Some of the very cool patches and badges I have found on Temu.
Over the last few weeks I have seen online more and more talk about classism and how it heavily affects those with little to no money. Almost all fashion these days can easily be considered ‘fast fashion’ since most clothing is now made in developing countries. The only way you are going to completely avoid it is if you buy used clothing or something handmade, and that isn’t as easy as some would make you believe.
Last week I went into town and visited the three charity shops there. I found nothing because they were all majorly picked over. Resellers actively go to these shops, and one of them has even opened their own local shop selling these clothes for way more cash. I’m not even joking. This type of thing is happening everywhere, so where the heck are ‘dark alternative’ type people supposed to find affordable clothing or accessories? On Poshmark and other related used product websites? Again many of the used products on those type of sites are very overpriced and not affordable for a whole chunk of people.
As you know I do a whole lot of DIY type projects and I frequently upcycle clothes that I find on clearance at my local New Look store. In the past I also bought a whole lot of clearance items off of Killstar for projects. Within the last year I have completely stopped buying anything from them because the quality of their items has jumped off of a cliff. In fact the quality of most ‘dark alternative’ type clothing is in the gutter right now; charging lots of money for items that you can find on Shein or Temu for a fraction of the price. Unfortunately this happens so frequently on Etsy that you have to do constant reverse image searches so that you don’t get ripped off.
Since all of this is the case why the hell should ‘dark alternative’ type people be shamed for buying what they can afford? It is often said that you can dress any way you want to if you are goth, but this is often paired with a wagging finger telling you where you should or should not shop. In a perfect world it would be great if fast fashion didn’t exist, but the world isn’t perfect and people have to buy clothing and accessories from somewhere. Yes, it is easy to do certain DIY type projects but you need supplies to do so and it can get very expensive gathering them together. The only people who shop on Shein and Temu who deserve any sort of derision are those who constantly make huge orders of things that they will more than likely almost never use. That is their business and they can do what they like, but it really comes across as being extremely wasteful.
My advice? Only buy things that you know you will either wear or turn into DIY type projects. Recently I browsed Temu for the first time and I actually found some very cool patches and badges. To my surprise I was also able to find and buy different Halloween themed ribbons and fabrics for fairly cheap. Where I live Halloween isn’t celebrated as heavily as in the US so I can’t find the same items in a store near me.
If any goth or ‘dark alternative’, uber goober gives you crap for shopping on Shein and Temu tell them to mind their own business; if you are happy that is all that really counts.
I first heard about this a few days ago but this article really lays it all out, and I must say that I find this disturbing. As a huge fan of dystopian and post-apocalyptic media I automatically know that this type of ‘city’ never works out and always ends in tears. For whatever reason these Silicon Valley uber wealthy nerds think their idea is original. The above photo is from the film Logan’s Run which was made almost 50 years ago if that tells you anything.
This has been done by the Flannery Group who have quietly purchased 55,000 acres of farmland in Solano County in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are funded by various Silicon Valley wealthy investors, because of course they are. The American government has to know all about this because the land surrounds Travis Air Force Base. Since that government is run by the wealthy for the wealthy this doesn’t come as too much of a shock.
They say that this city will have thousands of new homes, clean transportation and orchards with millions of new trees. There will also be thousands of acres of open spaces and parks for the wealthy to enjoy. There is no way in hell that this is intended for people such as you and I. Make no mistake, this is intended as a ‘safe’ place for the wealthy as the environmental collapse worsens in the coming decades.
One of the things that really, really disturbs me about all of this is that where the hell are all of the workers serving these wealthy assholes going to live? Will they have to live in one room tenements in huge apartment blocks inside the walls or outside the walls? Will they have to wait in line twice a day to be bussed in and out? It just feels gross and classist as hell because you know that they will not have the same living standards as the wealthy.
This whole situation reminds me of the film The Land Of The Dead, in which the wealthy have their own walled off area away from the zombies. They have their own stores and they eat the best food as people outside the walls struggle just to survive. Eventually the walls are breached and their social experiment fails. Historically this always happens when the rich try to isolate themselves from everybody else. People living outside the walls will always breach them when they are hungry and don’t have food to feed their children. Maybe this is why they bought the land around the base; they expect the US military to protect them and their way of life.
Do I think that they will actually build it? I can’t imagine that the locals are happy about this, so I can’t see this being easily done. I think the only way that they are going to be able to build this is if they have direct deals with the U. S. federal government. Maybe they will promise homes for politicians in exchange for help in passing laws? Whatever the outcome this is just another case of the wealthy throwing money at an issue; building an environmentally sound city instead of actually trying to stop climate change from happening.
I think the last time I celebrated the 4th of July was in the late 80’s when I was a teen, and even back then I knew what was up; the racist Reagan administration sucked and there was nothing to truly celebrate. As of right now the Supreme Court has struck down a law concerning Affirmative Action and is now allowing businesses to discriminate against others for any reason they wish. They don’t like the colour of your skin? They can refuse to serve you now. The United States is very quickly becoming a true fascist state and I for one never want to go there again. FUCK THE USA!!!!!
What is WGT I can hear some of you asking. It is the huge German goth music festival Wave Gotik Treffen that takes place In Leipzig every year. It is one of the largest goth music festivals in the world and people travel from everywhere to go to it.
Two people named Jean-Luc and Miss X wrote this article specifically for English speaking festival participants since many do not know all of the right wing neo-Nazi crap that has been happening at the festival. Everything from known neo-Nazi musicians being allowed to play at the event to white nationalists being allowed to set up stalls to share their hate filled agendas. The German press has reported on these very problematic issues, but such articles have not really gained traction outside of Germany. According to the article the people who run WGT will ban people from the festival if they speak out against it.
Well, quite frankly, since I have never been into music festivals I really don’t give a shit if I am on their permanently ‘banned’ list. I have included the entire article here, and I will give my thoughts under some of the sections. The section titles were created by the authors and the article can be found here. All working links are theirs as are grammatical mistakes. It was published on June the 3rd of 2023.
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For more than 20 years, one of the largest Goth festivals on the planet is working with artists and publishers that are affiliated with far right extremism, meaning they book them or allow them to run their business on the festival premisses. The company behind the festival is doing this consistently and repeatedly and this is no secret. There is very little discourse regarding this in the goth scene and there has been next to no impact in the few years where it has been mentioned. Newspapers and magazines covered this, everything you can say on the matter is old news, except for the fact that this is not historical information, this is ongoing. The only people that are still really on the matter are local Antifa groups.
Since I have zero interest in attending music festivals I personally have never looked into the history of WGT. Since so many people from the UK and the US go every year you would think that the news about all of this white nationalist shit would have gotten out, but apparently people are scared to speak out?
Why write about this at all?
We believe this is relevant. Far right ideologies have real world debilitating impact. jl grew up with his family exposed in the Yugoslav civil war, a war motivated by nationalist ideology and racism. His family never fully recovered from the propaganda tactics used to promote division. Today most of us are in some way impacted by Russia’s criminal war on Ukraine that is motivated by the ultranationalist ideologies of figures like Alexander Dugin. Sociopolitical developments like these benefit from a soundtrack, from some emotional priming, from social events normalising the motives.
There has been a marked rise lately of this within alternative subcultures and in society in general.
WGT has a history of platforming artists and publishers promoting these motives. At the same time the festival never positioned itself, never distanced itself from the far right, claiming to be apolitical, which in practice meant they don’t wanna talk about it.
Most of the time when somebody says they are apolitical that just means they support a far right agenda and are too chickenshit to share their real views. White nationalists tend to be cowards. I, and others in leftist circles, have witnessed this over and over again.
When X talked about these things in a series of instagram stories on Monday, we learned that surprisingly many non German speakers had no clue about these things, so obviously there are still some people that can consider this whole story news. And maybe some of the Germans are too young to know.
I’m still surprised as hell that this news has been so well hidden outside of Germany.
When we asked ourselves why these people had no clue, we figured there is hardly any non German info on this (unless you wanna do research on some Russian neofolk fan forums or something).
We decided to change this and give our international friends some insights on things German goths don’t seem super happy to discuss.
I give them props for wanting to bring all of this dankness into the light.
So what’s happening at WGT?
This little article does not have the right scope to give you a full chronicle of events. What we’d however like to help you understand is that WGT as a festival is open to far right extremists over years and decades, even over two different companies organising the festival. If we would look at all of the individual occurrences we could claim accidents, but instead this all repeats. It is a constant of the festival, it is a feature, not a bug. We can’t tell whether this extreme right influences are just bound to a some small group of individuals or whether it is a small yet intrinsic element of the scene. No clue. But to give you a bit of background we compiled some facts and events to give a concrete idea what this is about, so you can decide for yourself.
I totally wouldn’t be surprised if this is a concerted effort on the part of German white nationalist groups to spread their message to a larger audience. Obviously somebody has connections with festival organizers in Germany to be able to pull off this level of crap.
In the year 2000, Mayor of Leipzig Holger Tschense feels forced by public pressure to prohibit Joseph Klumb, frontman of “Von Thronstahl”, to perform at the festival. The promoters do not cancel the slot though, so the band plays their CD while standing on stage in protest, holding a shovel and a flag with a black sun on it, a symbol originating in Nazi Germany, first seen in a floor mosaic in Heinrich Himmlers fancy little SS castle. The audience cheers the performance in front of Völkerschlachtdenkmal. This gig is not listed in WGT’s gig history, but if you google it you can still find the limited edition live recording from 2001 on discogs released on Fasci-Nation Recordings. Distributed by VAWS, which we’ll go into later. Von Thronstahl also wrote about the performance on their own webpage – we’re not going to link to that, you can find that yourself if you really want to look at it.
This is just so fucked up I can’t.
In 2009, WGT printed Heinrich Himmlers black sun (see above) on the festival’s “Obsorgekarte”, the ticket you needed for camping and public transport in Leipzig. Goth band ASP wrotea public protest note (in German) and announced they wouldn’t play WGT ever again unless the promoter would give an apology and explanation. The explanation they received was not signed in the name of the company, but rather by individuals. They claimed that none of the cultural creators involved is following any political goals with WGT and that the black sun is somehow about the 2000 year jubilee of the Varus battle. This legendary battle of Germanic tribes against the Romans was used several times throughout history to create an emotional backing for a political unity of Germany, to create some founding narrative of Germany that is predating any modern constitution. While there are in fact similar looking objects used by the tribes of the time, these are not the ones WGT used. They used the 12 S-runes, as found on Heinrich Himmler’s beloved floor piece. ASP wasn’t happy with that explanation and never showed up again. Threads about the issue in the official WGT forum were deleted by admins citing a “no politics” forum policy.
I actually know quite a bit about the ancient Roman Empire. In one form or another it lasted about 2,000 years, while the Nazis were in power for less than twenty. The Nazis were losers, just like modern German white nationalists. It’s gross as hell that they got away with this shit in the year 2009. The organizers of the WGT are pathetic for allowing this crap to happen. Kudos to ASP for refusing to play a show there.
For decades now, publisher VAWS has a booth in the merch area. The people that distributed that Fasci-Nation limited edition Von Thronstahl record according to discogs. The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution took note of the company in 2002 and reported: “Through special offers and events, the alleged fascination with the aesthetics of fascism and National Socialism is to be revived, thus promoting right-wing extremist views on a cultural level.”. If you must, check out their website, you should be able to figure the general idea. You’ll find yourself somewhere between “Covid is a bio weapon”, “Argentinian exile Nazi isn’t really a Nazi” and “Let’s sell industrial tracks by putting tits on the cover”. Maybe you also wanna buy some Riefenstahl stuff.
They are allowed a booth there and nobody has done anything against it? The festival has the numbers to run this kind of shit out physically so why are people sitting on their hands? If I was wandering around a festival and saw that kind of shit I would have some very heated words and I might accidentally knock things down with my cane.
In 2015, WGT booked Majdanek Waltz, an openly fascist Russian band named after the concentration and extermination camp Majdanek. These are people that like to sing about how much they love their swastika. You can’t make this shit up. A German article looking into the band and its lyrics can be found here.
FFS
In 2022, WGT booked Of The Moon And The Wand, which has long-standing ties to nazi band Der Blutharsch. It was the seventh time the band played the festival. A local Antifa page posted a German article about it here.
Disgusting.
In 1999, 2009 and also this year 2023 Fire + Ice performs at WGT. Frontman Ian Read, when asked in an interview about fascist and racist ideas, utters that he feels that no idea is completely worthless. Read claims that Germans suffer from a post war brain wash and should stop thinking about what is “correct”. He claimed that in this context of this brainwash the German abbreviation for concentration camp (Konzentrationslager) was changed from KL to KZ to make it sound more scary, implying that some kind of post war propaganda is trying to make things seem worse than they are. The thing with the change of abbreviation is even correct, except this change was done earlier as you can read in Eugen Kogons 1946 book “Der SS-Staat”. Kogon, himself a concentration camp inmate, writes that SS Soldiers preferred KZ over the official abbreviation because it sounds more, well, scary. Some more comprehensive background in English can be found here.
That dude who threw that famous punch in Seattle a few years back needs to get his ass to WGT because he is needed there. I can’t believe people just stand there and let this shit happen. That is what blows my mind the most about this.
Also this year, Austrian stand-up comedian Lisa Eckhart was booked. She’s among that breed of comedians who make money by saying “controversial” things, on national TV. Let me give you examples: “The erection of the black person’s penis requires all seven litres of blood that a human being has at his disposal.” or how do you like: “Paying reparations to the Jews is like giving Red Bull founder Mateschitz a Red Bull.”. Lisa likes using the N-Word a lot and believes that Asian people see the world in widescreen blockbuster format. That’s why they’re so afraid of Covid, you know? That’s all not enough to put her in the nazi corner I guess. She however works hard to stretch boundaries.
Somebody should have pelted her with eggs. Just saying.
Who feels like they are getting an advantage out of her work? VAWS had her face plastered all over their booth. This might give a hint. The fact that she, of all German-speaking standup comedians, was booked despite having no known goth scene relationship will give you another.
This is one of the reasons why I think a white nationalist network is behind this shit. Its coordinated.
As previously mentioned, the above list of events is not comprehensive and we could go on for a while, but we’ll leave it like this because we have other, better hobbies.
So what does this all mean?
WGT is a festival that is very open towards the right and even the extremist right. This is not a bug, it’s a feature. For decades it is a selling point of the festival. If you look at their language, their collabs, their general behaviour you will find dogwhistles and hints. If you look at how they whined on facebook in 2022 about how the city of Leipzig offered parts of the festival ground to Ukrainian refugees, inconveniencing their festival planning, there was barely any expression of solidarity. They simply blamed Leipzig. One could say that’s not too surprising for a promoter that likes to book Russians that like their swastikas a lot. Despite all this, people come to the festival like clockwork, every damn year.
What a bunch of assholes. Seriously.
What we see is of course not a right wing subversion of the scene as a whole. What we see is a scene that seems largely indifferent to their openness to the extreme right. People are unwilling to raise any critical voice, don’t care enough or have no clue what to do. Likely many festival goers feel like their culture was taken hostage by people they actually don’t wanna hang with. WGT is the one big party where they meet all their friends and they want to have a god time and there is no reason to deny them a good time. It’s like facebook. It’s kinda shit, but we can’t really agree on where else to go. And of course there are actual nationalists, conspiracy nutters, third reich apologists, blood and soil occultists and tons of boring, conservative boomers on top. This interesting mixture produces bizarre situations.
It is the time honoured ‘not wanting to lose goth scene cred’ excuse. Nobody wants to step up and say shit because they are afraid of losing that cred and I find that pathetic as hell. Especially when it involves excusing away neo-Nazi talking points. Remember kids, it is more important to attend a festival and be ‘seen’ than to openly act against neo-Nazis.
Recently I saw that one Tobias Theiss is making a free android app (WGT-Guide) that helps visitors to organise their party schedule. WGT has a lot of venues and stages, so this app is helpful. Since Tobias righteously doesn’t like these fascist tendencies, he omits certain acts from the app and doesn’t show them. This way he produces an independent app, for free, that adds value to a festival with above track record and calls this anti-fascist action. We can’t blame Tobias and I salute him for his service for the community, and for not going crazy because of the 1-Star reviews right wingers give him on the google play store. Still, that’s an interesting kind of mental gymnastics, that might be familiar to many people that participate and feel not perfectly well about it.
That is cool that he refuses to list the neo-Nazi crap on his WGT app. He shouldn’t have had to make it in the first place, but this is the world we are living in right now.
So what do?
We don’t go to WGT because we’re tired of that crap and do not want to put money there. It’s not even that someone books a Nazi band in Sachsen, that happens all the time. It’s rather the jarring indifference of the the scene, audience and artists alike. We very much understand that not going isn’t a good option for other people. But if you’re not indifferent as a festival goer and are just wondering what you actually can do about this, we have a few ideas.
Proves that parts of the goth subculture are still apathetic as hell. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because the same shit was happening over thirty years ago.
First off: share this information. This is not for the fame and follows, but certainly it would be helpful to let people know. WGT deems itself “unpolitical” in the sense that it doesn’t want to discuss politics. This does not apply to us. The goth scene is not discussing these things enough – we assumed everyone knew, but judging from the amount of very concerned DMs we got, that’s not the case. As mentioned in the intro, on some of this stuff we couldn’t even find sources in English. Feel free to share any of the things we made available or use them as a reference. If you do decide not to go to WGT, and people ask why you’re staying home, tell them why.
Please share the article, because more English speakers do indeed need to learn about this.
Inform yourself about how to spot a neo-nazi, which symbols and dogwhistles are in circulation etc, so you can act on it if you see them.
A link all about the symbols and groups is further down..
If you’re an artist and WGT tries to book you, we understand that this is a good career opportunity for you and it’s difficult to say no. Please consider that being on a stage gives you a platform, and you can use that platform to make a statement. Nobody said your performance can’t include some educational content or that you can’t curate your audience by telling certain people to leave. Nobody said you can’t do a diss track. Nobody said you can’t publicly stand up for something.
I wish more bands would speak out while on stage.
Make it uncomfortable to be a neo-nazi or to be in close proximity to them. Leave the situation or conversation and tell people why. If you feel up for it, you can confront people directly, but only do this if you feel it’s safe for you to do so, and remember you don’t owe these people a debate about their batshit ideas. In Germany, you can actually call the police if you see a suspicious symbol. There’s a good chance the symbol is illegal or restricted and you don’t even have to be there while the cops sort it out.
Good advice. Some neo-Nazis are very violent so if you are going to confront one in person make sure you have friends with you who will back you up.
You will possibly find more familiar stuff in there than you would like.
Contact any organisation that allows this stuff on its premises and demand an explanation and apology for why it is there. Demand that they correct the situation. You can write them an email or call them out publicly, whatever suits your comfort level. Again, if you feel safe, you can ask people at the festival directly.
This is so important. If people do not confront neo-Nazis they feel safe which is something that should never be allowed to happen.
Be however informed that people criticising WGT are reported to have lost access to festival accreditation over it before, so if you are a journalist or photographer, keep this in mind.
I don’t give a shit since I will never go to it. Plus, calling out neo-Nazis is more important than going to a festival. Especially when the festival is allowing neo-Nazis on stage and in booths.
“People like us need to stop fuelling dystopias only because we grew up loving its aesthetics.”
Marco Visconti distilled it all down to this one very handy statement. It is not wise to help make negative expectation and dystopian outlooks a reality. Not on an individual, not on a sociocultural or political level. While this is a different and pretty complex issue that can be addressed another time: our stories and images matter. Our relationship to them matters and it shapes out reality. We hope this resource will help you to navigate all this for yourself and will help you to take charge if you feel you should.
From the title of this blog you know I love dystopian and post-apocalyptic media, however I would never support neo-Nazi crap. Plague? Sure. Earthquakes? Sure. Space alien invasion? Sure. Neo-Nazi crap? Hell no!
I hope sharing this article has helped people learn the truth as to what is really going down at WGT. Please share this or the article itself so that people can make an informed decision as to whether they want to go next year or not.
These screenshots pretty much speak for themselves so I will not be doing a ton of commentary on them.
Apparently Amy thinks she is an expert when it comes to people being transgendered. Go figure.
Here she is again pretending to be an expert as to who can and can’t be transgendered.
Awwwww……..look how nice and pleasant she is.
How dare ANTIFA stand against right wing bullshit, how dare they! Amy reminds us to think of the businesses, because apparently they are more important than basic human rights. Said like a good little right wing capitalist bitch. That is all for now.
This has got to be one of the most epic ‘fucked around and found out’ chain of events I have ever witnessed online, so I thought I would share since sharing is caring.
Amy Lionheart is a gamer and goth who posts videos of her playing Soul Caliber, among other games, over on YouTube. I only knew about her because she is one of the people who came after me for attacking Madi Danger for having white nationalist beliefs. What is important to note is that Amy is a person of colour who is proud of her Puerto Rican heritage. Yet, she sure loves aligning herself with far right wing racist individuals.
I actually cackled when I read the above interaction. She claims that she doesn’t like both parties, but that lie is exposed when somebody presents her with a screenshot that they took of her liking and following Libs Of TikTok. Libs Of TikTok is a right wing account that mocks the LGBTQ+ community and they spread misinformation and hate about them. The bitch forgot that her likes and follows are public; she isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Oh…it gets better.
Yep, Amy liked and followed Tim Pool. I think any pretense that she has for claiming that she doesn’t like both sides is pretty much dead and buried at this point. I swear, every single time somebody claims that they dislike both sides they end up being exposed as a right wing moron. This isn’t any different. She is fulfilling the time honored tradition of fucking around and finding out.
So, she thinks people are behaving like ‘fascists’ for calling out right wing bullshit? Really shows you what side of the aisle she is really on. Bitch, you liked and follow Tim Pool so your actual love of fascism is showing. Oops.
After all of this she decided that it would be a great idea to write a really long tweet defending herself. Get the popcorn ready because this is going to be fun.
So she is claiming that she is basically gifting us her presence? Awww….what a sweet thing for her to do.
Being civil to one another does not include liking others who want the LGBTQ+ community to disappear. Sorry to tell you that but your hypocritical ‘takes’ are directly harming people in the gaming community. Supporting far right ideologies in not a valid opinion, rather it is pure hate. A valid opinion doesn’t include anything that might outright harm others.
My favourite part of the screenshot is when she admits to not voting because she feels it doesn’t matter. This kind of crap is the reason why Trump got elected and why so many states are now passing anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Please don’t think that voting doesn’t matter, because it will always matter.
This bitch is a bit dim to be jumping to these conclusions. She claims to be all of these ‘pro’ things yet likes Tim Pool and Libs Of Tik Tok? She doesn’t understand why it’s okay to be left leaning and not conservative in the gaming community. Hon, it’s because the majority of conservatives right now follow belief systems that want to see the basic human rights of the LGBTQ+ community vanished. That is why conservatives are not being tolerated. This just proves how far down the right wing rabbit hole she is hiding in. This chick ain’t coming out of it because she has pretty much been fully indoctrinated into a harmful belief system.
Some people would say that none of this is true because she is a person of colour. Enrique Tarrio, the now convicted leader of The Proud Boys, identifies as being Afro-Cuban, so that argument has flown right out the window. In fact here is an article from the site Axios which explains the rise of white nationalist Hispanics. Way back over thirty years ago I knew a guy who was half Filipino who turned into a WAR (white aryan resistance) skin overnight. Self hate is a real thing and it’s tragic as hell.
If you don’t have a problem with anybody based on their sexuality, identity, ethnicity, race or religious views then why are you liking and following Tim Pool and Libs Of TikTok, both of whom speak out against all of it? In reality she obviously takes issue with all of those things. She actively likes others with far right extremist views so her words are devoid of any sort of meaning. I can’t take this bitch at all seriously, mainly because actions speak far louder than words, and her actions are very problematic. People who are for the human rights of others are not going to be following Tim Pool or any of his ilk.
She is taking a break from Twitter? I would really be surprised if she comes back using the same name. She will probably change her name in hopes that people won’t find out who she really is. She has fucked around and is now finding out, and that can only be a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
EDIT: It is now May 12th and Amy in her infinite wisdom has blocked me on Twitter. These types always do this sort of thing because they are cowards.
Yes, the title of this song is Too Goth To Handle. It’s okay to be horrified.
EDIT: Since writing this something kind of strange has occurred. I commented on the above video over at the Tube and it had been taken down. No response, just deleted. I didn’t call her names and I wasn’t rude, I just pointed out that what she is doing is basically being unauthentic. She is using the goth trend to gain publicity. Could she be an industry plant of some sort? Has her producer pushed her into this? Interesting.
I stumbled upon the singer Indya this morning and my goodness am I intrigued. Why? Because this chick just reeks of cashing in on the whole ‘goth’ trend.
She has an album coming out called Leather And Lace. Gee, I wonder where she got that title from. Since I have no idea who this woman is I listened to an interview that she did with Kerrang and it is pretty telling. She said that she changed her sound and look for this album. Meaning that the woman is not a goth musician, and may even not be a fan of goth music. That is one of the main reasons why I think that she is just trying to cash in on goth being a trend. Her past history includes playing with Brit pop bands and the like and I couldn’t find any info tying her to any actual goth bands.
The music itself is okay but her vocal delivery is very sex kittenish which kind of throws the whole vibe into disarray. She kind of sounds like Gwen Stefani but without the vocal range. Basically she has a ‘pop-star’ kind of voice. The music and her voice don’t fit together very well. Plus, the lyrics are pretty awful and play into the whole ‘big tiddy goth girlfriend’ stereotype. She can put on sexy black clothing and sing about how she is too goth to handle, but as we all know wearing black clothing doesn’t automatically turn somebody into a goth.
It was only a matter of time before a pop musician tried this. Here is some advice I would like to give her. If you are going to treat goth as a costume so that you can make more money you do you, but don’t expect the actual subculture to be supportive of you. Just be yourself instead of latching on to a trend, you’ll have a more fruitful career.
EDIT 2: I found the lyrics of this song and I am in no way wrong.
[Intro] Too goth to handle, too goth to handle Too goth to handle, too goth to handle
[Verse] Too goth to handle, too goth to handle Too goth to handle, too goth to handle
The show is over, baby; meet me in the haters club Too lost in sin to trick or treat you with this magic touch
[Chorus] This deville’s out there screaming, raving, haunting (let’s get unholy, bitch) I’ll send you down; I’m teasing (touch me now) Embrace rejection, I’m possessing, I ain’t telling (I’m banging) A sexed up little madame in black leather (I’m psycho) Mistress of Mayhem, there’s no warning sign (I’m rebel) I’ll vandalise you whеn you fantasise I jumped the wall in thе church; I’m poison Anti-social, paranoid, and…
[Guitar solo]
I’m keeping tabs on your car; I’m seething, jealous, raging, I’m a screaming mess (I’m a screaming mess)
[Verse] Too goth to handle, too goth to handle Too goth to handle, too goth to handle
I send condolences; your morbid fashion killed your mind You hold the darkest secrets; you’re no saint; you can’t be mine
[Chorus] I’m your worst nightmare; I’m bad karma; drama queen (I’m lavish) I’ll send you down with your obsession; you can (lick it, bitch) This velvet corset is too tight; I just can’t breathe in it (I’m tied up) This gothic cross that’s on my fishnets you will never feel (you prick) I’m paranormal activity on your mind I got a letter here I hope your wife don’t find I jumped the wall in the church; I’m poison Anti-social, paranoid, and…
Like the title says I have had two members of my family die since January; my father in-law and my brother in-law. Both deaths were expected so I haven’t been in shock or anything like that. I’m just really, really bummed about it and the reason why I haven’t posted anything in the last week. I’m just not in the right headspace to be doing a ton of typing right now. My brother in-law’s funeral is next week so after that I will be in a better emotional state to get things done. So, if you don’t see me on here for a few weeks that is why. I may be right back after the funeral or it may be a couple of weeks, I’m not sure yet. However, I will be back because I will never abandon this blog. Thanks for reading and for understanding. Like the immortal statement that Arnie says in Terminator, I’ll be back.
This is one of the first times I have heard a musician in the pop-punk/metal-core/alternative music sphere actually majorly call out sexual predators who go after underage fans. It is a dirty ‘secret’ that has been going on in alternative circles for literally decades. It happens in punk, goth, metal and every single alternative type music genre you can think of. Predatory musicians who want to screw underage girls, and boys, get away with it way too often because their music is deemed too ‘important’, or their music connections are deemed too ‘important’. Nobody should be deemed untouchable, or ‘too important’, when it comes to calling this shit out.
This is a brilliant song and video and I stand with her.
I think many of you know how much I dislike a lot of the modern bands doing ‘post-punk by the numbers’ music. Lots of bands using the same bass-lines, most of the time stolen from Peter Hook, and the same monotonous delivery of echoing vocals. I find it all boring, trite and highly repetitive. If I want to listen to The Cure or The Smiths I will listen to The Cure or The Smiths not some band trying their best to sound like they came out of the 80’s without actually understanding the 80’s. Back in the 80’s lots of post-punk bands sounded completely different from one another rather than exactly copying one another like they do now. By the way I would never listen to The Smiths these days because Morrissey is a racist wanker. Loved them when I was a teen in the 80’s, but stopped listening to them when they broke up. Yes, I am that old.
Better view of what I wrote.
You know all of this shit is getting out of hand when even Peter Hook is agreeing with me. The dude has been a musician for decades and has only gained a lot of respect for his bass playing pretty recently in his career. He fully deserves the accolades because he is a brilliant bass player. Do you know what isn’t brilliant? Outright copying his bass-lines and trying to be the next Joy Division. There is never going to be another Joy Division because that band was lightening in a bottle; they came about in a certain time and place that just doesn’t exist any longer.
What can we learn from all of this? You will gain more respect following your own musical journey as a musician, rather than trying to copy a sound that has been done to death.
