From: pete@ohm.york.ac.uk (Pete French)
Newsgroups: alt.gothic
Subject: Nosferatu : sad cases from the past
Date: 9 Oct 92 12:16:01 GMT
Organization: Electronics Department, University of York, UK


"you dont want to go in there mister!".
I stop, 3 small schoolboys are standing in the doorway of the Duchess Of
York in Leeds and seem somewhat concerned about my welfare.
"Why not?" I ask.
The kids giggle and one of them tugs at my arm...
"Theres witches in there mister! We've seen them..."
At this point one of them glances through the door and gives a shriek as
he catches sight of a girl heading for the bar.
"look at her! look at her!"
They disappear giggling into the Leeds night, and I go inside...

To all intents and purposes the kids could have been right - the bad goths
are out tonight - men in white makeup with black lipstick and fishnet
stockings on their arms, spirals painted on faces and out of nostrils.
It takes a lot of skill to get away with that sort of thing these days... and
all these people fail drmatically to do so. They just look funny, this is
after all 1992 and goth has moved on. I'm a goth, but even I feel out of
place here - most of these people are too young to have been around in 81'
and yet they are still imitating the style. The sad thing is that to a large
extent its a style that never really existed - Ive seen Nosferatu in
reviews complaining that goth "isnt what it used to be", but the sort
of rubber bats and vampires type goth perpetrated by Nosferatu isnt what
it was ever about - its just tackyness that ended up associated with the
goth movement more as a piss take than anything else. Goth is dark, sure, but
these people are making it out to be a halloween pantomime, what makes it
worst is that they take it all completely seriously. The editorial in
"grimoire" (nosferatu's fanzine) slags off mick mercer for praising groups
with a sense of humour and a sense of irony. Paraphrase the whole thing
could read as "I dont see why the fact that I have no sense of humour is any
laughing matter!". You can read grimoire and you have to keep telling yourself
that these people actually believe in all this stuff.

Nosferatu are not quite as gothic as their audience - but they are still
pretty sad. The bass player is called Vlad and the band turn up in a hearse.
The woman running the merchandise stall calls herself "Sapphire Aurora" and
has just written a book of poetry which "represents the dark inner thoughts of
a lady plagued by recurring visions" (?!) Hmmm.... The music itself is not
that bad, but it isnt anything that you havent heard before - rather than
being the "true keepers of the flickering flame of goth" Nosferatu are just
as derivative as anyone else - except without any of the flare that would
make it special. We've heard it all before - and done better. Im not going to
say that I didnt enjoy it, but all the trappings associated with the gig did
rather put me off - if the band could stop trying to be ultimate kings of
darkness in everything they do then perhaps they would stand a chance of doing
something worth listening to... as things stand they will continue making
music for their own little world - and that world is far too narrow to allow
much expression of anything. Porl King (rosetta) had the words "different
decade, same old shit!" written on his guitar when 1990 dawned - I doubt if
Nosferatu would get the joke.

All in all it was a fairly depressing evening, but also encouraging in a way -
recently I have got the feeling that goth is over, that it stands still
with the rest of the world moving on. Seeing Nosferatu and their audience
showed me that most of goth is not standing still, that it has kept up
with the world, and when presented with soemthing that is trying to recreate
the past we feel out of place. The Nosferatu audience may be very committed,
but they are also very small - only about 40 people - and this is Leeds !
Maybe Nosferatu will wise up and maybe they will become a great band, but
I doubt it, they will probably fade away and die - which is odd, because for
a bunch of goths they do seem to have severe problems coming to terms with
their own demise...

-bat.
-- 
-Pete French. (the -bat. )    -+
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