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GOTHPUNK

                                              February 26, 2011

Back in the distant reaches
of the beginning of time                (Unix has the Beginning of Time as 1970.
(January 1, 1977), punk was,             A defensible take, I guess.)
and punk was all, and if 'twas
not good it was necessary.

   Finer grained distinctions began to
   emerge quickly, the initial one being
   the punk/"new wave" split.

   Sometime later-- when I'm not entirely clear,
   and there are regional differences that confuse
   the issue terribly-- the concept of "goth"
   emerged, and around the same time "punk"
   narrowed down, and became more doctrinaire (and
   perhaps not coincidentally, was all but co-opted
   by the marxists and/or left-wing anarchists).

   By the late 80s/early 90s, when I finally
   started paying attention to "goth", I was       GOTHIC
   fascinated by it's dual nature: was it all
   a joke, or were these people serious?  Isn't        Around the same time,
   it obvious that dressing up as some sort of         it was the neo-punks who
   horror-movie monster was just ridiculous?           seemed like the real
   And yet, the True Goth was self-confident           joke.  Puritanical
   about their ridiculous aspects, and did not         fanatics, jealously
   let it detract from their serious aspects...        guarding their grand
                                                       underground citadel
   Were they pretentious, self-absorbed, decadent?     against the invading
   Well, duh.  So what?                                forces of label reps.

                                                       NEOPUNK





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