One of the new apprentices, Tracey, is clearly a goth, albiet a mini-goth, or toned-down-at-work goth. I could tell by the heavy silver pendants she wore around her neck, as well as the straight black bob, matching straight black fringe and general goth-like demeanor. As you may have guessed, I am a recovering goth and am therefore never far from plunging back into blissful gothdom at the slightest provocation. Although I don't appear in the least gothic these days, at least not to the untrained eye anyway, there are certain signals that we must emit which betray us to our brethren and sistren. Let's call it Goth-waves.
Tracey and I immediately fell into conversation about the recent Under the Blue Moon Festival (which I forgot to attend). She asked if I liked goth music and I lamely replied along the lines of "er ... yes, but it's all at least 15 years old like The Sisters of Mercy, Ministry and Skinny Puppy" hoping she wouldn't ask me to recall any of my favourite songs.
Apparently, a band called Covenant headlined the festival and everyone "went off" when they played their big song "Call The Ships To Port". I asked if they were like Sisters of Mercy and she told me they represent a new genre called 'dark wave'. I have listened to a bit of Covenant since our conversation and they don't seem to be a million miles away from Sisters of Mercy musically, which is both amusing and rather a relief. More importantly, there was a goth fashion show at Carriageworks. That would have been fantastic! I am an unashamed fan of the downright beauty of goth costume wear.
Our conversation ranged quite widely as I lay at the basin reminiscing about the early to mid 90's. Tracey agonised about whether emo would be the death of goth and I opined that goth has been through at least 4 waves to my knowledge and that it will continue to be reinvented as long as teenagers keep discovering Joy Division and black eyeliner. Tracey seemed unconvinced and suspicious of my assertion that gothism has existed in a prior incarnation. So I didn't bother to talk about the 10 or so years I spent dyeing my hair blue-black or "the good old days" of Soho in the Cross and the time I was just so friggen gothed up that my friend and I were ushered past the waiting queue of wannabes as if we were goth royalty.
Hmmm ... maybe I'm ready for a personal goth revival. Dare I?
1 comment:
If a goth revival gets you ushered in past queues of wannabes I say go for it. Waiting in queues is for chumps!
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