Goth music not usually considered to be goth music

It's funny, things feel somehow different.
It's as if this is the same old Steampunk Forum and yet not!
Ah well, best get on ...

Green is a funny colour - there are good greens and bad greens. There are a lot of shades of green I hate but rich dark emerald green is a lovely colour. So it is with Country Music - I'm not keen on the sparkly Rhinestone Cowboy, "Countrypolitan" style, but as serious modern American folk music, I like it.

According to Wikipedia, Wichita Lineman has been referred to as 'the first existential country song': "Jimmy Webb was inspired to write the lyrics when he saw a solitary lineman in rural northern Oklahoma. The lyric describes the longing that a lonely telephone or electric power lineman feels for an absent lover who he imagines he can hear 'singing in the wire' that he is working on."

I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin' in the sun for another overload
I hear you singin' in the wire
I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

I know I need a small vacation but it don't look like rain
And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain
And I need you more than want you
And I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

A lot of people have covered Jolene, including The Sisters of Mercy ...

Dolly Parton original - if "resigned desperation" exists, this is it.
The White Stripes
Strawberry Switchblade
Queen Adreena - I'm afraid I hate this version and the video more so.

And on the fifth anniversary of his passing, here's The Man in Black's version of the Nine Inch Nails song,

Johnny Cash - Hurt

Orlando.

Some friends and I went through a phase of playing 12" singles and EP's records at slow speeds.

SOS - ABBA sounds like a lost sisters song
Falling - Julee Cruz Her voice is so high-pitched that when slowed down it sounded like a baritone soul singer.

But strangest of all I had a record player that could play reords at 16rpm - this produces a terrifying wall of strange music but imagine my surp[rise when testing a Bauhaus B-Side Paranoia, Paranoia when in the middle of the mush of slowed down sounds out wafted a perfect reproduction of a Hawaian Guitar solo....

They were most odd that Bauhaus lot.

Hmm, is the darker side of country music not some form of American Gothic? Take, for example, "Ode to Billie Joe", as performed by Bobbie Gentry- I'd say that was Gothic by any other name!

PS: Wichita Lineman- what a wonderful piece of music! Covered by an offshoot of Calexico- The Friends of Dean Martinez- with great skill!

Also, while I'm here, 'Jolene' was also covered by Strawberry Switchblade, which is helping me to show my age...

Herr Döktor wrote:
Also, while I'm here, 'Jolene' was also covered by Strawberry Switchblade, which is helping me to show my age...

Presumably for remembering the original, not the cover?

Not terribly on topic, but the mention of "Jolene" forced me to make this small deviation. A friend hipped me to Dolly Parton back in college, and "Jolene" quickly became one of my favorite songs. It is also the first time I have heard - in the White Stripes version - a cover song which was performed by somebody of the opposite sex from the original artist, yet did not gender-swap the lyrics.

I have been a White Stripes fan ever since.

Herr Döktor wrote:Hmm, is the darker side of country music not some form of American Gothic? Take, for example, "Ode to Billie Joe", as performed by Bobbie Gentry- I'd say that was Gothic by any other name!

And here it is: Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billy Joe

Wikipedia: Ode to Billie Joe and for a pic of the bridge see: Tallahatchie River

Tanuki wrote:Not terribly on topic, but the mention of "Jolene" forced me to make this small deviation. A friend hipped me to Dolly Parton back in college, and "Jolene" quickly became one of my favorite songs. It is also the first time I have heard - in the White Stripes version - a cover song which was performed by somebody of the opposite sex from the original artist, yet did not gender-swap the lyrics.

I always find it slightly jarring the first time you hear it happen with a well known song.
For example, Kate Bush - Rocket Man

Orlando.

Now I never would have thought of it as Gothic, but so long as we're talking about Jolene, Dolly Parton once said she thought Mindy Smith's version was better than her own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDBgXbGskc

In that vein, Darrel Scott has quite that vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su06XlGI-w8, and of course Joanna Newsom, as originally suggested by lilibat.

Regina Spektor, Maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx_655_mL5U.

Tell me, how does "the cult" fare under this measuring system?

The Dresden Dolls, The Tiger Lilies, and Jill Tracy. And The Guild of Funerary Violinists which is the most steamgoth thing, like, ever. Check them out.

Zepherius wrote:Now I never would have thought of it as Gothic, but so long as we're talking about Jolene, Dolly Parton once said she thought Mindy Smith's version was better than her own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDBgXbGskc

In that vein, Darrel Scott has quite that vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su06XlGI-w8, and of course Joanna Newsom, as originally suggested by lilibat.

Regina Spektor, Maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx_655_mL5U.

I probably should have put something by way of explanation in the introductory post in the thread for the benefit of anyone new to the forum or unfamiliar with the original thread at Brass Goggles but of course you're neither of these so I'll just use the opportunity to say that the idea of "Goth music not usually considered to be goth music" was based on the sort of music I used to hear played on a Live365 internet radio station (unfortunately no longer around). I think I know the lady's current home on the web and when we get back home I'll try and contact her and ask her if she would like to take a look at the thread. It was in fact there that I first heard Joanna Newsom.

When I first met Goths, one of the things about them that really impressed me was that they didn't give a damn about whether anything was trendy or acceptable to anyone else, and if they liked a thing then that was good enough. In case anyone thinks I have a "rose-tinted", idealised picture of the Goth world then all I can say is that this was in 1986 and some of the more recent things I've heard about "mall Goths" who buy all their gear from Hot Topic, I just don't have any experience of this. Of course, I live in the UK and in my nearest town, if a woman even wears a black dress during the hours of daylight, she is likely to have someone yell at her, "Halloween is next month, Morticia! Ha ha ha!".

Anyway, what I've found is that people who say they are interested in Goth music usually have pretty good taste in music and eclectic record collections, and I've discovered all sorts of really great stuff I hadn't heard before as a result of this thread - Mindy Smith's Jolene, Darrel Scott's You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive and Regina Spektor's Apres Moi are perfect examples of this.

Smaggers wrote:Tell me, how does "the cult" fare under this measuring system?

Well, my purely personal thought is that The Cult and also The Mission (UK) are rock bands. I'm not a huge fan of either (and not really that familiar with The Cult) but I like some of their stuff - I've linked a couple of versions of Sanctuary before and Tower of Strength by the Mission, so here I'll point to: The Mission - Severina and leave you to pick the best from the Cult.

MaggotyAnne wrote:The Dresden Dolls, The Tiger Lilies, and Jill Tracy. And The Guild of Funerary Violinists which is the most steamgoth thing, like, ever. Check them out.

Jill Tracy has been mentioned before (I wonder who did? Without access to the original thread, I won't try and guess).
The Guild of Funerary Violinists, (Wikipedia: Funerary Violin), What a fantastic idea - to "expand the notion of musical composition to encompass the creation of an entire artistic genre, with its necessary accompanying history, mythology, philosophy, social function, etc."
Link to some examples - some of the .mp3s didn't play for me, but here's one that worked fine: The Erroneous Dirge of George Babcotte (.mp3 file, <4MB).

I've got something else to post but I think I'll do it tomorrow as this one is long enough!

Orlando.

Brass Goggles is working again!

Here is a link back to the thread at Brass Goggles.

Many thanks to Pheobsky for his provision of the Spare Goggles replacement service.

I'll come back here to check on things from time to time.

Will the last one out of here please remember to switch the lights off.

Orlando.

Orlando wrote:Brass Goggles is working again!

Here is a link back to the thread at Brass Goggles.

Many thanks to Pheobsky for his provision of the Spare Goggles replacement service.

I'll come back here to check on things from time to time.

Will the last one out of here please remember to switch the lights off.

Orlando.

LIES! I can't access the forum!

MaggotyAnne wrote:

Orlando wrote:Brass Goggles is working again!

LIES! I can't access the forum!

Yes, it currently says "Forum temporarily suspended"!
I wasn't logged in there very long - just long enough to put a link to here!

Never mind, we'll just carry on...

When I heard Darrel Scott's You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive, it reminded me of Bruce Springsteen -Factory.
The video used is wholly inappropriate for the song but it has the best audio of any versions at YouTube.

Orlando.

Somewhere at Brass Goggles a few weeks ago, french speaking Canadian, Chicar posted about Claire Pelletier
I think the context must have been Steampunk music because the first song/video is about Galileo. The quality is not that great in some of the Claire Pelletier videos at YouTube so you will have to take my word for just how good these tracks can sound. Claire Pelletier CDs are available in the UK as expensive "imports" at Amazon.

Claire Pelletier - Galileo (from the 2000 album of the same name)

I don't speak French at all well but I got enough of the lyrics to want to look at them properly. You can find them at the discographie page at Claire Pelletier's website. I ran the lyrics through Google Translator and printed them side by side to work on a translation. Here is what I started with ...

Spoiler:

As you can see, a French teacher would probably use the red pen on the young Google's effort!
The other video Chicar posted is slightly more gothic in sound and subject matter...

Claire Pelletier - L'an mil (from the album Murmures d'histoire, 1996)

It was this one that got my attention first time around and why I started playing with the online translators - I was having problems with the vocabulary and don't have a good dictionary. Yahoo! Babel Fish translated "Gargouilles vivantes et désespoir, Crachats du diable et forces du mal"
as "Alive waste-gas mains and despair, Spittles of the devil and forces of the evil".
Hmm, could do better, C-. Googles version below.

Spoiler:

Ok, so it's not perfect but it gives you a start - I'm pretty sure "Mets" should have got translated to "puts" though.
The next one is a proper promotional video although the one given below at YouTube is rather poor quality...

Claire Pelletier - Poussiére d'etoiles (=Stardust. From Murmures d'histoire)

If you have QuickTime installed, you can see and hear it rather better here - it's the first one on the page.

Spoiler:

Strangely, the columns don't quite line up when I preview this - I wonder if a non-printing character has sneaked across in the cut'n'paste from OpenOffice Writer. There is one more at YouTube and it is also from the first album Murmures d'histoire. Had it been available, I would have liked to post a link to Grimoire pour le temps présent from the Galileo album, but never mind, this is pretty good!

Claire Pelletier - Le vaisseau fantôme (=The ghost ship)

Spoiler:

And finally, to finish in French, here is Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi.
Don't worry about the lyrics for this one!

Au revoir, mes copains!

Orlando.

Right then, the Eighties!
Or rather, the early Eighties. Two of these are extremely well known with a rather camp appeal today. The one in the middle is hardly obscure, but may be unfamiliar if you're not from the UK.

Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart (1980) According to Wikipedia, Wuthering Heights was the inspiration for the songwriter, Jim Steinman (and it's as epic as his Bat Out of Hell) and with a strangely creepy nightmarish video.

Hazel O' Connor - Will you (1981) This song featured in the film starring Hazel O'Connor, Breaking Glass. The film was co-produced by the late Dodi Al-Fayed (yes the very same one!). I have a paperback novel of the film's story (published as film merchandising) which my mother bought on the off-chance I'd be interested in it when she was browsing in a charity shop. I was most surprised to find by the inscription inside the front cover that the previous owner was one of my girlfriend's old school chums! The song has a saxaphone solo which I think is far superior to the one in the more well known Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty.

I've always found this last song rather haunting. (But I'm not quite sure in what sense I find the video "frightening"!).
Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes (1981)

Orlando.

This song has a particular mood - a particular sort of creepy - that I am very familiar with but quite unable to describe. It was inspired by a meeting between the singer and the blues man Furry Lewis in New Orleans in 1975.
By all accounts Lewis was not best pleased.

Joni Mitchell - Furry Sings The Blues

Orlando.

Hello all!

I've just been reading the latest posts in this thread: What are Goths?. I've just read something I strongly disagree with that to my mind completely misunderstands what Goth is all about, so rather than reply just at the moment, I'm going to pour a drink (Pimms, Lemonade, Ice - the only booze in the house right now) and listen to some music.

Back at Brass Goggles, someone (my apologies, I can't remember who) suggested Mira. Go to either the "mp3" or the "discography" pages and download Cayman (about 5MB). They specifically request that people do not create direct links so I haven't.

That Pimms is pretty strong stuff... Perhaps I should have made a longer drink out of it.

Suzanne Vega - Small Blue Thing

Neon Suntan mentioned Neneh Cherry in passing back at BG. I've had this, her most well known song, bookmarked for a while: Neneh Cherry - Manchild ...and that is the hifi stereo version. Preach sister, preach.

Orlando.

I mentioned Neneh Cherry? One of the greatest tracks she ever did was Under My Skin.

It was recorded for the Red Hot + Blue AIDS benefit album. The instrumental version had such delicious bass freqs in it that I used it to test my old hi-fi [something went pop and I think I shattered a cone ] Have a listen here

My fave Goth tune ever was/is Afterhours.

Any fans of the The Sisterhood abum out there?
The Sisterhood - Rain from Heaven

Orlando wrote:This song has a particular mood - a particular sort of creepy - that I am very familiar with but quite unable to describe. It was inspired by a meeting between the singer and the blues man Furry Lewis in New Orleans in 1975.
By all accounts Lewis was not best pleased.

The last time I heard anything of Joni Mitchel's I got the same "particular sort of creepy" feeling as this gives me only... as a blues-lover I really wish she hadn't tried to incorporate any actual blues themes into the song. The lyrics strike me as a rather overblown repetition of themes I'm more used to seeing portrayed in very ordinary, down to earth fiction, so I'm a bit puzzled here. Still, between the theme of mortality and Joni's haunting voice it does have a certain effect, slightly spoiled by the blues horn but still there.

neon_suntan wrote:I mentioned Neneh Cherry?

I'm almost sure, perhaps in the "Difficult Music" thread in connection with the Manchester scene?
I don't really like rap but I think because I find Neneh Cherry an attractive personality, I can always listen to her.

neon_suntan wrote:Any fans of the The Sisterhood abum out there?

I have a cassette with The Gift on one side and The Nephilim on the other. I know the primary purpose of the release is supposed to have been to claim the name and as such the music might be considered a side-effect (!) but everyone I know who likes the Sisters (including me) really like the album. I don't now have a cassette player and it must be a year or so since I last played the tape on my girlfriend's ghetto-blaster but I do like it, especially Colours which eventually appeared on the CD of Floodland with Eldritch doing the singing.

My favourite Sisters track of all time is only available officially (I think) on the CD single of Dominion and is entitled, Untitled. It has the deepest bass I've heard anywhere and is a slow tempo instrumental version of Dominion with the most fantastic saxophone. I believe the track also appears on an unofficial collection, Some Boys Wander by Mistake as does Afterhours.

Mr. Ethan Grammatikidis wrote:...slightly spoiled by the blues horn...

The only wind instrument used on the recording is a harmonica (played by Neil Young).
The bit where she says...
"Pawnshops glitter like gold tooth-caps. In the gray decay, they chew the last few dollars of old Beale Street's carcass"
...makes me think of an English teacher: "Notice the use of simile and metaphor".
It has long been my ambition to record a version of Furry Sings the Blues to the tune and in the style of,

John Cooper Clarke - Beasley Street

Orlando.

I really love Chicken Town by John Cooper Clarke, it was used as an episode closer in the last season of the Sopranos...

Other curious little tracks and collections

Neil Young - Trans an electro(!) album from the 80's featuring vocodered vocals

Robert Palmer - The Silver Gun a strange electro track from a man better known for sharp suits and snappy videos. He seems to be singing in some Indian language.

Poison - Strange Days of Uncle Jack glam metal ambience from the intro to big hair classic album "Flesh+Blood"

Fatboy Slim - Beats Up the NME a free cassette given away with the NME back in 1997 and now a free download, contains some terrific 'neighbour-bothering' bouncy big-beat tracks!

Some Portishead and Billie Holiday songs are very...frightening.

I also remember the first time I heard the Eagles song "Hotel California" I was alone in my room and the hair literally stood up on my head.

Brass Goggles is working again!

(The last time I said this, I only had time to post a link over here before it went off-line but I think everything is now properly sorted.)

Here is a link back to the thread at Brass Goggles.

Many thanks to Pheobsky and the Administrators for their work here - I will continue to visit Spare Goggles and monitor it with the news feed.

Orlando.