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Diabolical new animated video from No Wave/goth apostles Egrets on Ergot: A DM premiere
03.09.2018
07:39 am
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It’s hard to strike gold when the mine’s overrun with prospectors. Post-punk revivalism has already been a go-to tactic in independent (and occasionally mainstream) music for long enough that expecting anything new from it feels quixotic, so when someone comes along and makes a genuinely exciting record in the idiom, it’s pretty damn satisfying. L.A.’s Egrets on Ergot have done exactly that: their debut album, Surfeit of Gemütlich, injects significant freshness into deathrock tropes you’d be justified in thinking had passed their sell-by date. There’s plenty of No-Wave sneer here, and EoE have clearly done their goth homework—that bass guitar tone is unmistakable and I’ll probably never get sick of it, and singer/saxophonist Adam Brooks capably channels Nik Fiend. But while all the sources for their homage are identifiable, it never quite feels derivative, and EoE brings an unrestrained and clamorous energy to much of their music that compares favorably to the likes of Savages and Pop. 1280.
 

 
Produced by Screamers/45 Grave’s Paul Roessler, Surfeit of Gemütlich was released to acclaim in October. The video for “Sister Please” came along in November (NSFW for a bit of nudity and sexual content), and it’s DM’s pleasure to premiere the new video for “Occult Matters” today. It’s an animated video by Eric Livingston, probably best known for his artwork for the debut album by Dead Cross, a hardcore supergroup that sports members of Faith No More, Retox, and Slayer.
 

 
More from Egrets on Ergot, after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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03.09.2018
07:39 am
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Goth AF black lemonade recipe
06.12.2017
08:29 am
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Instructables has a detailed recipe for “Black Lemonade.” I haven’t made it yet, so I can’t tell you if it’s any good or not. It does look very intriguing and simple to make, though. I might have to try it out this weekend.

Black Lemonade

Ingredients:

  • juice of one lemon
  • 1-2 capsules activated charcoal
  • stevia or maple syrup
  • water
  • ice

 
Instructions:

  • Cut lemon in half and squeeze it with a juicer releasing the juice. Make sure to pick out any seeds that may sneak in. Add lemon juice to a 16-ounce glass.
  • Break open 1-2 activated charcoal capsules (check dosage on your bottle or container), add to the lemon juice, and stir to combine.
  • For the rest of the recipe go to Instructables

 
As a side note: make sure you can take charcoal capsules. Apparently charcoal can interfere with certain medications.


 
via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.12.2017
08:29 am
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Inside the Batcave: A 1983 news report on the legendary London goth club
05.04.2017
10:11 am
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Liori Patterson at the Batcave, photo by Pierre Terrasson (via Pinterest)

In 1983, the London Weekend Television series Reporting London paid a visit to the Batcave, the discotheque where Bauhaus, Virgin Prunes, Southern Death Cult, and Alien Sex Fiend performed and Siouxsie Sioux, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, David Tibet, and Youth enjoyed themselves. Everyone says it was goth ground zero.

If you use this for makeup tips, bear in mind that it took more than style alone to create a fabulosity so fabulous. David J remembers that people who frequented the Batcave didn’t take themselves too seriously and liked to laugh, and speaking to LWT 34 years ago, Olli Wisdom, who ran the club and sang in the band Specimen, agreed:

It’s the people that make the atmosphere. It’s not “Suck your cheeks in and pose in the corner.” It’s very friendly. Basically, it’s about fun. It’s about having your tongue firmly in your cheek and being able to laugh at the realities of the day-to-day existence.

 

Batcave membership card (via Archive of Ephemera)

The music in the clip may not strike you as especially goth—lots of Bowie, a little Stray Cats and Gary Glitter, even a bit of “Radar Love”—nor the Batcave’s clientele, for that matter: one of the dancers is Morten Harket, the singer of a-ha. No, the evil goth darkness is provided by a Welsh miner named Glyn Jones, who appears on camera drinking a pint with his son, a Batcave habitué:

The first time he comes home, I don’t recognize him. I was repulsed by it. He’d been up in London about a fortnight, and he came home one day with his hair blond, and makeup all over his face, and he took one step in front of the door. I caught him by the throat, and I said, “If you ever come home to Ynysybwl, leave your makeup in London where you can wear it, but down here you just don’t do that sort of thing.” The youngsters up there, you know, you live in a different type of world than we do, simple as that.

 
Watch after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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05.04.2017
10:11 am
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Proto-goth obscurities: Killed by deathrock
10.03.2016
08:45 am
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Indie label Sacred Bones has been really killing it lately with experimental releases such as the upcoming Uniform 12 inch and the godlike John Carpenter Lost Themes volumes, as well as their reissues of classic weirdo stuff like Funeral Parade, the Eraserhead soundtrack, and my personal favorite: the Killed By Deathrock compilation.

Killed By Deathrock is, as the title suggests, a compilation of classic punk obscurities in the vein of the ever-popular Killed By Death series, but with a darker, creepier, white foundation and black mascara bent. “Deathrock,” for the uninitiated, was more-or-less the original unofficial name for what eventually morphed into the thing known today as “goth.” The term “deathrock” originated in the L.A. punk scene in the late 70s, used to describe punk bands that incorporated horror elements and spooky atmospherics, such as Christian Death, 45 Grave, Kommunity FK, and Radio Werewolf. For a time, some used it as a blanket term to also describe European post-punk bands such as Bauhaus or Southern Death Cult, but “goth” eventually emerged as the genre-identifier that stuck. There was certainly a marked difference between the campier, punkier L.A. bands and and the more brooding Euro set.

Whatever you feel comfortable calling these groups with pale skin and chorusy guitars and Bowie-impersonation to the nth degree vocals, there were a whole slew of them out there in the early ‘80s, many of whom are virtually unheard of today. Thankfully the good folks at Sacred Bones are plundering the graveyards to dig up some of these remains. 

I can’t recommend Killed By Deathrock highly enough, so I was thrilled to learn that a second volume in the series is being released next month.

Checking the track list, I’m familiar with only about half of the bands, so this is going to be a treat:

1. Gatecrashers “Spectator”
2. Middle Class “A Skeleton at the Feast”
3. ADS “Waiting for the War”
4. Veda “Whiplash”
5. Skeletal Family “Promised Land”
6. Flowers for Agatha “The Freedom Curse”
7.  “Dark Spirits”
8. Crank Call Love Affair “What’s Wrong Yvette”
9. Red Zebra “I Can’t Live in a Living Room”
10. Vita Noctis “Hade”

That’s a great Middle Class track from their underrated Homeland album, which was a far post-punk cry from their first seven inch—a record many punk historians consider to be the first “hardcore” record. This track has the Middle Class sounding much more like Bauhaus-like:
 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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10.03.2016
08:45 am
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New Wave: Peek inside ‘Bogey’s Underground Fashion’ catalog from the good old 1980s


A page from the vintage fashion catalog ‘Bogey’s Underground Fashion,’ late 80s, early 90s.
 
Today I have for you something that I know many of our readers will recall coming across back in the mid to late 80s: a catalog catering to goth, “new wave” and punk style clothes sold by the New York-based company “Bogey’s Underground-Fashion From London.”
 

 
Back in the Boston-area during the 80s (where I was busily stomping around at the time) there were several shops in Cambridge that catered to the crowd who wanted their clothes to be black and tight with zippers and holes in all the right places. I spent A LOT of cash at the Allston Beat (RIP) in Harvard Square. To this day I refuse to get rid of the few pieces I still have that I purchased there back in the late ‘80s.

Much of the clothing and shoes sold by Bogey’s appeared to be from London (specifically pieces from “BOY of London”). Additionally, they sold their own “Bogey’s” brand which I will cautiously assume might have been designed in the company’s former home-base at 767 5th Avenue in New York. I can also tell you that looking at these images (best viewed whilst listening to Bauhaus, Adam & the Ants or Alien Sex Fiend) you may wish that Bogey’s awesomely cheesey 800 number, “1-800-YO-BOGEY” still was in operation, as they called it a day back in the early spring of 1993.
 

 

 
More pages from Bogey’s Underground-Fashion From London catalogs after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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09.14.2016
01:35 pm
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‘80s goths spied dancing in their natural habitats
02.15.2016
01:00 pm
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I always get a little excited when I run across some previously unseen vintage footage of dancing goths that has bubbled up to the surface. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of documentation of early ‘80s goths dancing in their natural habitats. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that goths have traditionally been viewed as terrible dancers? We’ll just roll the footage and let our readers be the judge of that.

First up on this goth dancing hit parade is a clip which purports to be from 1983. The song in the clip is the extended single mix of The Cure’s “Let’s Go To Bed” which was released in 1982. Unfortunately the upload doesn’t offer more info as to the location of the club. If anyone knows, please comment. Some of the outfits here are wonderfully racy.
 

 
More dancing goths from the 1980s, after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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02.15.2016
01:00 pm
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‘The Height of Goth’: Visions of goths enjoying a night of dance, 1984
02.02.2016
02:18 pm
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It’s something of a miracle that The Height of Goth: 1984: A Night at the Xclusiv Nightclub exists. According to Patrick Torsney, who was at the venue in Batley, West Yorkshire, near Leeds, that night and who posted it to YouTube in 2011, it was created by Ann and Pete Swallow, who managed the Xclusiv Nightclub, as a promotion and only about 50 VHS copies were ever made. The video Torsney found so many years later was “trashed, mildewed, beyond junk” but the restoration did a pretty good job of making it watchable on YouTube. The first few minutes are a little wonky but it settles down after that.

At the outset we see the impressive edifice that houses the Xclusiv and meet the Swallows—Pete hilariously says that his club’s clientele are mainly “way out young people.” The Height of Goth is a remarkable bit of amateur documentary, showing exactly what a night on the town at a typical, Goth-y nightclub was like in northern England in the halcyon year of 1984. It’s two solid hours, and almost all of it is just regular folks gyrating on a dancefloor while tunes like the Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way” supply the soundtrack.

About halfway through the dude pretending to be a local reporter type interviews some of the attendees; his attitude is actually pretty dismissive of all the crazy fashions and stuff, but hardly anyone seems to notice. The first couple he interviews, bedabbed with goth-y face paint, in all apparent sincerity claim to like Glenn Miller better than anyone else, a note that is also struck by the DJ, named Paul, at the beginning of the video. I don’t know what’s up with that except to say that where there’s dancing, you might find Glenn Miller fans?

One of the last songs in the DJ’s set, a little after the 1:55 mark, is David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”—the homespun choreography for that bit has to be seen to be believed.

This was a goth-y kind of affair but in fact, what’s quite apparent is that a paying audience of adults (even if this was a special night for the filming) aren’t going to want just wall-to-wall Siouxsie and Echo, so there’s REM and Bowie and “The Monster Mash” and the Stranglers and goth-y precursors the Doors mixed in with New Order and Blancmange.
 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.02.2016
02:18 pm
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‘80s goths spied dancing in their natural habitats
12.23.2015
08:54 am
Topics:
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I always get a little excited when I run across some previously unseen vintage footage of dancing goths that has bubbled up to the surface. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of documentation of early ‘80s goths dancing in their natural habitats. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that goths have traditionally been viewed as terrible dancers? We’ll just roll the footage and let our readers be the judge of that.

First up on this goth dancing hit parade is a clip which purports to be from 1983. The song in the clip is the extended single mix of The Cure’s “Let’s Go To Bed” which was released in 1982. Unfortunately the upload doesn’t offer more info as to the location of the club. If anyone knows, please comment. Some of the outfits here are wonderfully racy.
 

 
More dancing goths from the 1980s, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
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12.23.2015
08:54 am
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No one really understands the inner pain of the goth chicken
10.29.2015
08:42 am
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Chickens are generally the stupidest-looking birds on the planet. I own two different coffee table books of chicken photos simply because the mere sight of these idiotic fowl can literally bring me to laugh-induced tears.

It must be hard to be a chicken—they’re all going to laugh at you.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some elegant chickens out there. Today we cast the spotlight on two types of goth chickens: the Black Silkie and the Ayam Cemani.
 

 
The Black Silkie is thought by traditional Chinese medicine to increase female fertility and vitality and nourish the pregnant woman’s developing child. It’s feathers and skin are black and they are most often raised as pets or for showing rather than producers of eggs or meat—though they are indeed edible and make a great noodle soup.
 

 

 

 

 

 
The Ayam Cemani is a designer breed from Indonesia, also possessing black feathers and skin—not to mention black muscles and organs. They are an expensive breed. Chicks generally sell for around $200 each.  They have been referred to in some circles as the “Lamborghini of poultry.”
 

 
More goth chickens after the jump…

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Posted by Christopher Bickel
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10.29.2015
08:42 am
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Young Adam Ant looking like a pretty punk rock Adonis
08.31.2015
12:17 pm
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Adam and the Ants at Eric's Club in Liverpool, 1977
Adam and the Ants at Eric’s Club in Liverpool, 1977 

Before the flamboyant gyrating, Native American-obsessed pirate we all know and love as Adam Ant there was another fellow (born Stuart Leslie Goddard), who looked more like the proto-goths of the 70s such as Siouxsie Sioux (who Adam and The Ants often supported live back in the day) or Dave Vanian of The Damned.
 
Adam Ant and Sioux Siesioux backstage
Adam Ant and Siouxsie Sioux hanging out backstage, 1977
 
After joining his first band in 1975, Bazooka Joe, Goddard bore witness to what was likely the very first performance ever given by the Sex Pistols, who were the opening act for a Bazooka Joe gig. Goddard quickly quit the group and went on to form another band that never really got off the ground called, B-Sides. Following a battle with anorexia and a suicide that landed him in a psychiatric hospital, Goddard was released, changed his name to Adam Ant and eventually formed Adam and the Ants around 1977.
 
Adam Ant and Jordan live at The Vortex, 1977
Adam Ant (with Jordan) at the Vortex, (London, 1977)
 
In addition to some pretty amazing photos of Ant, his band and collaborator/punk fashion icon Jordan (aka Pamela Rooke who worked at the King’s Row boutique, SEX run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood), I dug up this very punk recollection from UK music and culture historian, Tom Vague on the first time he laid eyes on Adam Ant in 1977:

The first time I saw Adam Ant he had just had ‘Fuck’ carved into his back by Jordan with a razor blade and World’s End was stained with his blood

Who knew everyone’s favorite post-punk jaunty pirate was so dangerous? Well, I’m sure some of you did, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the following photos that pre-date Ant’s 80s fashion and antics.
 
Adam and the Ants (with Jordan) at The Marquee, 1977
Adam and the Ants (with Jordan) at The Marquee, 1977
 
Adam Ant, super goth, 1977
Adam Ant, 1977/1978
 
More, plus early film footage of Adam and the Ants, after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.31.2015
12:17 pm
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The Glove: When Robert Smith and Steven Severin played hooky from The Cure & Siouxsie & the Banshees


 
During Robert Smith’s tenure as the guitarist in Siouxsie and the Banshees (1982-84), a period that yielded the “Dear Prudence” hit single, as well as Hyena and the live Nocturne album, while Siouxsie and Budgie were off doing The Creatures, Smith and Banshees’ bassist Steven Severin formed The Glove, a one-off side-project with vocalist/dancer Jeanette Landray (Smith’s Cure contract forbade him from singing with another group).

The Glove, named after a character in Yellow Submarine produced just one album, the experimental, druggy, yet still quite poppy-sounding goth psychedelia of Blue Sunshine (yes, they copped the title from the cult film about the bad LSD) and two singles, “Like an Animal” and “Punish Me with Kisses.”
 
image
 
The 2006 reissue of Blue Sunshine as a 2 CD set that features a second disc of Glove demos with Smith singing instead of Landray. (Many fans were annoyed to find that his vocals were only recently recorded.) Both Severin and Smith have indicated that they would like to record together again.

Below, “A Blues in Drag”:

 
Hear “Punish Me with Kisses” after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.06.2015
03:47 pm
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Here’s your new favorite ‘80s Hungarian goth band
05.19.2015
08:25 am
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Hungarian goth band, F.O. System

Having worked in record stores most of my life, the one question I’ve been asked more than any other is the dreaded “what are you listening to lately?” I say “dreaded” because there’s this entire process of cold-reading the asker before an answer can be formulated. Generally the person posing the question is looking for shopping advice, and I find myself lying about my current playlist, simply because the Dave Matthews fan trying to pick my brain doesn’t really need my Flux of Pink Indians The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks recommendation. I always get a little neurotic when asked this question, because I feel like giving a legitimately truthful answer only serves to make me look like the pretentious record store asshole that I might actually be. 

Being one of those uberhip “you’ve probably never heard of them” douchenozzles is the last thing in the world I want to be identified as, so all I can really do is try to share and never judge. But sometimes, unintentionally, the answer to that dreaded question just sounds like you’re a too-cool-for-school try-hard. Go ahead. Ask me what I’m listening to lately.

OK, I’ll tell you.

Lately I’m listening to a lot of Hungarian goth.

See?! I can’t even say it out loud without feeling like “that guy”—but I digress. With it right here out in the open, I can at least tell you about this best band ever that’s currently rocking my world—or, as is the case with Hungarian goth—is currently reflecting the blackness of my empty soul.

I was recently reading the absolutely essential Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s, and noting band names I was unfamiliar with. One of the groups, detailed in a section about goth behind the Iron Curtain, was Hungary’s F.O. System (AKA Fuck Off System or F.O.).

Going directly to the Internet to learn more, I found that there’s very little information on the group—and what little information there is, is in Hungarian. Thank the gods of technology for Google translate.
 

F.O. System. From the band’s Facebook page.
 
F.O. System was one of many bands that came out of a scene centered around Fekete Lyuk, or “The Black Hole,” which was a Budapest nightclub. The group was founded in 1986 by Attila Matyas and Csaba Jerabek, and existed until 1991. F.O. System are considered one of the first goth bands out of Hungary.  They quickly outgrew The Black Hole club, playing several major festivals, and opening for New Model Army and Christian Death. They toured what was then West Germany, before disbanding. Years later, they played a series of reunion shows, having performed as recently as 2013. Their 1988 demo tape is a total fucking classic of the genre.
 

“Day of the Gloom” demo cassette
 
F.O. System’s influences are apparent in their sound. You’ll hear shades of The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, and certainly Bauhaus—but the sum of these parts is something totally unique, and undoubtedly eastern European. There is something very bleak and grey about the region that is reflected in the sound of bands such as F.O. System.  You get the sense that this is no ennui-inspired suburban affectation—this is the real deal.

F.O. System’s website has information on the group’s releases. You can purchase digital tracks of the first album and demo here.

This video for their song “Ne Félj” is as good as anything the entire goth genre has to offer. It’s one of those songs I find myself putting on and just replaying over and over. Judge for yourself:
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
How your pretentious local record store asshole got that way

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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05.19.2015
08:25 am
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Step away from the glow stick: Cybergoths rave to ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ theme song
03.05.2015
02:52 pm
Topics:
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Cybergoths
 
A few years ago, a bunch (a gaggle? a band? a flashmob?) of cybergoth kids met beneath a bridge underpass for an impromptu daytime dance party. They went viral. Little did they know, in an alternate future universe, they were really waving their glow sticks to the whimsical theme song of Thomas the Tank Engine, that accursed kiddie show which parents despise almost as much as Barney.

The world is about to make a whole lot more sense:

 
(Does this mean that cyber-everything is dead?)

via reddit

Posted by Rusty Blazenhoff
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03.05.2015
02:52 pm
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Watch the hilarious operatic tale of one man’s relapse into his teen goth self
10.29.2014
01:55 pm
Topics:
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As a punk, my disdain for goths was challenged upon moving to NYC, where I was forced to admit some of the looks were pretty cool (I blame Hot Topic-style mall gothery for my bad first impression). A year ago, I lost all claim to goth derision when I found myself searching Etsy for pretty cameo jewelry and nearly had an identity crisis wondering if I was a “late-in-life-goth.” (Have no fear, I simply had a dress that required some Victorian flair.) I think a large portion of goth-mockery is rooted in inane subculture competitiveness, but I think the perception of goths as humorless doesn’t exactly help.

Nothing could be further from the truth! Take this comic operetta and short film from New York performance artist Joseph Keckler; a working stiff longs for his days as a teen goth and suddenly finds himself descended into the blackness of his youth (and all the poorer for it—it’s not a look for the broke). The video is really funny of course, but you also have to admire Keckler’s composition and performance. He wrote and sang the entire number, and it’s really technically impressive, not to mention… kind of beautiful? That German dialect! That romantic bass! It’s enough to seduce anyone towards the darkside! Bela Lugosi lives!
 

 
Via VICE

Posted by Amber Frost
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10.29.2014
01:55 pm
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I’d kill for that dress: Gorgeously gothy mourning attire from 1815-1915
10.23.2014
09:21 am
Topics:
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Evening dress suitable for late mourning, from around 1861
 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced a breathtaking new exhibit, “Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire”—upper-class women’s widow couture, if you will. The clothing ranges from 1815 to 1915, when the death of a husband was met with strict social expectations among the English (and sometimes American) elite. During the Victorian era, a widow was expected to observe a year and a day of “full mourning,” during which she would refrain from “society” activities, veiled and wearing simple black dresses. After that, there was a nine-month period where she could drop the veil and incorporate small adornments, like jewelry or a trimmed hem. Then came “half-mourning,” where she could add grey, purple or a little white—this lasted three to six more months.

If a woman did not observe proper mourning etiquette (especially if she was still young and pretty), she would usually be considered not only gauche, but downright libidinous. Additionally, if the mourning attire was too flashy, she could also be judged as advertising her new singledom—scandalous! Widowers on the other hand, were just expected to wear dark clothes for an unofficial amount of time, and they could remarry in as little as a few months without fear of judgement.

If you can’t make it to the Met, you’re in luck! Almost all of their archives are searchable online, and I have compiled an exhibit for you right here. I even added some pieces that aren’t on display, including a dress worn by Queen Victoria herself. Kind of makes you long for the days when people died from a seasonal flu, huh?
 

1870, with veil
 

1880, not on view
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Amber Frost
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10.23.2014
09:21 am
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