More summer music stuff
Ah, dilemmas…So, apparently Slayer are on tour this summer. I used to rather like Slayer, back in the day. The new album’s not bad. I’d kind of like to go.
Small problem, though…they’re touring with Marilyn Manson. Who is not only a person with no apparent musical talent of any kind (seriously, he’s like Baby’s First Book Of Shock Goth Cliches with some craptastic guitars and a synthesizer mixed in), he is also quite possibly the ugliest person in the history of rock music. Perhaps I could wear dark glasses and earplugs for that part of the show. Or I could just go get drunk.
Why must bands I like always tour with bands I can’t stand? Who programs this shit, anyway? I mean seriously…in what way are Slayer and Marilyn Manson a good fit, musically speaking? Not to mention the crowds…I have visions of pretentious little baby Goths getting ripped to shreds in the moshpit. Hmm, maybe this will be entertaining after all.
Which brings us to the other problem…in my experience the Slayer audience seems to be mostly comprised of huge dudes in the 6ft 2 and 200 pound plus range. I am 5ft2. I’m gonna get killed if I go in the pit, and hanging out on the edges is so boring. What is a girl to do? And will there be any other women there at all?
Stay tuned, folks. And until then, a quiz…what is the most unintentionally hilarious death metal band name and/or album title ever? A friend and I are sort of trying to outdo each other by coming up with the dumbest of the dumb. So far my vote is for Obituary’s “Slowly We Rot”, but I’m open to suggestions.
Because whoever said that women don't have "the gaze" was smoking crack
About Me
- Cassandra Says
- I'm a progressive, left-wing Brit living in California. I used to be a high-tech sales guru, but got tired of that and am now thinking about going back to school to get a Masters in Journalism. My undergrad is in Psychology, but I have never used this in any constructive way. This is typical for me. I grew up mostly in the Middle East, was educated at a very fancy Scottish boarding school, moved to London at 18, and have lived in the Bay Area for the past 8 years. I am now suffering from a serious case of itchy feet, and am feeling that 8 years is quite long enough to stay in one place. Again, this is typical. If anyone really wants to figure me out they should Google "third culture" - I fit the prototype pretty closely. If any other Third Culture kids happen to stumble across this blog, write to me. There aren't very many of us.
25 comments:
We call the baby goths Gofflings.
Wery, wery scary gofflings.
I always saw KISS->Marilyn Manson as a more likely evolution than Sisters of Mercy/Siouxsie etc.->Marilyn Manson.
I mean, goths I knew were listening to Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance. Okay, for the industrial-ly influenced, there was Skinny Puppy.
I just don't see the relationship, excepting some of the clothes. It's like those gun toting asswipes they call "Goths" who perform murders at schools. If a Goth were to do something antisocial (besides yearn and bleed), they'd use a dagger, or maybe poison. Guns. Sheesh. How utterly banal.
Can we give Manson to the Beats? They wore black too. Or maybe the French Romantics. He and his gofflings are givin' Goth a bad name.
I would totally go.
For real.
Yes, Manson is a dork. But, he's a dork that at least puts on an entertaining stage show. He really does go all out, from what I've heard, so at least it would have the sort of ridiculous spectator appeal of a Alice Cooper or Kiss show. Embrace the cheese. I mean.. FAKE BOOBIES! BLOOD! WHIPS AND CHAINS! You KNOW that shit is gonna be fun!
Besides, which, I'm a sucker for "Tourniquet" and "Rock is Dead."
I've seen Slayer... it was "brutal." :)
That said, I'm old enough to not be offended by Mansonites, who, really... just want to be loved.
Baby’s First Book Of Shock Goth Cliches
*snort*
i do actually find his videos kind of disturbing. but then i'm the sort of person who gets wigged by "Silent Hill," so.
When I see the gofflings I try desperately to suppress the urge to point and laugh. Most of the time I succeed. The idea of throwing them into the pit at Slayer is more than a little tempting.
Hey, I never said I was a nice person.
Kiss to Manson does make a lot more sense. I cant' even say Cooper to Manson since at least Cooper wrote decent music.
I'm willing to give Manson away to whoever is silly enough to want him. I will admit that he was the only celebrity in Bowling for Columbine who came off looking like he had any brains, though.
And seriously, what kind of goth carries a gun? It's so inelegant, so very unsophisticated. Maybe if they could make a really pretty one...
V- I probably will go. The spectacle should be amusing if nothing else. I'll just have to try very hard not to laugh lest the Gofflings attack me. That would be an embarrasing way to go, massacred by pissed off teenagers. I had a hard enough time not laughing at the gothic lolita kids at Dir en grey.
I know they just want to be loved, but they're so annoying!
Belle - the problem I have with him is that nothing he does disturbs me in the slightest. It's more like watching a bratty kid break things to get attention. It just comes across as infantile.
Then again, I enjoy stuff that would probably send most people shrieking from the room, so...
Aww, now. I've honestly seen an interview where Cooper said that he thought Manson was one of very few metal acts that "really gets" what a gruesome stage show should be all about. I figure, if he's got Cooper's blessing, then that's good enough for me.
It's more like watching a bratty kid break things to get attention. It just comes across as infantile.
Heh. He's total manufactured brat. Like, yeah, dude, bitch about capitalism, then cackle like a banshee all the way to the bank. Rage against the machine until money falls out of it.
OTOH, he's totally aware that he's doing just that, which is pretty amusing.
And, I'll take angry Mansonite Glitter Gofflings over whatEVER the fuck EMO has morphed into any day of the week.
It's the pre-fab nature of the Manson thing that I find so offputting. It's like coloring by numbers, you know? Precisely calculated for maximum profit yield. There's no there there.
Emo is sort of the genre that should not exist BUT there's a lot of crossover between the gofflings and emo, in my experience. Both equally wangsty...and don't get me wrong, I was a wangsty teenager too, it's just a little tedious to be around as an adult. I'm starting to understand why my mother always told me I'd grow out of it.
My little 16 year old stepbrother is emo.
I mean... first... the whole concept evolved from some of the worst music EVER made. The whining. OMFG. I may have listened to depressing shit in high school, but it was mostly delivered by men who whose testicles had dropped already. From what I understand, emo has sort of replaced goth as the Shocker of Choice in high schools everywhere. They have no desire to be SCARY! No hissing at the audience. No skinny puppy loving rivet heads that STOMPY DANCE. Not even a haughtily raised eyebrow. Just... whining. And, whining, and more whining.
And, I just want to hand those boys a fucking sandwich and tell them to buck up, 'cause beatings will continue until morale approves.
Of course, I'm in a lofty position to judge--how impossible is it for those kids to rebel? Body mods? So 10 years ago. Weird clothes? You can buy them at the mall. So, I guess, anorexia and coveting hot pink accessories and cultivating the bad hair from the 70's is all that's left to 'em.
er, morale IMproves.
Long day.
Oh dear God, the whining. It's just...
I don't think I mentioned that when I went to see Dir en grey in February the first opening act was this godawful emo band called Bleed the Dream. Ask your stepbrother, he probably knows who they are. Damn, they sucked! The dude's voice was like listening to someone scrape their nails down a chalkboard, and the lyrics - it was so hard not to laugh. The audiences were heckling them all the way though, and some people actually were openly pointing and laughing. It was painful to watch...not as painful as it was to listen to, though.
Who sends whiny emo boys out to open for a metal band?
You're right though, to a certain extent the problem is that everyone is so jaded there's not much those kids can do to shock anyone. At one show I went to the attempt to shock was covering oneself with little pieces of pink duct tape. I didn't even know duct tape came in pink. One girl had it stuck in her hair - I guess she hadn't thought through what would happen when she tried to take it out.
That's the real problem with Manson for me, I think, it just seems like he's trying way too hard.
"I'm wierd and freaky and I will shock you!"
"Um, no"
"But look, fake boobs!"
"Tsk, like we've never seen those before."
"Hey, I have fake blood too!"
"Yawn"
Heh. At least he's not the Insane Clown Posse.
I think one Insane Clown Posse is MORE than enough.
Also, Arwen...I think every goth kid should have a poison ring. You know, with a hollow bit in which one can stash one's belladonna or something similar? That way it can be ornamental as well as deadly!
Hey Cassandra, did you ever hear of the joys of Whitby Goffick weekend? Herds of gothics, their kids, their coffins, all piling into a little English seaside town for a long weekend of sitting in tea shops and howling at the moon. I've been a few times, being oop north, and it's truly a sight to behold. Also, Manson kids in the UK usually go to private schools and tend to get jolly good A-Levels. Oxbridge is full of goths. Odd to compare the gun toting Manson with either young or old Brit goth stereotypes.
I rather like the idea of the manson kids and Slayer fans coexisting in the same room. I suspect the latter could teach the former a thing or two...
Off topic, but the sm-feminists blog is active...
Cannibal Corpse. IF that name wasn't chosen to piss off the Baptists then I'm a New Age drama quee...oh wait...never mind :o)
hey, Cassandra, you there?
I'm not dead.
Sorry, Belle, I've actually been doing something productive (writing fiction no less) and have been ignoring the blog. Also, it got sunny outside so I went out to play at the weekend...
Verte - Ack, Whitby. I'm so glad that even as a teenager I never felt the need to attend the yearly goth pilgrimage. I might have been forced to strangle someone with his own cravat, or choke someone with her own ankh necklace.
Most Brit goths trend middle to upper middle class in general. It seems to be more variable here.
The kids I'd really love to throw in the pit at Slayer are the gothic lolitas. It's like goth, but with extra frills and excessive hair ribbons! And a smidgen of paedophilia!
Seriously, I've never met a gothic lolita who didn't annoy the crap out of me. I had a really, really hard time not laughing at the ones who were traipsing around in full costume at Dir en grey, wilting in their ugly polyester maid outfits in the desert heat.
go you with the productive! i should really be doing more of that meself. you missed a whole bunch of oogly shit. riveting as it always is...sunshine and exercise would be a good, i think.
cool with the writing fic.
Oh crap, what happened this time? Care to fill me in?
Rootie - Heh. I used to own a Cannibal Corpse album. I am therefore invoking he sacred right to mock one's own here.
And boy does that ever apply to the gofflings and the gothic lolitas, gothdom's mutant offspring.
Marilyn Manson:
http://www.bastardly.com/archives/2007/05/23/bastardly-breaking-news-marilyn-manson-outside-during-daylight-hours/
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