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.
Sexual predators, wannabe goth bands and shit nu metal…oh my!
Before I start I would like to state for the record that I do actually like some of the bands featured above; Killing Joke, Body Count and some others. However, it’s on another continent than me and I tend not to go to shows where known sexual predator musicians are being featured. Just wanted to get that out there in case somebody thinks I’m being hypocritical about all of this.
Anyways! There sure seems to be a lot of new ‘alternative’ type festivals going on these days, mostly put together by the mainstream music industry. The above band line-up is so chaotic that it feels like they put a bunch of alternative band names in a hat and picked them out randomly. There is a whole lot of ‘I remember this band being edgy in the 90’s’ vibe going on here. Nevermind the fact that general admission tickets start out at $250.00. That is an insane price to pay for a one day event. It’s obvious that it is all about the Benjamins and not the actual music. Remember, all of the kids want to be goths or alternative these days so the people who put this together are counting on that to make a pile of cash.
EDIT: Just found out that it is being put on by Live Nation. No surprise there folks. They want your hard earned cash, and if women get sexually assaulted by musicians performing there so be it.
Screenshot I took of when post punk dot com featured the band a little while back. They only took it down when a bunch of people, including myself, complained. They can never deny that it happened.
There is one more thing even more messed up than all of the stuff I have already mentioned; they put known sexual predators She Wants Revenge on the bill. This article by The Los Angeles Times is the most complete as to detailing what went down exactly at the club Cloak & Dagger, a space both members of the band ran until it was shut down due to public pressure in 2021. They broke up for a time, but are now back together being covered by such problematic websites as post punk dot com. I’m guessing they handed the site a huge wad of cash to feature them, since that is what they do to the majority of the bands featured on their site. I guess money is more important than protecting the lives of women. Go figure.
The only way that any of these mainstream produced festivals are going to change is if people stop going to them. Cruel World featured Morrissey, a racist windbag. This one features She Wants Revenge, a pair of sexual predators. People will crow online all about how black lives matter and how woman should be treated with respect, but will turn around and go see bands who are the antithesis of what they claim to believe.
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 RevengeMembers 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.
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.
As I have previously stated before on this blog I do not accept anything for free for reviewing products. I have always felt that it is really disingenuous to accept free swag and then brag about it online. That is what so many younger content creators are doing within the online goth/punk communities these days and I find it really boring and trite. This is all to say that I bought every single item that you see contained in this post.
The back of those same shirts. The red print looking white in these photos are just reflections, the lettering is not white at all.
Have you never seen these Samhain shirt designs before? Me neither, and that is why I had to get them. Out of Glenn Danzig’s three different bands Samhain is the one that doesn’t have the insane level of gear that the other two have, so it is difficult to find items of the band that are out of the ordinary. This seller on Etsy has designs that I have never seen before so I am assuming that they came up with them themselves. I mean some of the elements of the designs I am familiar with, but I have never seen them quite like this before. They cost me about £18.00 each and for the price they are really good looking. The red is a little orange in places but you can’t notice that unless you are looking up close. All in all I am very happy with this purchase.
Yes, that is a Bee Gees patch and I am not ashamed!
I have been buying a lot of patches lately. Some are going to be for the Glenn Danzig themed jacket while some others will be used in projects in the future. I especially love the hand-painted severed heads Misfits patch. It’s such a work of beauty that I had to order more patches from her. If you are into Glenn Danzig at all, or like spooky imagery, you will spend money at her shop.
If a band that you like has little to no merchandise Etsy is a great place to find gear. Make no mistake, you should always look on Bandcamp first but Etsy is there for you if you happen to like bands that broke up decades ago. The only thing I would make sure to do is read the reviews of the products, because there are people on there selling substandard gear out of China. In fact there are whole stores on there that do that. When in doubt do an easy reverse image search, because that will tell you if multiple stores are selling the exact same item.
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.
Love the 50’s vibe of this jacket.
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.
I have loved The Misfits, Samhain and the original line-up of Danzig for about thirty-two years. Yes, I am that old. I even saw the original Danzig line-up perform in San Francisco in October of 1992 and it still holds up as the best show I have ever been to. This is all to say that I have always seriously loved the music of Glenn Danzig.
My all time favourite album is November Coming Fire by Samhain. I love it so much that I finally sought out and bought a mint condition first edition US vinyl pressing of it. I got it the other year for only about £140.00 so I know I am a lucky bitch. Early Danzig is my next favourite era followed by the original Misfits. No, I haven’t been to any of the Glenn fronted Misfits reunion shows, mainly because I now live in Europe. However, if the original Danzig line-up ever tours I would fly to New York, Philly or even Boston for that. Just saying.
Here are my all time favourite songs from each band. I enjoy sharing music so I hope that you find something that you really like and connect with.
Going to this show was kind of like a pilgrimage for me because I had not seen the band live for about 25 years. This was due to a combination of living in places were bands generally don’t stop at and being perpetually broke. I saw them live twice in the 90’s when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area so I at least got to see them perform before. I know how lucky I was. I currently live in the UK Channel Islands, which is far from just about everything. This means to see shows in England I have to fly into London, which isn’t exactly cheap. So for me to see a show there I have to really, really, really, etc.. be a huge fan of the band I am flying to see. Just saying this so that you know the viewpoint I am coming from; I am a huge fan of the band. I was diagnosed with MS about five years ago and I decided that I needed to see them again because I have no idea how physically screwed up I’m going to be in the future.
My husband and I were in the front of the line to get in, of course, and I met some very cool people and had some really good conversations about the band, the current state of goth music, the Dead Kennedys, Samhain and other subjects. I have forgotten their names because I suck in general at remembering such things so please do not be mad at me if you guys are reading this. You guys were awesome and it was very cool connecting with other people at a show.
The first band up was a duo named the West Wickhams who played a minimalist type of music consisting of guitar, a drum machine and some synth manipulation. I have to be honest, I am not the hugest fan of this type of goth music. However, the guitarist/singer was so earnest that they had me tapping my feet. That actually counts for a lot when you see bands live because you can instantly tell that they are really into performing their music and that they want you to go down a road of discovery with them. I hope that they keep at it and continue to do shows because their lyrics were really good.
Ghost Dance was up next and they were very energetic and looked like they were having fun. I only knew a few songs by them but they had me up from my seat and dancing, holding the railing for safety because my right ankle tends to give out on me. Anne Marie looked like she was having a great time and she interacted with the audience a bunch as evidenced by the photo above. She had some tech issues with her mic during the first song but that was sorted out and didn’t affect the performance at all. Their last song was Promised Land, which was a song that she originally performed with her earlier band Skeletal Family. I totally wasn’t expecting that so it was very cool hearing it performed live. Their performance was very good and if you have a chance to see them go for it because you will have a good time and not be disappointed.
Up next was Christian Death. Before they went on they had issues trying to set up their video on the screen that would be shown behind them. They ended up just removing the screen, which in the end didn’t really matter because their performance would have been great with or without it. I love their new album Evil Becomes Rule and they pretty much played the entire thing. The first two times I saw them there wasn’t a second guitarist so it was very cool getting to see both Maitri and Valor concentrate more on their parts within the songs. It enabled Maitri to put more emotion into singing songs such as Beautiful and it really showed off her vocals to a degree that I had never heard live before. In other words she was totally on fire during the show and she was more front and center than usual.
Valor also put on a really good performance because he got to concentrate on his singing and playing rhythm guitar instead of stretching himself too thin by playing lead guitar constantly. That is not to say that he didn’t play lead guitar at all, it just allowed him more of a choice as to what parts he wanted to perform. He has always been an excellent guitarist so I have absolutely no complaints about his playing at all. He even played some acoustic guitar which was very cool. Their other guitarist was Chuck Lenihan who also did an excellent job, along with their new drummer.
When you go to a Christian Death show you know that you are going to hear Valor railing against politicians, religion and the British royal family, and this show was no different. I actually really appreciate that side of his performance because too few musicians are using their platforms to say such things. He has always been outspoken and it is one of the reasons why I have always loved the band. It harkens back to how political punk was in the 80’s and it really shows the connection that he has always had with that music and subculture.
After they were done with playing the album they dove straight into Forgiven, This Glass House and then Sick Of Love. The audience was bouncing all over the place and there was such energy that you couldn’t help but join in. The audience was part of the reason that the show was so good. You could tell that all of them were into the music, and it was very awesome to see some teenagers in the audience also having a great time.
This next part still has me tripping out so please forgive me if I babble a bit about it and get disjointed. After Sick Of Love they left the stage for about five minutes and then came back out for an encore. I was very near the left hand side of the stage which was on the same level above the crowd. When Maitri came out she made a beeline towards me to the other side of the railing and asked if I was Megan. I responded that yes I was and she told me to come around the railing and get on stage with them. I was so surprised that I forgot my walking stick. I told her when I went around the curtain to the stage that I might fall and she said not to worry and reassured me that I would be okay. That relaxed me a bit which helped with my nervousness and it was a very sweet thing for her to say. I stood next to her while she told the crowd that I flew in from Guernsey; that I was a very supportive fan who defended them online and that I was very much appreciated for what I was doing for the band.
As you can well imagine by this point I was borderline teary but then something really astonishing happened. They announced that because of all of this I was going to get to join them in singing This Is Heresy as their encore. Holy shit! HOLY SHIT!!! I am not the greatest singer but by golly I belted my heart out! There were parts that I just let Valor sing because I previously knew that in live performances he sometimes goes off pace. However, by the last part of the song I was yelling ‘Soaked in the blood of men, not the body of Christ!’. After the end I gave them hugs, exited the stage and went to the merch area to wait for them there because they told the audience that they would come out for photos and autographs. Sure enough they did. My husband took a video on his camera of all of this, so once he figures out how to transfer it to me I will upload it in a new post.
I cannot overstate how much of a sweetheart Maitri is. She thanked me yet again, we got some more hugs in and I left her side just insanely happy knowing that I was able to make a difference as to how she is perceived as a musician.
Valor was absolutely no different. He is also a very nice and friendly person. We got to talking and I asked him if he had ever met Jello Biafra back in the early 80’s because there was a whole lot of cross pollination when it came to punk/deathrock type bands between San Francisco and Los Angeles during that time. Sure enough he told me about a car trip he took back then with Jello to San Francisco from Los Angeles. It made perfect sense since as songwriters they both write songs about pretty much the same topics. I mentioned Jello to Valor because him and Jello are the two lyricists who largely made me into who I am today; somebody who heavily questions politicians, religions and other such things. He was very grateful towards me for telling him that, which in turn meant a lot to me. The circle of life.
Without a doubt Valor and Maitri are the nicest musicians I have ever met. That is saying something because I met Henry Rollins over thirty years and he was a very cool person too. They definitely edge Rollins out to take the top spot on my list. If you have a chance to see this band live go for it because you will not be disappointed by their performance or by who they are as human beings.
Back in July the website tried to promote the very problematic band She Wants Revenge. Money is more important than the safety of women apparently. It was only taken down when enough of us complained.
I can well imagine that some of you are wondering why I am feeling the need to write out a post about such a peachy-keen site that promotes so many bands within the goth community. Well, sometimes things are not all that they seem to be; scratch the surface and sometimes you will find something very onerous underneath. Since I am not one to shy away from controversy I immediately knew that I has to write about this and tell people the truth as to what kind of website they are actually supporting.
So what kind of website is it and who originally started it? The original founder of post-punk dot com was Joshua Pfeiffer, and he started the site around 2004 to share information about the lesser known goth, post-punk and alternative bands that he was discovering. He couldn’t find a site online that was a repository of information about the music, so he scoured the internet, asked people, interviewed musicians and did a whole lot of independent research to create a site in which he could share his love of the music. He is also a musician and a DJ who has worked with a lot of people within the goth, alternative and punk communities. In other words the site was a work of love for him and the others who also participated in the day to day running of it. He did not do it for the money, and since it started to take more and more of his free time, which he didn’t have much of to begin with, he handed over the site to somebody who promised that they would run it in the same manner; Alex Baker, a promoter who was at the time living in New York.*
Who is Alex Baker? Where do I even begin; should I start off on what he claims he is or what he really is? Here are the basics. Our boy Alex is the son of a famous mainstream record producer. Who? At this point I really don’t care. I only know of this because our little Alex brags about it and shows 80’s photos of his dad with various famous musicians of the decade. I’m going to let Alex tell us what happened next, according to an interview that he gave in 2020.
In 2012 I started the process of taking over Post-Punk.com and relaunching it, which was done in 2014. Prior to this I had been doing event promotions in NYC, at clubs like The Limelight, Pyramid, CBGB’s, Knitting Factory and more, and had also ran a print publication.
Redakce / proti sedi
Funny how he doesn’t mention Joshua Pfeiffer, the person who actually created the site. Relaunching it into what exactly? Why would a website that is there to only share information need to be relaunched? Didn’t he promise that he wouldn’t change the site? Oh dear!
In the same magazine article quoted above he goes into how he moved to Berlin but it got too techno for him so he decided to move to Los Angeles part-time to be closer to all of the post-punk/alternative bands there. Oh, and he can travel to Europe to catch all of the music festivals there too. Needless to say the guy has a serious amount of cash. The kind of cash that you can’t make from running a website or from being a promoter within the subculture. He has to be getting money from his father to afford all of this. I’m not going to put him down for that because plenty of people that receive an inheritance or an annuity aren’t totally self absorbed liars. Rather, it is how he uses his money, or doesn’t, that I would like to have a chat about.
So, we have established that Alex is in no way broke and has a considerable amount of money that allows him to regularly travel to Europe. Since this is the case why does he charge bands for album reviews and always begs for money to support the site?
Let’s tackle the whole pay to play scam first. I know that some of you won’t know what this means, so I’ll explain. Back in the 50’s-70’s it was very common that when a music producer or record label wanted singles played on the radio they would quite often pay the radio stations to play the songs. So, whomever had the most money came up on top. It didn’t matter what they sounded like, as long as the radio stations received the cash they got played. Since I know all about how this pay to play scam works I was a bit shocked to see our little friend Alex pulling this shit right out in the open. Not only does he charge bands money to be reviewed, he also charges them money to get such things as an Instagram boost. As a person who has run my own blogs on and off for almost twenty years I know that you can link your site to your social media accounts so that you don’t have to bother doing it manually. Charging a goth/alternative/post-punk subculture band money for all of this feels as dirty as a rolled up dollar bill on the floor of a bathroom in a goth club. So, who gets the most coverage? Any band that has money. Right now that means all of the Joy Division/Cure clone ‘post-punk’ bands, because the youngsters really dig them and buy a lot of merch and music from them. I’m not knocking all of those bands, but how is it fair to the bands that are broke and trying to get their music out there? It isn’t and it sucks.
I took screen shots of the whole band submission process on post-punk dot com. Come with me on a voyage of greed on the HMS Post-Punk! I will post a photo and explain what you are seeing underneath.
Awwww……how sweet they want to give us high-quality video content. We are pretending we are a band right now so go along with it. We are in hiding.
I just picked that we wanted an article published about us. Why? Because we play good music and are cool. Don’t forget that!
Would we like our music reviewed? Of course we would because we play good music and want people to find out about it. Wouldn’t our review just automatically appear on their Instagram page when they post it onto their site? WHAT!!!!! A ‘contribution’ amount of $150 for them to write a review and create an Instagram post of us? Why should we be contributing any money to a website that was meant to just be a central repository of band information in the first place? Oh wait, that’s right, when our friend Alex took over the site he decided to turn it into something that his daddy would be proud of; a mainstream endorsed music website that is all about the cash and who you know, rather than simply being about the music. I have even heard talk from different people who ‘know’ that Alex is also only allowing bands on the site that he deems ‘attractive’, that they need to have a certain ‘look’.
This doesn’t stop out dear Alex from regularly asking for yet more money to run the site, even though the dude is loaded. So, not only is he a liar he is money hungry as well.
Awww….look at Alex. He’s started a fundraiser for the site even though he is charging for reviews AND is loaded.
He even tried to crowdfund over £20,000 to start a print magazine, and it failed. Finally some good news.
What is the real reason behind why he took over the website in the first place? He wants the power and clout that owning a popular site within the subculture gives him. He wants to be the person that the mainstream music press goes to when they want their questions about goth/post-punk music answered. He wants to be the person who appears on podcast shows talking about the bands that he ‘discovered’. He wants his head up on a post-punk Mt. Rushmore sandwiched between Ian Curtis and Peter Hook. For him this is all a means to an end, with the help of his dad’s money and connections.
The last thing I want to discuss is something that really cracked me up. Since I knew that I was going to be writing this I kind of paid attention to the website’s Facebook page. The other day the below post appeared, and by golly do I have a lot to say about it!
Can you imagine somebody being so out of touch with reality that they would think that posting about the Dead Kennedys would give them some punk cred? Wonder no more because Alex has struck again! This has proven to me that he has never actually ‘listened’ to the Dead Kennedys. Jello Biafra would verbally demolish him because he has ALWAYS been against the mainstream music industry and what they represent. So much so that he wrote a song on the subject called Anarchy For Sale, about how corporations steal ideas and try to sell them back to the subculture that they stole them from in the first place. Sound familiar?
More and more people are whispering about all of this and are genuinely scared to say anything because of the power that he is currently holding over every single musician in the subculture. I have no doubt that Alex really enjoys holding the sword of Damocles above their necks, In fact he probably gets off on it.
I’ve been into goth/alternative/punk music for over 35 years now. Over that time I have witnessed some very egregious shit go down, but I must say that this is the first time I have seen somebody with obvious mainstream ties try to buy their way into the subculture. You can have all of the money in the world, but that won’t make you ‘authentic’. Do you know the people who are actually authentic within the goth/alternative/punk subcultures? The people who actually ‘listen’ to the music and love it for what it is; not for some perceived clout. They can be broke as hell and dress in clothes they got from Walmart but because they actually ‘listen’ to the music that will always make them more authentic than our boy Alex will ever be.
I was originally going to make that last paragraph the end of this article but since little Alex seems to love posting about the Dead Kennedys without actually ‘listening’ to them I thought I would help him out. These are all of the songs from their album Bedtime For Democracy that really fit into this entire situation quite well! Remember, these songs are just from one of their albums. Enjoy Alex!
Anarchy For Sale (1986)
Chickenshit Conformist (1986)
Hop With The Jet Set (1986)
Macho Insecurity (1986)
I Spy (1986)
*I’m now told that Alex actually bought the site in an auction when Joshua couldn’t afford the website any longer. Alex still ruined the site, so this doesn’t make any real difference.
Just so that you know what side of the equation I stand on. Jello is life.
Imagine my shock and horror when I found out that an article about ‘goth’ had appeared on MTV’s website. Why shock and horror? Because MTV has had a very long history of promoting corporate music. The Dead Kennedys back in the 80’s knew what was up and Jello even penned an excellent song detailing the issues surrounding the channel. About forty years later and nothing has changed.
First off, before I get stuck in, when the fuck did it become cool to be excited about MTV? I was a teen in the 80’s, so yes I did watch it back then. However, by the late 80’s I understood what was going on; they were trying to sell and promote their idea of ‘cool’ to me. By the time The Beastie Boys came about with their very sexist and frat boy bullshit the channel was dead to me. Where I lived at the time there was a local channel that would show obscure alternative/modern rock videos every weekday late in the afternoon and I would always watch it. It was the music that was too ‘out there’ for MTV, so I was very fortunate. I know this.
Let’s begin! I will be showing the sections I have issues with and then I will give a response.
‘ How e-kid style presaged the dark subculture’s resurgence… ‘
From the very start this article makes me wince. The term ‘presaged’ means a sign or warning of an imminent event. I fully don’t understand how some e-kid fashion victims had anything to do with the goth music resurgence that has been happening for the last few years. Oh wait…the author is equating goth with just a fashion style? Oh dear.
‘ A new aesthetic inspired by Y2K futurism, anime, nu-metal, mall goth, and mid-’00s emo rose among a group dubbed the “e-kids.” This interest in 2K culture reignited an adjacent style as well: goth fashion and, by extension, goth music. ‘
Um….no, just no. The whole ‘e-kid’ crap did not reignite goth fashion or goth music. Goth fashion and goth music never went away, it has always been around. These e-kids are so desperate for an identity, any identity, that they try them on and then throw them away once they are done with them after a few months. Teens have always done this sort of thing, but because of the internet they just go through identities way more quickly and in a more shallow manner. For example, if these kids want to be ‘goth’ they will get their parents to buy them entire outfits from dark alternative clothing websites and ask around as to how they should do their make-up so that they can be judged as a ‘true goth’. For many that is how deep it goes; just a ready made fashion statement, a box to fit themselves into. Do some of them actually get into goth music? Of course, but I think they are heavily outnumbered by the ones who don’t.
‘ The roots of goth are deep and nuanced. Starting in the late 1970s and into the 1980s in the United Kingdom as an offshoot of post-punk acts like Killing Joke, as well as the rich voice of Nico, goth took inspiration from Victorian-era dress (long black gowns, lace, boots, and clove cigarettes), literature, society, and the grim theatrical nature of the early 20th century vamps and silent film stars, like Theda Bara. The term “goth” as an adjective for music wasn’t recorded until 1967, when music critic John Stickney called The Doors “gothic rock.” During the ’70s, goth developed in the United States with bands like Christian Death, known for seminal hits like 1982’s “Romeo’s Distress.” Some of the most famous goth groups in the ’80s — many of whom remain shorthand for the very word — include The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Joy Division. ‘
I know that I just quoted an entire paragraph, but there is just so much to unpack here that I feel like I have no choice in the matter. The goth subculture, which is mainly about the music, came right out of punk. The clothing aspect of the goth subculture also came right out of punk. Earlier goth bands, like Sex Gang Children, still had the punk ethos of making music that challenged people, that made people think. They just did it more artistically than the punk music that inspired them. Also, not everybody back then copied Victorian fashion. People within the early subculture were not just one block of people listening to Bauhaus and dressing like fainting Victorian ingenues. What does smoking cloves have to do with the Victorians? I just liked cloves in the late 80’s because they tasted good and you could get really tripped out by spinning around while you inhaled. That was a thing within my friend group. Yes, it is okay to find that funny because it is.
Oh no, not the whole The Doors were the first band to be called ‘gothic rock’ trope. No matter how many times people are corrected about this it always manages to bubble to the surface like toxic goo. Since the goth subculture didn’t exist in the 1960’s how the hell could the band be considered goth? What the reporter back in the 1960’s meant is that The Doors had a sound that could be called foreboding and dark; in other words gothic, because that is what the term means. The term gothic does not always equate the term goth, they can mean totally different things; one is about a subculture, the other is a style of architecture and literature.
I do not know how many more times I have to repeat this but JOY DIVISION IS NOT A GOTH BAND. I even wrote an earlier blog post all about the subject. Ian Curtis killed himself in early 1980, before the subculture was even formed so that fact alone throws the whole thing out the window. Did Joy Division inspire a lot of goth bands during the 80’s? Sure. Were they themselves a goth band? That would be a no, because they influenced tons of bands that were in no way goth like U2. Plus, I think fitting Joy Division into a neat and tidy goth box does the music of the band a disservice. I have always considered The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees to both be dark pop bands that some goths happen to like. I saw The Cure live in 1987 headlining a sold out arena show. You weren’t an underground band back then if you sold out a venue like that. Plus, both bands were played on the more mainstream stations back in the 80’s. That is how I first heard The Cure back then; Boys Don’t Cry being played on a regular pop station that my then friends were listening to.
‘ As social media has since taken over culture, and as apps progress and new ones launch, subcultures develop from terminally online lifestyles where the association lines are often blurred. What is or isn’t goth becomes harder to identify. ‘
I actually agree with this bit a little. Social media has taken over culture to some degree, BUT only as much as an individual wants it to. It is still totally possible to have a social life outside of social media, especially since clubs are opening up again and bands are touring. Social media isn’t the be all and end all of the goth, or any other, subculture. Yes, what is and isn’t goth is harder for newer people to identify. I know that the author was trying to do a good thing by sharing all of this, but in the end all articles such as this, that spread misinformation, are doing more harm than good. Especially considering that this article was published over on the website of MTV.
‘ Today, it feels fitting for goth to be passed down through TikTok, just like it was through Tumblr in the 2000s with soft grunge and pastel goth taking over adolescent closets, with looks built from black velvet chokers, flannels, and shorts styled with black nylons. The neo-goth invasion picked up steam in 2020 when Belarus-based band Molchat Doma’s album Etahzi started gaining traction, with users clinging to the track “Sudno” and soundtracking the song by posting pictures from Soviet-era Europe, both romanticizing it and showing the harsh reality of life in the Eastern Bloc. ‘
Oh dear god so much to unpack here. When they mention ‘goth’ being passed down through Tumbler to TikTok all they are meaning is the fashion. Sorry to tell everybody who doesn’t know but ‘grunge’ was pre-packaged rebellion sold to the masses in the 90’s by record execs and MTV. I was there, that is all it was. It had nothing to do with the goth subculture at all. Nothing. I wore ripped shorts with tights underneath them in high school in the late 80’s, and I even had a flannel shirt or two. Both things were worn by people in the metal, punk, and every other alternative subculture at the time. This fashion was only made popular when MTV got a hold of it in the early 90’s and all of a sudden it became popular to look like the unpopular kids. Since the 80’s are still hugely popular teens only liked Molchat Doma because their music sounds like it came out of Stranger Things. It’s just 80’s nostalgia, it doesn’t go any deeper than that.
‘Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based musician and producer Aryan Ashtiani, who goes by the moniker Mareux, became a TikTok sensation overnight with his 2021 cover of The Cure’s “The Perfect Girl,” taking a floaty song originally from their 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me to gritty electronic depths. Mareux’s synth-heavy reinterpretation sparked a movement on TikTok, with some well-known users posting videos using it as a backing. Mareux was shocked. “There were a few very famous TikTokers who used the song back in summer ’21. This gave it that boost overnight,” he tells MTV News. “From there, it ran rampant on various edits and meme videos and continues to this day.”’
Who? I honestly don’t know who this person is. Does that make me terminally old and not hip? Sure. I just listened to the song and it’s meh? In all honesty it just sounds like an amalgamation of all of the sounds that teens associate with 80’s music all mixed together ready for easy consumption. That is exactly why it got popular with that set of people. Again, it’s just 80’s nostalgia boosted by Stranger Things. Next!
‘Last year, Dua Lipa was photographed by Jordan Hemingway for 032c, styled in a Trad Goth look inspired by Siouxsie Sioux. GothTok celebrity Zander Buel, a.k.a. awfullysinister, posted a video praising her for the ensemble, saying, “I think she looks great! She nailed it.” Buel is another face of the subculture on the internet.’
Again, I have no idea who these two people are, however I remember when this happened. The people who I remember freaking out the most about this were all of the self described ‘goth’ teens, who thought being goth was just about image and that’s it. I have let it be known before but I cannot stand the whole ‘trad goth’ trope. It’s just goth for fucks sake, take the term ‘trad’ and throw it into the waste-bin where it belongs with all of the other ‘goth types’.
‘“When goth goes through this cycle, like it does every so often where it has its ascendance in popularity, it takes a bunch of people with it,” he says. “Some of the people, it spits back out, and those people move on to the next thing. But some people, it takes with them, and then they keep that long-term interest in that label, and they stay within it and they continue to listen to the music, or they go to the clubs and shows, and they discover new bands.”’
This is the only full paragraph in the whole article that I feel is 100% correct. Most of these teens right now are probably going to move on within the next year or two and some will indeed stick with it and really get into the music. This happens in every subculture.
‘Dusty Gannon, of the band Vision Video, has become TikTok’s “Goth Dad,” a comedic character he made up to provide reassurance and levity through his dad jokes, makeup tutorials, and advice, while also promoting his music. Aside from being a digital dad, Gannon has focused energy on explaining goth culture and history, and the importance of maintaining a safe community.’
I am going to be wording my response to this bit very carefully. Gannon has created a gimmick and has made it his profession; he recently quit his job to be a full-time musician. On the one hand I think good for him for carving out his own niche within the goth community, but on the other hand my stranger danger hackles rise up because who financially can take a chance like that right now? I’m not saying he is a bad person at all, just that the way he promotes himself specifically to teens can be easily seen as such by people who are older and who have been around the block a few times. He just ticks off so many boxes that it feels like an act of some kind to me. If you enjoy him and his music more power to you, I just can’t support him. You do you.
‘ Where is the future headed? Bauhaus, one of the original goth bands, released a new single for the first time in 14 years in March, and they are touring again. ‘
…..and the single sounds exactly like the music that they made forty years ago. No real growth.
‘ “Most of the other artists have not embraced TikTok because they think it’s cringe or detracts from their brand. I saw a huge opportunity to connect with fans and create new ones and haven’t looked back,” he says. “In regards to younger people, I think a lot of the stigma towards goth and alternative cultures in the past was linked to homophobia. Now that mainstream culture is more open and accepting, I think a lot of these previously disenfranchised scenes will continue to flourish.” ‘
Homophobia was huge period until fairly recently. If you looked too different in the 80’s/90’s, no matter how you dressed, you were called a faggot. Funnily enough those name calling people got into ‘grunge’ and played at being alternative until that trend died with Cobain. They would drive their cars around blasting Smells Like Teen Spirit while yelling ‘faggot’ at you as they drove by. Anybody who was around back then knows exactly the crowd I am talking about. Mainstream culture has never been as accepting as it appears; scratch the surface and you find out what is really going on.
‘ As the scene grows, the community is full of Baby Bats and Elder Goths ready to share the experience of dancing to darkly dazzling tunes and breathing in fog from the smoke machines. However, that only happens if we continue passing down the music and fashion. TikTok is divisive, but it can be influential, opening doors into new worlds and allowing us to experience other avenues of expression and art. Beyond likes and views, exposure is paramount. ‘
Exposure to actual goth music is indeed important to the continuation of the subculture. However, when the music being shared is not goth by any stretch of the term that is when all of the confusion sets in. It is the reason why a lot of older folks, such as myself, largely stay away from specifically TikTok. TikTok is divisive because of all of this and more. Not to mention the fact that it is a phone app being used by the Chinese government to spy and collect data on people.
‘ “It’s probably going to be a mess for a while,” he continues. “It’s in a transitional stage where it’s becoming very mainstream. People love to fight and argue and gatekeep online, so I can see it staying ugly for a while. Still, that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of cool creators and new artists to discover.” ‘
Gatekeep? More like telling the truth. A huge issue right now is people throwing that word around when they are told the truth about goth music and the goth subculture. When they find out that their favourite black metal band is in fact not considered to be a goth band they get all pissed off and throw around the term like rice at a wedding. Goth music has parameters, and without them there wouldn’t be a goth genre of music or even a subculture for that matter. It’s a music based subculture. If it was based on just wearing black, like some younger people and publications still think, then wouldn’t you see priests and nuns dancing around in goth clubs to This Is Heresy by Christian Death?
