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.
Infamous 1940’s photo of Nazis marching through the town in which I now live.
I have decided to write this because I think it is important to lay out exactly why I have left a subculture that I have been a member of for over thirty years. This will be a warning to those who want to enter the subculture; the truth as to what is going on within it right now. I know I am not alone in this and that there are others who feel that the subculture is heading down a road in which there is no return; protecting those who have an ideology that wishes harm onto others within the subculture.
First I am going to give a history lesson as to what I went through and witnessed back in the late 80’s and the early 90’s as to show exactly where I am coming from. Back then I lived in the San Francisco East Bay and there was a sizeable and well known group of neo-Nazis called the WAR (white aryan resistance) skinheads. Led, and created, on the US West Coast by the now dead Tom Metzger their goal was to push their way into punk spaces and take them over. As you can imagine this did not go well for the WAR skins because the punks and SHARPS(skinheads against racial prejudice) fought them every step of the way and eventually drove them completely into extinction. However, there were some spaces that they were more successful, and that would be the alternative clubs in which the emerging goth scene morphed out of.
I am on the left in this photo that was taken at the alternative club The Twilight Zone in early 1991.
The Twilight Zone was an all ages alternative club in Alameda in the San Francisco East Bay and it ran from around 1987 to late 1992. Unfortunately it had a bit of a WAR skin problem. I was tiny back then and weighed 110 lbs soaking wet and I had a good sense as to what I should and shouldn’t do in such circumstances. You have got to understand just how violent the WAR skins were; they had actually killed people of colour in Portland Oregon and in Olympia Washington. So, they wouldn’t have hesitated to beat the shit out of me if I had confronted them on my own and nobody at that club probably would have stopped them because they simply couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing. Because of all of this I started to stay away from there and attended 924 Gilman, the punk club in Berkeley, instead.
924 Gilman has always been a volunteer run club and the dude who headed it at that time was African American. I, and others, told him what was going on at The Twilight Zone and he actually listened to us and took what we said seriously. Everybody at Gilman had experience dealing with the WAR skins. In fact I witnessed the whole club emptying out one time, chasing them down the street and then beating the crap out of them. So, he and some others, showed up one night at The Twilight Zone and just sat there as a group; watching and waiting. Since there were obviously no cell phones back then I think somebody went to a payphone, called up the WAR skins and told them to not show up that night. In fact the WAR skins never showed up there again because of this show of force. That is all the WAR skins understood, there was no talking to them because it was useless.
So, when I see literal white nationalist sympathizers such as Madi Danger being accepted as a ‘force of good’ within the goth subculture I understandably get upset. We went through this shit over thirty years ago and nothing was learned from it? Nothing was even learned from the whole Sonsombre incident? Some are calling me a hypocrite because I originally had defended Brandon Pybus of Sonsombre. However, the moment all of the evidence against him was brought together in an cohesive manner on video I stopped supporting the band, destroyed all of their merch and I even made a public apology on this blog about it. That is what adults do; apologize when they are wrong. The HUGE difference between the two scenarios is that white nationalist sympathizers, such as Madi Danger, knew exactly what kind of band Burzum was from the very beginning. They didn’t just stumble upon Burzum, they made a concerted effort to listen to them and support them.
The major reason I have decided to leave the subculture is because of all of this. I cannot in good conscience be a member of a subculture that excuses these kind of beliefs away as if they are nothing more than a bothersome mosquito. Anybody with a pair of eyes can see that there has been a HUGE uptick of racist white nationalists entering the subculture lately. Those who choose to ignore it and say nothing are just as horrible in my opinion. There is a saying that is very apt right now. If there are ten people sitting at a table hanging out with a Nazi then there are actually eleven Nazis sitting at that table. You are the company that you keep.
Another reason why I am leaving is because of the do nothing attitude that is very prevalent in the subculture right now when it comes to kicking out rapists, racists and various other pieces of shit. Even though there has been documented proof that bands such as She Wants Revenge and Bella Morte have sexual predator members within them they are still booked for shows and people still pay to see them. Complaints are still being made against people such as DJ Panic. He is allowed to be a booker and promoter of shows in the Washington DC area despite credible allegations of mental abuse, among other things. I had run-ins with that asshole twenty years ago and it fucking sickens me that people still refuse to lift a finger to stop him.
Proof that the goth band Ashes Fallen from Northern California are still supporting Madi Danger, even after being given information that the bitch is a white nationalist sympathizer.
The final reason I am leaving is because of all of those who talk the talk but straight up refuse to walk the walk when their help is needed. I left the Sounds & Shadows community on Facebook the other day because quite frankly I can no longer take the bullshit excuses as to why some people there refuse to lift a finger to challenge the rise of racist white nationalists within the subculture. Afraid that it might hurt the feelings of others? Do you know what? Fuck the feelings of racist white nationalist sympathizers and the people who coddle them. The thing that pushed me over the edge in that community? When one of the people in charge there got pissed off at me for tagging them in a post on my Facebook page all about how the band Ashes Fallen was supporting Madi Danger. There were screenshots and yet I am the bad person for pointing this crap out? How dare I prove my case! How…dare…I? Apparently staying friends with people who have very questionable morals is more important than supporting antifascists. Go figure.
A continuation of that conversation with Ashes Fallen, who claim that they don’t support white nationalism, all while supporting a proven white nationalist sympathizer.
I have MS so my health has actually been negatively affected by the stress of all of this crap going on. My health and life are more important than those of racist white nationalist sympathizers and those protecting them so I am bowing out. The paradox of tolerance states that once the intolerant are tolerated within a group of people the intolerant will quickly take over said group. That is what is happening right now to the subculture. I will still listen to and support certain bands, but I refuse to take an active part in a subculture who thinks so little of protecting its most marginalized members.
Welcome to the very end of my series of articles all about Madi Danger’s very problematic, and now taken down, goth Discord server. If you have not read parts 1-5 I would suggest that you check them out because what happens in this article is the culmination of everything that had happened previously. The links for them will be at the bottom of this article. Just a warning, some of the screenshots in this article can be distressing to read. In the almost twenty-five years that I have been actively online I have never ever encountered somebody with so little self awareness. So, with that being said let us begin our journey!
We start off with the continuation of the paragraph that C had started at the end of the last article. They are correct, the issues that they and others had in that server were not just about politics. They complain to Madi about all of the crap that the moderator G has pulled; banning people for no reason, and deleting topics that the members thought were important. As you have read in the other articles every single time that somebody tried to start a post talking about how racism doesn’t belong in the goth subculture G would delete them. I am assuming that HK is J, Madi’s now husband. Again, C mentions how it was a bad idea for both G and R, a couple, to be moderators of the server together; they backed each other up and created drama where there wasn’t any. I have been in communities online in the past where this kind of crap happened and it always sucked big time. Madi’s moderators pretty much didn’t know how to properly run an online community and should never have been given that kind of power. Especially since Madi wanted that server to be a place for people to learn about the goth subculture. Madi, if you want people who don’t know that much about the true history of the goth subculture to be in charge like that then that reflects badly on you because you are the one who created that space. The people trying to claim that it had nothing to do with her are delusional as hell.
As I have stated before in an earlier article C makes an accusation that G said some anti-Semitic crap to somebody and then banned them. However, there is not a screenshot of this so I cannot verify this accusation. Judging from all of the racist white nationalist flags planted all over the place on the server it really wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that something like that happened though. Come to your own conclusion. This next part very much angers me because I was diagnosed with MS just over five years ago. If a moderator of an online community tried to tell me that I couldn’t ever talk about it until I was officially diagnosed there would have been hell to pay. Somebody seeking a tourettes syndrome diagnosis needs support from the community, not told to shush up about it until an official diagnosis is made. That is just straight up cruel. Again, there is no proof that this happened, but yet again it’s not a stretch to think that it could have occurred. C then tells Madi that they have actually done academic research into music subcultures; metal, goth and punk included. They are saying that to show Madi that they actually are knowledgable on the subject; some facets of which Madi cannot truly understand. Her lack of self awareness cripples her and holds her back from developing into a meaningful participant of the goth subculture. Remember, you crack open her frippery and she is hollow inside.
It is pretty telling how incensed Madi appears to be over C and the others not approving of the supposed ‘changes’ that were going to take place on the server. Obviously the only correct action that should have taken place after the accusations of G being racist should have been G getting insta-banned from the community. They should not have been coddled by Madi and the other mods. Madi and J’s new ‘rules’ come far too little far too late, and remember that banning G for all of this crap was immediately taken off the table even before the others shared screenshots proving what took place. J, Madi’s now husband, cared so much about the safety of the marginalized members of the community that they didn’t think that taking away G’s moderating duties was the right thing to do. Considering that Madi took that server down sometime after all of this took place is very, very telling; she did not want all of this news coming out and reaching the wider public. Remember, she is a goth grifter and wants to become an influencer so that she can make money off of the community and gain subculture clout. All the while not truly understanding how the subculture has always had political elements and is not welcoming of people who actively defend friends wearing Burzum shirts. ‘That’ screenshot is coming up in a few minutes, I promise!
Again, C apologizes to Madi for still talking about this. Madi is the one who should be apologizing to C and to all of the members of that community; since she was the founder of it she had an absolute duty to protect her marginalized fans from racist white nationalist rhetoric. Madi took that trust that they had in her and ground it into the ground with the broken heels of a pair of Demonia boots. C even tells her that they could send all of the screenshots to her of when J argued with them over the issues that C and the others came forward with. Those screenshots are included within my articles so you can read them for yourself.
How dare they assume that your husband is a cis male…how dare they! After all of this and she gets the most angry over that? Do you know why all four of them left Madi? Because both you and J did not take their complaints seriously…at all. She actually admitted that she saw those screenshots and yet she still thinks J handled it fairly?
C continues that paragraph trying again to tell Madi that their concerns are serious and that she should at least try to understand where they are coming from. However, what C doesn’t quite grasp or understand about Madi is that she totally lacks self awareness. She doesn’t listen to advice from others, instead she loves to skip down her own little yellow brick road that is tarnished with pieces of misinformation that are detrimental to both herself and her followers.
Now we come along to a different discussion that Madi initiates with C. If you remember C talked about some online encounters in their story, which occurred a bit after those on the server took place. It was about how both Madi, her husband and their friends stalked C’s comments on different social media sites for any mention of the events that had occurred on that server. Madi claims that C called her a racist even though they didn’t. I also have not stated that she is a racist in any of these articles so if she is saying that I did she is a liar. All C said was that they had heard about Madi defending a friend who was being racist by wearing a Burzum shirt, and that she was gaining a problematic reputation in the online goth community. For those of you who do not know about the black metal band Burzum, it is a band that was founded by the murdering racist white nationalist Varg Vikernes. So, if a person is wearing a shirt with this band’s name on it you can quite easily conclude that said person also has racist white nationalist sentiments. Don’t want to be seen as a racist piece of shit then don’t wear a shirt representing that band. However, Madi is a person who lacks self awareness so she doesn’t see how badly this in turn reflects upon her. You are the company that you keep.
Madi actually goes full on into defending her friend’s choice of wearing a Burzum shirt. It does in fact make your friend racist Madi, since Burzum is a band founded by a racist white nationalist. I don’t care what that murderer sings about in his band, he is still a racist white nationalist. Anything that Varg sonically touches should be avoided because who the hell wants to be affiliated or associated with that piece of shit? Oh, apparently Madi thinks that somebody who wears a bootleg Burzum shirt, and who listens to the music, couldn’t possibly be racist! Madi actually thinks that the ‘logic’ that C is presenting doesn’t add up? Wow! Through the years I have heard idiots say much the same thing about the racist white nationalist punk band Skrewdriver. People would say things like ‘their first album isn’t racist and it’s good’. That kind of crap. C already knows that the other mods of that community weren’t racist too? Madi, that logic that you are presenting doesn’t actually add up.
So, because Burzum’s lyrics, in Madi’s words, are about ‘nerdy shit and a little paganism’ there is no way that Burzum could be considered racist. I’ll let you ponder that for a few minutes. Burzum have never been an unknown underground band. In fact there have been books, films and documentaries that have shown Varg Vikernes to be a murdering racist piece of shit, and yet Madi somehow doesn’t think that listening to his music or wearing Burzum band shirts is in any way racist? C then goes into how multiple people have tried telling her to not defend such things and she just ignores them. I have actually seen her in action online ignoring people when they try to gently correct her about things like bands. For instance, when others told her that certain bands were post-punk and not goth, what does she do? Totally ignores them and then deletes their comments. That might appear to be a minor thing but she does this over and over and over again creating a huge snowball filled with misinformation that is hurtling towards baby bats looking to her for guidance into the subculture.
Just like C I don’t want my goth scene to be infested with racist white nationalists. Her behaviour in the face of all of these red flags in my opinion is very, very suspect. C is right, racists aren’t always the ones who say overtly racist things. A lot of people, including myself, learned that from the whole Sonsombre debacle that happened almost two years ago. We were all used to racist Nazi skinheads trying to barge their way into goth spaces, not somebody who dresses like us and who makes music that we like. To be truthful the blending in that Brandon Pybus attempted is what made me look sideways at Madi. Here is a twenty-six year old metalhead woman coming out of nowhere making videos about ‘goth’ music and the subculture while only having a shallow surface knowledge of the topics. People try to help her and warn her and she puts her fingers in her ears and acts like a a toddler having a tantrum. She is not the kind of person who should be allowed to sit down with baby bats and tell them about the subculture, because she herself is tone deaf and lacks any kind of self awareness. That was the last screenshot in the info dump, but I took a very interesting screenshot the other day of something I found on Google when I typed in ‘madi danger burzum’.
Above is that screenshot in all of its glory. Spotify is notorious for being very slow when it comes to updating playlists and the information contained within them. See that black metal playlist that Madi has? Well, she apparently at some point had at least two different Burzum songs on it. I have underlined them in green. Sometime between then and now she took those songs off of her playlist because if you look at the current version of it they are nowhere to be seen. Did Madi wise up and finally realise that listening to that music made her look like a racist, or did she take them down because she didn’t want people going after her for liking the music of a racist white nationalist? Since Madi lacks any sort of self awareness I’m guessing that she got tired of people not believing her insipid explanations.
If you are online friends with her and are just finding out about all of this information I know how much it sucks when you put your trust in somebody and they betray it. It is never an easy thing to go through. The best way to move on from something like this is to see it as a lesson learned and to grow from there.
There are people and bands online trying to make me out as some sort of villain, that I am ‘bullying’ poor little innocent Madi. It is really obvious to me that they have not read any of my articles and probably never will; they are blinded by all of Madi’s frippery. Do you know what is even more sad than that though? The fact that none of these people learned any lessons from the Sonsombre incident. After a week I am going to make a list of every band and every ‘influencer’ who is still supporting her and put it on this blog. Why? Because others deserve to know the names of those who think that Madi listening to and supporting Burzum is just peachy-keen and a joke. EDIT: After talking to a friend I have decided to be more forgiving to people in this situation, especially to those same people who never forgave me in the Sonsombre conflict. Sometimes you get taken in by somebody and even though shown some evidence your mind can’t quite grasp what is really happening and you just can’t believe that somebody would betray you like that. If you want to talk and try to hash something out I am here and open to having a conversation.
EDIT: I totally forgot to thank all of the people before me who tried to make this information about Madi Danger known to everybody but who were shut down by threats of violence, among other things. All of you deserved to be believed by everybody, instead of being ignored by the majority. I did this partially for you so that you could have some justice. I have your back.
Again, I want to give a big huge shout-out to those who have been supporting me behind the scenes and whom I know have my back. Thank you so very much! I feel very proud to have you as friends. xxxx
This was going to be the fifth and last article all about the questionable events that happened on Madi Danger’s now defunct goth Discord server. However, I have had to enlarge all of these screenshots by hand and I had forgotten that there were yet more that I had to do! So, there will be either one or two posts after this and the links to the older articles in this series will be at the bottom of this post. I highly suggest that you read through the first four articles before diving into this one, because all of the others together show the patterns of behaviour that were on display; be it somebody continuously asking the moderators if they had racist white nationalist political views, or somebody refusing to kick out the other moderator who was accused of racism. Once again these are shown in the order in which they appeared. Off we go!
We are now exactly where we left off in part four. This is finally where Madi starts accusing C of insinuating that she is a Nazi. C says that they never got a straight answer from G when asked what their political views were when it came to racist white nationalism. As you have witnessed G danced around that question so much that it became apparent that something was just off about the entire situation. Why wouldn’t G answer that simple question? C then says that they never called her a Nazi and somehow C still trusts Madi to do the right thing. C really seems like the kind of person that just tries to see good in everybody. There is nothing wrong with that at all, they are just trusting the wrong kind of person.
C agrees with Madi that they haven’t recently seen any transphobic jokes on the server, but they think that since people are joking about Varg, who is a murdering and racist piece of shit, that it wouldn’t be far fetched if others started making transphobic jokes. Considering all of the side stepping going on can you really blame them for not feeling safe? Oh for fucks sake! She actually thinks that a very belated answer to a very important question is acceptable proof that G is not a racist white nationalist? That C should be grateful that G has finally graced them with an answer? Madi lacks the self awareness to understand just how bad this whole situation looks and feels to people looking at it from the outside. Most black metal fans see black metal as a joke? How the hell are people in a damn goth server supposed to know that, never mind the fact that marginalized people don’t see racism, transphobia and white nationalism as a joke. Somebody who is a murdering, racist piece of crap like Varg should be condemned and looked down upon as the piece of shit that he is, not joked about around the very people that somebody like Varg would hurt and even kill.
C mentions that they have friends who are into black metal that do not find the meme in question funny. Madi then asks why does C feel the need to spread all of this info all over the internet. Why? Because it is majorly fucked up what happened on that server and C wants to warn others not to step into that pile of shit. Yet again, why the hell does somebody need to know the origins of a metal meme in a goth community? If I had a dollar for every single time I have mentioned this in the articles I would be a very wealthy woman.
Even after all of this C is still trusting Madi; a person who in no way deserves it. Again, how the hell did it get to this point? I know I have said that a few times in these articles but it really boggles my mind just how long this went on for. Their next point is a very good one, it really feels like Madi is not quite grasping how important it is for her to take a strong stance against racist white nationalists online. She can use her platform to send this message loud and clear to those who need to hear it; that racist white nationalism should not, and will not, ever be accepted in the goth community. It’s very important to be self aware in these kind of circumstances and to understand that protecting the marginalized in the goth community should be a priority, rather than just dismissing their legitimate concerns. I honestly hope that Madi does some long and hard critical thinking about all of this and learns that her inaction can lead to people actually being hurt both emotionally and physically. However, her lack of self awareness makes this more than likely an impossibility.
This is C continuing their thoughts on the matter and I fully agree with their stance. Over the years various people with racist white nationalist views have snuck into the goth subculture under the radar because others in the ‘scene’ think that everybody should be accepted into the subculture without any question as to what their true intentions are. The only way that this kind of thing is going to end in the goth subculture is if people confront this crap when they see it happening, instead of not lifting a finger because they are scared of being threatened. I have been writing in this blog for over two years now and I have written articles calling out some pretty horrendous shit, yet I have never received a threat. If you are a cis white woman, such as myself, there really is no excuse to not speak up. C then goes on about how POC don’t feel like they would be welcome within the goth scene because the goth community as a whole has historically not pushed back as hard against Nazis as much as say the punk community has. I mentioned in an earlier article in this series about how I witnessed the punks and SHARPS physically beating the crap out of Nazi skins back over thirty years ago, while the emerging goth scene rarely lifted a finger. Again, I think that has been slowly changing within the last ten years and that can only be a good thing as far as I am concerned.
I can totally feel where C is coming from. Story time! When the goth scene in the SF Bay Area started to evolve out of the alternative scene they wouldn’t lift a finger to drive WAR(white aryan resistance) skinheads out. I would see WAR skins at club nights in which more and more ‘goth’ music would be played. I’m not even kidding about this next part. Some of the people who volunteered at 924 Gilman over in Berkeley were starting to hear about this from people such as myself. So, a group of the bigger punks from there showed up and I don’t remember the WAR skins ever appearing at that club again after that. The reason? Because it was a message to the WAR skins to never show up again or they would physically be forced to leave by any means necessary. If it wasn’t for the punks doing the heavy lifting the goth scene in the SF Bay Area could have died before it was even born. This is all just to say that the punk scene has always been more unified when it comes to a common purpose such as fighting against racism or physically fighting neo-Nazis. While the goth subculture has always been kind of more divided. As I said above this has started to change within the last ten years. Handled fairly on ‘both sides’ Madi? A moderator of the server named G is accused of racism by various members AND judging from the info contained in some of these messages they actually showed receipts of what happened. Yet it is fair to them that G gets no punishment for this? Let alone the fact that it took ages for G to finally answer that damn question. I think Madi has got to look up the meaning of the word ‘fair’ in the dictionary. Reading is fundamental.
Madi, I’m just going to say this again because it bears repeating. You wouldn’t be up in the middle of the night if G would have just answered that question in the first place. C has been more than patient through this entire ordeal and you are going to complain about having to get up early for work in the morning? Again, her lack of self awareness rears its ugly head.
Well, this is the end of part five. As I stated in the beginning of this post there are going to be either one or two more articles after this one in the series. Part 6 will be up on Friday the 27th. I’m giving myself an extra day to put it together because some of the screenshots coming up are rage inducing and I need a little more time to process them in my head before I start. Thank you for reading this, and I would love to give a shout-out to all of the people supporting me behind the scenes; your encouragement has helped me so much and I deeply appreciate it.
Welcome to part four in my series about the very problematic history of Madi Danger’s now defunct goth Discord server. If you have not read 1-3 of this series yet I would suggest doing so because they show a clear pattern of behaviour. Links to those earlier posts will be at the bottom of this article. Again, I am showing these screenshots in the order in which I found them. None of them have been left out. Just a warning, this and the next article in this series are composed of just conversations that took place that prove that what C has been saying is true. Again, there will be racist white nationalist flags planted all over the place
This looks like yet another conversation that has started between C and Madi, one of which that C had previously talked about in their story. Yet again C tries to explain why they, and others, do not feel safe in the community because of J’s lack of action against G. J apparently made some excuses such as ‘I don’t know anything about you’ trope. Why the hell does J even need to know the background of anybody; if the members say that a moderator had repeatedly said and done racist type things to them they should be 100% believed, especially when they have some receipts to prove it. Madi says something that makes absolutely no sense so let us continue on.
That above message that you cannot see the entirety of? It is of G saying that they are not a racist white nationalist. EDIT: Madi has kindly shared all of G’s statement and it is at the bottom of this article. :EDIT That is way too little way to late for C’s comfort and for mine as well. G was asked over, and over, and over again by C if they had racist white nationalism type views and G repeatedly refused to answer. There is no backing up and retroactively saving yourself from this sort of situation. If a leftist, such as myself, was asked if they had racist white nationalistic type views the resounding answer would be a huge no. Also, more than likely, a leftist would explain why racist white nationalism is wrong. Unfortunately, it really feels like we are dealing with people here who reside on the other side of the aisle.
C explains why they do not feel safe in the server; they personally know people who have been doxxed and one that was a victim of a hate crime. C was not being overly sensitive in this situation, they had an absolute right to not feel safe in that community. They were just beginning to make YouTube videos about mainly goth type topics, but C also wanted to include videos about trans issues since they themselves are trans. They had wanted to link it to the server, but because of all of the unanswered questions about racist white nationalism in the community they took it down. I do not blame them one bit.
C’s paragraph continues here; their explanation of why they do not feel safe because of all of the red flags that have been planted throughout this entire ordeal. Again, C deserves a lot of praise in this situation because they will not lie down and take this crap. Madi Dearest responds by saying that C shouldn’t share any personal information in the community if they do not feel safe. Her excuse? That it is a large server that she keeps open for anybody to find out information about goth. Since she and the other moderators refused to make rules against bigotry you can easily come up with your own concludion. As I have stated previously in this series there has been a long held tradition in both the punk and goth communities of punching racist white nationalists and banning them from both online and ‘real world’ spaces. From what I witnessed over thirty years ago the punks, and Sharps(skinheads against racial prejudice), did a lot of the heavy lifting, but since that time the goth community has stepped forward and has been more actively involved in pushing racist white nationalists out. As a reminder J, Madi’s now husband, had previously stated that politics don’t belong in the goth subculture and that their inclusion would ruin the ‘scene’. Spoken just like somebody who doesn’t know what the hell they are talking about. If Madi is going to put herself forward as some sort of fountain of knowledge about the goth subculture she, and those mods, should actually learn about the truth of the subculture instead of making shit up as they go along. Again, I find all of this disturbing as hell since her audience tends to skew younger. People are putting their trust in the hands of others who in no way deserve it.
C then starts talking about their experience of also being into punk music and being a member of the punk community. This gets me teary because I have also always loved punk music along with goth music. Over thirty years ago I would go to punk shows and alternative clubs during the same week. I was not alone because a good amount of people back then got into what would become the goth subculture in the San Francisco Bay Area through also liking punk music. Just like C I learned all about racist dog-whistles and crypto-fascists through listening to bands like the Dead Kennedys and from attending shows. C is right, all of the behaviours that Madi, her husband, and those two other moderators are showing would not be tolerated in the punk community. In fact there would be a concerted effort to push them out, I guarantee it. By the way Madi claims to love 70’s-80’s punk music and she has even made a Spotify playlist including songs from the Dead Kennedys and the Subhumans, which tells me that she is not actually ‘listening ‘ to the music. This type of thing happens pretty frequently. It’s like when right wing morons claiming that punk music has become too ‘woke’ and that politics don’t belong in punk. Gee…that sounds familiar doesn’t it?
C goes on about the paradox of intolerance; that if a group of people accept everybody, including the intolerant, eventually the group will be destroyed and taken over by the intolerant. Do you want people such as Madi and her husband holding power in alternative subcultures and destroying them from the inside out? I sure as hell don’t, and they shouldn’t be allowed to freely roam online teaching baby bats what their idea of the goth subculture is all about. All of the frippery and teased hair in the world can’t hide the truth of her actions, and inactions, when it comes to all of this. C also mentions the old saying that if eleven people sit down at a table with one Nazi then there are twelve Nazis. You are the company you keep.
C again tells Madi that all they want is a place to talk about goth without having to worry about being targeted for abuse by people who are anti-trans. Their concern is totally understandable and if I were in their shoes I would feel the same way. I would never be comfortable sharing what I love if I had to worry about literal racist white nationalists wanting to hurt me. Madi, G chose not to answer that very simple question an endless amount of times. Yet you want C to feel safe now just because G finally says that they are antifascist? Seriously? Is she just that dense to think that a statement that came too little too late would just solve everything?
EDIT: That was going to be the end of the article but Madi responded with some screenshots that I supposedly purposely skipped using. In reality I had used the first photo she shared in my first article already and I did not have access to the other two because they were not in the info dump. So I will share those two with you and give my opinion as to the contents of them.
I think the person responding to G is Z from the second article but I am not sure. Z doesn’t find Varg Vikernes funny and neither do I. Varg is a vile murdering racist piece of shit that should be taken seriously and not laughed at. Condemning racists such as Varg should be the priority, rather than laughing about him. Again, how are people in a goth server supposed to know about a metal meme? Laughing about Varg like he is a drunk uncle, rather than condemning him, throws up yet another flag for me. Sorry not sorry
What the hell has G actually explained? As you have seen from the other screenshots in these articles G always evaded the questions thrown at them and repeatedly refused to answer the question as to whether or not they held racist white nationalistic views. Plus, on top of all of that G had been accused by multiple people of deleting talk of racism on the server. Oh, and G and the other mods didn’t think that a rule against bigotry would be be a good idea. Do you know who I am going to believe after reading this entire sorry mess? Not him.
That is the end of part four. Part five will be up on this blog on Tuesday the 24th and it will be the last article in this series. Thank you for reading!
Welcome back! This is the third article in my series all about the problematic history of Madi Danger’s now taken down goth Discord server. I would suggest getting caught up before diving into this one, and the links for those first two parts are at the end of this article. Mainly because everything is interconnected and it shows a pattern of behaviour. First we are going to go over the rest of C’s statement about the situation, which we began in the first article. Afterwards the screenshots proving the accusations will be shared. As always I will make comments under each photo.
In the continuation of their explanation of what occurred C once again gets into G and R actively shutting down any conversation about what happened. Just the fact that the two mods, G and R, are deleting any mention of what happened raises yet more big huge red flags. They actively wanted to hide any mention of the community’s concerns over the simple unanswered question as to whether or not they had racist white nationalist beliefs. C mentions that they brought all of these concerns to Madi but that she was dismissive. Do you know what that tells me? That she perhaps also wouldn’t answer that question truthfully if asked and that is very concerning considering that teens are beginning to flock to her for information about the goth subculture. Turns out that the third mod, whom we named J in the last article, is definitely her now husband. I assume that he was sent by Madi into the community to deal with all of the complaints since she couldn’t be bothered. After C and others shared screenshots of what happened with him he claimed that there was not enough evidence to take any sort of action against G, even though some of them made claims that G had been openly racist in the past on the server. C wasn’t able to save the conversation that happened between them and Madi, BUT they did save all of the conversations about this that they had with J.
J wanted to ‘compromise’ about it but every suggestion that C and others made fell on deaf ears. J said that kicking G out of the group was off that table and that taking away his mod duties was also not going to happen. C and others suggested a rule against bigotry but J deemed that too complicated and unenforceable. That very large online punk community that I used to be a mod for had that kind of rule and it was very easy for me to enforce. Any mention of racism in a post, be it a band such as Skrewdriver or far right wing sentiments in general, I would instantly delete. How the hell is that ‘difficult’ to enforce, unless you want to pander to literal racist white nationalists? That isn’t even jumping to a conclusion, that is just a logical thought process in affect. I honestly don’t know how anybody could dismiss all of this crap and only tell G to give people a warning first before banning them. Oh, did I forget to mention that G was banning people left and right over all of this? The huge cherry on top of this shit filled sundae is the fact that when C told Madi their concerns for a second time she said that she stood by her now husband. She then proceeded to tell C that she had asked G if he had racist white supremacist beliefs and that he had told her no. She then shared a sceenshot as proof. Madi stated that since C and the others now had their answer that they should be satisfied. OH HELL TO THE NO! Madi thinks that people are actually going to believe that asshole after he refused to answer the question for so long? Others then told C that she had a sketchy past history; including defending a friend who was caught wearing a Burzum shirt online. That is Varg Vikernes’ racist white nationalist band, in case you didn’t know or forgot. There are no screenshots from those people, but considering how far down the racist white nationalist rabbit hole we have been venturing so far it is not a very hard thing to believe. Oh, and believe me…..it gets much worse from here on out.
Next, C explains how Madi and her husband harassed them across several different social media platforms. C says that they posted over on their Instagram account, warning baby bats not to follow or trust her. She then sent C a bunch of different messages accusing them of calling her a racist, which he actually never did. If you have noticed I have also never called her a racist. So, if she tells people that I have she is grasping at straws and relevancy. A few days after that C commented to somebody not to support her after seeing a post in their timeline of her. Somebody told Madi and J, her husband, and they went after C yet again accusing them of slander and calling them a liar. C couldn’t save J’s messages because of being blocked right afterwards, but C got to save the ones from Madi Dearest.
So, C says that J stalked their Twitter posts. C had blocked Madi so they are assuming that J went spying on them for her, to see if C was still talking about the incidents that took place. C then states that J responded to a tweet of theirs with a screenshot showing C’s ‘uncensored discord name and image’. They then had to change that info because they did not want Madi’s stans stalking and threatening them. There isn’t a screen shot of this, but judging from all of the other crap we have seen so far this really isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Now that we have read C’s entire story we are going to move onto the screenshots. Some of them may distress you because there are racist white nationalistic flags planted all over them. When I first read them I thought back to the time in which I saw the whole inside of the punk club 924 Gilman empty and chase a bunch of WAR(white aryan resistance) skins down the street to beat the crap out of them. White suprematists come in many forms besides Nazi skinheads; they are your neighbours, office co-workers and some are even people who attend goth clubs.
We are starting right where we left off, these screenshots are a continuation of the ones in PART 2. After having no success when trying to appeal to J about why they felt unsafe C then turns to Madi hoping that she can help. C mentions that several of them think that G is a crypto-fascist. I am guessing that a lot of people reading this are on the same page as them. Then C mentions that another member claims that their posts about racism in the scene were deleted by G. Yet again, gee I wonder why?
C offers to send somebody’s message as proof of what happened. Apparently C had been banned from the group, along with some others, by G. Madi then unbans C. This next part really pisses me off. Madi telling somebody to ‘keep cool’ in this situation? The fact that C still trusts her at this point really breaks my heart. Trust me, it gets worse.
C then contacts Madi again. They urge her to look at what is happening in the server because G is taking anything down that pertains to the situation at hand; that some people in the server think that G is a crypto-fascist. Just the fact that they have to bring this up to her yet again speaks volumes doesn’t it? What it tells me is that Madi is not concerned at all about it and doesn’t really give a shit, yet again.
C then messages Madi again about how they think that it is a bad idea for G and R to both be mods of the group together because they are partners. R keeps apparently shielding G from members complaining about him and that this is causing a lot of drama to occur. Personally, I think the only solution to this was something that Madi was not willing to do; kick both G and R out of the community. Golly gee, I wonder why she refuses to do this?
Dude, you don’t have to say you’re sorry for bothering her at this point. I love how C just won’t drop it. If I was feeling unsafe in an online community I would do the same. However, I would have left ages ago because I am jaded and have seen how this kind of crap plays out in person and online over and over and over again. Don’t think you are witnessing some type of brand new phenomenon that has never happened in the goth subculture before. Racist white nationalists have been trying to infiltrate both the goth and punk scenes from the very beginning, with varying degrees of success.
Madi has the audacity to say that she doesn’t see any issues that would make people feel uncomfortable? Um…..how about those mods who refuse to answer that simple timeless question as to what their political views are when it comes to racist white nationalism?
C tells Madi the names of the other members who have had bad encounters with G. Why the fuck is all of this even happening? The first instance of racism in that community should have been met with an insta-ban, even if they were a moderator. The very fact that the act of banning G was completely off the table, before any evidence was even shown, tells the whole story, doesn’t it?
That is it for Part 3. The 4th article in this series all about Madi Danger’s late great goth Discord server will be put up this coming Sunday the 22nd. Thank you for reading!
Hello, welcome back to my series of articles about the troubled history of Madi Danger’s goth Discord server. If you are new here the first article in this series can be found HERE. I was so overwhelmed with all of the information that I found regarding this that I didn’t really get into the reason why she originally piqued my interest. What did she do to get my knickers in such a twist? The fact that she pretty much came out of nowhere and started making misinformed videos about the goth subculture in general; she was presenting herself as some sort of self appointed expert about the subculture. Yet apparently nobody really knew who she was before she arrived. She is basically a goth grifter, and you can read more of my assessment right HERE. All of the screenshots below are a continuation of the ones found in my last article. Again, they are in the order in which I found them.
Your political beliefs have nothing to do with the server or why you are there? Why is G so damn adamant as to why he doesn’t want to answer a simple question? Could it be because he has some racist white nationalist views? There is no other logical reason for it. Seriously. This is a giant red flag, that if it was planted on the moon you would be able to see it without a telescope. C is absolutely in the right here and they fully deserve to know if that space contains people with racist white nationalist views. They don’t want to be victimized because those type of assholes love to bully, harass and threaten people like them. Yeah dude, it is Madi’s server and your refusal to answer a basic question about your beliefs when it comes to racist white supremacist ideology speaks volumes about who you are in my honest opinion.
Holy shit this asshole! It’s really obvious that G is still not wiling to answer that same simple question, and then he quips about not recruiting for a ‘Aryan Super Soldier program’? Again, C asks G if he is a Nazi sympathizer. I applaud C for taking a stand against all of this and for having the courage to keep fighting the good fight. Jello Biafra would be proud of them.
It all moves to the music section, in which both moderators G and R try to shut down C’s concern as to how the Discord channel is run. As a person who used to be a mod for the largest punk community on Facebook I have to say that the power-tripping that these moderators are displaying is a bit over the top. Instead of answering simple questions they choose to just shut down conversations. As a moderator I would never dismiss somebody’s concerns, because if they are getting to the point of complaining about something then it is important to them. It wouldn’t be fair for me to do nothing about it. Where there is smoke there is usually a fire of some sort, so it is always important to look into it.
Back to the general channel we go! How the hell does asking a moderator a simple question about their beliefs, when it comes to racist white nationalism, become a problem on an all ages server? Deflection is never a good look, just answer the damn question! C answers back that they have been getting messages from others in the server who are also concerned and feeling uncomfortable. I don’t blame them because even seven months after the fact I am feeling uncomfortable as hell reading G’s dismissive comments.
Fucking hell! Isn’t R just a pleasant person; telling C to leave if they feel uncomfortable instead of tackling the issues going on. Who knew that asking somebody about their political beliefs would be controversial? R and G can dance around the question all they want, but it’s as if they have opened a red flag factory and are planting them all over that server.
C goes to town and makes perfect sense. How the hell is a marginalized person supposed to feel safe in an online community when the moderators refuse to answer a very simple and serious question?
C goes on to describe the entire situation that has been allowed to take place on the server. Then one of Madi’s deluded fans tries to deflect by saying that there are a lot of Nazi punk bands. Said by a person who obviously doesn’t have a clue about the punk subculture and its history of not tolerating right winged ideologies. C sets them straight, and of course they are correct.
This new participant, let’s call them Z, is absolutely correct in their sentiment because this is indeed how racist white nationalists act. They wiggle their way into subcultures, dress like members of it and then when they feel safe and protected they start using dog whistles to test out the waters. If nobody confronts them they then think that they can get away with anything. Most of the time they are easy to spot, and if you have been around for decades in different subcultures, like I have, you will see this sort of thing happen time and time again. It is why there has always been a tradition of beating the crap out of them when they are found. I actually witnessed this first hand over thirty years ago at the punk club 924 Gilman in Berkeley. A group of WAR(white aryan resistance) skins tried to push their way into Gilman and the entire club emptied and gave chase to them down the street. I wanted to join in but the volunteer who used to help run the club held me back because they said I could get killed. My fellow punks beat the shit out of them and they didn’t come back. Hooray!
I feel Z’s frustration when it comes to this entire situation. I too am tired of seeing this kind of crap happening yet again. They even suggest starting another Discord channel and inviting Madi to it so that they can discuss this situation with her away from the moderators. Making jokes about literal Nazi sympathizers in this kind of situation is indeed not funny and it raises yet more red flags.
Z again makes excellent points. Their assessment of G at the end is a logical one to make given the circumstances.
A history lesson by Z about why fascists have always managed to squirm their way into both the industrial and goth subcultures. It’s because some people in the subcultures have always adopted historically fascist looking fashion. The actual fascists see this and think that their views will be accepted into the subcultures. This is the main reason why I never got into that kind of fashion, because it just looks way too close to Nazi uniforms for my comfort.
This is the continuation of that same paragraph. Z is right in saying that the original reason why the early punks adopted Nazi imagery was to piss of their parents and the general public who all worshipped the Allied victory in WW2. They were basically being edgelords, and Siouxsie has apologized for her own part in it. Real actual fascists from metal, punk and other subcultures come into the goth community because they think that historically goths accept everybody and are not political.
Yet another continuation of the paragraph that Z wrote. They go into how online goth communities don’t push back against fascism hard enough, which leaves an opening for the fascists to sneak in under the guise of ‘acceptance’. No, the goth community is not obliged to accept fascists into the community because such people should by be punched. Remember it is a time honoured tradition.
A third moderator, who we will call J, enters the fray. C thinks this is Madi’s now husband, BUT they also hinted that they think this may actually be Madi herself. I have no idea either way so jump to your own conclusions when it comes to this.
After this series of articles about what happened seven months ago I was going to take a peak at the current state of her goth Discord channel, but I learned from a friend that she took the server down sometime between then and now. I guess she thought that people would forget what happened or something equivalent to that? I have no clue.
So this will be the end of the second part of my series. The next article, part three, will be published on Friday the 20th. Thank you for reading!
EDIT: Since this post is the most viewed on my blog I would like to add another screenshot that makes everything crystal clear. This is a screenshot of a past cache of Madi’s black metal Spotify playlist. On it she has the white nationalist band Burzum not once but twice. Spotify playlists take forever to update so I got lucky. I underlined them in green. Solid proof she has some white nationalist sympathies.
I just want to start out by saying that all of the info in this article was gathered by reading a very long PUBLIC post that somebody made of this entire situation seven months ago. They also included some screen shots to prove their side of the story. So, none of this was created out of thin air. Why didn’t it gain traction? Because the person in question claims that they were hounded online by Madi, her husband, her fans and their friends. However, they kept their post up in the hopes that others would see it. This is going to be a long and detailed post so get your seatbelts on; it’s going to be a very bumpy ride. I will be sharing photos and commenting under each one. By the way they are all in order of appearance, nothing is left out.
The fact that Madi’s friend G, who is one of the mods running the server, says that they are more comfortable around Norwegian black metal musicians really, really raises a red flag. The person above is correct in saying that the black metal genre, and specifically the Norwegian variety, has a history of racism and white supremacy. Varg Vikernes is a racist murdering piece of shit, and to think otherwise is basically condoning his actions and white supremacist beliefs. This isn’t rocket science.
So, the poster feels uncomfortable about all of this because they are a person who is regularly marginalized. They ask G what they meant, and they don’t really get a straight answer. Not a great look at all. Personally, I probably would have lost it by this time and would have just told all of them to go fuck themselves. They are showing extreme restraint and I commend them for that.
They tried to get a straight answer from G, but their question was still ignored. They even asked G’s partner and fellow moderator, R, and they also didn’t give a straight answer. They also talk about how a post in the discord that was deleted for no reason by G. What was the subject? It was about how Nazi clothing has no place in the goth and industrial subcultures. Why was it deleted? Because apparently it was off subject, even though it is a goth discord. Yes, you read that correctly. There is also an accusation about a Jewish member being called a slur by G, however there is no screenshot of that so it cannot be confirmed.
Above is G. Gee I wonder if he has racist white nationalist sympathies? We are next going to go straight into screenshots of all of the messages talked about above, because he starts talking about Madi next in his tale and all of that needs to be seen together on its own in a separate dedicated post(s). All of these will be in order so no claims of discarding certain messages can be made. This is pretty much a huge information dump and the reason why I am splitting this article into different parts.
The conversation starts with the poster, let’s just call them C, answering a question posed by G. There is some regular banter with C just giving their opinion about some problematic Soundcloud rappers.
This is where G openly states that he would feel more comfortable around Norwegian black metal musicians. As stated earlier in this article Norwegian black metal has a reputation for harbouring racist white nationalist musicians. Are all Norwegian black metal musicians racist white nationalists? Of course not, however there is something about that subculture that attracts those type of people. This raised a huge red flag for C, and when I personally read that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I immediately thought about when Brandon Pybus of Sonsombre was found out to be a member of a racist neo-Confederate organization.
That bottom comment that G makes about Varg being a ‘wild and crazy guy’ just really irks the hell out of me. No, you know what Varg is? A murdering racist white nationalistic piece of shit who deserves to drown in his own filth. That statement of his just hoists that red flag all the way up the flagpole for me.
His statement is cut off but C basically just told G that Norwegian black metal has racist white nationalist issues. In response G says that they aren’t going to talk about that there. Gives no reason, just tries to shut down the conversation. They could have said something like ‘white nationalists in the Norwegian black metal scene suck and I don’t agree with their views at all’ and that would have just ended the entire conversation. However, he chose not to do that. Hmmmm…..I wonder why?
Oh shit!!!! G just up and says ‘I don’t support politics on either side in the scene’. That ‘encouraging violence in any scene is intolerable’ is his reasoning and I am just so awed by this lack of self awareness on display here. C comments that they think that one side is definitely worse, and I agree. Racist white nationalists suck and should be punched, because that is a time honoured tradition in the punk and goth subcultures. Something that goes back all the way to the 1970’s. The simple fact that G doesn’t know or acknowledge this is sketchy as hell. G then says that he has to keep the place ‘safe for everyone’. Safe for who? Racist white nationalists?
C makes it clear that they want just a straight answer, and G fobs them off yet again. Being brave as hell C announces that they are going to have to leave the server if there are any white nationalists or people with Nazi beliefs. Then yet again they tell G that they don’t understand the status quote that G keeps trying to say is his opinion on white nationalism. G’s response to all of this just takes the cake. In other words G just doesn’t give a shit. What he really fails to grasp is that the goth subculture historically has always been left winged and not tolerant of right wing racist white nationalist bullshit. Remember folks, this is supposed to be a goth Discord community, not anything having to do with metal. Yet the moderator seemingly knows nothing about the history of the goth subculture. Doesn’t that sound familiar?
I can just feel C’s frustration at not getting a straight answer right now. At any point during this entire ordeal G could have just stepped up and said what they believed in, but nope they take the cowardly way out and say yet again that they don’t like letting politics ‘fuel’ their friendships or communities. Then G has the fucking audacity to respond flippantly when C asks him what his status means politically. The cold hard truth of this is G is a moderator of Madi’s dedicated goth Discord server, so this does not reflect well on her at all. Seriously.
C again asks for an answer to their question. What happens? G then claims, in all of his stupidity, that ‘finding’ politics in the goth subculture would ruin the scene because they assume that there aren’t any politics in the subculture at all. Let’s just take a minute to digest that before we go on. Ready? G obviously does not know crap about the goth subculture at all, because if he did they wouldn’t say something so amazingly ignorant. Why the hell is somebody who knows so little about the subculture put as a moderator of a Discord server that is supposed to be a resource for information about the goth subculture? Madi is putting herself out there as some sort of fount of knowledge about the goth subculture and this is what she comes up with? Oh hell to the no. The goth subculture has always been left leaning and political. Did Siouxsie wear stupid Nazi shit over 40 years ago? Yes, and she apologized for it because she realized how wrong she had been. Since the full formation of the goth subculture in the early 80’s musicians who espouse racist white nationalistic views are condemned by the majority and pushed away when found out. There are, of course, dumb racist idiots who will support such musicians but they are definitely in the minority, especially right now. If anything the subculture has grown even more political within the last ten years, which can only be a good thing.
Don’t look for trouble where there isn’t any? You know what I find troublesome? When somebody refuses to clearly state what their stance is on racist white nationalistic beliefs.
Dude, you literally told C that your political stance on racist white nationalism was in your profile. How the hell is somebody on a GOTH Discord server supposed to know that the quote you pointed them to is based on a METAL meme? Please don’t think that I have anything against metal music as a whole. In fact Danzig is one of my favourite bands and I saw the original line-up live back in 1992. So if anybody wants to claim that I know nothing about metal music they can full on kiss my ass. In fact I have been writing this post with the help of the first four Danzig albums. Oh, and I almost forgot. On top of all of that I was going to the punk club 924 Gilman in Berkeley over 30 years ago so I in turn know quite a bit about punk music. I am a triple threat; a woman who knows a lot about both goth and punk music while having a decent understanding of metal music. I hope that makes these moderators, and Madi, uncomfortable. C, yet again, asks for clarification which should earn them some sort of trophy for tenacity at this point.
In comes G’s partner R to the rescue! I’m sure they will have a rational explanation for all of this since R is G’s significant other. So asking whether or not a moderator has racist white nationalistic views isn’t goth? Oh, I forgot. We are supposed to be really meek and roll over and bark at your command because the goth subculture is filled with people with no political beliefs. Right? Fuck right off with that nonsense. I have absolutely no pity for people who are this damn ignorant. So G is stating that C is looking for ‘problems’ for asking the same damn simple question over and over again? None of this looks good for either of the moderators or for Madi herself, since she presents herself as knowledgable about the goth subculture and this is her dedicated goth Discord server.
Part two in this series will be up on Wednesday the 18th. I was not kidding when I said this is an info dump.
This is quite a funny story with some very strange moments mixed into it. Since there were no cameras allowed in the venue I have no photographic proof that this happened, but that was very typical back then. All names have been changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent.
Anyways! In July of 1989 I was an eighteen year old weirdo into punk, alternative and what would soon be labeled goth music. The goth tag didn’t infiltrate that area of California until 90-91. I had just graduated high school and was so happy that I was out of that hellhole that I saw this show as a reward of sorts. I had two tickets and was going with three friends, one of whom drove all of us from Fremont to the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. One friend, let’s name her Tracy, had actually lost her ticket and I let her have my extra one for free because that is what friends are for.
It was a general admission type show so we got there before noon and ended up first in line. It was very hot so we brought some shade protection and water but it wasn’t enough. Through the gate you could see their roadies and others walking back and forth getting things done. One of them had longish magenta hair and he would wave to us and smile. It was just really cool for somebody to acknowledge our tenacity in that heat.
I guess we looked very hot and miserable so that same roadie actually passed us some water and some fruit through the gates. This was a very cool thing for him to do and we thanked him profusely. Soon afterwards one of my friends, Ophelia, left the line to find a bathroom, and while she was gone the same roadie came over to us again with something in his hands; backstage passes! No joke! He proceeded to hand them out to our little group, and to two other women who were behind us in line. It was such a small weirdo world back then that I actually knew one of them. It all happened so quickly that we didn’t have a pass for Ophelia who then came back from the bathroom. That part of it really sucked, but we didn’t see the roadie again before the gates were finally opened. Word had gotten out about us getting those passes and I actually had a trendy alternative dude from my old high school ask if he could buy mine off of me for $50. Big hell to the no!
The prime area to watch a show unobstructed at that venue was standing on a bench that was on the path separating the pit and the tiers above. You had a barrier to lean against and you could see the stage with no obstructions. The Godfathers, the opening band, played and they were quite good and energetic. After they finished Ophelia mysteriously took off and was gone for about thirty minutes. When she came back she was magically holding a pass. She never told us how she got it so I’m guessing that some special exchange of body fluids is what occurred. You’ll find out why I think that later. Don’t worry, she was nineteen so nothing illegal took place.
The most famous song by the opening band The Godfathers.
Then Love & Rockets came out and they were really, really on fire that night. There was even a special appearance on stage of one of the Bubblemen, full costume and everything! It was a lot of fun, and when the show ended we went to the left side of the stage, all holding our passes like the rare treasures that they were. I mean, it’s not like we thought that we were going to get backstage passes or anything like that. My friends and I, and the two other women, didn’t look ubergoth or anything like that. We all looked alternative in one way or another. I wore the atypical black leather jacket of the time. I stuck some band stickers on the back of it and painted a quote from the PiL song Memories below them. It was 100% DIY because that is what you had to do back then if you wanted to wear something different looking. I’m just saying all of this to make the point that you don’t have to wear expensive clothes or a ton of make-up to actually talk to the ‘goth’ musicians that you like.
We get to the backstage entrance and the security guy tells all of us that we have to stick the patches on our clothing. I told him I was going to put it on the back of my jacket and asked him if that was okay. Got a nod and had Tracy stick in on for me. Away we went into the unknown!
You are probably wondering how nervous I was at this point. Very, but excited at the same time! What’s funny is that two years earlier some asshole at my high school made fun of me for not knowing about their first album, and guess who was meeting them? Me and not him! Hooray! Well, we walked into a large back room which was where the band food was to see members of The Godfathers and the really good backup singer that performed with Love & Rockets. Who was by the way a real sweetheart and I think I made her day when I got her to sign my jacket. She performed with them so she counted as a member of the band in my eyes. Backup singers are the unsung heroes of the music world.
No sign of Love & Rockets. One of the two other women asked if the band was going to come out because we wanted some things signed. She was the only person in the whole group of us who had a marker, and it was a cool pink metallic colour. I think security went down the hall and a minute later said that we can hand him our things and they will sign them. I had bought a shirt so I handed it over and about ten minutes later we received back our freshly signed gear. That wasn’t the end, so don’t think that all of us went down without a fight. Another one of us complained quite loudly as to why give us backstage passes if we don’t even get to meet the band. The rest of us joined in and I guess the band heard and soon all six of us were ushered into the inner sanctum; the band dressing room.
In the midst of all of this Ophelia told us quietly that The Godfathers wanted her to hang out with them at the club The Berkeley Square. However, she claimed that she couldn’t go because she had no way of getting home afterwards. I mean, she could have walked to BART in the morning, but I’m guessing she didn’t want to do the walk of shame. Which leads me to think that she got that backstage pass by doing something with a member of that band. She was willing to do something once, but not a second time. Again, she was nineteen years old so nothing illegal took place. I only knew her for two more years after this because she turned out to be one of those type of people who will kiss anybody’s ass to get what she wanted. That really, really irked me so I stopped being friends with her. She was kind of like a social vampire; just very draining.
The set list that Love & Rockets played that night.
Daniel Ash was standing in the corner looking at us with no expression, David J was on one end of the couch looking stoic, while Kevin Haskins was all smiles. One of the first things that happened was Kevin getting the pen from the other woman, then physically he turned me around and started to draw one of the Bubblemen on the back of my jacket. He did all of this with a smile on his face and you could tell that he was really enjoying himself and that he was in his element. When you have met a lot of musicians you learn which vibes mean what and he really came across as a genuinely nice person. Wait, I can hear you asking, what about Daniel and David? You have got to understand how absolutely gorgeous Daniel Ash was back then in person. However, I got tired of him just standing there and staring at us so I went up to him and started babbling and somehow I got onto the subject of the film This Is Spinal Tap. Yes, I talked about the film This Is Spinal Tap with Daniel Ash. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but soon it didn’t matter because we were all told that we needed to leave.
When I turned around I saw my friends but no Kevin Haskins. I asked what had happened to him and was told by Ophelia that Tracy had been sitting on the sofa arm and she had accidentality kicked Kevin in the nuts! When I was talking to Daniel I remember hearing a small commotion but that was it. So, one of us managed to accidentally kick in the nuts the nicest musician in the room. I remember Tracy constantly repeating ‘Oh my god!’ on the way back to the car because she felt so bad about it.
The really, really funny thing about all of this is that I learned years later that Daniel Ash has always had kind of a reputation of willingly having sex with his female fans, So, I guess all of us didn’t look hot enough to get banged by Daniel? I am so happy that he didn’t hit on me because that would have spoiled the whole thing in my opinion. Where is that leather coat and can you buy it from me? Unfortunately that jacket is long gone, which is what happens when you move around a lot.
Hey Daniel, if by some miracle you are reading this I hope you took my advice and watched This Is Spinal Tap because it is a very funny film. Oh, and Kevin thank you for being a really cool person and I am so sorry that a member of my group accidentality harmed you.
