The object of this article, ho hum, is to list twenty albums which represent the best moments of the 22-year history of gothic rock. Like any ‘canon’ (should I call my next article "Why Harold Bloom Should Die"?) this will be pretentious, but if one person finds something new they like, it’s worth it.

Groundrules: I’ve limited myself to one album per band, to encourage you lazy buggers to move outside your safe Sisters/Bauhaus conservatism. [You won’t find much in Hobart, so use the net, or better still get Heartland Records (PO Box 126 Balaclava Vic 3183) to send a catalogue, and explore to your heart’s (or lack thereof’s) content.] I’ve excluded anything I don’t consider primarily goth, hence no Joy Division, Siouxsie, NIN, Birthday Party etc. I’ve excluded anything I’ve never heard a full album of (some great early-80s bands are now very obscure). I’ve excluded hybrid genres like dark-ambient and coldwave, because I don’t know enough about them and consider them increasingly distinct. Finally, I have excluded the Cure because they are neither good nor goth enough. On with the show, somewhat sneeringly, in chronological order:

Bauhaus: In The Flat Field (1978): Not quite where it began, but the first goth album to sell more than three copies. A discordant, messy, blasphemous, scathing and smutty electro-rock experiment that’s far more fun than the subdued Bowies-In-Black pop that filled the rest of their career.

The March Violets: The Botanic Verses (comp of 1981-3 material): With their unusual song structures (from dancefloor thumpers to art-rock to jokes) and innovative twin male/female lead vocals, the March Violets were a quirky, rough-sounding, intelligent goth-rock band which explored the seedy side in a way that was always cheery, and an influence on every goth band which has attacked the "goth is gloom" stereotype.

Virgin Prunes: If I Die I Die (1982): The feral cover-art is awful, but this was a very diverse, creative and atmospheric album, a fine example of the true strangeness of 1980-3 pre-Sisters goth. Includes the well-known degenerate anthem "Baby Turns Blue" and lots of other truly odd things.

The Sisters of Mercy: Floodland (1986): Andrew Eldritch proves that nobody needs guitarists, let alone Wayne Hussey, by creating his masterpiece largely on synths and bass. An album which is both lively and ponderous, with heartbreakingly good lyrics which work on every level at once, and could seemingly be about anything, from politics to relationships to bar-room banter. The finest album in the history of goth, even if Eldritch would rather we left him out of it.

The Fields Of The Nephilim: The Nephilim (1988): A bizarre band with a gruff, grandiose epic-rock sound (lead gargler Carl McCoy’s vocals especially), a debt to Pink Floyd and obsessions with Westerns and obscure Sumerian myths. On paper, this makes no sense, but they were briefly the biggest thing in the scene. Their songs are big, dramatic efforts, notable both for their intensity and also the rich humanity with which they make the most defunct mystical twaddle sound vitally personal.

Christian Death: Jesus Points The Bone At You? (comp 1986-90): This compilation isn’t remotely definitive but features several fine moments from an American band which exists to push the boundaries of musical blasphemy. Their style owes more to slow metal than traditional goth-rock. Especially notable for the timeless line "Your church makes me vomit into the vertiginous abyss".

Girls Under Glass: Exitus (comp 1986-92): Veteran German band with a great knack for melody and simplicity, sounding rather like a heavier Depeche Mode. Awesomely tight and disciplined, but also capable of great feeling, they’ve released enough albums to bankrupt you.

Terminal Power Company: Run Silent, Run Deep (1992): The only album this band released, a way-ahead-of-its-time fusion of goth, rap and techno into a violent, vicious, stark theme-album, dominated by technofear and namedropping the likes of Burroughs, Gibson, Giger, Barker and Ellis. Most techno music since is drivel in comparison.

Rosetta Stone: An Eye For The Main Chance (1992): Classic Sisters/Mission style goth-rock, precisely crafted and endearingly cynical. Later recordings are also worth finding; after the NIN-like Tyranny of Inaction (1995) they made some mini-albums which credibly resolved the need of goth to evolve without turning completely industrial.

Nosferatu: Legend (comp 1991-3): Extremely dark and dramatic, an intense distilling of the Sisters sound with deeply emotional vocals from someone called Louis de Wray, who appeared on this album and Rise (1994), then vanished from the scene. Post-Rise Nosferatu albums are derivative trash with cringe-inducing lyrics and should, nay must, be avoided.

Corpus Delicti: Twilight (1994): A bouncy, resonant, lively, theatrical and sometimes haunting French band with a noticeable Bauhaus influence. Some songs are really attention-grabbing. Anything by them is worth a listen.

Big Electric Cat: Dreams of a Mad King (1994): Bright, bouncy, breezy Australian dancefloor-friendly goth-pop, much better than many Australian goth acts which simply rip off British bands. Their other album Eyelash was so boring and subdued it reminded me of the Cure.

Still Patient?: Cataclysm (1994): Fast, hard-hitting German band with a following in both goth and industrial circles. Intriguing, apocalyptic and strongly-worded songs – one song on this album accuses God and Satan of running the world in a conspiracy against mankind.

Dreadful Shadows: Estrangement (1994): Goth isn’t noted for production values; meet the exception – a superbly polished, lavish, hard guitar-rock effort, all class from the very first note onwards. In contrast, the lyrics are bleak beyond belief and completely desolate. They’ve never gone close to matching this, their debut.

Switchblade Symphony: Serpentine Gallery (1995): Peculiar. An album which manages to sound "industrial" and organically fragile at the same time, with songs with a strange fairytale quality and a vocalist who tries to outwierd Kate Bush (and succeeds). Refreshing and memorable, but subsequent albums are best avoided.

Sunshine Blind: Love the Sky to Death (1995): One of the few mainline female-vocals goth bands which doesn’t either sound "operatic" or rip off Siouxsie’s shrillness. Straightforward, solid and relatively cheery goth-rock with some quite explosive vocal and lyrical turns.

The Merry Thoughts: Psychocult – The Interim Versions (1996): This wonderful German band deliberately sound exactly like Vision Thing era Sisters of Mercy, even ripping off phrases used by the Sisters, while at the same time producing quality hard-goth songs. It’s hard to know whether to admire them for their cheek or for the independent quality of their work. Extremely danceable, and their first album Millenium Done: Empire Songs (1994) is just as good.

Manuskript: The Diversity of Life (1996): One of the best Second Gen British bands. Brilliantly eccentric but very funky and capable of writing confidently and originally in almost any goth style, expressing a sense of wonderment at the strangeness of life far more credibly than other goth bands. Second album Devil’s Advocate (1999) is more personal but also excellent.

Children on Stun: Mondo Weird (1997): The product of a determined attempt to infuse ideas from British indie music into an overly serious goth scene, this wonderfully wacky album is a deft exploration of the seediness and perversion of youth subculture. Simply a total blast, with wonderful wordplay throughout. Their earlier material is more conventionally goth (though never entirely on the rails) and well worth getting.

Suspiria: Drama (1997): While containing several cutting-edge techno-goth dance tunes, this album is also notable for lyricist Matthew Carl Lucian’s engaging, almost structureless rants about people and their motivations – a metaphorical storybook of the modern goth scene with a large cast of oddly dysfunctional characters. The result is an emotive, intricate album of extremely high quality – if you can stand the quite incredible Northern English accent!

Kevin J. Bonham (k_bonham@tassie.net.au)

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There is no God

by thedeadseraph

At one point I contemplated the unlikely circumstance of religiosity being an attribute that is genetically acquired. I never genuinely thought it could be, but pondering the fact that it was due entirely to environmental factors led me to my present state of mind - THAT THERE IS NO GOD!

A bold statement, I suppose, but I am not alone in this belief.

Where to begin? Recently a Jehovah’s Witness came to my front door. He had been a couple of times before, and I have accepted his holy propaganda on occasions. However, I have always refused to engage in an argument on the front doorstep - if he’s gonna go around the neighbourhood knocking on every fucking door, getting abused, ignored and humiliated, then I would assume that his mind is pretty much made up. Well, that’s his problem, not mine. I’ve accepted the literature with the intention of reading it, so that I might shoot the theories therein full of holes in the privacy my living room. Actually though, I can seldom be bothered reading it at all. Anyway, recently I acquired a pamphlet, one of those ‘Watchtower’ things, entitled ‘What is the purpose of life?’, and while I enjoyed the Christian bashing that it contained, I wholeheartedly disagreed with its overall content. Anyway it got me thinking, on this need that we as a race have for some almighty purpose, driven by an almighty being. Why do we find it so hard to admit that we are ultimately unimportant?

We are not born with a genetic gearing toward religiosity, I’ll say that from the start. Yet I would favour that we do have an inherent need to explain (and ultimately conquer, but that is another subject entirely) our surroundings, to assure, and continually reassure, ourselves of our place in the great scheme of things. This explanation need not be religion, lest your religion be science.

Understandably this is hard to swallow for some. Convincing ourselves as a race that our role is just that of another animal, albeit infrequently a highly intelligent one, with no greater genetic purpose than to procreate, is not easy - because let’s face it, most people are stupid! Procreation, the will and want to fuck, is an unyielding genetic trait. We are sexual creatures, all of us, in spite of all the prudes out there, and the purpose of sex is procreation. Through feelings of extreme pleasure our bodies drive us to have children - we are slaves to the will of nature.

It is easy to see how creatures with imaginations as great as our own would have invented creation stories to explain our presence, and the existence of the stars, sun, etc., and perhaps these were little more than stories originally. Then they became half-truths. Then reality. Each generation would believe the stories a little more, until myth finally became so entwined in truth that they became one and the same. And so, Religion was born. It could be argued that religion serves a purpose - it guards the weak among us from the insanity of having no real answer for themselves, the world and the universe.

I would suggest that my theory is proven as many times as there are religious cults on our planet. What other explanation is there for the fact that since the beginning, up until this very point in time, new religious groups have sprung up every other day. Another will probably start up tomorrow - and some idiots will believe in it, believe that it offers them some kind of salvation. I do not hesitate to proclaim them fools.

All of these cults, old and new, borrow and steal ideas from each other, further illustrating the safety that they perceive in established notions of religion. These people just want to be told that everything is alright. They are afraid of death, and consequently they are afraid of life. They shelter behind symbols, statues and stained glass. Their lives are not, as I have heard some of them claim, full of freedom. Freedom is doing what you want, not doing as you are told lest you incur the wrath of a vengeful god! Freedom is contained only in the worship of the Self. The only church worth joining is the Church of the Self.

There are different cults the world over, faiths that are ever changing as their members migrate to different places over the years and capture the imaginations of other weak-minded people. This proves that religiosity is without doubt a product of environment and human imagination. This multitude of cults have differing gods, scriptures and ideas of good and evil, all fitting their own personal outlook and ethics. And I haven’t even began to talk about religion as tool for greedy opportunists making the most of an abundance of stupid ‘sheeple’.

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SATAN

You can’t think of reality/time/life (call it whatever) as something that is within the reach of our full understanding. I’ve tried. I bet you have too. Anton LaVey, founder of the church of Satanism certainly had a lot of answers, a lot of shit ‘worked out’. Some of his hedonistic rhetoric was nothing short of brilliant, but in other ways his religion is flawed.

I’d better explain, before a mob of angry Satanists beat down my door. Let’s start with the name - The Church of Satanism. Forfuckssake! - is this just attempt to grab attention or what. "Oh, look, good little Christian sheeple, I am mocking your God by worshiping the dirty cunt he turfed out of his heaven. Aren’t I naughty. You’d better all despise me, I suppose."

Okay, that’s a bit over the top. What I am trying to say (rather ineloquently) is that using a reference to the Christian faith in the name of your anti-religious organisation seems to me to be fucking absurd. LaVey himself described Satanists of the devil-worshipping kind as "nut cases", so why risk association with such loonies? This is, I believe, the major flaw of the LaVey’s Satanic movement, and it really pisses me off. Don’t get me wrong, there is a hell of a lot to like about Anton Lavey. Hedonism is the way, my dears, never forget that.

But allow me to rant some more, if you will. Think of a great big fucking boulder rolling down the biggest motherfucker of a hill you’ve never seen, well that’s existence, the universe, everything. Who fucking knows what started that stone a-rolling - the big bang? Well, who cares anyway. The point is one day that stone is going to get to the bottom of the hill, and then it’s ka-blammo, goodnight nurse, lights-fucking-out. So what the fuck do we do? We enjoy ourselves, that’s what! Life is a precious gift, we’re all lucky, lucky bastards - make sure you have a fucking good time of it. Anton LaVey would be rotting in his grave right now, whispering, "Listen to him, the little cunt is onto something." Well, if wasn’t so dead.

LaVey says that we should be vengeful, selfish and suspicious. We should certainly run our own lives, be our own gods, but vengeful worries me a tad - hate can be your downfall kiddies, just as master Yoda said. Hate and prepare to be hated. Be hated and prepare to have violence committed against you. Okay, I know that there are a lot of crap people out there in the nasty old world, but if you hate them don’t waste your energy on them. Ignore them - being ignored can hurt just as much as a punch in face. If they still keeping bugging you, then I suppose you’d better kill them. Better keep it quiet, though. Personally I don’t have time for vengeance, my time is too precious to waste on some idiot.

But I digress. Satanism is about the self, about being selfish, about satisfying one’s own needs, and having a fucking blast in the process. If you ask me LaVey should have called it the Church of Selfism. But it’s not too late, my hedonistic beauties, my Church of Selfism shall come to be - go forth and do whatever the fuck you want, and we shall indeed be the true exponents of selfish living.

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A dedication to the master of supernatural horror:

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

The horror writer’s horror writer

And if I do not finish this task, take what is here and discover the rest, for time is short and mankind does not know nor understand the evil that awaits it, from every side, from every Gate, from every broken barrier, from every mindless acolyte at the alters of madness.
For this is the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Black Earth, that I have writ down at the peril of my life, exactly as I received it, on the planes of the IGIGI, the cruel celestial spirits from beyond the Wanderers of the Wastes.

- Abdul Al Azif (the Mad Arab), Necronomicon.

Modern writers praise him and dedicate their own fetid works to his memory. His writings linger around the edges of modern horror fiction, a crumbling pillar that supports the entire rotting literary edifice. He is the undisputed master of the supernatural horror genre, crafting worlds and daemons out of his mind and setting them to plague humanity forever. His work is immortal, dark, and powerful.

When one reads Lovecraft, one takes a trip back through time. His writings prowl the dark streets of colonial America, often set in the New England and Providence regions, a dark period of history famous for its secular religious fanaticism, witch trials and occult paranoia. Lovecraft brings this history to life, you can smell the mud in the streets, see the tallow candles burning in the windows of the peaked wooden Salem houses, and follow the dark twisted streets through the towns into lost and forgotten lands of lore. The writing isn’t there to shock you or splatter you with gore. It doesn’t attempt to meekly frighten you with the standardized tales of ghosts, goblins and vampires. The power of Lovecraft is something that we have always had within ourselves: the corrupted mind, the horror of cold, dark space, and the unknown bubbling to the surface. It is what he doesn’t tell you that makes reading his work so compelling and frightening to the core. Lovecraft doesn’t say, "BOO!" but rather opens a door to the supernatural and a horror so powerful that the fail human mind cannot begin to comprehend or understand. It was in a gray area between horror and science fiction that Lovecraft excelled and made his contribution, a medium he called "cosmic horror." You won’t jump for a pillow after reading Lovecraft, but you will think about what exists in the frozen void that lies between the stars. And they’re coming to get you.

So who is this fellow? Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. There he would live all of his life -- apart from two years in New York and various sojourns, within New England. His love of his native city and the region was profound and it provided the locale for most of his fiction. He began reading at the age of four with such classics as the Brothers Grimm and Jules Verne. This was soon supplemented by Greek and Roman myth, and 18th-century Georgian verse, which provided a model for much of his own poetry. At the age of seven he discovered Poe, who inspired his first juvenile fiction; of the discovery he would later write, "it was my downfall," indicating that he would never again see the beauty of the world without an awareness of death.

In a couple more years Lovecraft discovered science. He fell in love with astronomy, which gave him, very early on, the cosmic perspective so important to his later works. Beginning in 1914, Lovecraft became involved in the amateur press, which would become the first outlet for his writings - mainly essays and poems. In 1917, Lovecraft returned to fiction for the first time since his youth. The following year he began the literary revision work that was to remain a major source of income during his life, though only a small part of it falls within the horror genre. In 1919, Lovecraft discovered the writings of Lord Dunsany. Reading A Dreamer's Tales, he said, induced "an electric shock" and provided "vast impetus" to his own writing. Most notable among these influenced writings are "The White Ship" (1919), the psychologically revealing "Celephaïs" (1920), "The Silver Key" (1926), and the novel, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926-27). The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1928)

In 1923, Lovecraft first read Arthur Machen -- the last of his major literary influences. Shortly after, Lovecraft wrote one of his finest classical horror tales, "The Rats in the Walls," which became one of his first professionally published pieces, in the fledgling magazine Weird Tales. The following year, he was offered editorship of the magazine, but turned it down as it required relocating to Chicago. It time the magazine would publish nearly all of his major stories. Other notable stories include the "The Outsider" (1921); "The Shunned House" (1924), which infused a classic haunted house story with science fiction; the seminal "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926); the brilliant "The Colour out of Space" (1927), which Lovecraft considered to be his masterpiece. (Other personal favorites also include "The Dreams in the Witch-House" (1932) and "The Music of Erich Zann" (1921).) Two of his most famous novels included The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1928) and The Mountains of Madness (1931). Apart from his fiction, Lovecraft's groundbreaking essay Supernatural Horror in Literature remains the finest historical discussion of supernatural fiction.

In the spring of 1937, Lovecraft was diagnosed with cancer. After five days in the hospital, Lovecraft died on March 19, 1937. He was buried in his family plot in Swan Point Cemetery, but it was not until forty years later that a stone was erected to mark the spot -- a labor of love on the part of his fans, organized by scholar Dirk Mosig. It reads, aptly, "I am Providence."

I have often thought why I have been drawn to the writings of this quiet, reclusive American writer. Lovecraft’s gift was that he could stimulate the imagination (in respect to cosmic horror) like no one else can. It is not a case of shock value, in your face, B grade tactics, but rather an elegant, distinguished and deeply disturbing account of the unknown. Unfortunately there is a limit to what he has produced - this fate reaches all classic writers. We want more as an audience, especially when the writer has a great influence upon the reader. But with Lovecraft, the spirit of the Cthulu mythos lives on, it adapts to modern society, it clings like a shroud. It has been adapted into movies, dedicated novels from the likes of Stephen King, card games, computer games and role playing sets. Lovecraft is as popular now as he ever was, I encourage you to find for yourself what these stories can offer you. I have great respect for this author - he has taken me down dark paths, into the minds of madmen, and turned me to stare into the cold reaches of space where the formless things stare back at you and whisper their vile secrets.

Do yourself a favor and read some Lovecraft. You wont be able to put it down.

By Tavis Potts.

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Until Death Do Us Party

Questioning the relevance of religion in the 21st century

The founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, once described death as ‘having to leave the party’.

For those unaware, the Church of Satan is not a breeding ground for wild-eyed devil worshippers, rather it is an order bound to hedonistic principles, as opposed to the belief in a pantheon, or a single ‘god’. A fine example of the late Mr. LaVey’s counsel to his flock is: ‘everything the church taught you was a vice is really a virtue, and everything it said was a virtue is really a vice.’

To say this is controversial wisdom would be a gross understatement. LaVey is effectively promoting sin, saying that it is the true path to happiness, and that it does not have the repercussions that are claimed by the church.

Yet the decision to name his ‘church’ after Christianity’s number one bad guy is a curious one, and a moot point amongst Satanists and others following hedonistic paths. Other hedonists might have more time for Satanism if its name was not derived from Christianity, because it taints the movement with an element of the ridiculous, begging the inevitable question from the ill-informed: "But how can you believe in Satan if you don’t believe in God?"

They argue that concept of Satan is dependant of the concept of God; what these people need to understand is that Satanism uses the Devil as a symbol for a lifestyle concerned with pleasure and the self. But stealing the Church’s archetypal sinner was not an intelligent method of pointing out to Christians the flaws in their faith, and subsequently it has negated much of the good that the Satanic movement could have yielded.

Thirty odd years afer the publication of his Satanic bible, and three years after his death, LaVey’s Satanists are an extreme minority, in a world where spirituality and (blind) faith are still seen as redeeming qualities. In this era Western society certainly contains some social groups that appear to have little time for religion, increasingly within youth and sub-culture, yet we live in a world where the church still maintains undeniable power.

Politicians undoubtedly aim at the Christian/god fearing demographic, or at least those who live by or have some respect for those values, knowing that this is where the majority of votes still lie. Good old fashioned Christian values, that is how politicians like John Howard and Bill Clinton get into office, and how their adversaries plan on usurping them.

Turn on the television and see those same values reinforced in soap operas, advertisements and even on the evening news. Remember Ronald Reagan? How could we forget. The man was a modern day religious wet dream. Actor turned politician, his master plan was to have the whole of America’s youth praying in school.

Can you say messiah? Forget the dream, it is more like a nightmare, really - but hey, whatever turns you on. Seriously though, humanity seems to have an unshakable need to explain every aspect of existence down to the last detail, rather than just shutting up and getting on with life. (Ironically that might just be what this journalist is doing now.)

Yet it is easy to understand how humans, with their formidable imaginations, could have invented creation stories to explain their existence, as well as the existence of the sun, moon and stars. And after all, religion does serve a purpose - it guards the weak minded from the insanity of having no real answer for themselves or the universe that contains them. People perceive safety in established notions of religion. They fear death, they want to be told that everything is going to be alright, that they will survive eternally amongst God and his heavenly host.

The finality of rotting for a few centuries in the ground is, after all, an undesirable notion. Religiosity is a barrier between grim reality and the human mind; it is nothing but a product of environment, of fear and imagination. Surely it is time to accept that the concept of religion is outdated, in this world dominated by science and rational thought.

It is time to shelve the bible and other religious texts in the fiction section, along with all the other myths and legends. Acceptance of our fate, and that we are the masters of it, is an important step towards embracing hedonism and not accepting the irrelevant notion of sin. Just as the Western World is leading the way in areas such as science, medicine and environmentalism, so too should we set an example by being free from the binds of religion.

The last word deservedly belongs to the modern father of the hedonistic lifestyle, the afore mentioned Anton LaVey, despite the obvious criticisms of his Satanic movement. In the back of a hearse on the way to a funeral in honour of one of his young ‘parishioners’, he was asked, ‘What is the meaning of death to you?’.

LaVey replied, ‘It means having to leave the party. That he had to leave the party so soon saddens us all.’

In this age respect and worship of our selves, each other and the planet that sustains us should be our concern, not prophetic scriptures born out of ignorance in the distant past.

So enjoy your life: it is the only one you are going to get.

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Rocking the Cradle of Filthy Lucre

(Okay this is a total rant. Don’t get mad get even - coley666@yahoo.com or better still write your own damn article!)

Cradle of Filth. Okay, now that I’ve got your attention I’ll get on with it, They’re like that though, CoF, they typify the whole love/hate thing. You’ve probably made up your mind one way or the other by now. I have: I love them. That’s been my feeling from the start, and I’ll stick to it.

I suppose I could bore you by talking incessantly about their music, but that is not actually what I want to discuss. If you want to know about their music then go out and buy an album or five. What’s that? You’re broke? Well, download it nimrod...

But I digress. What I want to talk about are attitudes towards artists - like CoF - who dare to combine the dark, gothic/romantic and religious themes in their music with a sense of humour, and manage to make some filthy lucre on the side. (Sorry, did I say religious? Better make that pseudo-religious, because anyone who truly believes in any kind of godly being in this era is a fool. Sorry all, especially the beautiful Wiccans I’ve known and still know, but it is time to wake up and take responsibility for ourselves!) It is a dangerous realm to inhabit, that place where an artist or group assumes the right to play the game tongue in cheek; an invitation to critics and peers, one that says ‘ridicule and scorn me at every opportunity!’

With CoF it seemed that as their musical style developed into something more pleasing to the ear, their sense of humour and irony came under fire (it became more obvious, though it certainly already existed), and the inevitable cries of ‘They are selling out!’ could be heard. Well, I fucking hate that, for a start. The only thing wrong with ‘selling out’ is the perception that a lot of people in the underground have of it. Are you saying that these people don’t have a right to make a living? Should they be subject to your life values, just because you choose to live like a piece of shit? There is nothing wrong with the allure of cold hard cash, my darklings, it is what makes this rotten world go around. Most who complain of ‘sell outs’ are just jealous, and (although I hate the term) it is ‘tall poppy syndrome’ at its purest form.

Not taking yourself too seriously, coupled with a little bit of ironic humour shifts units, it would seem. This is no revelation. Just think of Marilyn Manson, Monster Magnet, The Misfits - hey they all start with M, um, anyway you get the picture, many bands play and have played on the dark alternative/goth/metal side of the tracks, not taking themselves too seriously, or at least allowing a bit of irony to slip in. And hey, if Robert Smith can learn to laugh anyone can.

My not so humble opinion is that humour in music is a fantastic gift, if correctly tempered with talent. However, there are plenty of serious folks out there who detest it, particularly in gothic and metal circles. Cof get a lot of criticism from their black metal peers (who in fact would argue that they were not CoF’s peers), there have been claims that they are not the real thing, that they in fact are a pox on the face of black metal and are a total joke.

Well then, riddle me this, Batman - Which is funnier? The fact that the well educated Dani Filth and his cohorts manage to create for us intelligent, stunning, stimulating, technically brilliant, marvellously produced, Gothically packaged music, delivered with tongue firmly in Satan’s cheek or that a bunch of long haired Viking nuts - whose music, let’s face it, is also excellent if you dig that sound, which I certainly do - feel so threatened by Christianity that they wander around Scandinavia trying to burn down stone churches, murdering each other and praying to Fenris the wolf, or in some cases being the devil worshipping kind of Satanist? (Exaggerate? Who me?)

I know who has got me rolling around on the floor, splitting my sides with laughter.

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The Changing Face of Hobart Goth

If you think the present boom of "goth" in Hobart hasn’t happened before, you’re wrong. You should have been here in 1989, when goth was just about the biggest youth subculture in Hobart, and the lawns of Salamanca on a Saturday afternoon were carpeted with several distinctive groupings of black-clad walking cliches. None of them spoke to each other all that much, but I digress.

There is something different about the current uprising, and it has to do largely with music. Although a lot of people are dressing in a fashion which fits the "goth" stereotype, most of them are taking their musical cues from bands well outside the goth genre, mainly bands in the industrial/metal spectrum.

Exactly what goth is, is endlessly debated. Online surveys have shown that most people who identify themselves as goth regard goth as "a way of life" rather than a musical, social or fashion movement. This is strange because there is so much variation in lifestyle between goths, that the idea of a single gothic lifestyle is simply false. The history of the term provides us with a better insight. Movement historian Pete Scathe’s "Early History of Goth" website (www.scathe.demon.co.uk/histgoth.htm) reveals that although the term ‘goth’ was used to describe the sound of various bands from 1979 on, it was not used for the subculture until around 1983. Even then it was used mainly to denote fans of bands thought to have a ‘gothic’ sound.

The subtle shift in emphasis from music to fashion, or rather simply away from interest in distinctly goth styles of music, seems to have happened more in small centres like Hobart than anywhere else. The reason for this is probably the sheer commercial obscurity of goth music today. Back in the 1980s, a string of goth bands achieved unusual commercial success, including Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim, Bauhaus, Joy Division, and so on – enough to at least get their records sold in any major city. However, none of these bands had careers which were both long and active, and by the early-mid 90s most had either split, or were no longer active creative forces. (Either that, or, like the Sisters’ Andrew Eldritch, they were simply procrastinating.) This left a gap for new acts like Nosferatu, Rosetta Stone, Suspiria and Children on Stun to take over. Although such bands tended to borrow to a large degree from gothic sounds of the 80s and did not have quite the same chart appeal, they also displayed more refined and interesting songwriting skills than some of the major acts of the past. Under normal circumstances, the more prominent goth acts of the mid-90s would be able to creatively spearhead the revival we are now witnessing. However, these bands too had a short shelf-life – Suspiria and Stun have split, Rosetta Stone are inactive, and Nosferatu were never any good once they lost their original vocalist.

Worldwide, a very large goth music movement still exists and there are more than a thousand active goth bands, but this movement is so specialised and fragmented that any given active band will probably not be followed by more than 20% of the genre. My interest is in classic melodic goth-rock of the sort pioneered by the Sisters; I can talk about music with someone who likes dark-ambient goth bands on the Projekt label, or who likes metal-goth crossovers, and I will find that we have little musically in common. In a large city where these niche markets can be easily catered for, this really doesn’t matter. In Hobart, what this translates to (except where people are willing to make the effort to explore music for themselves through mail order or over the net) is simple: Enter Manson.

I do not dislike Marilyn Manson’s music, and I find his interviews to be articulate and sometimes quite perceptive. Nonetheless, I fail to see much relevance of Manson to goth. His music owes more to and even rock-opera, metal, glam, with just the odd hint that he might have listened to Christian Death when he was ten. His performance ethos also owes more to punk and glam in that he deliberately uses shock tactics and overstatement in his art, admitting that he is doing so for the sake of social counterbalance rather than as a personal expression. Finally, his fanbase is and always was a generic alternative one. When the Cure and the Smiths were very big in the late 80s, many people also questioned their relevance to the subculture and raised concerns that their popularity threatened the identity of goth. The difference in those days was that unquestionably goth alternatives were easy to find.

While many of Manson’s followers strike me as appallingly tacky, the critical focus on religion that is being promoted by Manson is probably not a bad thing, however simplistic it may be. At the same time, it will be disappointing if goth does not persist as a distinct creative force and is replaced by another uniformed gang waiting to be spoonfed JJJ-endorsed products. What has happened to mainstream alternative rock in the last seven years, whereby the grunge movement in the wake of Nirvana turned first into faceless dull guitar-rock, then finally into angsty redneck rap-metal, gives us a good idea of what goth needs to avoid.

Kevin J. Bonham mailto://k_bonham@postoffice.utas.edu.au

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A Brief History of Witchcraft

by David Trzcinski

"Sometimes he gave me blows with a whip, and then he kissed the spot where he had beaten me"

-Catherine Cadiere

The history of witchcraft through the ages encompasses a huge range of diverse issues which surround the witchcraft delusion. Obviously, the witchcraft craze was not only confined to Europe, emerging at various times throughout the United States of America and Asia.

The notion of witchcraft was derived from the combination of several pagan religions. From the eighth century on, witchcraft began to be classified as heresy and sorcery associated with harmful witchcraft.

In 1233, the papal Inquisition was further strengthened by the Dominicans who were appointed directly by Pope Gregory IX. Some examples of the inquisitorial method employed in the investigations of heretics are as follows:

(i) The accused was presumed guilty until he/she had proven their innocence (which was rare in many cases)

(ii) Suspicion or gossip was sufficient indication of guilt to hail a person before the Inquisition.

(ii) No witnesses were allowed to testify on behalf of the accused

By 1486, arguably the most important book for witch hunters had arisen. The Malleus Maleficarum was completed by two authors (Sprenger (1436-95) and Kramer (1430-1505)) and was divided into three parts:

(1) A discussion concerning the need for administrators to deal with the enormity of witchcraft.

(2) Detailed solutions to the evils which may be encountered by witch hunters.

(3) The means to initiate legal action against witches, secure a conviction and pass sentence.

The witchcraft delusion came to an end in Europe during the late 19th century. Almost 200,000 people are believedto have died during the witchcraft delusion in Europe over 150 years.

Many infamous stories arose from the Inquisition years between the 13th century to the 19th century. One such example is the legal battle between Catherine Cadiere and Father Jean-Baptiste Girard, S.J. After stories began circulating around western Europe about the sexual liaisons of Father Girard and the charlatan actions of Catherine Cadiere (claiming herself to be saint by smearing menstrual blood over her face), both were taken to court.

With twelve votes for the priest to be burnt at the stake and 12 votes for Catherine to be hanged, the deciding vote came from President Lebret, who passed to the motion to return the priest to the church, and Catherine to be returned home to her mother. This proved to be an unpopular motion by many.

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An Introduction to the Cold Meat Industry

by David Trzcinski

Cold Meat Industry is a record label based in Sweden. It publishes many styles of music and noise. It all began long, long ago during 1987 when Roger Karmanik and Lille Roger decided to publish some interesting local talent in the realm of Industrial/Noise/Death Metal/Gothic/Ambient who needed a professional and qualified label to produce their music.

What followed was some of the most disturbing music from some very great artists such as Raison D’etre, Brighter Death Now, XXX Atomic Toejam and Mortiis. Some key bands are mentioned at the conclusion of this article. During 1991-1992, Cold Meat Industry was known by some as Sound Source and produced several artists such as Inanna, Brighter Death Now, Systema, Raison D’etre, Archon Satani and others. This is now a completed project in the archives of Cold Meat Industry.

Through the next several issues of the Coven magazine, we will be reviewing some of the most important bands that have come out of the Swedish alternative label.

Below we have outlined the issues of Cold Meat Industry’s necrology as can be seen in their double compilation entitled "The Absolute Supper".

CMI-01 Lille Roger Undead 7"

CMI-02 In the Shadow of Death Compilation 7"

CMI-03 BDN Pain in Progress

CMI-04 In Slaughter Natives S/T

CMI-05 Memorandum Aux Morts

CMI-06 Debauch Video

CMI-07 Maschinenzimmer 412 Malfeitor

CMI-08 Memorandum Ichor

CMI-09 BDN Great Death

CMI-10 2x6 Compilation

CMI-11 Mental Destruction The Intensity of Darkness

CMI-12 Morthond This Crying Age

CMI-13 In Slaughter Natives Enter Now the World

CMI-14 En Halvkokt i folie The Totally Out Music of...

CMI-15 Morthound Spindrift

CMI-16 In Slaughter Natives Sacrosancts Bleed

CMI-17 XXX Atomic Toejam A Gathering of the Tribes for the first/last human be-in

CMI-18 Raison D’etre Prospectus I

CMI-19 In the Butchers Backyard Compilation

CMI-20 Karmanik Collection Compilation

CMI-21 Deutsch Nepal Benevolence

CMI-22 Lille Roger Golden Shower

CMI-23 Brighter Death Now Great Death

CMI-24 Memorandum Ars Moriendi

CMI-25 Mental Destruction When Madness Strikes

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Pictures of Me

by Fatal Bob and the Epicure

(Kevin, you will surely die for this - Deadseraph, Cure lover and Coven Webmaster.......)

(According to a Hobart share-housing urban legend, there was once a highly-strung Cure fan who broke up with his girlfriend. The song “Pictures of You” reminded him of her and the pain of their separation. His flatmates, who wished he would stop moping about and move on, found out about this. He would be doing some mundane task like eating dinner or watching TV, and they would play the song over and over, causing him to immediately crash into a pit of despair and hide in his room. After a few months he moved out.

This song is for him.

The ranting linelessness of the original lyric sheet has been reproduced for your reading pleasure.)

I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of me that I almost believe that I’m great

I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of me that I’ve almost forgotten the problems I’ve had with my weight

Remembering me writing “Pornography” dying for the sake of my art and I moped and I thought about killing myself I was worshipped by all the goth tarts Remembering me and how thin I could be now I’m bigger and fatter and wider than a snowman screamed at the weight machine screamed at the mirror but I still haven’t found all the courage to go on a diet

Remembering me when I had a career full of songs full of doom and of doubt They were clever and credible but they never sold and that’s why I went and sold out Remembering me when I used to write songs this crap that I spew now more boring than everything tour for the last time and rake in the millions look in my mind and you cannot see anything

If only I’d eaten the right foods, the doctors would not watch my heart if only I’d eaten the right foods I’d never be bursting apart in these pictures of me

Looking so long at these pictures of me amazed that I made it so far I’ve been such a dipstick in all of my lipstick at least it has bought me this car full of pictures of me

There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to sit right on top of the chart there was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more than to see sold in every K-mart all these pictures of me.

I do like the Cure, I really do. They aren’t bad for a boy band, and that Robert Smith is quite a good-looking specimen, as far as ornamental poodles go. I especially like their song “In Between Days”, because its such a soundalike ripoff of New Order that I can listen to it and forget the fact that Fat Bob is whining at me again, and …

Perhaps I’d better start that again.

The Cure are in my view a moderately good band, and, yes, I am aware that Robert Smith has lost a lot of weight in recent years. “Pornography” is a masterpiece of despair and among the finest fringe-goth records ever made. “Disintegration” is excellent too, very cohesive and extremely well written even if the mood it chronicles is rather artificial. I also like a lot of the Cure’s more poppy records, starting with the very early stuff and including “The Head on the Door”, which is pleasantly diverse. What I don’t like, nay, actively loathe, is what I’ve heard from the “Wish” and “Wild Mood Swings” albums. “Bloodflowers” is reported to be good, but I’m waiting to find it secondhand rather than give any royalties directly to the artist(?) responsible for the dreadful “Mint Car”.

As an example of the Cure’s stronger points, their lyrics may not be especially unusual, but their structuring of words is sometimes quite elaborate and distinctive – which made the parody above very easy to write. I tried doing the same with the Sisters of Mercy but found that they used a lot of very short lines and repetitions which made it hard to write an effective parody.

Procrastination boulevard, yawn yawn …

Hey now hey now now, sing this inaction to me …

Some people get by without writing many records …

Last time I wrote songs, in nineteen eighty nine …

Just a few ideas to get you going.

Sandcat co-wrote the Cure parody. But don’t hold that against her.

KEVIN J. BONHAM (Sleepycat)

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Last Time Around: A Gothzo Memoir

“Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations and ages it is the norm” – Nietzsche

“Hang me for the vultures, for they are most of my friends” – Blood Puppet, Vulture Oasis

Start with a couple of quotations ripped brutally out of context and twisted to one’s own nefarious ends, and heck, why not? This always was a culture of jackdaws, bright-eyed scavengers and people who won’t admit how much Leonard Cohen they really stole. If you think you’re the last suffering original artist on this happy conformist planet, you haven’t been paying much attention. You and your poetry collection will be taken to Seaworld and left there until the Killer Whale eats one and wipes its anus with the other. The order is not important.

Melodrama, as well as being the critical ingredient of Bad Goth Poetry, is one of the things which killed the previous Hobart goth movement, which burbled happily through the mid-80s, exploded in a black sulky wash over Salamanca, South Hobart and everywhere between with the release of Disintegration, started to putrify in 1991 and was buried by the scattered uncaring survivors in 1993.

In this relatively peaceful turn-of-the-century Hobart renewal, where the most serious public ructions visible are the fiery flamewars of former flatmates and the occasional disagreement over just how ugly Marilyn Manson really is, it’s hard to believe just how segmented and divided the previous mob were. Partly this is because “goth” was a much younger and more defined culture then – offshoots were not reined in through hybridism but instead quickly given a different name. Ignore them, dear, they’ll die out before you notice they’re having more fun than you. Thus it was with the greebos and the swampies.

Greebo was a global off-shoot of macho male goth scruffians who got tired of trying to look like a girl, mainly because they weren’t any good at it. They weren’t very good at washing, either, or motorbike-riding, though they faked an interest in precisely one of these pastimes. In the with-it world, greebos had their own music (bands like Gaye Bikers on Acid) but here they made do with Mudhoney and Soundgarden, devolved into sub-poppers, and were the only ones not to raise their heads from their bowls full of LSD in surprise when Nirvana went big. Kurt always was a Bauhaus fan. Swampies, on the other severed hand, looked like goths in a messy sort of way, attended Art School sporadically, listened to Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Lou Reed and were interested in precisely two things: heroin, and more heroin. There wasn’t enough heroin in Hobart to support all nine of them, so they left.

Even within the subculture itself (defined as loosely as a bad Adelaide petticoat) there were any number of deviant groups to identify and, should a divisive mood take you, vilify. These included:

The Lunchbox Goths, a stuck-up artsy clique of mostly females under the age of three (well, twenty). These specialised in the carriage of impossibly small lunchbox-style handbags and the wearing of impossibly bad hairstyles. Impossibly stupid dogs were an optional extra. The Lunchbox Goths overlapped to some large degree with the Tryhards (see below)
The Barrels, a group of people of improbable girth whose actual interest in goth music extended roughly as far as Kylie Minogue. Who let them in? Well, they knew all the DJs, and they did dress in black. I guess you just had to be there.
The Plastigoths, ahead of their time in their fetish for Matrix-style PVC, at the time they simply looked sterile and fake beyond belief, with personalities, allegedly, to match. Often wore Bauhaus shirts, but were known to never actually listen to said band, wearing the shirts solely as a fashion statement – to the immense chagrin of real Bauhaus fans who would have done anything, even sleep with a Plastigoth, to get the shirts in question.
The Gothabillies. You know, I genuinely miss these guys. People with Elvis-style sideburns and a fondness for fun bands like the Cramps really did lighten the place up a bit.
The Tryhards:

“Oh Robert and Morrissey are so cool, when I get out of school I want to be just like them, it’s so great to be morbid and depressed and want to kill yourself, I just can’t understand why people are happy about anything. Hey, my boyfriend bought me a set of razorblades for Christmas, he’s so romantic and everything, but he’s gone to the mainland now and I’m so lonely and sad. No, get away from me, I don’t want to have sex because I’m worried I might enjoy it and turn normal, and anyway I’d rather sleep with a cockr … hang on, are you really in a band? And you’re really 35 years old? Can I come home with you?”

I don’t want to give the impression there weren’t real Goths in the scene, because there were, but the ratio of those whose involvement was deep and sincere, to those who either permanently had no clue or else were only there to get laid, was pretty damn low. Of course, the much-denigrated “spookykids” of today are arguably the same problem, but they are merely a large minority, and most of them learn remarkably quickly once you put an axe through their Web-TV, give their spiky collar to the dog, and set fire to their shift key to StOp ThEm FrOm WrItInG LiKe ThIs. What killed the first scene was that when goth became seriously untrendy and all the lightweights dropped out, the rest had already fled so far away from admitting to involvement that there was nothing left to constitute a scene.

Still, one judges a scene not by its failures but by the legacy it leaves. While it had little comparable to the Coven (occasional gothish sets at a joint called the Babylon, above what is now Café Who, were OK until the place got overrun by doofheads), it did actually have an original band, known as Prayers in Ashes until 1993 and Blood Puppet following personnel changes thereafter. PIA gigs were highly amusing events. The crowd consisted in equal measure of five types of people: those who liked the music, those who knew band members, those possessed by demons, those possessed by drink, and those there to ogle the bassist. The band itself, curiously, had about the same makeup. On one occasion a fundamentalist Christian strayed in and asked the lead singer at some depth why he felt moved to write such bleak and irreligious songs, to sing as if he was gargling molten magma, and to stare fixedly at audience members for no reason, leading to a highly amusing conversation. On a typical night one-fifth of the crowd would head directly for the bar, while the remainder would wallflower themselves around the room and sit in corners doing very little. Getting a goth to dance in those days was harder than squeezing water out of a rock, and only slightly easier than convincing Austudy to pay you.

There was one glorious exception, when an optimistic promoter set up a night called “The Cave” in the Brisbane Hotel. Blood Puppet played alongside the outstanding progressive-rock band Three Winters Cold and a bunch of middle-aged hippies who lowered the tone somewhat (“We’re here to sing about things that fill our minds with mystery and romance. Like … WITCHES”). Someone made considerable efforts with the décor, adding rubber bats suspended from the ceiling, stalactites, a skeleton and a black-clad religious madonna statue complete with black lipstick. By night’s end the bats had all been either thrown at the band mid-song or clubbed to death with stalactites, while the skeleton was bent double from a bad night on the dancefloor, and the statue had been stripped to the waist and deprived of both arms by a would-be rapist. The band and its followers were not invited back.

Prayers in Ashes / Blood Puppet (the former is a pun on the Birthday Party’s “Prayers on Fire”, the latter stems from a Nick Cave liner note) were both considerably better than the average generic goth band. The former were more traditionally goth. The latter denied the stereotype vigorously a la Andrew Eldritch, but nobody believed them (or him). They issued the demo tapes “The Future Falls” (1992) and “Mutate” (1994), both of my copies of which are almost unplayable, so don’t try scabbing them off me. The former consists largely of lengthy, driving, guitar-goth rock songs, reasonably similar to Fields of the Nephilim or Christian Death. Stereotypical goth topics – magic, pagans, serpents, poison, sexual excess and Edgar Allan Poe – predominate, but the presentation is intense enough that it rarely seems forced. The most infamous song on this tape is “Suspiria Virgin”, which both sonically and thematically is closer to early Bauhaus, and which details in rather callous fashion the deflowering of a foolish teenage girl. There is a sick rumour that this song is about a particular person. The sickest thing about this rumour is that it is true.

“Mutate” is a very different work, much more keyboard-based, experimental and tending towards electro and industrial. Unusual then, it is typical of the later-90s push of goth towards a more subdued sound and a less clichéd set of themes, similar to the attitude of bands like the Horatii or Manuskript for instance. The lyrics are far more eclectic, with a more modern and personal focus, and a stronger sense of self-determination.

You might hear rumours of a reformation. If these people ever dare to play in public again, simply adopt the following procedure.

Yell “Incoming!” as you walk in the door (or preferably, kick it down).

Walk over to the band, and say “Hello, goths” as sincerely as possible.

Tell them I sent you.

KEVIN J. BONHAM k_bonham@tassie.net.au

Disclaimer: Persons and incidents in this article have not at any stage whatsoever been exaggerated for artistic effect. That would be most inappropriate.

KEVIN J. BONHAM (Sleepycat) Back to Top

KEVIN J. BONHAM k_bonham@tassie.net.au

Disclaimer: Persons and incidents in this article have not at any stage whatsoever been exaggerated for artistic effect. That would be most inappropriate.

KEVIN J. BONHAM (Sleepycat)

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