Alternative X - Or "HouseCat Goes Clubbing"

I rarely go clubbing. I went out for drinks a couple of weeks back for somebody's leaving 'do', but that was not 'clubbing'! The last time I went clubbing properly was on Halloween night 2011, where incidentally I went to another Alternative X night in Inverness. Back in 2011 Alternative X was held at a club called 'Cake' but when Cake closed, Alternative X was made venue-less. I think Halloween 2011 was their last night for quite a while. 

Anyway, Alternative X is now hosted by Karma Lounge, on Young Street in Inverness. Karma Lounge has hosted other nights that I've really wanted to go to (including UV nights! I love glowing!) but have always been so far unable to go to. Partly it is because I live outside of the town, and don't like travelling around the city as an alternative female on my own. I get a lot less bother when I'm out with Raven. Anyway, I heard some of my friends were going, so arranged to meet up with them and go out.

I hadn't been inside the Karma Lounge before, and it seems like quite a nice place. The main floor is divided into four areas - an entrance area with steps and a ramp, a standing area (part of which was the dance-floor), some seating and tables, and at the back were what looks like cushions and sofas - presumably what gives the place the 'Lounge' aspect of its name! They appeared closed off for the club night, though. Toilets were upstairs and a bit odd to navigate to - I thought I'd accidentally wandered into staff areas to begin with. They have a quote from  Paul's letters to the Galatians about reaping and sowing painted on a cross-beam. There's a building not far away with Bible quotes on the outside wall, telling people not get drunk engraved into the walls, so it's interesting to see the Bible quoted in such different context in the same city (from different centuries).

I was the first person of our little group to arrive, and ended up sitting alone. Two guys sat down next to me, this was fine, they were polite, asked first, etc, didn't bother me. I heard them speaking in Polish, and I recognised the voice... Started a conversation with them, later found out, after talking Roller Derby, that the chap I was talking to was a friend of a friend and that we'd met before at that leaving do I'd mentioned earlier, but in this different context, neither of us had initially recognised the other! Proof that it is a small world (especially in the alternative scene) indeed.

I caught up with my friends, ended up only buying a couple of drinks in the whole night (for others) and people were constantly buying me drinks (apparently I dance well or something... I think I dance badly and people are getting me more drinks to lower my inhibitions and therefore have me dance more (and in a less co-ordinated manner) in order to giggle at this... Perhaps I am paranoid). Drinks were reasonably priced, the Amaretto was tasty (downing shots of it, though, is never a good idea for me!). It was a free entry night, and usually when clubs run free entry nights, the price of the drinks are inflated, but it didn't seem the case with Alternative X and Karma Lounge. 

The music erred more towards rock and Metal than Goth, with a dash of Punk (I was screaming along to the Sex Pistols at one point) but that seemed fair given that the majority of the clientele were Metal-Heads rather than Goths. They did play 'Lucretia, My Reflection' by Sisters of Mercy and 'Spellbound' by Siouxsie and the Banshees, and a couple of other tracks that catered towards the more traditional Goth scene, but I didn't hear EBM or similar, though (although I guess that for those that don't like 'Cyber-Goth' that will be a good thing. 

I met the host, Brian, who is a very friendly person, who went around, looking to see that all the patrons were enjoying themselves. He also introduced me to his wife (whom I first noted for wearing a gorgeous fitted long leather coat, frilly shirt, cincher and New Rocks. Romantic Goth done excellently!) and his wife and I seem to get on really well - we were  chatting away for ages! It's nice to see a Goth night run by someone who seems really passionate and involved with the local scene. 

I had a lot of fun dancing (which is my primary motivation for clubbing) and hanging around with my friends (something that can be done without clubbing, so doesn't count as a motive for going clubbing specifically.) The only bad bit was me accidentally knocking someone's drink out of their hands while dancing. I'm definitely planning on going to Alternative X again. I really wish Raven had been able to go out with me that night, but he was working in the morning; hopefully he'll be able to go to the next one. 

The Original 'Goth' Bands Are Not Goth

I am going to say something vaguely controversial here: Siouxsie And The Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division and suchlike are not 'Goth Bands'.

They are, though, the people who produced the music about which the nebulous thing we now call Goth crystallised. The term 'Goth' was one applied to these bands by the music press, but it was more applied to their fans. Goth came from the fans of musicians, not from the bands themselves. Many of these bands produced music in styles outside of what is considered Goth, some of them starting as punk bands that evolved through Post-Punk into producing things in the style that became the 'Goth' style, some of them taking their music in directions outside of that style later in their careers.

Siouxsie Sioux is a musician whose career illustrates both of these aspects of these changes in musical direction. She started out as Sex Pistols fan who decided to have a go with a few friends, and whose first public performance involved her reciting the Lord's Prayer over an improvised instrumental, and her musical career evolved through punk beginnings to Siouxsie and The Banshees' Post-Punk work a was actually quite experimental and influenced by quite a variety of things (David Quantick called 'Peek-a-Boo' an "oriental marching band hip hop with farting horns and catchy accordion" in his review in the NME, published 23 July 1988, and that I think illustrates this eclecticism.). 

After the Banshees were reduced to Siouxsie and Budgie being 'The Creatures' their music took another turn in direction, partly because Budgie being a drummer and Siouxsie being a singer meant that outside of the studio their music was quite pared down to percussion and vocals, and this had its practical limitations, but partly because their creativity drove them to try new things - "Manchild" for example, is a story in song set in Ancient Meso-America about human sacrifice - a dark theme - but musically its inspirations clearly come from various periods and places. 

Siouxsie's distinctive sense of fashion, the often dark subject matter of the music she performed, the timing of her work coinciding with the nascent Goth subculture, and her links to Post-Punk made her an early Goth icon, despite the fact that stylistically she and the Banshees were highly varied and not always within the stylistic bounds of what is now described as Goth.;This is partly because in the early 1980s Goth was a lot less concrete.Siouxsi and The Banshees were not the only band to have a stylistically varied career and yet somehow become part of the (oft debated) 'canon' of Goth music. The Cure, for example, went decidedly pop for a while, before returning to darker rock, although their later work was certainly not as Goth as their earlier work such as 'A Forest'.

It takes a substantial body of work for a genre to become established, and it takes innovators being followed by the people they inspire, and that takes time. The later imitators are probably actually more Goth because they tended to stick quite closely to their inspirations, and therefore had an output that was more stylistically consistent and within the bounds of what is now termed 'Goth', though this does not mean they were necessarily as good because in being derivative some were not necessarily fulfilling their potential and may have done better allowing themselves more creative scope rather than trying to stay within a style.

Quite a few of the first wave bands - most notably The Sisters of Mercy (though they were late in that wave) - reject the Goth label, and I actually support this. Goth is not a term to label the bands themselves, more a description of individual pieces of music that they produced. The people themselves do not identify with the subculture. Some find the label to be constrictive, with both commercial concerns and creative concerns about such a label possibly resulting in aiming music at a target audience and therefore loosing some creative freedom. Some simply do not fit that label consistently enough to think it applies to them.

The original Goths are not the members of these bands - they are the fans who took inspiration in terms of fashion and music from these people and expanded it into something much bigger, pulling in influences from sources as diverse as centuries-old architecture, Victorian literature, early 20thC horror movies and futuristic science-fiction costumery. While we can thank people like Siouxsie Sioux, Dave Vanian, Patricia Morrison and Robert Smith for inspiring us, we should thank ourselves for the community we have built, for the vast amount of expansion and creativity that has come after that initial musical spark, and for basically building the subculture. Goth exists because of Goths, especially promoters, designers, organisers, musicians, artists and crafters.

❇✤❇~☥~❇✤❇

(I had an interesting debate in the comments of one of my posts about whether the Cure were Goth once - I LIKE these debates - feel free to debate this or any other post with me in the comments. I find reasoned arguments for and against my position, positive reactions where people expand on what they like and  most of all constructive criticism to be the most helpful and interesting comments! It is actually reading and responding to the comments that is the most enjoyable part of blogging. I'm in this subculture and have ties to others for the love of their various  facets and discussing them is fun!)

The Cure, Reading Festival and a Modern Gothic Revival

I saw Robert Smith on the cover of the N.M.E and did a double take, saw that it really was him and that the front page article was on the Cure and immediately bought a copy. I'm not the hugest fan of the Cure ('Pornography' was my favourite album of theirs, and some of their work between 'Pornography' and 'Disintegration' became too "poppy" for me.) but seeing an what had been a Goth band about 30 years ago on the front of the mainstream music press was something that piqued my interest. There was Robert Smith, albeit older than before, with black eye-makeup, mad hair and his signature ill-applied red lipstick, on the front of what is pretty much the mainstream music magazine in the UK, above the likes of Florence and the Machine.

(Florence Welch, by the way, was once "a grunge kid, a little goth", wearing "baggy trousers and skate chains". I'm somehow not surprised that she was once a Babybat.) 

I see The Cure as one of the originals, even if they went pop, and also they didn't stay pop - they've been doing Goth-ier stuff from 'Disintegration' onwards, making music for The Crow and putting out 'Wild Mood Swings' in the '90s and then putting out 'Bloodflowers' in 2000. The most recent album '4:13 Dream' came out in 2008, which as was talked about again in the N.M.E, is only half an album really, and is theoretically the lighter half, the accessible, poppy stuff that   was pushed to be released while other tracks were recorded and left unreleased.  I've listened to that album, it's got some pretty dark things, "The Reasons Why" is not "light" - it's a song about being suicidal, "The Hungry Ghost" is a paean about the emptiness of materialism, which while not as musically dark as some things, isn't exactly an "upbeat" song, but put amongst songs like "Sirensong"  that are more pop with shades of Echo and the Bunnymen. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. 

It turns out they are playing Reading Festival for the first time in 33 years - a very long time between huge gigs in terms of modern musical careers. They have played other big festivals in the UK, most notably playing headline slots at the vast and fabulous Glastonbury in 1986, 1990 and 1995, and I'd guess they've played big festivals around the world that I don't know about - they're certainly playing other ::festivals:: across Europe this year. They're still playing the more 'alternative' Friday, but they've got a very good slot, and I'm intrigued as to what this means for that kind of music. They're evening going on to Reading's twin, Leeds Festival for the Saturday. Festivals are out to make a profit, and they're not going to put someone in the headline slot if they don't think it fits in with the festival and will get a sizeable audience. Reading is not Rewind (a couple of miles along the river at Henley-on-Thames), it's not a retrospective. They played at Bestival last year, which while a small festival by comparison with Reading, and which has a yuppie/hipster reputation of trying to be a Burning Man for respectable middle-class types, is still the sort of festival that has contemporary big names. 

It at least means the Cure are still big enough not to get sidelined for being too Goth even after moving away from their latter '80s/early '90s pop sound and returning to the stuff they were originally known for. 

I am not the sort of person who thinks that Goth must never become successful, must never be liked by the mainstream, because personally, it means more people are enjoying things I think are worth enjoying, and it also means that when people do come across Goths, they'll hopefully have slightly more of a clue than the usual idiot that shouts "MARILYN MANSONNN" and asks about vampires and self-harm. Or calls me an Emo and asks about Bullet For My Valentine. I only object to popularity when bands start changing what they produce to be commercial. 

Robert says that The Cure were playing to the audience at Bestival: "We concentrated a lot on the more well known songs and we went down well, there have been times when I've played whatever I wanted to play and I have had absolutely no regard for the audience, whereas now I kind of consider that I'm part of an event. I'm aware that we're playing probably to a lot of people who would other wise not come and see The Cure. We're part of the weekend, so it's kind of dumb not to try and play tracks that are your most accessible songs." (Robert in the N.M.E, page 20, 17/03/12). but this they're headlining major festivals across Europe, and if there wasn't the demand, they wouldn't get that sort of opportunity; the music industry is nothing if not mercenary. Hopefully they will play their dark delights, not just their more accessible pieces and entrance a new generation of back-combed and black-clad spooky types, and hopefully they will continue to inspire new musicians in a similar idiom. To me, seeing this is a sign that our genre of music still has life.

I would like there to be a resurgence - I like the original Goth music, and while I like some of its later incarnations, I would still like to hear new music in that old vein. I've noticed that some Nu-Goth types are not ignoring the musical roots of the subculture (even if they're still ignoring the subculture, but Andrew Eldritch himself takes steps to distance himself from the subculture, so that's not really a sign of anything but personal obstinence.) and that there is new music appearing that does definitely have its stylistic roots in the early Goth music - Zola Jesus is somewhere between Siouxsie Sioux and the Cocteau Twins, for example. What I want, though, is more.

What did sadden me was the photographs - Robert hasn't aged well at all - as a younger man he was always a bit round-faced and boyish but this was endearing, now with age this has gone against him - he does not look healthy. The original scruffy back-combed hair and deliberately ill-applied makeup that he originally wore so well now makes him look like an ageing Gothic transvestite rather than someone with a streak of the rebellious scruffiness of punk and deliberate madman hair. I'm not sure if this is just unflattering camera angles, changing the colours (especially for the cover) so he's a bit... green, or that the passing of time has really taken a heavier toll on him, but I do hope it isn't a sign of him being in decline. At least he doesn't look too bad in the main article photo on page 20. With the recent deaths of people like Polly Styrene, I do worry. Part of it is selfish - I don't want my favourite bands to retire or even die before I get to see them. Porl Thompson, who has been around The Cure (he left for a bit then rejoined) since 1976 is looking a lot better for the years than his brother-in-law. Even with tattoos instead of hair. 

I won't make it to Reading or Leeds, or anywhere else in Europe this year, but I do wish them all the best. I hope they continue in their success, and that Robert is in better health than he looks. I hope that bands like The Cure continue to have an influence, and that new bands emerge to carry the torch.