Short hair and my external Goth

Well, back into the warmth of the studio and the kit breakdown after the 3 very intense and rewarding days in Whitby. And it was amazing.

Again.

Lovely to have Jeanie join us on the final day, and I can only imagine how tired she must have been.

I should never have even thought that having short hair would have made the slightest bit of difference - everyone was just as lovely as April, infact possibly even more so. Just as before, many of the people we walked past would give the gentle nod of recognition and would smile at us doing our jobs. Of course, any camera crew at work will get people cheering / tooting the car horn as they pass - but I felt that over this weekend, we've had so little of that; the inhabitants and visitors (Goth and not) of Whitby have been great to work with. Even in Sexy Sunday, where we were in a packed (and I mean PACKED) club doing some filming of Goths Dancing, everyone was very accepting of me walking round with my mixer / recorder round my neck, and of Cooke setting up a jib on stage to get some great shots. Our black hats off to Hazel and everyone at the Met for their help and understanding.

I went for a quick pint with Lou (my wife) on Satuday night - just before we went to film at St Mary's Church at Midnight. And it was interesting, as now I was "normal" again; Without my kit (a large fluffy badger on the end of a 5m pole is a bit of a give away) I found I had disappeared, and even though I went out of my way to make eye contact, and say a brief "good evening" to the numerous passing goths; there were few responses. But then, let's put this into context: how often would you go out round town at 11 pm, and walk round and say "hello" to people. Not very often. Everyone in the pub was very freindly - and I was clearly the least "goth'd up" in the pub and I still felt inclusive.

My one regret from the whole weekend - that I was too tired (and ill, as colds seem to have attacked us all) to go back to Sexy Sunday and have a dance. Being back in that environment, (Hazel's 80's set especially) was bloody great and it would have been lovely to have become immersed again in NIN, The Mission and The Cult purely as a punter.

Am I a Goth? - It's somewhere I really enjoy visiting (and re-visiting); but I couldn't live there.

G

It's a wrap - Whitby, British take on Goth and chips

A pint and pork scratchings

This very British image was the low key but welcome celebration at 11.30 pm last night when we finally called time on the filming of Goth Cruise. It's a bit different from Bermuda and cruise ships, in fact the whole day was distinctly English with damp air, unique attire and faded sea-side grandeur.

After getting into London on Saturday morning hanging in rags the prospect of making it up North was looking very distant. After coffee and pizza at the in laws we headed out onto the wastelands of the M25. After about 20 minutes I realised I couldn't actually see or focus so pulled into a pub car park in Slough (How, the Office) and went to sleep for an hour.

After a fitful night's sleep - I woke up at midnight convinced I was still on the boat, I decided to do the last furlong and join the second Unit of Cooke, Grant, Jonny and Rohith who had been filming in Whitby since Friday. So a hurtling 2 and a half hour journey later and I was in my beloved Whitby surrounded by camera crew and many, many Goths.


Rome Burns



First up was Rome Burns who come highly recommended by Mick Mercer. They were game and played a full set of mini golf after the interview. They are well regarded in the scene and I was surprised to find out that in their day lives they are civil servants.


Gothic Real take the lead

Whitby Town FC was the venue for the twice yearly head to head game between (the black strip wearing) Gothic Real and the team from the Whitby Gazette. I interviewed the opposing managers and after the playful banter was over it was clear that this game is taken very seriously. It ended 4:3 to the Goths and the crowd loved it. The supporters were dressed to impress and included an army in black, a 6ft bearded strawberry and a candy floss carton. I was only disappointed there were no official Goth chants.


Whitby Gothic Lolitas

Back into the old town and we filmed 'Goths in the landscape' including these UK versions of Japanese Lolitas and a trio of chip eating Goths including (centre) a man wearing Nazi insignia. Whitby's Gothic population was so swelled that we were literally spoilt for choice selecting shots. The only irritation were the sheer number of photographers EVERYWHERE. We had to dodge a 3 camera strong HD crew at the football game. I feel sorry for the person who has to go through their 270 minutes of footage to make a mini sting for the web project they were shooting for. I wonder how much of being photographed is part of the Whitby experience. Do more photo requests mean you have achieved the zenith?

You may notice that I haven't written about the cruise itself yet. It was so surreal and such long hours that there literally wasn't the time. But I will post pics the other side of a long sleep, na night.


Uniform wearing Goths eat fish and chips


Whitby Crew - it's a wrap

Things I Learned on Goth Cruise

1) Cruise ships are insane. Or at least the one we were on was. Called ‘The Explorer of the Seas’, it was like someone had taken a shopping centre, a holiday camp and a hotel and put them in that machine that turned Jeff Goldblum into ‘The Fly’,then painted the outside white and the inside with every colour known to man, using hallucinogenic and sedative-laced paints, filled it full of low-paid but hyper-enthusiastic service staff and food and thrown it on the sea. It was 200 feet tall with 14 floors and had a full-size theatre, an ice-rink, a casino, a climbing wall, a basketball court, a spa, a gym, an English pub, a three-storey dining room, a running track and a nightclub. If someone had told me, halfway through the cruise, that there had been an extensive cave system below deck 1, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

It was a strange experience in many ways – mostly because we were working while everyone else was on holiday, so we didn’t really get the chance to relax into the whole concept of the cruise, but instead had to keep somewhat of a detached eye. This meant that we were constantly being freaked out by stuff – on day two someone mentioned that they changed the carpets in the lifts every day. What for? Well, there’s a panel in the middle of them that has today’s day on it –‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’ etc. It’s actually someone’s job to go round every night after midnight and update these carpets, just so that you know what day of the week it is at any given time. On a cruise which lasts five days. That is batshit fucking insane.

2) When you are following a group of Goth men wearing kilts up a steep staircase, using a handheld camera which you are keeping very low, be prepared for what you are letting yourself in for.

3) Goth is a broad church. One of the questions Jeanie was asking was ‘What is Goth?’ and we got a lot of different answers, but one thing that summed it up for me was one night when I walked from the Café Promenade – the shopping street that ran through the centre of the ship into The Chamber, the nightclub which was holding one of the official Goth dances. The promenade, filled with pensioners and families browsing the shops was playing The Ramones’ ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’, while the Goth night was playing ‘Touch Me’ by Samantha Fox. For a brief moment while I passed from one soundtrack to the other, it was like someone had punched me in the mind.

4) 17 hour working days won’t actually kill me. On Wednesday, I shot my first shot – the ship arriving into port at Bermuda - at 8.45am and my last shot – Goths in a hot tub – at 1.45am. I think that the overall lack of sleep across the shoot was a major contributing factor to all of us feeling gradually more nuts as the cruise went on.

5) The reason why some people are starving in this world is that about half of the food that is in existence is on that cruise ship. Predominantly free of charge – you only really ever had to pay for booze – the cruise seemed to be designed in response to an intense paranoia that going without food for more than an hour at a time might actually kill you. After a while you just get used to it – we’ve all put on a ton of weight during the cruise, despite the fact that I was moving all day long and sweating copiously during intense handheld camerawork sessions – but when you find yourself loading a plate with four desserts and six different cheeses because you’re still a bit peckish after the enormous dinner you’ve just consumed, you know things are starting to go a bit awry. This is compounded to a ridiculous degree when you find yourself at a buffet in the dining room at 12.30 at night, surrounded by ice sculptures, eating sushi and cheesecake.

6) I am not Goth. Yeah, okay, I’ve got a bunch of Sisters of Mercy and Cure records – 12” remixes and everything – and I like horror films, but I’m not a massive vampire fan (although I do really like ‘Near Dark’) and I don’t really like wearing black (although the slimming nature of the colour would probably be an advantage right at this moment). I think I’m more dark on the inside.

7) I am not rock 'n' roll. In New York, we went to film at a shop in Greenwich Village, interviewing a guy called Jimmy. Jimmy was nearly 50 years old but was dressed like he just stepped out of a Billy Idol or Poison video in 1984. He was a massive Stooges fan who was Passionate (with a capital P) about clothes. His trousers were the lowest-cut and tightest I have ever seen. He lived in a basement apartment with no windows painted deep pink and lit by darklight. On his back he had this tattoo: I asked Mark what his tattoo would be. He said 'I've had enough'.

8) Towels can be creepy. Coming back to our cabin one night, I found that the bed had been made and that sitting on the top sheet was a towel folded into the shape of a rabbit wearing Jeanie's sunglasses. I thought this was weird, until I found out that this was a thing that the cabin staff do - look: As the days went on, there were others - including, in Mark's room, a weird monkey hanging from a coat hanger suspended over the foot of his bed. It looked like a pagan curse or something. The strangest one was probably a manta ray. Not that it looked really odd, but just because it made me think - how many animals do you have to go through and try and shape a towel into before you hit on manta ray? I know that the staff on these cruises receive a really low basic wage and have to make up their money in tips, and also that they work insanely long hours, so I don't have any problem with them having a bit of fun, but I do worry about their states of mind. I felt mad after less than a week on that ship - they do it for months.

9) Cruise ship staff are remarkably friendly and laidback. I was expecting problems with trying to film around the ship but in fact it was surprisingly easy. No-one ever said 'no, you can't film here'. We set up a jib in the middle of their dining room on a really busy night and instead of getting pissy and scowly about it, the waiters ducked their heads expertly under the treacherous swinging weights and never said a word, except to give us a smile and ask if they were going to be on tv. Maybe they went back to their cabins afterwards and preyed to their weird animal-towel god to wreak his vengeance on us at a later date, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

10) I don't get seasick. On the way back from Bermuda the ship hit some bad weather and started really moving about on the water - which was quite worrying considering the size of the thing (a few Poseidon Adventure moments flashed through my head) - causing a lot of Goth tottering, but also leading Mark, Victoria and Jeanie to feel really queasy. Myself, Alex and Monika (the rest of the crew) were surprisingly unbothered. Weirdly though, once back on dry land, all of us felt a bit strange walking about - like we kept wanting to try and compensate for the ship's movement even though it wasn't there any more.

11) Filming seven foot tall Goths in seven foot tall cruise cabins gives you a bad back...

This post originally appeared at Adventures in Uncinema

Long Hair and My Inner Goth.

It's Friday morning at 630 as I start this, and I'm preparing everything for this weekend of Goth up at Whitby. I'm really looking forward to it, working with Chris is always a joy, and I feel very at home up there, especially as the WGW (Whitby Goth Weekend) has been a regular destination for my wife and her friends for years. I can even remember being called the last Goth in Derby many years ago, on account of my dancing technique to a Cult track in the Rock House about 15 years ago. (I always used to notice that Goths and Rockers were always 90 degress out of phase - Rockers "head-banged" front to back, Goths etherially swayed side to side - but as the genres have become less distinct, everyone does more of a circular thingy now. What do you mean, "me old"?)

I wonder if it will all feel any different - and if I'll be viewed differently - now I've "conformed" and had my hair cut. Hmmm...20 years of hair 2ft down my back to a Number 2. It'll be interesting, as when we filmed in April I was amazed at how many people (Goths especially), made eye contact and facially said "hello" - a smile, a raised eyebrow etc. I've never experienced it so much before, and it was lovely. Perhaps the long hair was a marker of my inner goth, just waiting to get out when I'd finished the day job. I'm sure everyone will be as lovely, I just wonder whether it will be as open.

Right time to pack my bags. Sound Kit was all prep'd last night, and everything was super on that front. Just need to find my pants.

Black of course.

Grant

Shoot day 4: Hey now, hey now now - on the road again and heading for extreme weather

It’s Mike and Amanda’s wedding day so we have all checked out of our hotel so we can drive up north to the Fort Montgomery wedding venue, New Jersey.

The amount of kit we have with us is ridiculous and we can barely move in the people carrier. I currently have a boom pole next to my head, like a fragile pillow.

We made our daily morning quest in search of the good drugs and general accoutrements to make me feel healthy – almost 100% placebo they sure make me feel like I’m doing something. So I’m swigging back the vitamin water and chewing on the green tea anti oxidant gum.

Waiting for the rest of the crew I was glued to the lobby wide screen TV – there are tornado and extreme weather warnings for the states but I couldn’t ascertain exactly where. As I am realising more and more the states is a BIG country! Could deliver a completely different kind of drama on the ship

After finding our great Jersey shore location for camera three on ship sailing day recceeing the port was merely a formality. Thank God we made it down there. That short reccee has saved us a disastrous shoot! We had completely misunderstood the location of the port and the beautifully cinematic location that we sourced last night would have resulted in footage that captured in fantastic detail the Manhattan skyline but would not have a single frame of cruise liner in it. There would have been a lot of frantic phone calls on Sunday to Chris – “get in the car, get in the car, get down to the port”. Thank goodness cock up avoided.

Shoot day 3: Hudson, bears and cities on water

It’s day three and the crew and I are snugly poured into a people carrier heading upstate to Hudson. It’s a 2 hour drive (in good weather and good traffic) but based on the line of red brake lights ahead of me I think we’re going to be some time.
We’re off to interview Melora Krueguer from the cello based band Rasputina beloved in Goth circles. As a (these days sadly lapsed) cellist I’m really looking forward to meeting her and will have to resist all urges to try and show off my terrible skills and embarrass myself.


Hudson Statue of LIberty

Today is the first day of waking up and feeling better. The combination of ‘the fear’, a bad cold and jet lag has left me feeling decidedly ropey. I’ve been knocking back the strong drugs and mainlining carrot juice and the packs of anti oxidant vitamins from the deli next door to our hotel, ignoring the suspicious looking lumps I’ve been coughing up.

We’ve just driven past the Hudson River and seen a cruise ship sail past, it is shockingly big and I am grateful that we’re going to have walkie-talkies onboard ship. It really was like a city on water.

--


Melora’s house was a wooden Tardis like house way out of Hudson. It reminded me of Lawson Park, overlooking Coniston water where my good friend Karen Guthrie lives – all wide floorboards, taxidermy and antique cross-stitch.

We did the interview in the doll room, which was decorated like a Victorian drawing room but with many spooky dolls and a decorated bear head. It later transpired that almost all the objects in the room had been sent to Melora by fans – she wrote a song about a spooky doll in red shoes.



Melora was an intensely charismatic interviewee and I liked what she had to say very much. She provided an interesting counterpoint as her music has definite spooky overtones; it is melancholy, sonorous and is performed by Melora and her band mates in ‘Victorian whites’. It ticks many of the Goth boxes but I liked the organic development of her style and approach and think she provides something truly unique. A review I read of Rasputina described them as ‘too good for Goth’



After our time in the country it was back on the road to Mont Clair, New Jersey to meet up with Mike and Amanda. For an engaged couple less than 24 hours from the aisle, they were astonishingly together and contained.



They were thrown straight into a portrait jib shot outside their house as we were pelted with acorns from generous squirrels in the oak tree above.

Their interview was endearingly sweet illustrating how their relationship dynamic works – finishing each other’s sentences and throwing in snarky witticisms. I think they’re a good match.

There's been much discussion about the best way to film the cruise liner leaving port on Sunday. A large ship slowly leaving the harbour doesn't offer much visual excitement but filming from the Jersey shore will enable us to see scale of the ship set against the Manhattan skyline. A reccee this evening has found the perfect spot to locate Chris Clements, our camera 3 on the day.



Back to stout, now officially our local, for late night food and lairy football fans bellowing at the unfolding NFLgame. Every now and again the LA Galaxy game would cut in and Beckham was shown forlornly keeping the subs bench warm.

By 11pm the pub was packed with Springsteen fans all recently having left the gig at Madison square gardens. Their drunken bodies littered the pavement as we made the short trip back to the hotel.

Shoot day 2: Oh Jimmy Jimmy - Trash and Vaudeville

I woke feeling like death warmed up. A quick trip to the deli in search of vitamins reminded me of my accent. I forgot to ask for vight-ay-mins. While I was there I got all the strong drugs I could get over the counter. "Must not be ill on shoot", repeat after me…

Overlooking the hotel is a billboard for IFC and Cactus 3 film Darkon. It’s an exciting and terrifying reminder of where the film could end up. Christine has told me that that is where Goth Cruise will go and it’s something I can’t think about it before I’ve made the film. No pressure!

IFC is next door to our hotel so I met up with Christine and had a quick tour meeting different people from the organisation including Evan Shapiro. I left laden with hats, t-shirts and DVDs to take home. I have to ask Christine for a copy of trapped in the closet by R Kelly, which IFC put out. It you haven’t seen it, it is FANTASTIC.

Drugged up to the eyes we made it over to Trash and Vaudeville in the East Village. Originally I’d wanted to go to mall Goth mecca Hot Topic to meet and do vox pops with Goths new to the scene but apparently it’s too close to Halloween to film there. The Goths I have met have been a bit snooty about Hot Topic, a mall chain catering to mainly teen Goths. I guess it doesn’t have an underground cachet but I bet if you live in a small town it’s a welcome oasis in black.

Jimmy Webb, the buyer and host from Trash and Vaudeville is a 50 year old veteran of the NY scene who was a frenetic ball of energy and made Voltaire look yogic calm.



He gave a spirited interview about his role in bringing dreams alive and a guided tour of outfits on offer in the store from naughty snow white, gothic princess and all manner of eye popping corsetry. I introduced the idea of corp. Goth to him, as many people I have met during this project aren’t able to be Goth 24/7 due to work restrictions. He couldn’t comprehend this and got incredibly heated about the importance of never hiding part of yourself; myself and the crew filming this heated exchange was all captured Doug from IFC who had come to do a news report about the film. I am quickly having to shrug my fear of being on the other side of the camera as I did an interview nestled in amongst the platforms and pony skin winkle pickers.





After a fruitful few hours we left laden with trash and vaudeville t shirts off in the car to seek out some interesting landscapes of NYC that slowly reveal a hidden gothic side. We have been pointing the camera up to capture the gothic architecture and gargoyles. They’re things that are everywhere but you might not necessarily see them. Zooming in isolates them and like Whitby, provides a splendid Gothic backdrop to the proceedings. Thanks to Sheil for a good suggestion that will hopefully give us footage that shows the city without looking like a travel programme.

Shoot day 1: Voltaire - Spooky not scary, NYC

It’s midnight after a long first day shoot. It’s safe to say that we jumped in at the deep end starting the day off with Voltaire, the night hotel and a noisy hotel lobby…

The Night Hotel was our first location. A new venue opened up about a year ago and described as ‘Gothic Gotham’ It’s a vision in black tiled shininess and posed all sorts of interesting conundrums about how you light a man wearing black in a black room. The solution was to move around the bespoke designer furniture and put him in a white leather chair.



Voltaire was eloquent and completely professional – hey this guy has done this before right, and it showed. One of the key challenges was actually hearing Voltaire uninterrupted. The person that we hired the room turned out to have the most penetrating ‘you have a nice day sir’ voice that cut through the distance from elsewhere in the hotel. Voltaire seemed to ride the interruptions like a pro and kept his focus caffeine sharp.





Here’s a wee clip of him from NBC news, he was brought in to speak about ‘Goth murder madness’ on a shocking piece of reportage which describes Goth as a ‘gang sweeping the nation’.



He was a true gent and came back in the evening so that we could shoot an exterior of the hotel and him with it. Shooting the night hotel in the day just didn’t have the same resonance and we got to meet his 9 year old son Mars. It’s safe to say that Voltaire is no introvert and we had to contend with his spirited Saturday night fever style dancing to Dexy’s Midnight Runners as we attempted a moody, stationary portrait shot.




We spent the afternoon heading way up town to Morningside heights to meet up with Heath / Storm who is going to be dj-ing on the cruise. It’s can be a very odd experience meeting people for the first time when you have spent a lot of time talking to them on the phone or seeing them on video. It’s like meeting someone off the TV, kind of, you feel like you know them but it’s really only the beginning. Storm comes across as a very gentle guy and did a lovely considered interview. He is a tall guy (6 foot 6) and wears 6-inch red vinyl platform shoes when he dresses as a Goth girl. For our day interview he was dressed in a black t shirt and jeans and I am really looking forward to seeing his transformation on board ship as he goes from Heath to Storm.



Following him with a camera crew up the street to go and buy a $30 suitcase was certainly interesting. Much of my film is controlled, static and I like the action to happen in front of the camera rather than following the action, so hand held is a new and unknown territory to me. I started off in photography / painting so like creating stillness and have to get into my head about how to interpret movement on film. Being controlling as I can be about how the film looks can make for good-looking material but can hinder spontaneity. In the end a combination of approached got us the material we were looking for and it was back down town.

A days filming under our belts we met up with Christine from IFC for fabulous cocktails and food at the Hudson. The jet lag was really kicking in so we called it an early night.

Excess baggage - Heathrow and a jib

We made it, the kit made it, the plane made it, we’re here!


Victoria guards the kit at JFK

I have only spent a grand total of 48 hours in New York before, ably assisted by 4 lovely guys who showed me the sights of the East Village as I stopped off en-route to Missoula, Montana. As we drove past Central park and pulled up at our hotel opposite Madison Square Gardens I soon realised I had barely touched the surface.


View from teh hotel doors.

Cooke Posting To Say Hi!

Hi there...

I am essentially posting merely to inform you that I am kind of getting ready - a lovely list of equipment and filters etc has been emailed to me, I have a list of camera 'stuff' to pick up from Broadway next Friday... er... and that's it: not too nervous, looking forward to everything really - can't wait to attempt to cram us in to the lovely Bino's Bistro - last time we were there they did a lovely mushroom pasta dish JUST FOR VEGAN ME! So I hope we don't do their heads in trying to position our first Whitby interview or light things or ask for too much silence - but I think things will work out. We have a series of planned interviews, I am willing to attempt both asking the questions and re-framing the camera which could be fun, but what I am really (honestly) hoping for is BAD weather and Whitby seafront street scenes glistening with rain and populated by a bustling black clad crowd, but still screaming out SEASIDE ENGLAND... as well as getting a few spectacular landscape shots and sticking to the thorough and detailed list Jeanie has given me.

I am wondering what DVD's to bring up for the crew to watch in the evening: all and any suggestions considered.

I will post again - or attempt to, who knows if this has worked, I am sooooo computer illiterate - later on and try to do one more pre-shoot post and a post-shoot post... speak soon

Chris

The calm before the storm

3 days to go until we set off for the States and the main shoot. We have a week in NYC then 5 days on the cruise and for the last month I have been dreaming about the film, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the cruise, planning interview questions in my head for verbal gymnast Voltaire, hoping everything that can be is in place.

As the shoot comes closer things have become calmer as decisions are made and ticked off. Steven Sheil (our Director of Photography) wrote about this when he was making his horror Deliver Me. Nothing is worse when you're making a film than not knowing, although making documentaries means that there is a huge element of the unknown that you have to expect and in fact embrace. Fear, well a small dose is not actually a bad thing as it means you care about a project and is much better than being complacent.

So, in time honoured tradition I have been playing out my pre-trip / shoot rituals - Washing every item of clothing I own, just in case I may need that floor length ball gown, only to see it abandoned on the floor when I get the reality slap of trying to lift my suitcase down the stairs and also remember of the ever vigilant check in staff at Heathrow. I have bought every sea sickness and mosquito remedy know to the pharmacist at Sainsbury's. I suffered at the mouths (probiscuses) of a swarm of thirsty mosquitos in Tampa on the pilot shoot earlier this year and it wasn't pretty.

Many people have asked me if I am going to 'Goth up' for the shoot. I think this would be incredibly disingenuous and the beige cashmere cardigan I have to wear up on deck is possibly the epitome of non-goth attire. Who knows, the lure of dressing up can be very strong and the Goth shop we are going to be filming in in NYC next week looks amazing. I suspect many outfits will be tried on.

Time to go as I feel a bit nauseus - maybe it is the return of 'the fear' or the early onset of sea sickness.

12 year old Goth with Parasol

Another favourite image from Whitby earlier this year. This is a 12 year old girl who gave a short interview on her experiences of being a Goth. She gave a very shy but visually arresting interview. "no, I don't know that many Goths, well there's some in the year above at school, but I don't talk to them". She seemed to be revelling in the atmosphere of a town taken over by Goths.

Goth till I die

So why make a film about Goth? In developing Goth Cruise with Tigerlily I wrote the following statement to explain why I wanted to make the film. I think for this blog it's as good a start as any. I sadly do not have any photographic evidence of my previous exisitence.

---

When I was 17 years old I threw out my pink, bought a black fringed skirt from Phaze in Middlesbrough, crimped my dyed hair, bought Bauhaus’ back catalogue and gave my heart to Robert Smith. The pop charts didn’t offer solace for my troubled adolescent heart in the same way that Andrew Eldridge and Morrissey could. When he sang - “I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” - it was like he had written it just for me.

I was a Goth.

Growing up in the North East of England within spitting distance of Whitby, the home of Dracula, there were pretty much two choices of tribe available to me: Goth or not.

I enjoyed the easy access rebellion, the opportunity it gave me to revel in the darker side of life and the kinship I felt with my newfound brothers and sisters in black. It enabled me to assert my independence from my parents and toughened me up. I felt the dual pleasures of revelling in the attention my outrageous outfits elicited and resenting the hassle I received from ‘townies’ that didn’t understand my life or choice of outfit.

After 2 years of being a card-carrying member of the Goth community I started to tire of black, black, black and more black. Art College beckoned and I felt that there were different ways to express my individuality than wearing the cookie cutter uniform of a dark rebel. Gradually the black in my wardrobe was replaced by more and more colour and less than six months later Goth was merely a phase I had gone through.

Over 15 years later I attended the wedding of an old school friend. At school she was the archetypal Souxsie Sioux Goth with giant crimped hair and heavily kohled eyes that parents despised and I loved. Now in her early 40’s, when she walked down the aisle we were met with the proof of what happens if you never grow out of Goth. She was a vision in black, channelling Mortiticia Adams from her floor length gown to her black veil. She was so exotic that I couldn’t help but feel like a ‘mundane’ and admire her commitment and staying power.

Seeing this face from my past who really seemed to embody “Goth till I die” made me want to find other Goths who had also stayed the distance. Within a few clicks I had found thousands of them. Goth is as alive and well today as it was in the eighties when Bela Legosi’s Dead was first released.

I wanted to know:
What is the enduring allure of Goth that people all over the world find so appealing?
Why do some people commit to Goth for life?
How do grown up Goths earn a living, raise families and have fun?
Just what the hell happens on a Goth Cruise?

Goth Cruise

Max and Danny, the first Goths we met, lurking neared the ruined abbey at Whitby Goth Weekend earlier this year.