CROW, THE Comic created by American James O’Barr, originally published in 1989 by Caliber Comics, about protagonist ERIC DRAVEN, a victim of a random attacker who kills his fiancée and leaves him for dead until he is resurrected by a supernatural crow. Using newfound special powers, Eric sets out to systematically kill those responsible. The story of pain, love lost and revenge hit a chord, and was made into a feature film in 1994 starring Brandon Lee. Tragedy struck the set and Lee was killed during filming. There are many reasons Goths love The Crow: O’Barr allegedly based Eric’s character on IAN CURTIS, PETER MURPHY and IGGY POP; the soundtrack for the movie included a new song, “Burn,” by THE CURE and a cover of JOY DIVISION’s “Dead Souls” by NINE INCH NAILS. Also, Eric’s costume for the film — tight black leather pants, trenchcoat, make-up — has been resurrected countless times by Goth Boys whether they’ve read the comic or not.
CROW MAKE-UP Style of make-up featured in the 1994 movie THE CROW, in which star Brandon Lee as ERIC DRAVEN puts on white face with black eyes modeled after a masquerade mask. An easy HALLOWEEN costume that suffers from overuse. Frankly, as the GOTHIC CHARM SCHOOL guide suggests, friends don’t let friends dress like the Crow.
CRÜXSHADOWS, THE American SYNTHPOP band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1992 by lead singer Rogue, he of the CYBERLOX hair and suspicious British accent. Frankly, quite a curious beast: cyber/fetish aesthetic, mythological lyrics, perky dance beats, *NSync-style headsets, violin player, the motto of “Live Love Be Believe.” Could it be true they are consciously satirizing Goth itself? How then to explain the earnestness? To their credit, have managed more than a dozen releases independently, cracked Billboard dance singles charts and developed an ever-growing global fanbase, particularly in GERMANY. But despite appearances, there’s something not quite Goth about them. The fact that they eagerly identify themselves as Goth might be the first clue.
CULT, THE British rock band formed in 1983 by singer IAN ASTBURY and guitarist Billy Duffy by altering the name of their previous band, Death Cult, in order to sound less Goth. They hadn’t really been Goth since the original Astbury project, the POST-PUNKy Southern Death Cult (1981–1983), but therein lies one of the many paradoxes of this outfit: they’ve always been more of a psychedelic rock band, a heavy metal band, a stadium rock band, and yet … Goth icons. Blame it on the 1984 debut Dreamtime, a sonic ritual of shamanism and shoegazing before there was a name for that. Or 1985’s breakthrough opus Love, with its seductive hit singles “She Sells Sanctuary” and “Rain.” Not even 1987’s rock reinvention Electric could strip them of their GOTH CARDs. Okay, perhaps their oldest U.K. fans had had enough of the AC/DC riffs and bloated rock star antics (not to mention touring with Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith) by the time that the U.S. chart-topper Sonic Temple came in 1988. But some of us held out all the way to the dreadful Ceremony record in 1991. A series of member changes, hiatuses, hits compilations and unremarkable reunions has plagued the band since, but damn if it wasn’t great to hear the Love album in its entirety on the 2009 tour.
CURE, THE British alternative rock/GOTHIC ROCK/NEW WAVE/POST-PUNK band formed in 1978 by singer/guitarist ROBERT SMITH, drummer Lol Tolhurst and bassist Michael Dempsey, who went through a “Goth phase” from 1980–1982. Rather, that’s what Wikipedia has to say about The Cure, in what could surely be called one of the online encyclopedia’s great fails. The Cure, more than any other popular music group, has never had a “Goth phase.” Rather, since its introductory single “Killing an Arab” (which has done more to keep Albert Camus’ The Stranger, upon which it was based, on the bookshelves of young people than most universities), The Cure has epitomized Goth in all its forms, defining it, transforming it. While it can certainly said that the band’s early triptych of melancholy — Seventeen Seconds (1980), Faith (1981) and Pornography (1983) — with their stark, bass-heavy rhythms and nihilistic worldview, are the most typically Goth, there is as much romancing of death throughout its catalogue. Well, except for when they’re happy: “The Lovecats” and “Let’s Go to Bed” may have been the start of PERKY GOTH. For three decades, Robert Smith and various mates (arguably, none nearly as important as the singer himself) have continued to lead the Goth nation, with new music and epic live shows. See also: Disintegration
CURIOSA Concert tour organized by ROBERT SMITH in 2004, headlined by THE CURE and featuring POST-PUNK revivalists INTERPOL and The Rapture as well as noisemakers Mogwai and Muse. Played twenty shows in very un-Goth–like amphitheatres across North America.
CURTIS, IAN British singer (1956–1980), lead voice of POST-PUNK pioneers JOY DIVISION, a romantic poet for the age of alienation. Curtis was known for his unique performance style, dancing frantically not unlike a man caught in an epileptic seizure, which he also suffered from. Committed suicide by hanging on May 18, 1980, just before the band’s first North American tour, which some may say makes for many GOTH POINTS but I say just makes for much sadness. Control, a film about his life based on the book Touching from a Distance (by his widow Deborah), was released in 2007. Buried at Macclesfield Cemetery in Cheshire, ENGLAND, beneath a stone bearing the title of his best-known work, Love Will Tear Us Apart.
CUSHING, PETER British actor (1913–1994) best known for his roles in HAMMER HORROR films, most notably as Victor Frankenstein in 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein and Van Helsing in 1958’s Horror of Dracula. Vegetarian, bird-watcher and best friend to iconic on-screen DRACULA Christopher Lee, Cushing never particularly embraced the dark side, nor reached the level of sainthood of his pal VINCENT PRICE, yet he remains a grand duke of Gothdom. Died of prostate cancer; the whereabouts of his cremated remains are unknown.
CUTTING The act of intentionally cutting one’s own skin, usually the wrist or forearm, clinically referred as “self-harm.” Those who do it are called cutters, and they are not necessarily suicidal. A 2006 study of teenagers by Glasgow researchers found the practice more prevalent in those who identify as Goth, and anecdotal evidence suggests that to be true, leading to renewed media panic about the “dangers” of Gothdom. However, the practice seems to have become a somewhat socially acceptable act (or at least the displaying of scars and talking about it is), only since the emergence of EMO in the 2000s. (The crass but popular expression “remember, EMO kids, down the road, not across the street” makes a joke of the cutting of wrists for attention, since sideways is not an effective way to cause fatal bleeding.) Therefore, without making light of a serious and distressing psychological condition, I’m going to say there is nothing intrinsically Goth about cutting, and the word is listed here only to refute the stereotype.
CYBERDOG British clothing company founded by Terry Davy and Spiros Vlahos in 1994, which defined the CYBERGOTH look and helped launch it into the mainstream. The clothing is meant for clubbing and features reflective stripes, secret pockets, bright neon colours, shiny material like PVC and at times even real electronics synching the graphics on a shirt to music’s BPM. Likewise, their retail shops (starting with the original stall in CAMDEN) have featured bouncy dance floors, loud techno music and perky staff ready to suit you up for a night out. How inspired are they by sci-fi and futurism? They claim their mascot dog Chichi was actually abducted by aliens and taken into outer space, where he gets all their great design ideas and brings them back to Earth. The future of fashion — today!
CYBERGOTH Contemporary offshoot of Goth emerging at the turn of the millennium from out of the cyberpunk and rave scene, concerned with futurism in fashion, FUTUREPOP in music and flauting conventions of all-black attire and sourpuss faces. Rather, Cybergoths typically dress in shiny, bright neon colours, super high platform boots, outrageous synthetic hair extensions, GOGGLES and other exaggerated accessories ripped from anime or sci-fi, listen to electronic music and generally spend more time in clubs than CEMETERIES. And while some TRAD GOTHs find little in common with these club kids and their musical preferences, they have injected the scene with much creativity and taken it into new, exciting directions
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CYBERLOX Artificial hair extension material made of ribbon sewn into a tube shape, also referred to as “tubular crin.” Stretchy and light, it is available in a variety of colours and sizes and is commonly sewn into hair FALLS, sometimes with metallic pieces, yarn or foam for temporary accessorizing. If the person dancing next to you has hair that looks like it’s straight out of a gothic sci-fi anime comic, it’s probably cyberlox. See also: Synthdreads
DAMNED, THE British punk band formed in 1976 by singer DAVE VANIAN, bassist Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies. Definitely predated Goth (they are credited with releasing the first punk recording with the single “New Rose”) but did much to put the idea out there of incorporating the macabre: Vanian dressed like a gentleman VAMPIRE and they wrote songs about horror movies, for example. But unlike a lot of the BATCAVERS to follow, The Damned were always fun. Their parody of the Beatles’ White Album with their Black Album cover was fun. The whole 1985 ÜBERGOTH major label breakthrough album Phantasmagoria was fun (“Grimly Fiendish!”). Heck, Captain Sensible’s biggest solo hit was called “Happy Talk.” Not so fun: the band’s repeated splits and hiatuses. Things seem to be back on track: 2008’s So, Who’s Paranoid?, featuring the single “Little Miss Disaster,” was cross-promoted with EMILY THE STRANGE. Fun.
DANCING FERRET Concert production company in Philadelphia founded by DJ Ferrett (Patrick Rodgers) in 1995, runs the city’s oldest weekly Goth club night, Nocturne, and produces the annual DRACULA’S BALL. From 1998 to 2008, also operated Dancing Ferret Discs, an independent record label releasing GOTHIC ROCK, INDUSTRIAL and SYNTHPOP music, most notably the majority of THE CRÜXSHADOWS’ catalogue.
DANDY A male preoccupied with sartorial elegance. BYRON was one; BAUDELAIRE too. Many STEAMPUNK and ROMANTIGOTH men could be considered modern dandies, concerned as they are with dressing sharp, acting proper and enjoying language and leisure. A tip of the fancy hat to them.
DANZIG, GLENN American singer (né Glenn Allen Anzalone, b. June 23, 1955) founder of THE MISFITS, SAMHAIN and Danzig, lover of B-movies and Black Sabbath, sometimes called “Black Elvis.” A true HORROR PUNK and heavy metal icon, but about %666 too macho to be truly considered Goth. Don’t tell him I said that: he could crush us all.
DARK AMBIENT Subgenre of AMBIENT electronic music originating in the 1970s that included many early INDUSTRIAL acts and is sometimes used interchangeably with ETHEREAL or DARKWAVE, but has become more connected to the metal scene than the Goth scene.
DARK CABARET Revival of cabaret and burlesque theatrics mixed with a more punk or Goth musical styling, most often applied to THE DRESDEN DOLLS. Popularized by the 2005 compilation Projekt Presents: A Dark Cabaret.
DARK FAIRY See: Fairiegoth
DARKRAVE Monthly DJ night held in Toronto since 1999, organized by DJ Lazarus. Bringing together INDUSTRIAL, EBM, SYNTHPOP, psytrance and other dark electronic genres and the day-glo backpack–carrying fans who love them, probably directly responsible for introducing the CYBERGOTH scene to Toronto. (Themes like “pirates vs. ninjas” encouraging creative costuming.) Any reference to the event as “dorkrave” by TRAD GOTHs in the area is mostly in jest. Mostly.
DARK REALMS American magazine published from 2000 to 2008, exploring the “shadows of art, music and culture.” Edited by Mr. Dark with art direction by Christine Filipak and featuring covers by dark fantasy artist Joseph Vargo.
DARK SHADOWS American television’s first and only Gothic soap opera, created by Dan Curtis and airing from 1966 to 1971. Gothic as in fog-drenched mansions, mad heroines, ghosts — and an alluring gentleman VAMPIRE named Barnabas Collins the likes of which pop culture had not yet seen. Syndication and cult status followed, but it wasn’t until TIM BURTON announced he was making a new feature starring JOHNNY DEPP as Barnabas that most modern Goths truly took notice.
DARK SIDE OF THE NET Online database of links to Gothic and horror websites, curated by Carrie Carolin from 1993 to 2010. Carrie now maintains Darklinks, a blog and Twitter account focused on news.
DARKWAVE 1. Musical subgenre emerging from Europe in the 1980s and applied in the 1990s to new Goth bands with more NEW WAVE or AMBIENT tendencies, as opposed to rock ’n’ roll or INDUSTRIAL, also referred to as ETHEREAL. The North American darkwave scene was particularly promoted by New York label PROJEKT RECORDS, which used the term in its mail-order catalogue. 2. Montreal’s longest-running alternative/Goth/NEW WAVE music DJ night, currently held at the Club Sapphir. See also: Coldwave
DEAD CAN DANCE Australian-British group founded in 1981 by singers/multi-instrumentalists LISA GERRARD and Brendan Perry. To POST-PUNK they added folk musics from around the globe and across the ages, creating a unique kind of exotic, hypnotic neoclassical hybrid perfect for REN FAIRs, ROMANTIGOTH fashion shows and general swooning. But it was the haunting ying/yang of their vocals that truly made DCD ETHEREAL icons. They split in 1998 but several excellent compilations exist for those who missed them the first time around: key tracks include Perry’s “The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove” and Gerrard’s “Yulunga (Spirit Dance).” BAUHAUS exquisitely covered their “Severance” on a 2005 reunion tour.
DEATH Fictional character in the comic book series The Sandman, created by NEIL GAIMAN and Mike Dringenberg. A personification of Death itself in the guise of a pretty, perky, PALE girl in black jeans and a T-shirt, with black hair, black EYELINER swirls on her face and an ANKH pendant around her neck, it’s no wonder all the Goth Girls love her.
DEATH GUILD Club night in San Francisco billed as the longest-running weekly Goth/INDUSTRIAL DJ night in the U.S., launched by DJ Decay in 1992.
DEATHHAWK Goth version of a Mohawk hairdo, favoured by death rockers of both genders. As with the Mohawk, sides of the head are shaved or clipped super short, with a band of length left in the middle and forced upwards. Rather than sharply defined, heavily gelled spikes, the deathhawk is more of a tangled, teased mess. Techniques for putting it up involve CRIMPING, BACKCOMBING and loads of hairspray. Famous deathhawk wearers are Jonny Slut from SPECIMEN and model RAZOR CANDI.
DEATH ROCK Musical subgenre that came after punk but before GOTHIC ROCK, sprung from Los Angeles around 1979, not unlike London’s BATCAVE scene. (Although the two wouldn’t know about each other ’til later.) It mixed the raw and aggressive energy of punk with spooky synths and horror tropes, but took itself way more seriously than the similar sounding HORROR PUNKs, as epitomized by its key band, the blasphemous art project CHRISTIAN DEATH. The term fell out of fashion in the 1980 and 1990s, but Cyber backlash inspired a revival, with new bands eager to explore the old-school sound and dedicated websites like deathrock.com and deathrock.org providing the guidance. Some use this term interchangeably with Gothic rock but it has little in common with THE SISTERS set.
DEETZ, LYDIA Fictional character in TIM BURTON’s horror-comedy Beetlejuice (1988), a teenage Goth Girl played by a young and wide-eyed Winona Ryder. One of the best loved depictions of modern Goths in all of cinema: the self-described “strange and unusual” Deetz dresses all in black, practises photography and is the only one in her family who can see the ghosts haunting their home. A whole generation fell in love with Ryder after this, enough even to forgive her years later for nearly ruining Francis Ford Coppola’s DRACULA film with her laughably fake British accent.
DEMASK Fashion designers specializing in high-end LATEX and leather wear, of the kind often seen on the cover of Bizarre magazine or at the fanciest of fetish balls. Founded in 1990 and operating retail shops in Amsterdam, Munich and Dortmund. (NYC’s East Village shop, R.I.P..) You need the perfect neck CORSET, BATWING leather CLOAK or pair of RUBBER pants that attach your penis directly to a full rubber hood worn by your partner? Demask has you covered, literally.
DEMONE, GITANE American singer, musician and performance artist, best known as a vocalist/keyboardist for L.A. DEATH ROCK icons CHRISTIAN DEATH from 1983 to 1989. Her provocative interpretations of sex and surrealism have continued in a variety of musical and visual art experimen
ts, but she will probably forever be remembered for the cover to her 1993 solo EP Lullabies for a Troubled World, on which she is shown blindfolded and pointing a gun at her own mouth.
DEMONIA Footwear company responsible for about %90 of those big honking platform buckle boots seen on Goth girls and boys, as well as CREEPERS, MARY JANEs, sneakers, stilettos, WINKLE PICKERS for the Trads and literally hundreds of other styles of a somewhat extreme or alternative nature. (Also: sandals with skulls.) Part of the company Pleasure USA, “the world’s largest supplier of sexy shoes.” What’s really sexy is their budget price point, although that doesn’t make you feel any better when they start falling apart. Still, towering over the competition.
DENNY’S Family restaurant chain that never closes, popular in America as an after-hours hang-out for Goth kids who need a place to stay up all night drinking coffee. Generally attracts a pretty low-rent crowd in the evenings so Goths can blend in, but getting hassled in or kicked out of a Denny’s is a sort of rite of passage too.
DEPP, JOHNNY American actor (b. June 9, 1963), granted honourary Goth status for his gothy starring roles in TIM BURTON’s films EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd and DARK SHADOWS. Because even Goths need someone whose pin-up they can put in their lockers.
DEPRESSION The one stereotype about Goths that’s got to go: we’re no more or less depressed than any other segment of the population. Wearing mourning colours, writing despairing poetry and celebrating sadness through ridiculous interpretive dance is not the same thing as suffering from a mood disorder.
DEV, THE London pub Devonshire Arms, located near CAMDEN MARKET, long a second home for Goth/RIVETHEAD types fancying a SNAKEBITE, horror-themed décor and the company of other dark souls. Or it was until 2007, when it was bought out and rebranded HobGoblin, more of a rock/metal bar, and its one-time strict GOTH DRESS CODE posted at the door was relaxed to simply “No Wankers.” While many regulars have boycotted the new joint, others still find it a decent place for a pre-concert meet-up. However, it seems long gone are the days when the bartender would draw a skull and crossbones into the foam of your Guinness.
Encyclopedia Gothica Page 5