Have you read our review of the Friday Night at Whitby Goth Weekend April 2016? Click to head back, or read on to hear about the Saturday lineup at the UK’s premier Goth music event!
The decompression time from Whitby Goth Weekend is getting worse! So chase away those blues with my belated reviews of the storming bands that filled the Spa for April 2016 WGW! As always, my thanks to the talented Mel Butler Photography for choice pick of her quality pics!
Mention the city of Kingston-upon-Hull to anyone vaguely alternative in the UK, and chances are they’ll tell you ‘Spiders Rocks’! It’s possibly one of the most formidable nightclubs in the country, running consistently since 1979.
That longevity probably owes to their stubborn resistance to playing dance, modern R&B or anything popular – which meant a lot of sidelined music genres ended up taking refuge at Spiders, in weird proximity to each other! Even when I started going, at the end of the Nineties, I knew you could hear Motown and Soul and Blues upstairs. It was downstairs where you could hear rock, punk, metal, indie and even some Goth.
The Blogging Goth, right, at Spiders in 2005.
This was a holdover, of course, from the club’s contemporary music policy during the Eighties, the Golden Age of Goth. By the time I arrived, however, the DJs were catering to the broad crowds of pop punk and rap metal fans, and grudgingly allowed just a handful of classic Goth tracks spread thinly throughout the night.
For me, the clearest symbol of that proud heritage as a Goth venue were the black-and-white framed photos of punters from the Eighties on the wall approaching the cloakrooms. For many, many weekends as I waited to check my jacket, I’d gaze at those photos of Goths and Punks and envy them living through the rise of my favourite music genre.
So I was delighted to see that the photographer who originally took them has put them online, and is seeking his old friends to get in touch with memories and anecdotes of Spiders Nightclub.
If you have any recollections or recognize yourself and friends, please contact Andy Roe, who is considering writing a book about this infamous venue. I look forward to enjoying even more of the history of a place personally important to me, that was also vital to the developing alternative scene in the Eighties – and has remained a safe haven for it ever since!
We let our recent competition to win two tickets to April’s Whitby Goth Weekend run on a little longer, hoping for a surefire winner to break ahead.
Except, our final poll ended up showing Wayne Hussey of The Mission and Therapy? – the headlining acts – drawing neck and neck at the final tally, with a healthy 25% of the total vote each!
Eighties rock chicks (We’ve got a) Fuzzbox (And We’re Gonna Use It!) took the next biggest share of votes (13%) from readers of The Blogging Goth, followed by Lene Lovich Band (9%) and then the other support bands battled viciously for the remainder.
If this indicates a preference for veteran bands over new, or if it just shows only fans of older bands are actually reading the blog, I’m not sure, but the facts indicate the line-up and running order is a solid hit with Whitby fans.
Congratulations to our competition winners, Rachel from Wishaw who wanted to see Wayne Hussey, and Elizabeth from Belfast who wanted to see Rhombus. They each won a ticket, and we look forward to running this competition again!
Whitby is of course this weekend – I’ll be heading down there this Thursday, and regular coverage will come through Twitter, Instagram and the Facebook pages.
I’m also delighted to inform you Whitby Goth Weekend are now retaining my services as a formal press officer, so expect closer coverage of the entire festival, including one-on-one interviews with the bands and unique backstage news, not to mention what I can pinch from riders.
Follow @WGWGothWeekend on Twitter, and the hashtag #WhitbyGothWeekend – #WGW refers to something mainstream I don’t understand and don’t wish to.
There is a vague plan to use the new video-streaming app Periscope to share some of Whitby Goth Weekend with you via your device. Simply install the free app and going looking for the originally-titled @TheBloggingGoth – I’ll walk around town, look at the Bazaar, stalk Goths, drink in the Spa and generally make a nuisance of myself whilst giving you a first-hand look at this most famous of Goth events.
Or just stroll up to me in the street, tell me you read the blog, and offer to buy me a drink!
“We are the weirdos, mister”
Several British papers are running with a story that a self-identified Goth called Aisah has complained about being abused for her appearance by two employees of a Tesco supermarket in London. The papers involved are red-top tabloids – the Sun, Star and Mirror – or faux broadsheet rags like the Daily Mail and the Mail’s free spinoff Metro.
At first glance this seems to be a non-story. Fielding abuse from complete strangers is an occupational hazard of being into any kind of culture that doesn’t involve sportswear or high street fashion.
It’s a little disquieting to have the employees of a major business ‘pointing’ and ‘gasping’ at your fashion style, but if you are sufficiently outraged by this, a word with the store manager would have landed the two critics in enough trouble.
To take it to the local media is not only overly dramatic (and who ever thought that of Goths) but ultimately casts Goth culture as a whole in rather poor light. If we’re in the media to discuss the dangers of abuse, I’d rather it was for much more serious matters.
I don’t in any way wish to detract from Aisah’s experience. She was there, and I was not – if she feels sufficiently upset by what happened, she has every right to redress. My personal perspective is that being Goth means turning the other cheek so often you might as well be stood on a turntable.
I often get riled by the casual insults and criticisms I come in for from utter strangers over the many years I’ve worn nothing but black – and I am constantly reminded that we aren’t meant to care what others think. That’s why we’ve drifted into this subculture. We can’t run off to ‘tell teacher’ every time someone bellows incomprehensible words from a passing car, or hisses a snide remark in a supermarket aisle.
Aisah should get whatever apology she expects from Tesco, but I wish it hadn’t been turned into a media circus – all I see when I read these articles is the great British public thinking Goths need coddling and babysitting, and enjoy a position of privilege that is simply not the case.
If you want to go somewhere you won’t get criticism from casual passerbys – quite the contrary – come to Whitby Goth Weekend in a couple of weeks time. We’re currently giving away two tickets so enter the competition, put on your glad rags, and come enjoy being a freakshow without getting sarcastic comments whilst you’re buying sardines.
Share, comment, like, disagree and argue with me in the comments below!
The Blogging Goth 