It started last night, when I somehow found myself at a neo-goth club night called Feeling Gloomy. In between cheery Leonard Cohen disco numbers, the lovely S and I were entertained by a band called Black Dog, who should win some sort of anti-lyrical prize for a chorus which intoned "Jesus knows my secret...and I know his" for what seemed like all eternity.
Contrary to what you might expect, we hadn't just wandered in by mistake (ha!), but had gone with a purpose - which was to see the Divine Ms P's band Anarchic Hand in action."The" Hand are quite famous these days - well, they've been in the Guardian - and were therefore conducting themselves in true rockstar fashion, cracking rude jokes, looking like Helena Bonham-Carter in Fight Club, and sporadically launching themselves into the audience to snog unsuspecting goth chicklets. During one such altercation I had a newly lit cigarette (ahem) knocked from my fingers, so I should really thank the Hand for prolonging my life by five minutes. Good work.
The only way to go from here was down, down into the dread pit of gloom and despair that is the Tate Britain's Gothic Nightmares exhibition. I walked all the way there, too, which took a mighty THREE HOURS.As it turned out, the walk was the best bit. The show is meant to explore the theme of the "sublime" - the expression of physical and sexual violence, horror and the supernatural - in 18th century art, but actually it's all quite comical. But then gothdom *is* quite comical, as anyone who's ever heard the Sisters of Mercy's cover of "Jolene" will testify.
I found myself marvelling more at the moody lighting, red velvet curtains, faux-flock wallpaper and tastefully veiled porno section than I did at Henry Fuseli's paintings of phallic horse's heads, struggling Prometheuses and crouching incubi. No, give me Aubrey Beardsley or the French Symbolists over Fuseli any day. Sorry about that, Henry.
It didn't stop me coming home and downloading the Sisters' cover of Jolene, though. Gothtastic!
UPDATE: I should confess that since writing this post I have been indulging in a full-on personal Sisters of Mercy revival. I thus speak from a position of considerable authority in advising you that they never bettered their 1982 single "Body Electric", the b-side of which, "Adrenochrome", is, and always has been, awesome. Seriously. Terrible production though.
* For which read "compact second-floor flat".
46 comments:
in the spirit of gothness i presume you spent the rest of the weekend in an impenetrable miasma of doom over your geography homework and the fact that your mum washed your best enormous black trousers?
that's what the goths round here do, anyway. mind you, they're all fifteen. and it's suffolk.
I can remember in the mid '80's that goths would descend on Birmingham at the weekends, and we would take the mickey out of their chicken dancing to This Corrosion in rubbish clubs. Then, in about 1990 they all disappeared. A bit sinister really.
That Gothic Nightmares exhibition doesn't look like my sort of thing either ...
Surly - I tried, really I did. But somehow I just haven't been able to shake off this terrible sense of cheerfulness I keep getting.
Pash - Oh yes. And yes.
Betty - The William Blake bits are good. You have to love Blake, he was such a nutcase. But the rest of it is overhyped and tenuously thrown together nonsense. And the pictures are so *small*. And they aren't even good. And there were too many people. And they were selling *badges* of that incubus's face. Why would anyone want that?
I don't like incubi. I wouldn't mind being visited by a succubus.
There was a fairly good British movie about the Shelleys and their pals, presumably wasted on opiates, having a lost weekend somewhere Gothic. I'll have to track it down.
Hello Dave, was it Ken Russell's Gothic?
*considers making weak joke involving Derek Jarman, thinks better of it*
Whatever happened to Julian Sands, anyway? Not that I really care. Everyone knows the best thing about A Room With A View was naked Rupert Graves.
Sorry, rambling.
Right, I should have remembered: the movie was "Gothic", directed by the evil Ken Russell. IMDB says:
Story of the night that Mary Shelley gave birth to the horror classic "Frankenstein". Disturbed drug-induced games (plus ca change, eh surly?) are played and ghost stories are told one rainy night at the mad Lord Byron's country estate. Personal horrors are revealed and the madness of the evening runs from sexual fantasy to fiercest nightmare. Mary finds herself drawn into the sick world of her lover Shelley and cousin Claire as Byron leads them all down the dark paths of their souls.
And there were incubi and succubi, as I recall. Wonder if there's a DVD?
Oo, maybe I should follow up my Seventies British Horror afternoon with a Top Gothic Movies afternoon. Or should I say matinée?
All welcome. Tea and cake will be provided. But what else to watch?
Oops, we cross-posted, Patro. I apologise. You beat me to imdb!
Julian Sands is still at it. He has made several "Warlock" horror films. He's sort of the English James Spader, isn't he? Did you see "Siesta", with Sands, Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Jody Foster and others? Rather elegant, twisted sexy movie with a great Miles Davis soundtrack. If memory serves me, Byrne and Barkin continued their hot scenes off screen and subsequently got hitched.
Patro, IMDB can help. It offers 132 titles including Interview with the Vampire, Sleepy Hollow, Batman Begins, The Silence of the Lambs (classed as American Gothic). I'm not sure how to do the link, but just type "gothic" as a keyword in the search box.
Good choices! For my money, Interview With The Vampire has the best ending of any film, ever. But then I haven't seen all that many films.
...but I *have* seen Sleepy Hollow many, many times. For, er, *research purposes*, obviously. I need very little encouragement to watch it again.
In fact the whole Burton/Depp oeuvre would make a lovely weekend's viewing. Oh yes.
PP, are you stalking me round the higher education institutions of south-east England? That's where I study Spanish. I've never noticed the blue plaque.
And, er, I've kind of dropped out of my Spanish class, too.
I'm going to be at the LSE tomorrow night, meeting my MA tutor. If I see you lurking in a corner, I'll say hello :-)
vfaxinux: this year's fashionable new open source operating system.
I have nothing to add to this other than: Mmmm... Helena Bonham-Carter in Fight Club...
What is it about utterly fucked-up schizo headcase girls?
the frisson of danger.
now then - the collective noun for teenage goths. discuss.
a despondent?
a futility?
A morbidity?
I saw Julian Sands in a telly thing about Kenneth Tynan the other month. He was, would you believe, playing Laurence Olivier. Considering Sands is Absolutely The Worst Actor On The Planet Bar None I thought this must have been a tremendous joke on the part of the director. I do believe he's also lined up to play the villain in the latest series of 24 - if true, this fact will make me insanely happy.
It did occur to me afterwards that I might be stalking *you*. I can't help it - I like mad, bad, suburban types.
ooh! it's like blind date!
*rushes off to buy hat*
Whoa there surly - as a blind date, I think it might be a bit of a non-starter.
I love the way you've gone from hippy to gothic in just two short posts. What next? Fascist? Anarchist?
Well, hippies and goths aren't too far apart. I think the common denominator is patchouli.
For my next trick I'm going punk. Cello-based punk, to be more specific.
I miss being a goth. Particularly the smell of burnt hairspray on crimpers filtered though patchouli incense and vodka.
*has massive flashback*
Also I was about three stone lighter. Great days.
Crimpers?
*stifles giggle*
Have you got any photos?
I just spilled coffee on my keyboard, thank you.
*throws patchouli sticks and black cat silently away*
You should buy Apocalyptica cd next time you visit Helsinki. They play Metallica with four cellos. Lovely.
*rummages through chest of drawers for photos, can't find any, is secretly quite relieved*
Shame.
NB an entire paragraph of my dissertation is going to be dedicated to an in-depth exploration of the cultural significance of the practice of describing actions in between asterisks in blog comments.
Just thought I'd say.
*makes appropriate and amusing response*
*gasps in awe of proper telly-and-book-writer's mastery of describing actions between two asterisks*
*surreptitiously takes notes*
*Thinks: In the absence of think bubbles ....*
*Becomes aware of an intresting inciting intertextual incident and waves kindly to an another fox*
bella, might I recommend the "Feeling Gloomy" club night at the Academy in Islington?
oooooooooooo i LOVE that painting!
It's an interesting picture in that Fuseli was like the Damien Hirst of his day - deliberately setting out to shock people. But for weird, gothic stuff I still think you're better off with the likes of Odilon Redon (whose spooky Eye Balloon picture was last seen gracing the cover of Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love"). Those crazy Symbolists, eh?
interesting banter should
hit
40.
Yeah.
Are you just diverting all your energies to the comment column, rather than writing new entries? I'm not being facetious.*
Anyway, happy St David's Day to you.
*The other example, I believe, of words with vowels in the correct order (unless we wish to go to botanical words like acheilous and caesious, the rare zoological word annelidous, or the chemical term arsenious).
Touché, Dave.
Actually I'm diverting most of my energies to moving office - to a huge, new, evil, capitalist citadel, not dissimilar to the Death Star. It's got its own kitchen and secret toilets and everything! Score!
Ah, no, we've only moved across the corridor, so still well within striking distance of FOPP.
[girly mode]
By the way, did you discover the delights of Blink when you were in Chiswick? A goodly portion of my salary now goes on their fabulous necklaces and bracelets.
[/girly mode]
*snickers delightedly at the comments section and skulks out of the room*
Dear god why do I always come to the comments party so late.
I was *this close* to volunteering to throw open my flat - pink leather sofas and all - for purposes of Gothic-movie-watching extended blogmeet. (Beloved works weekend, it gets dull, plus we have a biggish TV.) Then I came to my senses.
Still sort of want to, though.
Please post that *paragraph* when it gets wrote. I'd be just *fascinated*. (Keep telling myself there's nothing a pair of asterisks can do that italics - and possible square brackets - can't, but I don't really believe it.)
Sounds like a great idea to me, Scroob. How many gothically-inclined bloggers can your pink leather sofas accommodate? And I've got DVDs of Sleepy Hollow, From Hell and Edward Scissorhands, if that helps.
Crikey Patroclus, what an awful lot of comments.
I've forgotten what I was going to say...
Oh yes - goths - hilarious.
Especially fat ones.
Most especially fat ones in the summertime, sweating away in their crushed velvet full-length smock'n'docs, make-up melting...
Just realised I forgot to salivate at the gratuitous JOhnny Depp mention earlier. Doing it now *goes off staring vacantly into space with a slightly dirty smile on face*
Oh dear. See what you've made me do.
Woohoo!
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