As the live music sector struggles with an ongoing lockdown and insufficient government support, I’ve turned a weary eye towards the UK’s music festivals which are both a social and sonic lifeline for the scene. Will there be any band-led social gatherings this side of 2021? The reality seems unlikely…
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The blog hasn’t engaged with this painfully prominent topic yet – because as a white Western man my voice has been heard for far too long. I would like to maintain that position, and instead invite my readers to visit a guest article by Jacqueline Ecclestone, a black woman in the US goth scene.
You could also read this article for World Goth Day by model and activist Yasmin Benoit, who also talks about her experience – her struggles – as a person of colour in the UK goth scene.
Finally, there are many ways we can contribute to and support the struggle using these carefully curated resources.
I do have some words for the subculture, as a community. There has always been an issue with gatekeeping, legitimacy and exclusion in the goth scene. Self-proclaimed ‘authorities’ issue utterly ludicrous proclamations of what is and isn’t goth, and who is outlawed as a result. That has been a serious error of judgement at the heart of this peculiar and rebellious subculture.
If it suddenly turns into exclusion based on somebody’s race, creed, sexuality or other basic human right – it goes beyond petty goth politics and into the realm of crime and cruelty. That is not permissable under any circumstances.
Now is the time to amplify the voices of those silenced, stand with those oppressed, and remember that we are supposedly united by a willingness to embrace different lived experiences. We must never, never ostracise someone because of their race or skin colour. If there’s one thing goths can agree on – it must be that.
You’d think being forced to stay indoors, hiding from the sun and shunning close contact with other humans would be pretty easy work for goths. In reality of course, we’re just as hungry for interaction as everyone else – so it’s a joy to concentrate on celebrating World Goth Day 2020 even if we’re restricted to only what we can experience through our screens.
Continue readingRight now, we should all be in Whitby enjoying the sounds, shopping and socialising with our favourite festivals. Instead, of course, all is delayed. So I thought I’d publish my review of last November’s Spa event, Tomorrow’s Ghosts Winter 2019 festival – let’s remember how it was and look forward to when it will be again!
In the meantime, you can get online and browse some of the traders that would attend Whitby Goth Weekend or the Art D’Morte Exhibition.
“There’s a sort of evil out there. Something very, very strange in these old woods. Call it what you want. A darkness, a presence. It takes many forms but… its been out there for as long as anyone can remember and we’ve always been here to fight it.”
Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) – “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer”
On this day in 1990, the network ABC broadcast the premiere of Twin Peaks, beginning a story that continues to defy description, convention or resolution. A surface read indicates a mystery/thriller about murder in small-town America but rapidly became a baffling, intriguing and alarming juxtaposition of the real and the supernatural, familiarity and unsettling horror, with characters beloved and feared.
