The Devil’s Cloth; The Real Reason We Wear Stripes

Stripes have been rocked by everyone from Elvira to Abby Scuito. But who was it that first started this stripey craze? Siouxie Sioux? Or was it Robert Smith (men are just as justified in wearing the ‘trend’). Actually, it was something that started a bit further back than the eighties.

Photograph by SoulStealer on Flickr

Did you know that stripes were thought to represent the devil in the Medieval ages? Artcritical in it’s review of The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes states that “The stripe was full of pejorative associations, and signified a doubler, an insincere person. In feudal times, anyone not to be trusted – village idiots, prostitutes, disloyal knights, tricksters, jugglers and clowns – might be dressed or depicted in stripes.” Which is why in most pirate, Neo-Victorian and other such periods represented in film prostitutes or characters of a more open sensuality often wear red and black striped stockings – often with garters.

 In the end, it makes sense that we’ve appropriated stripes as something that most Goth’s enjoy! If not just as a hint to fairies and witches but as a politic statement. This statement goes strong with other originally politic messages of heavy make-up, the stigma of black clothing, under-wear as outerwear and bondage themes found throughout Goth fashion.

Besides that we just like our stripes.

Why Deathrock ISN’T (or wasn’t) a Sub-Genre of Goth

Link

Even a lot of experienced people have made this mistake but I’d like to make the point that Deathrock is NOT a sub-genre of Goth (or at least it hasn’t always been) and it most certainly is not an interchangeable name of Goth Rock. Deathrock and many Deathrockers would suggest that they were a completely separate movement up until a point where a majority of subcultures joined in unison.

As you may already know though it is debated heavily (remembering that debating Goth Rock is not the point of this article) Goth rock progressed from Post-Punk which progressed from Punk in the late seventies in the UK. Such Post-Punk bands include Sioxsious and the Banshees, The Damned and Bauhaus.

Deathrock wasn’t developed from Goth-Rock or Post-Punk but instead developed parallel to it. It developed from the late seventies Punk movement into such bands as Kommunity FK, Christian Death and 45 Grave “known for prominent bass lines, eerie guitar, and dissonant vocals(1)” . While Post-Punk progressed majorly in the UK, Deathrock developed in the US. Primarily in the LA scene.

It was only later (a major example being The Batcave Club) that the two genres combined in events. That’s for obvious reasons as Goth, Deathrock and to some extent Post-Punk (which includes a plethora of genres) didn’t hold a broad enough audience on their own to bring in enough money for said clubs to profit. It’s only natural that they combine like genre’s for broader audiences. Not to mention that these genre’s eventually started to take inspiration from each other as all musicians do.

 Though there is a very large debate that just seems to go back and forth on whether Deathrock was inspired by Goth-Rock and actually started in the early eighties rather than late seventies. I don’t think it really matters. The point is that at one time they were separate genre’s and all genre’s are inspired by other genre’s which doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a brand from that genre. But don’t take my word for it and read up on the controversy. I always suggest making your own opinion on the matter and would love to hear it.

Best wishes,
-Sary Walrus

Other references:
A Brief History of Deathrock – Part 1
Part 2 – Part 3.
 And interesting article on the cross over between Horror Punk, Death Rock and Goth Rock (check the comments! Here.
Then there’s the always exciting Wikipedia here. 
For an example of the annoying arguments on the topic view here. It’s the Wikipedia ‘Talk Page’ archive on the topic where the contributors of the page, well, argue about it.

For the record this was only in discussion of the stylistic music associated with each movement rather than the other contributing factors such as fashion and their interchangeable and/or modern development.

Poll of the Week: Trad-Goth.

Link – A young Dave Vanian, lead singer of The Damned and my newest celebrity crush.

Recently I was reading a series of articles on The History of Deathrock, which you can find here, here and here, plus some articles on Post-Punk which brought up a question. Did Trad-Goth music (in which I mean Post-Punk/Positive Punk and earlier Goth Rock) die in the late eighties to the rise of electronic bands? Personally I would say no, I listen to and love this style of music and am always trying to expand my knowledge of it but there are a lot of younger (which is strange because I’m only eighteen) alternative people that don’t even understand the term post-punk yet are trying to make video’s and the like on Goth Rock and other such genres.

This is becoming a bit of a rant so I’ll cut to the chase: Do you enjoy Trad-Goth/Post-Punk/Early Goth Bands?

• Yes.
• No.
• What is that?

Iif you believe there should be another option in the post post below why and if you have an opinion on whether Trad-Goth is dead I would love to hear your opinion.