods/goddesses smile down upon me and plop a bundle of joy right onto my lap. The interaction that I had with this person easily proves why some gatekeeping is absolutely necessary in the goth subculture.

So, the above kid is asking what name should those who dress ‘goth’ but don’t listen to the actual music be called. The simple answer is of course a poseur. Oh noes, professional trendy ‘goth’ fashion victims outnumber actual goths, that must mean they are right? This is a case of a kid, at least I hope they are young, so desperate for the ‘goth’ tag that they try to tell actual goths what the goth subculture is like. You would be correct in thinking that this isn’t going to go very well for them. My responses to them are circled in green, while theirs and others are red.

I didn’t jump into this first section because the cringe was heavy in the air.

Look at our little dude/dudette go! They don’t want to hear the truth, rather they want to be validated in their self imposed wannabe gothdom; like Batman in his batcave. See what I did there?

Do you know why people in the goth community get pissed off about others using the label without listening to the music? Because trendy fashion victims are calling themselves goth without listening to the music. It’s really that simple and not that complicated. They don’t need a ‘culturally sensitive’ name, they are the living and breathing definitions of a goth subculture poseur. If they don’t like that then they do indeed need a new hobby. I’m not wrong in my assessment.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I said this fell into my lap.

Am I one of those ‘musical’ goths? I do love GiGi, Singing In The Rain, The Sound Of Music and The Wizard Of Oz. Oh wait, I think he meant ‘music’ goths. He says it like it’s dirty to listen to goth music. This is where they expose the fact that they are pissed off at being called a poseur. They called me a gatekeeper in response because they didn’t like the answer that they received. Tough luck buttercup, the music is very important to the subculture and your little temper tantrum isn’t going to change that fact.

The dude/dudette is denying they want the goth tag, all while making a post on Reddit complaining about people denying him, and his friends, the goth tag. They aren’t the brightest crayon in the box.

I feel like I should be watching a musical right now.

Goths are into actual goth music and get pissed off when trendy fashion victims call themselves goth for just dressing in black. Who would have thunk it? If they keep running into this ‘problem’ then maybe they need to learn some self awareness.

Another idiot has to throw in that Joy Division is a goth band.

You know how I feel about Joy Division being called a ‘goth’ band. I couldn’t help but interact with this interloper.

Out of every interaction that I had with this poseur this is my favourite part. I love how they actually say the truth for a second, then double back saying it isn’t a genre of music that goths listen to any longer. How dare goths listen to actual goth music! How dare they!

Again, I really hope this person is young.

They really do come across as somebody who has been called a poseur quite a few times. They can dance around this all they want, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they don’t listen to actual goth music. It’s really quite fascinating just how important the goth tag is for this person; denial is not a river in Egypt. Damn those darn music goths, damn them all! Yes, I would have the balls to call this person a poseur to their face. Seriously.

Oh noes, they corrected my spelling! Whatever shall I do?

They really are acting just like a child having a tantrum. They can bang on the gate of goth till they are blue in the face, but because they and their friends don’t listen to actual goth music they will never be let in. They claim that those darn ‘music’ goths are in a minority where they live. That would come down to the fact that him and his wannabe goth friends exist in an echo chamber, in which no actual goth person resides. So goths who listen to actual goth bands are now elitists? Considering the idiocy on show here I will wear that ‘insult’ as a badge of honour.

Yes, I do like musicals and I have no shame.

Apparently it is rude now to tell people the truth instead of validating their wonky self-made identity. This sort of thing always makes me wonder how people deal with situations such as this in the offline world. They even add the whole gatekeeping trope that normally appears in these sorts of online confrontations. Again, why this desperate need for the goth tag?

Dude, you can wear whatever the hell you want, nobody is stopping you. However, the minute you call yourself a goth without even giving the music a chance you become the living and breathing embodiment of a poseur. Want to dress in black and not be called a poseur then stop calling yourself a goth. It really is that simple. If the ‘normies’ are calling you a goth it’s because they think it is only about a style of clothes. When have the ‘normies’ ever been right about alternative subcultures?

Apparently I am supposed to be over sixty if I listen to actual goth music. I only have nine more years left until I came become one of those infamous ‘musical’ goths! This has me rather excited. Can you tell?

Oh yes, isn’t it rather silly that goths listen to actual goth music? They have probably been called a poseur by multiple people in the goth community and keep trying to get the answer that they want to hear. Remember, the person keeps insisting that they don’t want the goth tag all while bitching about those mean ‘musical’ goths not accepting them into the goth subculture. I am disappointed because they obviously already have their answer, but they refuse to believe it.

I’ll do what I like, you aren’t the boss of me!

….and that attitude makes you a poseur.

This was my original answer to their question.

How am I wrong? Even thirty years ago the people just into the fashion aspect of things were called poseurs. Want to make a bet that they didn’t even read my link?

Well, that is it for today. Sometimes people do not want to listen to the truth and that is on them, not on you.

Thoughts On The Goth Grifter

December 26, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

Wednesday, the latest image that the goth grifter is poaching.

I can hear you asking, what is a goth grifter? To put it simply it is somebody using the goth subculture in order to make money, receive free gifts, or to gain popularity in ‘alternative’ subculture circles in general. Through my years of listening to goth and punk music and participating in various ‘scenes’ I have seen my fair share of them so it is fairly easy for me to root them out. All of the information included in this article is public and quite easy to find so I didn’t have to dig far to get any of it.

One year ago Madi Danger thought that all post-punk music was goth, as evidenced above. EDIT: As of 15/01 she has taken down my comment. Too late Madi, too late!!!!!

The most recent really obvious case that has totally jump started me into finally writing about this is the mysterious appearance of the self proclaimed metal and goth music lover Madi Danger. I first saw her on YouTube last year when she made a ‘intro to goth music’ video that misrepresented Echo &The Bunnymen and Joy Division both as goth bands. I corrected her just on the Bunnymen inclusion, because I didn’t feel like being called a gatekeeper. She came back with the whole ‘post-punk is a genre under the goth umbrella’ fallacy. I automatically thought that she must be really young to think that since it is surface level misinformation. Somebody older and wiser would know differently. Well, guess what? Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was twenty-four years old when she wrote the above misinformation.

The question that immediately comes to my mind is why would a fully grown ass woman in her mid-twenties suddenly hitch her trailer to the goth subculture? She obviously knows a whole lot about metal music and is a big fan of that genre. Yet, she all of a sudden likes goth and wants to share her surface level knowledge of it with everybody? It just really feels inauthentic, like she is hitching her identity now to ‘goth’ because it is what is very popular. She has the teased hair, the clothes, and all of the frippery, but it’s just really a shell that is easily cracked. She is using goth as an additive to her already metal identity, to gain more attention and more of a following. You know what? I wouldn’t hold anything against her at all if she was a youngster, but she is now twenty-six years old. This is a grift for subculture clout, and a painfully obvious one at that.

They quite frequently will call themselves a ‘trad goth’, which always makes me roll my eyes.

The next kind of goth grifter that I have run into a lot online are the ones who call themselves ‘trad goth’. They think that calling themselves such will gain them more goth community clout since the goth grifter feels that anything out of the 80’s is cool. They copy what they think the 80’s were like, but since they weren’t even born in that decade it just comes across as really shallow and reeks of desperation. They want what the 80’s produced, such as goth music, without any of the hardships that the people who actually went through that decade lived through. It’s the exact same crap as the wannabe hippies of the late 80’s; people longing for a decade, which in reality, they probably would not have fit into.

They link to an Amazon wish-list, because of course they do.

The goth grifter doesn’t really have any shame and will usually openly advertise their Amazon wish-list as the person above has done. They do this, of course, to receive free products. My huge question about this is why the heck do they think that they deserve free merch from complete strangers? What are they producing that is so damn special that they think that they deserve these goods? It takes some ego to think that their contribution to the goth subculture is that important and that worthy of attention, when in fact the information they share is usually limited and based off of misinformation. So instead of helping the subculture they hinder it, because all of the youngsters who follow these grifters head down the same path of outright lies and half truths. It’s a goth circle jerk.

I feel kind of bad for calling out this particular person in the last three photos but they embody so perfectly the point I am making. I have been running this blog as a hobby for over two years now and never once did I think that it would be okay for me to throw up an Amazon wish-list so that I could get free crap. In fact I do not make a dime at all from doing any of this. I do this because I love both the goth and punk subcultures and want to share real information, not half truths and lies that I have pulled out of my ass. I was actually a teen in the 80’s who lived through that decade not somebody playing 80’s dress-up for cash and prizes.

Because of the mainstream popularity of the series Wednesday you now have numerous goth grifters who think that dressing in black and copying a dance makes them automatically a goth. It reminds me of when Mansonites in the 90’s did the same exact crap; copying an image that they think gives them an entryway into the goth subculture, when in reality the opposite is true. When people try so hard to match an image is just reeks of desperation. How is any of this different from the endless grifting that the Kardashians do on social media? It’s done for the exact same reason; to be popular despite not having a discernable talent. Oh wow, you can buy some black clothes online and do over the top ‘goth’ make-up. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt; bully for you. You don’t deserve special treatment for it, or over the top praise for doing what thousands have done before you.

What is the best thing you can do? Not give money or gifts to any of these goth grifters. Within a few years they will more than likely drop out of the subculture and pivot to another grift. Remember Sebastian Columbine? No? My point exactly.

In Which I Answer Some Basic Goth Questions For The Masses

December 7, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

For whatever reason there are tons of people right now asking the same basic questions about the goth subculture. Who am I kidding, we know exactly why so many questions are being asked right now; being ‘goth’ is a huge trend train that lots of people who have no clue about the actual subculture want to jump on. All of these questions are ones that I have seen asked online over and over and over again. So they are real, not anything I have made up. All aboard!

Am I goth if I wear the colour black?

No, because the goth subculture doesn’t own the colour. Plenty of people outside of the subculture also wear black, such as metalheads, priests, nuns, etc… Go forth and wear all of the black you want, nobody should be stopping you for doing so. However, it doesn’t magically transport you into the goth subculture or make you a member of it. It’s a music based subculture, not one based upon the colour of clothes that you wear.

What clothes do I have to buy and what music do I have to listen to in order to be a Victorian/vampire/trad/cyber/mall goth?

This is the one question that really gets my knickers in a twist. Those ‘goth types’ were started as a joke in the 90’s, making fun of the stereotypes found in goth clubs. That is all it was meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be a roadmap as to how to belong to the subculture. There are some self described ‘elder goths’ who have actually argued with me about this, saying that people used to take it seriously back in the day. No they did not. In the area that I lived during the 90’s somebody even made stickers based on the stereotypes and I found some in a vending machine in a Pizza Hut in San Francisco in 1998. I only remember that because I was the assistant manager of a Spirit Halloween store during that time and would always get pizza for lunch. If you want to tick all of the boxes off to become a certain stereotype within the subculture nobody is going to stop you but you will get a massive amount of eye rolling. Instead of wanting to be a stereotype just be yourself. Announcing to the world that you want to be a certain type of goth is never a great look.

Do I have to listen to only goth music to be a goth?

Of course not. The only group of people in the goth community who have ever believed that are the uber goobers, who have always been boring as hell. I listen to goth, metal, thrash, punk, disco, 70’s/80’s soul, old school rap/hip-hop, classical, new wave, blues,etc… I have always been into multiple forms of music and I have no shame in admitting it. Goth music has many styles, such as deathrock, goth rock, darkwave, ethereal and cold wave. If you try out each style and don’t like any of them you are more than likely just darkly inclined and there is nothing wrong with that. If this pisses you off then you should be asking yourself why is being goth so important to you and as to why you want that label so much in the first place.

Do I have to buy clothes from expensive online dark alternative stores to be a goth?

The answer to that is a huge no! There are a bunch of younger people running around right now looking like wannabe witches and slamming onto the gates guarding the goth community wanting in even though they don’t listen to the music. It is a music based subculture not one that is totally based on how you look. The people saying otherwise are straight up liars. If you are starting out just buy black basic clothes from a regular store, or even a thrift store, and get some accessories off of Etsy to jazz them up. Some regular stores, such as New Look in the UK, are known for carrying some goth friendly clothes. Every single time I go to the one near me I walk out with something.

Do I have to buy clothes from thrift stores in order to be a goth?

One of the main ways I used to get clothes back in the 80’s/90’s was by going to thrift stores. I lived in an area that had a lot of good ones so I was very lucky. Where I live now the thrift stores are hard to get to and are very overpriced so I just avoid them. If there are no thrift stores near you, or if they suck where you live, don’t worry about it.

Do I have to learn DIY skills to be a goth?

I have been doing DIY type clothing projects for decades and I am completely self taught. I learned to hand sew back in the 80’s and I can hem, dart, add buttons,etc…I have always upcycled clothing. I have even bought Killstar items on clearance in the past and made them look completely different. I can also do stud work and paint on leather/pleather which is a very easy thing to learn. There are a ton of tutorials on YouTube showing you how to do all of these kinds of projects. By learning DIY skills you can curate your own style so that you don’t look exactly the same as everybody else, plus it’s a lot of fun!

Do I have to be skinny and white to be a goth?

This question always breaks my heart. White skinny women and men have always been the go to for the goth aesthetic look that some directors, subculture magazines and others have been pushing since the 80’s. I would say it has only been within the last five years that you see people of colour being more visually represented within the subculture. It should have happened way sooner than that. You do not need to be white or skinny to be a goth. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

Why is metal music not considered goth?

Metal music has historically never been considered goth. One of the main reasons being that metalheads, back in the 80’s, used to threaten and beat the crap out of punks and anybody else who looked ‘alternative’. That includes goths. I personally never got jumped, BUT a whole lot of male metalheads used to give me crap all of the time. Also, the music developed totally separately from it. Goth music developed out of punk, while metal developed out of 60’s rock and psychedelic music. You can, of course, like metal music and goth music at the same time. I have always loved the hell out of early Danzig and even saw them play in 1992.

When and how do I become an elder goth?

An elder goth is considered to be somebody who has been into the music for decades and still supports the subculture in one way or another. I started getting into the music in 1986 and have always been a goth-punk weirdo so I am considered to be an elder goth. I have seen some people around my age who just got into wearing black clothing who claim they are elder goths. Yes, I have personally seen that happen online and I find it really annoying and fake. You can dress in expensive clothing and wear a ton of make-up but just because you are older doesn’t mean you are an elder goth. It takes a decade or two, not a credit card, to be considered one.

How do I become a goth influencer?

This question does my head in. Seriously. Younger people see ‘goth’ influencers online getting a bunch of free swag and want exactly the same. For them it is not about the music, instead it is about curating an image; one in which they think will make them more ‘goth’. Nothing can be further from the truth. I call this the Kardashianization of the goth subculture and it is just gross. Not all goths with a YouTube, or other social media platform, push clothing, but so many do that it just becomes a blurry mess of pentacles, platform boots and loads of over the top make-up. They give the impression that all goths dress to the nines every single day, when in fact we don’t. I’m laying around in my Star Wars pyjamas right now typing this.

Do I have to dye my hair, or get tattoos and piercings to be considered goth?

Sometimes it trips me out just how ‘in’ it is these days to get tattoos, piercings and bright hair colours. All three have become totally mainstreamed so you won’t really look ‘different’ doing so. You don’t have to do any of this to be goth because it is just window dressing. These days if you see somebody dressed in all black with green hair walking down the street chances are you won’t have anything in common with them because they are just following a trend. It’s sad but it’s the truth.

Well, that is it for now. Whomever you are I hope this helps you on your journey into the goth subculture or at least points you in the right direction. Always be you, not a stereotype that you think people want to see.

Fuck Jake Munro, He Is An Abusive Poseur Goth Asshole

November 29, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

The above ‘thing’ is what happens when you don’t gatekeep the goth subculture.

For the last couple of days I have been going back and forth in my head trying to figure out whether or not I should make a post about all of this. Why? Because my first husband, just like Jake, was a verbally and emotionally abusive piece of shit. So, I have been through exactly what Jake’s abuse victim, YouTuber Toxic Tears (aka Kaya), has been through. Being abused never completely leaves you and is something you have to deal with for the rest of your life. Personally, I have worked through that trauma pretty much on my own and I made it through the other end reasonably intact. However, seeing a younger woman going through the exact same crap publicly really breaks my heart and I feel like I have to speak up to not only support her but to warn others not to fall for the same shit.

Who, or what, is Jake Munro? He is an infamous thirty-one year old poseur goth YouTuber who has openly admitted to hating goth music and the subculture, but tags himself as goth in just about every video he makes. He is basically a clout chaser trying to make money off of the subculture. That’s it. I am not going to link any of his videos from this blog because I don’t want to give him views from here. You can easily find all of the crap I am talking about via Google and YouTube so what I am saying isn’t a secret at all.

For over ten years he dated another YouTuber named Toxic Tears, who is actually a goth. His channel only gained traction because of her linking his videos to her audience. In other words he used his girlfriend to jump-start his own ‘career’. He cheated on her multiple times over the years and openly flirted with underage girls while around her. So to say this dude is a creep would be a huge understatement. Some skanky bitch, who was married and has a 4 year old child, cheated on her husband with him and they are now a couple. Toxic Tears and him broke up about a year ago…but it was anything but normal.

Dearest little Jake literally threw her out of the place they shared and she was made to stay in an unheated workshop room. He had isolated her from her friends and made her be financially dependent on him, which is one of the HUGE things that abusers like him do. She eventually landed back on her feet, got a new place to stay and was starting to work on picking up the pieces of her shattered life. For about a year she was finding her freedom and healing from the abuse, then out of nowhere a few days back he makes a two hour video claiming that he is the victim and that she never respected him or appreciated all of the money and presents he gave her. Seriously. I guess he expected everybody to praise him and to feel sorry for him. It backfired. He expected her to cower, but instead she made her own three hour response in which she describes all of the abuse she went through and how absolutely horrible he was to her over the years.

Her three hour response. Please do not watch if you are triggered by talk of abuse. EDIT:This video has been ‘age restricted’ as of 3/12/22.

It took so much courage for her to do this and I really respect her for putting herself out there and for telling the truth as to how things went down between the two of them. However, it really pisses me off that she had to do this in the first place. Jake is such a fucking rabid abuser that he thought that he could still control her over a year later. He is nothing but a narcissistic immature asshole who looks like a cracked out version of Marilyn Manson, who also just happens to be an abusive asshole. Birds of a feather. Learning that he is insecure about the size of his penis and about his short height makes perfect sense. Awwwww…….the poor little guy. Literally.

So, what can we learn from all of this? That the goth subculture needs to be policing itself way more actively than it is doing right now. Abusive poseurs like Jake Munro should not be welcomed into the subculture with open arms, they should instead be kicked to the curb. Fuck Jake Munro and fuck you if you support his abusive bullshit.

My Thoughts On That ’50 Best Goth Songs Of All Time’ Rolling Stone Article

November 3, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

Strawberry Switchblade was not a goth band just because they dressed strange.

There is a recent Rolling Stone article titled The 50 Best Goth Songs Of All Time making the rounds, and my goodness are people pissed off about it. The main reason being that the author of the article is a noted historian on the goth subculture, Andi Harriman. Personally I think she is full of shit, based mainly on the fact that she writes for post-punk dot com, a very problematic website that I have covered on here before. It is run by a trust fund guy who is actively buying his way into the subculture. You are the company that you keep.

I read somewhere yesterday that dearest Andi has claimed that she was told by Rolling Stone to expand the list with famous bands that maybe weren’t goth in order to appease their audience. Instead of having standards she gave in and wrote it. I guess getting her name on the byline of a Rolling Stone article was more important than telling the truth of things. Go figure. So, come wander down this path of half-truths and outright lies with me. This is going to be fun! I will quote sections of the article and then give my response.

‘The scene was a torch passing of sorts. Murphy’s Bauhaus had helped invent goth during the early Eighties; Way had brought it to stripmalls and arenas in the 21st century. And, still, neither could answer a question that has haunted people for decades: What is goth?‘

Woman, My Chemical Romance is not a goth band. I repeat, My Chemical Romance is not a damn goth band. Just because a band dresses in black does not automatically mean that the band makes goth subculture music. It wasn’t passing a torch from Murphy to Way, it was more like Murphy spitting up in the air and his phlegm landed on Way. What is goth? A question that she sure as hell also doesn’t know how to answer.

Let’s travel back to 1983. A time when London’s Batcave club was in its infancy. There, the aesthetics of goth were cultivated—a love for horror movies and Gothic novels, a sickly pallor and a koosh ball of hair, pointy winklepickers and a mish-mash of fetish materials, and most of all, a romance with melancholy. ‘83 was also the year that vampire-thriller The Hunger, co-starring David Bowie, hit the big screens. Vampires, Bowie, Bauhaus – it was the perfect trifecta, beautifully bound in an orgy of tragic eternity.

Um…on the US West Coast during the same time there were bands doing the exact same thing. The Batcave was not the only place where goth music came into being and was born; it’s just the obvious easy answer that people repeat over and over and over….again. So much of this is repeated elsewhere that there are tons of people who weren’t even alive during the 80’s running around wearing Batcave shirts and patches right now. I was a teen in the 80’s in the San Francisco Bay Area and even though I was alive during those Batcave years I wouldn’t sport a shirt or patch of a place that I never went to. An orgy of tragic Eternity? It’s not an orgy if it is only attended by three people. Just saying.

The first batallion of dark 1970s post-punk bands fed off the energy of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust character, an androgynous creature who didn’t quite seem human. The allure of Ziggy, mixed with the magnetism of Dracula (namely Christopher Lee, Udo Keir, and of course, Bela Lugosi) helped to assemble the essential iconography of the subculture– at once dreadful and oozing with sex appeal.

A whole lot of those bands came out of Los Angeles and not the Batcave; specifically Christian Death and 45 Grave, who both used darkly themed aesthetics in their stage performances. Alice Bag, who was in the early Los Angeles punk band The Bags with Patricia Morrison, actually goes into detail in her book Violence Girl as to how everything creatively morphed after the early punk scene there imploded due to the violence that was happening at shows. I highly recommend her book, because she was best friends with Morrison and her insight is very valuable.

And the sound? It’s atmospheric. Somewhere between a banshee scream or a bellowing, reverberated howl that could part the Red Sea, goth began as a transition point from the jaggedness of punk’s confrontational simplicity into an elegant darkness, one cloaked in sorrow and so much emotion. In order to achieve goth status, there must be as much drama as possible: the music, in true Hitchockian fashion, must be as frightening as a spiral staircase in a creaking haunted house.

Again, a whole lot of early goth bands were anything but elegant. Sex Gang Children, Virgin Prunes, Christian Death, etc…were all very confrontational and anything but elegant, but that was the appeal. You could speak up about how fucked up the world was along with looking like you were mourning it. Personally, that is one of the reasons why I have always been into goth music along with punk; they can be on different sides of the same coin.

Think of this list as a roadmap to that sound—from B-movie horror thrills, to reanimated rock and roll rituals, to complete sacrilege, bulging with blasphemy, bondage, blood and lots of bats. It’s a history that touches on subgenres like dream pop, hard rock, synthpop, and glam, that makes pit stops in Spain and Germany, pays homage at the doorsteps of black-clad country heroes and spooky blues legends, and dives into seedy art rock grottos and DIY punk venues. So pour yourself a goblet of red wine and hold your rosaries tight. It’s gonna be a long, dark night of the soul.

A roadmap to the sound? Then why the hell would you call this list ’50 Best Goth Songs Of All Time’? It should have been titled ‘music that influenced goth bands’ instead then. She should know better than to mislead people with this article, because right now there is a ton of misinformation about it. So much so that teens, and even adults, are running around calling themselves goth without listening to any of the actual music. Instead of trying to stop this crap she is doing her part to perpetuate it. Awwww…….how peachy-keen of her!

I am now going to briefly comment on each band on that list that are in no way goth, and give my reasoning for my opinion on each.

50. Strawberry Switchblade They were basically a pop band who happened to dress in a lot of polka dots. Seriously, that’s it. Plus, Rose McDowall got all cozy with Death In June, a very problematic band. A big huge thumbs down from me.

49. AFI This one is a huge WTF. I actually used to go to the punk club Gilman in Berkeley during the same years that Havok went there before he got famous. I just remember that he had the cover of TSOL’s album Dance With Me on the back of his leather jacket. The dude does like some deathrock music, but that doesn’t mean that he actually makes deathrock music. Their sound has morphed multiple times over the years, but it has never been strictly goth.

47. She Wants Revenge Members of this band have been accused of sexual assault. They opened a ‘goth’ club in Los Angeles and preceded to do nothing about their workers being sexually assaulted by their guests. Fuck this band up the ass with no lube. I guess our friend Andi is perfectly okay with all of this. Good to know.

45. My Chemical Romance Not a goth band folks. A band isn’t goth just because they dress in black and whine about their lives. The song she chose sounds like straight up pop punk, which is a music genre that really needs to jump off of a cliff.

44. Type O Negative This is one of the big bands that is always called goth by people who don’t know any better. Andi should know better, but apparently she thinks misinformation is okay as long as she gets the clicks. They are straight up metal and that is it.

43. Echo And The Bunnymen If I had a dollar for every single time a misinformed kid calls this band goth I would be a wealthy woman. They were never goth….at all. I actually saw them live in 1987, so I was around when they were big, and they were never called goth. The internet has been spreading this misinformed crap for the last decade. Sorry kids, just because a post-punk band made maybe one or two sad songs in the 80’s doesn’t make the band goth. Period. Thanks Andi for perpetuating this bullshit.

41. Suicide They have always been considered punk. That’s it.

38. Fad Gadget Their songs used to be played in the alternative/goth clubs I went to over 30 years ago, but that doesn’t mean the band was goth. I have always considered them to be a new wave band more than anything else.

36. Nine Inch Nails Seriously? Wahahahaha!!!! Industrial music, maybe, but definitely not a goth band. Nope, just a trust fund dude whining about how shit his life is while playing a keyboard.

33. Depeche Mode I have always loved their album Black Celebration, but is it a goth album? Synthpop definitely, but not really goth. They were an important goth gateway band for me in the 80’s, but they themselves were not a goth band. They could lead you down a road of discovery if that is where you wanted to go. A lot of people would just stop at them and not go any further, and I found such people to be boring as hell.

32. Johnny Cash I love some Johnny Cash, but was the dude goth? Nope, he was solidly a country musician who sang about dark subjects. Then again a lot of old school country bands did the same sort of thing and they don’t appear on this list. I think Andi only included him because of his Nine Inch Nails cover song, a band who is also not goth. Way to go Andi!

21. The Velvet Underground Definitely a proto-punk band, that is in no way goth.

12. Iggy Pop Again, a proto-punk band and not goth….at all. Iggy Pop’s music isn’t goth just because Ian Curtis hung himself while listening to one of his albums. I saw Iggy perform in the late 80’s and it sure as hell wasn’t a dark romantic performance; it was aggressive, energetic and punk as all hell. If he tours near you go and see him, he puts on an excellent show.

7. Joy Division They were a solid post-punk band and that is it. Ian Curtis killed himself before the subculture was even fully formed so I think sticking the music of the band into a goth box does it a disservice. Retroactively calling bands goth is just lazy and trite journalism. I wrote a whole article about how they were never a goth band. The only people who think they are goth are the kids running around who think that all sad songs must be goth. They couldn’t be more wrong.

6. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Not a goth musician at all. I wouldn’t even call him proto-goth. However, I think the dude influenced the hell out of horror punk and shock rock. The Misfits even played some shows with him over forty years ago. Just because a musician uses dark theatrics doesn’t make said musician goth. That is unless you want to call both the Misfits and Alice Cooper goth.

4. David Bowie Again, yet another musician who was in no way goth but whose music influenced both punk and later goth musicians. His music is very important but it just isn’t goth, and that’s okay.

Well, that’s it folks. What lesson can we learn from this whole mess? That to some people getting an article in a mainstream music publication such as Rolling Stone is more important than actually telling the truth. Sad but true, and it is this attitude that is really hurting the subculture right now; fame at all costs, and if you have to step over people and lie to achieve it then so be it.

My Responses To The ‘Goth Tag’ Questions

October 16, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

That is me on the left in early 1991. I’ve posted this photo before but it is one of the only photos of myself that I have from back then. I didn’t like having my photo taken.

I have seen these questions making the rounds all over social media and I thought I would join in since my answers will be a bit different compared to a lot of the other answers I have seen. This is due to being old and also being heavily into punk music.

1. How long have I been goth? My area of the San Francisco East Bay did not start using the word until around 90-91. Some of my favourite bands in high school in the late 80’s, that are considered goth, were Specimen, Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Cure, Gene Loves Jezebel and The Cult. So I have been listening to the music since about 1986. During that time I also loved U2 and The Dead Kennedys so musically I was all over the place. I didn’t call myself a goth until about 92 because the people who used the term first in my area were the uber goobers and I did not want to be lumped in with them. They took themselves way too seriously, which I never did. I have also always had a foot in the punk subculture.

2. How was I introduced to goth? Nobody sat me down and told me what to listen to or how to dress. There was no internet, of course, and it could be kind of difficult to find out about bands. At the first high school I went to I was the only person in my friend group who listened to the music, and they thought the music was too weird. There was a Bay Area ‘modern rock’ station during that time that would play the more obscure stuff late at night and that’s how I learned about a few of them . At my second high school there were more weirdos, and some of them were quite helpful with bands. Back then the term ‘post-punk’ wasn’t used at all in my area, rather all weirdo music, except for punk of course, was called ‘alternative’ or ‘modern rock’. The term ‘alternative’ was ruined by the mainstream record labels who used it for grunge in their attempt to sell ‘weirdo’ music to the masses.

3. What gothic subgenre would you put yourself in? If you regularly read this blog then you know how much I dislike all of the ‘goth type’ crap. It originated as a joke in the 90’s, making fun of the stereotypes seen in clubs. For whatever reason a lot of younger folks, and some deluded old ones, feel the need to fit themselves into a box. I do tend to listen to a lot of deathrock music, probably more-so than any other ‘type’ but I refuse to call myself ‘deathrock’ because there is more to me than just one form of music, and I refuse to box myself in just to please others.

4. What do you believe to be the bases(basis) of the gothic subculture? First, I would love to point out how the person who wrote out these questions uses both the terms ‘goth’ and ‘gothic’. We used to always use both of the terms interchangeability way back when but now ‘gothic’ means spooky architecture, while ‘goth’ means the subculture. I think the basis of the subculture is the music more than anything else. Without the music there wouldn’t be a subculture. Period. The clothes and make-up are secondary. Anybody who calls themselves goth but who doesn’t listen to actual goth bands is more than likely a trend whore; a person who jumps from trend to trend. Since the term has been super popular in the mainstream for the last few years there are quite a few of these people floating around all wearing the same really shit Demonia boots and the same kind of outfits. I find them all boring, but it is rather entertaining when these fashion victims bitch about their Demonias falling apart within a week of wearing them.

5. What do I dislike about being goth? I know that a lot of goth women bitch about being sexually harassed by men who think all goth women are kinky, but that hasn’t happened to me at all in real life. I think it’s mainly because I look older and use a cane. There are some upsides to being diseased and middle aged. There really isn’t anything that I dislike since I am in my own bubble of existence. I am just me being me.

6. What do your parents think of it? My mom was with me when I got my first undercut in 88, so she has always been very supportive of me and has said that if she had been my age she would also be goth. I have a cool mom. My dad died back in 85. I honestly think that his death had a lot to do with me becoming a weirdo. I was already an outcast for being poor and having a dead parent so morphing into a goth/punk weirdo wasn’t a huge step for me to take. In fact just about everybody into goth/punk music back then was some sort of societal reject.

7. Eyebrows or no eyebrows? Eyebrows, because I look like crap with them shaved off.

8. What is my favourite band? I have a holy trinity of all time favourite bands; Samhain, Christian Death (mostly Valor) and The Dead Kennedys (Jello only). Those three groups have probably influenced me more than anything else. I actually got to tell Valor that in person the other month which was cool as hell. Uber goober Rozz fanatics may get mad at me for liking Valor’s music more than the music of Rozz but I just don’t give a shit. Seriously. Stay angry and irrational over something that happened about 40 years ago, it’s entertaining.

9. My opinion on Marilyn Manson? This question is a bit young for me since I was already in my twenties when he reared his very ugly head. I remember seeing people younger than me at the clubs in the late 90’s trying to look like him and it was hysterically funny. The fact that it came out that he is an abusive asshole didn’t come as a shock to me. In the wise words of Jello Biafra:

You ain’t hardcore ’cause you spike your hair
When a jock still lives inside your head

10. What were my baby bat days like? I didn’t really experience that because I was so all over the place musically. However, it kind of sucked being into both punk and goth bands at the same time back over 30 years ago because according to some people I was too punk for goth and too goth for punk. The punk subculture was way more welcoming to me and I actually gained the nickname Vampira because of dressing in all black and loving the Misfits, Samhain and Danzig. It was actually a bit tough being a woman into those three bands back then; they were considered ‘guy’ bands because of the violent imagery and horror content of the songs. I have always been into horror and sci-fi films and novels so I identified very heavily with those bands and they spoke to me a lot. Kids these days get into the fashion first and then the music, but back then it was the opposite. I listened to goth and punk music first and then slowly started dressing ‘dark’. Even back then I did a lot of DIY type projects so I always painted my own leather jackets and upcycled clothing. However, there was a US clothing chain called Contempo Casuals who sold a whole lot of weirdo friendly clothing. Just about every single person I knew back then had a least a few pieces of clothing by them. I had a pair of black crushed velvet leggings from there that lasted me about ten years. No joke! So the older people in the US saying that all they did was thrift is a total lie, and they know it. I even found a long multi-layer black lace skirt in a regular mall store back then.

So, that is it! I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. As you can see my experiences are a bit different since I was also into punk and got into the music first. It was a road of discovery for me, not a destination. Especially considering that the term ‘goth’ wasn’t even used in my area until after I was already listening to the music.

DIY Project That I Will Be Starting Soon

September 17, 2022 / dystopiagal / 0 Comments

A glass pumpkin cookie jar that has become my new spooky hair clips container.

I haven’t made a music themed jacket in a little over thirty years, Seriously, it has been that long. Why? Because I am a fangirl of so many different kinds of things that it makes it difficult for me to just focus on one aspect as to who I am.

I have been massively listening to the Misfits, Samhain and Danzig lately, if you haven’t noticed, and an idea popped into my head a few weeks ago; make a Glenn Danzig themed jacket! Originally I was going to use a New Look striped jacket that I got on clearance, but after some thinking I am going to use the one below instead. It’s another New Look clearance jacket that I got about five years ago.

If you are a fan of Glenn you know that the number 138 is a Misfits reference. I had sewn those numbers onto the jacket a few years back so in reality it was already started. Over the last few weeks I have been scouring Etsy for cool Misfits, Samhain and Danzig patches and I have found some really unusual ones. Also, I will be putting some spooky little patches on it as filler because to do otherwise would be blasphemous. On top of that I have bought a bunch of cone studs. I just have to be patient for all of the goods to trickle in. I don’t want to start until they are all here. If I have some that I won’t use I will just save them for a future project.

I really hope that this inspires you to create something of your own. I believe in you and if you ever have any questions about how to proceed with a DIY project please feel free to contact me because I would love to help if I can.