Heavy Metal Thunder

Quite rightly, the identity of the child accused of the horrible murder at a Leeds school yesterday isn't being made public. Not that that has stopped the Daily Mail trawling up enough information to take breaching the spirit of the law up to the very boundary of breaching the letter of it.

And it's here that we see the resurrection of one of the tabloid press favourite tropes: It was heavy metal's fault:

On his Facebook page, along with the Grim Reaper drawing and links to British heavy metal bands Enter Shakari and Bring Me The Horizon, he had posted a picture of himself dressed in black with long hair.

Links? To Enter Shikari? Wearing black with long hair? Clearly, we're dealing with the devil's music here.

It's obviously metal's fault, right?

Except the Mail doesn't even seem certain he is a metalhead:

Another ex-pupil said the 15-year-old often went into school carrying Jack Daniels and beer and that he was a ‘goth’ who drew circles on the floor, claiming to worship the devil.

In subsequent coverage, we're expecting the Mail to also discover he was bobbysoxer, a mod AND a rocker, and a hepcat of dubious renown.

Still, goths and metalheads are at least united by the long hair thing, right? That's something the Mail can cling to.

But neighbours [...] said he had recently cut his hair very short.

Oddly, the Mail neglects to seize on this detail, misunderstand it and over-inflate it into somehow lumping him into the violent cult of skinheaded thugs.

I can understand the Mail's problem here - there's a question 'how could this happen? who could do this?' hanging over everyone's heads this morning, and there are no answers. For a paper which lacks morals and ethics, and apparently believes the world functions on a level of the simplicity of a Fred Basset cartoon, looking at a couple of things the boy liked and deciding they're somehow relevant is the obvious thing to do. It's probably because Viscount Rothermere and Paul Dacre listen to a lot of Wagner.

Downloadable: Electrogothy goodness

Fancy a big, doomy, gothy compilation from the fine people at SideLine magazine? Just woosh over to SideLine's Facebook presence, like them, and you'll get the link.

(Am I alone in finding there something slightly creepy about this 'tell me you like me and I'll give you a present' set-up? It's a bit like a mother withholding supper until you tell mummy you love here.)

You're Korn and then you want to die

Jonathan Davis - one of the children's entertainers in the scary-Clown act that is Korn - suffered when making the new album:

"Making the record was sheer f**king hell. It was one of the most difficult things in my life," he explained.

"It was f**king torment. [Ross] put me in a place I didn't want to be. He put me in a horrible depression where I wanted to kill myself again. It was f**ked up. He was just pushing my buttons, tormenting me and f**king me up."

He continued: "He'd find out everything that my lyrics were about, then he'd use that s**t as ammo while I was singing. I got back into a position where I trusted him, but then he abused the s**t out of [that trust] and that killed me.

"He was sticking a knife deep into my heart. It was f**king brutal. He's a motherf**ker. I literally got to the point where I wanted to die. [Bandmates] Fieldy and Munky were worried sick about me. I lost a whole lot of weight, I couldn't eat, I was rotting away."

He wanted to die when he made the record, and if you listen to it, you'll know exactly how he felt.

Let's not suggest that Davis is an old ham, who is trying to dress up the sort of teenage angst he should have left behind long since into some sort of dark art. Because, you know, that might fucking push his shitting motherfuckering buttons, and that would put him off his Puffa-Puffa Rice.

When Goths fall out: Murphy and Perry have stand-up fist fight

Okay, not a stand-up fist fight. Nobody does that any more. But the bitter collapse of a plans for a Pete Murphy-Brendan Perry 100 date world tour is ending in smeared eyeliner and angry Facebook posts.

Perry started it, sir, with this:

"The truth of the matter is that PM [Peter Murphy] wasted months of my time, energy and effort. It was he, after all, who invited me to tour with him and then reneged on our agreement not once, not twice but three times... can you imagine my frustration? ... I would not have minded so much if he had shown some remorse by way of an apology, this would have been the very least I could expect from such an honorable and 'spiritual' man. Right? Well wrong... When I last wrote to him to enquire how he was and what the problem was, he basically told me to mind my own business... Cuckoo!"

Hang about, Brendan? Murphy dumped on you once, and you carried on. He did it again, and you still carried on? By the time of the third time he turned you over, you might start to wonder if you let yourself in for it, right? There comes a point when Charlie Brown has to stop blaming Lucy, and ask himself why he keeps trying to kick a ball he knows won't be there, right?

Perry hasn't finished, though:

"The guy has too many albeit mysterious health issues to deal with and, to be honest, he's a sandwich short of a picnic."

I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that Brendan Perry would use 'sandwich short of a picnic' as a genuine term of abuse. It's a bit like turning up at the Dead Can Dance rehearsal rooms to find the walls covered in 'this is a round tuit' and 'I know you think you understood what you think that I said' posters.

Still, Peter Murphy won't take that sort of thing lying down. Sideline watches from, erm, the sidelines:

Murphy now retaliates saying that he mistook Perry for a better person suggesting Perry should "write angry depressive 'Goth' songs that would be a good big market for you." And things get serious when Murphy adds: "if I find any serious libel in print up there on the web, I tell you, and from the real Irish fucker that I can be, I will take no hesitation in suing your bad ass."

Ha! Pete Murphy scolded Perry by accusing him of playing to the doomy-Goth lowest common denominator market. That would probably hurt. Had it not come from a man who makes a cameo in Twilight: Eclipse.

Marilyn Manson: Almost as shocking as a mid-season Skins episode

You want to know why we're nailing boards across our windows and sending the children of the village away?

Why, it's all part of the bracing before the unleashing of another Marilyn Manson record. For, surely, this time it must mark the end of society as we know it.

Oooh, Marilyn, what are you about to do?

"This is not a record that we would leave black and self-titled and mature. This is the experienced record. This album is the 12th-grade guy that has VD and did cocaine in high school, who has been arrested once and the 9th-grade girl wants to fuck him."

That's quite something. Because so far, your albums have been a mixture of the 34 year-old who still lives with his mother and has a subscription to Nuts, and a fifteen year-old boy whose rebellion takes the form of putting chewing gum in the ashtray when his older sister picks him up from Bible Class in their mum's car.

Still, Marilyn, can you make the album sound any more appealing to those who confuse badly-applied make-up with individualism?

This album left many scars

Oh, perfect.

I wrote all the lyrics on the wall of my room. It wasn't to be decorative; it was one of those things, like it's the last thing someone sees before they put them somewhere else.

That's pretty, wow, intense. Even if it does trail off meaninglessly - presumably that bit got hidden when you moved the bedside table to the other side of the bed, right?

And if anyone wants to come into this room and fornicate with me, I think they are a keeper… and when I say keeper, I mean kidnapping.

Oh, Marilyn, you are a one. It's probably just as well you've got more chance of a cow walking backwards down a rope ladder than someone wanting to visit your teenage bedroom.

Because I always wanted to take pictures, my house is set up like a movie set. Instead of lamps I have movie lights and smoke machines and things.

The guy up the road from me when I was a kid was a bit like that, too. And he had stacks of sound-effect records, too. He'd play them at dinner parties, when most people would put on mood music, so you'd wind up having conversations about whether Jim Callaghan could survive the summer to the backing of 'steam train approaching tunnel'.

"I really look at this record as a film, maybe because I sort of directed it. I stopped trying to conform regular life into the idea that it's regular life. Why isn't it all just a movie? If people are watching, they're watching me being an asshole or being boring or creating something amazing. That's just a part of the movie. It allowed me to be more creative."

And also, continued Manson, did you ever think you might be the only person and everyone is just robots or if you closed your eyes it all might disappear?

Marilyn Manson is forty years old.

Gwen Stefani commits to hours of backcombing before school

Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossfromfriends are laying a plan that just shades into child abuse: raising their kid as goth:

'We are going to put him in a black room,’ [Gavin] says!

‘It’ll be a Goth baby so it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl.’

We're not quite sure when 'goth' became interchangeable with your gender-identification - perhaps we missed a vote.

Actually, we suspect this is actually a sly dig at Pete Wentz's blind panic at the thought of a boy liking pink.

Goth dies slowly: Club Metropolis closes

After fifteen years in Copenhagen, Club Metropolis is closing down next month. Their blog explains:

First and foremost: The scene has changed immensely over the past couple of years. Not only has it expanded rapidly, there's been more promotion groups and event makers popping up on both Fyn and Jylland, as well as Copenhagen. In spite of this, there aren't as many concert-goers as there used to be.
In part, the people that used to come out to Club Metropolis have gotten older, a younger generation has become the mainstay, and their priorities have shifted. The types of events that have the biggest pull are now primarily social meetups and parties with less focus on the music.

This is a general tendency in the goth/industrial scene that all promoters (at least in Copenhagen) have experienced. It just happened that we were among the first to get hit by it.

This means less cash in the register for events with live music, and lower morale. As the motivation dropped, board members understandably also left the club.

Unfortunately, this has meant a heavier work burden the remaining board members - who were already tied up with work and school. It has also meant that we've been forced to have expenses that we didn't used to have (transportation, rent of equipment etc.).
The lack of money, resources and time has thrown us in a downward spiral that has cost us each blood, sweat and tears, and many self-sacrifices - too many - without any visible results to speak of.

We have to be realistic and admit that we cannot keep going on like this. It's time to close shop.

There's something almost heartwarming about the idea that goth clubs can't attract an audience because kids would rather do something social than go to a Goth place - not that Goths are antisocial or anything - but it's still a shame that a venue which has been central to a city's subculture for a decade and a half can't make ends meet any more.

Gene Loves Jezebel; hates each other

If there are items at the back of your wardrobe which still have the persistent smell of patchouli, it's certain you'll recall Gene Loves Jezebel, 1980s waft-goths. You may also remember their split in 1989, and possibly their 1994 reunion. And maybe even the 1997.

You might - just - have heard the band were back together again last year, wafting round the US clubs. The only problem is, the band who were selling themselves as Gene Loves Jezebel weren't the real thing. Says who?

the 'real' Gene Loves Jezebel, that's who. The US-touring band was Michael Aston's lot; his twin Jay insists that his reactivated Gene Loves Jezebel is the proper deal:

“There’s only one reason we’ve neglected the U.S.,” says Jay Aston from his home in London. “When we go to America we have to worry about visas and flights and hotel accommodations. When he (Michael Aston) plays, he just jumps in a car with three other guys, who knows who they are, and goes out. There are no expenses.”

Asked to explain the root of his clash with Michael, Jay answers, “We’re very different individuals. His rock `n’ roll lifestyle is different from how I live. And how do you talk to someone who is delusional?”

Hmmm. Good question, Jay. How would you do that?

Jay sees himself as “the singer who is a real contributor to the band” and his brother as “someone who was just part of the (Gene Loves Jezebel) image. ... He looks like me, but he doesn’t sing like me.”

That may or may not be a fair point, but surely - if anything - Gene Loves Jezebel were a triumph of image over content in the first place? It might be seen as an endorsement - even an encouragement - to label the other lot as 'all the costumes, none of the music', surely?

Finish Idol: a bit Gothiery than Will Young

Our eye was caught by a detail in the interview SideLine are carrying to herald End Of Green's Michelle Darkness going solo:

[The album] features also some very peculiar cover versions of the songs "The sound of silence" (Simon and Garfunkel) and Joy Division's "Love will tear us apart" for which Michelle Darkness worked together with the Finish Idols winner Hanna Pakarinen.

Finish Idol?

Yes, that's as in Pop Idol. Ms Darkness explains:

Hanna did an amazing job on the cover version! Nino my producer explained in the studio that the Finnish Idols cannot be compared with the German ones f.ex. (do not know others though) it is really about rock and metal there!! The latest winner Ari went straight to #1 for weeks and got platinum gold in same week, he looks like Axl rose from Guns and Roses somehow and they play heavy metal. So Hanna has always been in rock bands and writes songs and her voice was the only choice to imagine with her sexy warm timbre.

Blimey. Really?

Perhaps not. Besides winning Finish Idol, she was entered by her nation for Eurovision last year. We suggested she was a cross between Amy Lee and Dolores Cranberry.

Still, even that's got to be better than Will Bloody Young.

Goths thrown off the bus; Mail outraged

Whoever would have thought that the Mail would swing into action to defend Goths?

A goth, who likes to take his fiancee out for a stroll on a leash, claims that a bus driver told them "no dogs allowed" and banned them from boarding.

Dani Graves, 25, and his girlfriend dress all in black and like to take unusual walks, but the pair have been branded "freaks" and pushed off buses.

He and Tasha Maltby, 19, were told they could not travel on the bus service and believe they have been targeted by the same driver three times.

Gothic Dani claims the driver said: "We don't let freaks and dogs like you on."

Dani is very upset:

Dani said he believed this driver's treatment of them was purely down to the way they dress.

He said: "He doesn't like the fact we wear black clothing. We expect the odd comment, but we don't expect it off a bus driver."

We're not entirely sure - despite having bus drivers in our family - that we'd necessarily be more surprised to find bus drivers being less tolerant of crypto-alternative lifestyles than anybody else. Perhaps Dani was brought up on On The Buses and believes that drivers are disposed to take sides against authority.

A working definition of how marketers imagine goth

The completely heartbreaking nature of Bulley For My Valentine listening parties inside Hot Topics, and what it says about marketing and PR people trying to 'do' youth cultures they really don't understand, is so far from what goth actually is, it could get a part as 'oldest goth child' in a British sitcom.

SideLine sidelined

PVC and Depeche Mode obsessed Belgian Goth magazine SideLine is dropping its printed edition, following owner Seba Dolimont's heart attack at the end of last year.

The magazine, which had sales of 6000, has been running since 1989, and intends to continue as an online title (don't they all?):

Dolimont says:

"My body has sent me a sign, I can no longer remain a 'super-busy bee' for years any more. So I am forced to make choices in my activities for my health's sake. Music is my sole 'mega' passion, no doubt, but I also have a very demanding full time job with huge responsibilities, a family life with two young sons and I am running a record label next to it all. (...)"

"I consider Side-Line as a baby, and selling it to some stranger or leaving it in other hands is not an option for me. So after a long talk with the 2 chief editors who have been running the mag for the last 7 years, we decided to cancel printing the magazine, and only focus our information duties on www.side-line.com and expand its content in the near future."

The editor, Bernard Van Isacker, reckons that "twenty times" as many readers see the magazine online as in the printed version, which doesn't strike us as an especially large number. And, as he observes:

"also internet offers more flexibility and faster information dispatching."

Which you can't really argue with. We've a soft spot for SideLine, and wish it well in its new incarnation.

Cradle Of Filth's World of trouble

There seems some attempt to pin a drunken brawl in Dallas on Cradle Of filth's tiresome crowd-goading behaviour, although a fight between two drunk guys "a couple of blocks" from where the band was playing sounds more like typical Friday night behaviour to us, however much the band might like to expand their 'dark' (read: Munsters-crossed-with-WWE) reputation.

Xymox could be Heroes

Clan of Xymox are preparing a new ep - or, really, some sort of single-cum-remix type thing. Included amongst the stuff, though, will be a cover of David Bowie's Heroes. It all proves, once again, the rule that, given time, every goth band will have a crack at something by the Thin White Dame.

There's also a DVD in the works, somewhere.