• Our city will soon behold gigs by Bauhaus, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie & the Creatures with John Cale, as well as the Projekt Records Festival, a gathering of newer death rock. Bauhaus were the godfathers of goth, and are probably the most palatable to non-believers--their instrumentation is more stripped-down and punked-out than the overblown gloomy epics others would make later. However, to the best of my knowledge, no goth band has ever used a bassline that is not on their "Singles 1979-1983" compilation. Nick Cave is technically not a goth, though they all love him, and he did make many palatial and gloomy records with titles like "Your Funeral, My Trial." Now he's gotten a bit more on the blues and country trip, but it is still all death music. Siouxsie Sioux is one of the most positive role models any teenage girl could have, and many people prefer her work with the Creatures because it's simply percussion and that quite inimitable Siouxsie voice. It makes utter sense that they are collaborating with John Cale, since he was involved in two of the first-ever gothic songs--The Stooges' "We Will Fall" and the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties" (which featured Nico, whom I have always thought to be the true ultimate, gothic chick, not Ms. Sioux).

• Rozz Williams, former frontman for Christian Death, finally committed suicide and now no one has to be ashamed of their gothicness anymore. Christian Death was indisputably the most foolish of all death rock bands, one even an impressionable fifteen-year-old could recognize as utter crap. "Walking on water in a sea of incest/I've got an image of Jesus embedded on my chest/Children dig graves for me and you." Not to mention how ridiculous the music sounds. Without the mortification of being connected with this silly man, closet goths can come out into the sunlight--well they'd never do that, but at least they can show their faces in public.

• Speaking of closets, in a world that is increasingly tolerant of gender-crossing, goth offers the ultimate opportunity to upset people who can't figure out what flavor you might be. Lots of death rock boys wear skirts, lots of goth girls wear tuxedoes and smoking jackets. Both are plastered with makeup, bedecked with silver jewelry, have enormous hair, and carry lunchboxes. No one knows what you are and, hence, they are upset. Just like your mother.

• Increased prosperity. Goths are strictly from the middle and upper-middle classes--not only in our nation, either. Staff Brit Ben Williams concedes that, even in its land of origin "being goth is a very middle-class, Midlands thing." You need money for all those fancy velvet corsets and pointy shoes. Either that, or the time to a) construct them yourself or b) get a part-time job at Cinnabuns to pay for them. Those fancy import-only records by obscure European bands also run one a pretty penny. You also need time to put on two coats of specially-mixed whiteface and render your hair vertical every time you go outside. And time to sit about mourning the bleakness of your life and the futility of the world while reading Rimbaud--and you need your own room to do it in. The classic passive reaction to adversity is very goth and very middle-class.

• The ascendance of computers in our society. A lot of designers/hackers/digital freaks are goths, or at least goths-in-remission. As many death rockers are perpetual students, they have the educational background. Being a computer whiz allows one to sleep during the day, deal with few people, obtain arcane knowledge, create intricate online shrines to one's personal deities, and communicate with friends in encrypted codes. How goth is that?

• Vamp. Vixen. Ink. Ash. Plush Velvet. Violet Extreme. All those black and dark red and purple cosmetics being sold these days are pure friggin' goth. There was a time when you didn't walk around with purple lips and black nails unless you were trying to let people know that you were really into the Sisters of Mercy.

• The '80s revival that is slowly engulfing our pop culture like the return of the ice age. Sure, people are making tentative pushes at the New Romantic look, big hair and ruffled shirts--why not take it to the inevitable next level? The '80s won't really be back until we see kids with Robert Smith coiffures doing the Peter Murphy backward-and-forward dance to that "Hey Now, Hey Brown Cow" song.

• Posh Spice has recently ascended in popularity, leaping a good 10% in the polls since last month. Sure, you may say it's only because those dads that were big Geri fans have shifted their attentions to the second sluttiest one. But it's really because, as everyone knows, Posh is Goth Spice--she always wears black clothes and lots of black eyeliner, she never smiles, and she's from an upper-middle-class family.

Listen, I could go on, but I think you're frightened enough. But forewarned is forearmed--I think the Goth Army will use Halloween as a cover and slide back in to get us all. And I'm not taking part in this rebirth--we rode that bandwagon all around Poughkeepsie and we're not doing it gain. I'm into rockabilly now. Which doesn't mean that I won't be at that Bauhaus show--it just means I'll be the one in rainbow plaid.


Previously:

Brooklyn hip-hop, Detroit techno, mermaids, zombies, lounge singers, the "Wonderboy Preacher," and full frontal nudity.

Horoscopes for the week of June 22nd.

Courtney Love sucks and some of the reasons why.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Lounge Lizards, and Afrika Bambataa & the Soul Sonic Force.