days of whine and roses..

[darren_stranger]

For some reason i've been thinking about good ol' fashioned goth style today - not the punky deathrock stuff i've been enjoying in recent times, nor as a loose generic term for the range of tastes and styles of people i know, or the hate-to-think-what* meanings the word might be used for these days - but the big, pompous, top-hat-and-ball-gown, overblown neo-victorian ubergothick cliches of yesteryear.  The days when people called themselves by names like Azrael and Na'haliel, swirled hands in the air while dancing two-steps, took photos in cemeteries and went to Gothic Balls.

I think it might have started with a conversation over the weekend, which included mention of the band Darkness Visible, a name i hadn't heard in maybe a decade, and it's brought to mind a thought that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind for a few weeks, since an earlier discussion about the re-emergence of that sartorial bent at last year's Whitby.  When i think of that style, and the days when 'gothic elegance' seemed to be at its zenith, the time i associate with that is the 1990s, perhaps with the mid-'90s as its peak.  Yet that's also the time i think of 'goth' as i know it as having been dead, the time when everything was NIN and Snog and Front 242 and me sipping disconsolately on a beer in the corner at 3am "..counting off the hours 'til that fifteen lousy minutes of the Cure and Sisters".

Something don't add up.  Perhaps my memory of the chronology is out of whack, though i'm sure those same bands i sat at home listening to, wishing i could hear them in a dark, smoky club with like-minded folk, were the ones i'd read about in the same magazines that advertised those clubs where i hoped in vain to hear them.  Perhaps it is a case of the the right time but wrong place, and all of that was happening Somewhere Else.  More likely it was under my nose and i just wasn't looking in the right place.  I've already figured out that i was going to The Wrong Clubs at the time, and who knows what else was going on that i didn't know about.  Or maybe other people just didn't see the connections between music, fashion and subculture to be as inextricably linked as i did (though i still find myself unable to conceive of Ministry and FLA as the obvious choice of mental soundtrack for wandering a cemetery with a lace parasol and veiled top-hat).

Not that any of that really matters now.  It's just funny how my memory works, holding two seemingly contradictory recollections at the same time.



* Note - doing an image search for "goth" can be have depressing results, especially with porn filters turned off.

Comments

[p-cat.livejournal.com]

Something don't add up. Perhaps my memory of the chronology is out of whack

If it's any consolation, that's how I remember it too. Although the seaweed goth thing wasn't something I was especially into! God, that reminds me of that GQ article in what, '94? I'm sure Neefsck has got a copy of that somewhere.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

As do I.

Sadly.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

I just wonder whether i'm conflating different periods within the decade as a single time known as "the '90s", or whether i'm conflating completely different groups of people as a single entity known as "goth". Were those wistful 'zines full of tragic vampire stories leftovers from the early '90s, or were they written by the same people stomping about to NIN at Wall Street at the time i read them, or by someone else at the time who wouldn't be caught dead at Apocalypse? (Maybe they were sitting at home writing wistful 'zines full of tragic vampire stories instead.)

My sense of time is all sort of blurred together - i'm picturing people "casting sigils" in the air, but can't place when and to what. Was it 1992 before anybody had heard of Trent Reznor, or 1995 with the Crow soundtrack playing, or even 1999 when everything old was new again. Or was it actually 2003 and i was too drunk to know the difference? I've got no idea.

I guess going out only a few times a year for most of that time doesn't help either.

[p-cat.livejournal.com]

I started clubbing in '93 so can't comment before that, but I would confine that period in my experience to between then and '95 at the latest. Perhaps that says more about me than about the scene though. I'd definitely say that there were different groups - the "high goths" were different from the nascent "cyber goths". There was a residual aesthetic that popped up again later but I'd put that down to the increased prominence of boutiques like Anton's. Back in the early '90s, a few people were wearing Mortisha's frocks[1] but mostly it was op-shop chic in the form of rotting evening gowns and wedding dresses or something home sewn. The most visible difference I've seen has been the rise of super-expensive club outfits. The Camberwell Market was the source of all my outfits when I was 16!

[1] I remember paying a whole $80 at Mortisha's for a crushed-velvet sausage casing that I adored at the time - still have it somewhere.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

You say "wandering a cemetery with a lace parasol and veiled top-hat", and I think Gothic Lolita*, and silly undersized top hats.

Gosh, I'd quite forgotten Darkness Visible too. I may have to dig out some of my CDs from the era when people with names like Azrael and Na'haliel and Sade seemed to spark something, and people recorded songs and stuff.

When you'd buy a Heartland compilation and then argue endlessly about it on usenet. :)



*I hate using the phrase Gothic Lolita. I'm afraid to even google it, not the least because somewhere it'll flag some kinda kiddiepron filter.

[p-cat.livejournal.com]

"wandering a cemetery with a lace parasol and veiled top-hat"

Ditch the veil and the parasol and you have the photos taken on my 18th birthday.

*staple hand to forehead*

[speakmarauder.livejournal.com]

that OTT culture never existed in adelaide. at that time it was all raggedy torn lace with wide-brimmed hats and veils. not like the more glam take on things happening in melbourne. same rseult in the end though (ie - you never see it any more).

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Even torn lace and veils probably fits with what i'm thinking of. Basically an idea of 'goth' that lent towards faux-19th century fashion, tragic vampire novels and reading poetry in cemeteries. What i tend to think of a s the 'goth' part of 'goth'.

"goth"

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Note - doing an image search for "goth" can be have depressing results, especially with porn filters turned off.

try doing one for "emo"! Speaking of which, I heard a HACK segment about 'what "emo" was' and noticed that it never mentioned 'goth' once (not that that's a bad thing...)

[sharplittlteeth.livejournal.com]

Heh. Goth and porn...

They both project a fantasy. And we wouldn't be goths if we weren't yearning after something unattainable.

I remember sighing over goth magazines back in the mid-90s, admiring all these beautiful, elegant and strange creatures, and wishing I could be part of that world. But that's as realistic as wishing your job as a pizza delivery boy means a spicy threesome with some Swedish blondes as a tip.

Perhaps it is a case of the the right time but wrong place, and all of that was happening Somewhere Else. More likely it was under my nose and i just wasn't looking in the right place.

Or perhaps it just wasn't that common, out here in the real world.

Victorian mourning dress makes for great photos in a magazine. And yes, I remember seeing them about in the mid-90s. But they were the exception rather than the rule.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. True, the top hat, parasol and ball gown ensemble would have been the exception more than the rule in practice, but it's the idea of that image epitomising 'goth' that i'm thinking of.

I just have a recollection of some time in the 1990s as being the height of the 'romantic goth' idea, yet i can't pin down just when that was or reconcile it with my other memories of the '90s. Often i associate it with the early part of the decade, but then i remember reading a lot of that sort of material online through web-rings, which places it around 1997 or later.

I think perhaps my mistake is in thinking of it as a distinct time, as an era separate from those of industrial and grunge-goth, when in fact it's more a parallel stream that waxed and waned throughout the decade at the same time as those other flavours. Certainly, by the end of the decade the idea of sub-subcultures ("what type of goth are you?") was well established, so perhaps that splintering was existant much earlier than i remember.

Anyway, as i've now spent a few hours of work time writing these posts about the nature of 'goth', i estimate that it must currently be about 1998. So if you'll excuse me, i think i have to go discover black metal right about now.