I find this interesting because I did not identify with any "sub-culture" in jr. high and high school. Also, while I know Goths who first identified as Goth in their early teens and continute to do so now in their 20's and 30's and who did so in rural areas a part from a club scene, my own experience of Goth is both urban and cosmopolitan.
Pastor Gavin's remarks have lead me to reflect more deeply upon my encounter and engagement with Gothic sub-culture. It in fact did begin in high school for me, but in a limited fashion, and centered on that I gravitated to such bands as the Cure, Depeche Mode, Social Distortion (not necesarily a goth band, but a band many goths like), the Clash (Dito), Suicidal Tendencies, Soft Cell, and the Smiths. But my parents were fairly influenced by a certain type of evenagelicalism that was anti rock-n-roll and my father wanted his kids to listen to clasical music (sorry Dad, I still don't listen to Clasical music). So the compromise was that we could listen to Christian Rock. [Warning: you are about to enter that rarified enviroment of Christian Contemporary Music (CCM)]. In high school while I would listen the KROQ in LA on the Radio I did not own any "secular" music, but I gravitated to such CCM bands as the Seventy Sevens, Undercover (punk rock), the Rez Band (Heavy Metal of sorts) Striper (also Heavy metal), and the Band Mad at the World (which for a time was a Gothic like band somewhere between the Cure and Depech Mode, but proved to be possers and turned to sounding like Guns and Roses to reach the youth), and Life Savers Underground (LSU) the Goth band of Mike Knott.
It was once I entered Colege and became friends with a Roman Catholic Goth, Alex, that I began to leave behind the CCM scene and listen to and buy music that would certain begin to identify me as a Goth. An intersting aside Alex had also been in the CCM scene in LA but in the harder and more ambiguous edge of the scene, his brother Jamie was bassist for the Christian Punk band Association of the Cross (AOTC) whose only performance at Calveray Chapel essentially ended Calvery Chapels holding concerts of the punk and goth edge of the CCM scene.
In college I began listening to Nine Inch Nails, Echo and the Bunny Men, David Bowie and Alex introduced me to Christian Death, Sisters of Mercy, Lords of Acid. I purchased my first Cure and Depeche Mode albums. Slowly I was introduced into the LA Goth club scene, mainly attending concerts, both Alex and Jamie were in bands that are no long defunct, Delerium Blue and Bombay Babies. However, it was only once in a blue moon that I went to a club during colege. It wasn't until I was finishing up colege that I started going to clubs on a regular basis and that my style could begin to be identified as Goth.
So, for me Goth was something more than musical taste, though musical taste always had something to do with it. And it was more than just hanging with Goths, I did alot of that with Alex and his Goth friends. It was the experience of the Goth Club Helter Skelter and Elctronic Factory that I began to frequent with Alex after Colege that it dawned on me that I was a Goth. Of course by this time I had had extensive education on Goth and its origins in Punk (Alex had been a punk immediately after high school as Goth was emerging as its own thing, due to Alex I continue to see Goth as very Punk, but with a bit of elegance and eclecticism thrown in for good measure).
Given my experience I can't imagine that I would have ever identified as Goth had I remained in rural California. Hard to know, certainly I wouldn't have thought to identify as Goth had I never been to a Goth club and seen the way the escthetic was expressed in style and and movement in the club. the eclectic aspect of the LA Goth scene is one of the things I stil retain, and at times find frustrating about the Chicago Goth scene- which at times is less true to its Punk roots and more electro than is my own taste in music.
A puzzel for me is how someone who encounters goth outside of the Club scene is how they get any sense of what Goth is or can be for them. Howeve, obviously Goth is more than a club and urban phenomenon even though that is how I engage it.
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Larry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this... It helps to hear your "Goth testimony" and it also helps to hear that music is such a big part of the Goth sub-culture. It was sad to read that Mad at the World were posers... a favorite album of mine in high school was their "Seasons of Love". But I understand that there are certain Christian groups that see themselves more as evangelists than artists. It's still disappointing, though because I find that to be a bit of a sell-out. I also really liked Brian Healy - Dead Artist Syndrome in High School and College. I remember getting together with a friend and writing stories based on the D.A.S. song "Red" and everything I wrote would have such a horrible ending.
I've never been into the club scene, but I imagine that if I had spent high school and college in a more urban area I probably would have wound up joining the Goth community. I always joked that I was just as rebellious as any other teen but I rebelled against my peers instead of rebelling against authority. And the college I went to was in the Seattle area and very grunge... which is the sub-culture I went for in college.
I've gotta say, though, the Goth music I did come in contact with in high school and college really did speak to me. I had a friend in college who loaned me his box set of This Mortal Coil and I still think of it as some of the most beautiful music out there. Eventually, I'm going to get myself a copy of the This Mortal Coil CDs, but I'm not sure if it'll have the same feel to it anymore.
Thanks again for your comments. Also, it's nice to see this blog have some more about Goth on it.
Gavin, have you heard Black Tape for a Blue Girl? or Godspeed You Black Emperor? Both stupendously gorgeous and good for, oh, playing during research/sermon preparation!
ReplyDeleteFYI, we think of you as goth. In your heart. Proto-goth, maybe.
Kate,
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out both of those. I'm always looking for good sermon prep music.
I'm willing to go for "proto-goth", just don't tell my congregation. They're weirded out enough by my comic books and action figures and interest in sci-fi and dressing up as robin hood and all the other "non-Midwestern adult" things I do.
The rural thing is fun to ponder. What is this "club scene" of which you speak? There was no such thing in Richmond, the nearest city, at least not in the way Chicago does it. There are sports bars...there are a couple of dance clubs. But concert venues are few and far between. The laws, at least when I was in school, were so very strict...who could perform and what they could sing. So, maybe it is better now, but one reason one would outgrow Goth is because there was no where to go...no where to club, or strut, or what have you. Had I grown up in a different area, I still might be coloring my hair...not that I ever did, but I would have and would likely still be doing so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year I dye my hair for Halloween and accidentally leave it for the following Sunday.
Gavin,
ReplyDeleteI know Brian Heally he is a friend of Alex's. I met him several times though I doubt he would remember me.
I have alwasy enjoyed DAS as well. I didn't mention it because I always think of him as one of the more obscure among a fairly obscure category of CCM. But perhaps I have been wrong.
I imagine that Brian Heally is fairly obscure, but I had a friend introduce his music to me and was impressed. At the same time he is supposedly the "father of Christian Goth", at least according to a couple articles I read about him. It is interesting, but if you look at the backup players in DAS (a rotating group of members of other Christian bands) you will see a lot of the same people who used to back up Jeff Johnson, my favorite musician. Though their styles are about as opposite as you could imagine.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes I had forgoten that he is so describe, possibly self-described. Well, he certainly was probably among the first Goth CCM muscicians that were actually Goth and not doing it to "reach the kids". He is the genuine article, and among the kindest people I have met. Given the nature of things I am not surprised that there is this overlap you in muscicians.
ReplyDeleteThe last line should read "...I am not surpised that there is this overlap in muscians."
ReplyDelete