Being a punk/goth in 2008

[BEARBOT]

im pretty positive about people of any age sporting a punk or goth subcultural look..for some it is "just fashion" or "rebelling against mum" for others the look can have deep meanings wrapped up in it ..such as left wing political beliefs,sensibilities in literature and art etc etc..even the real young kids arent all shallow,sure some maybe are, but not all IMHO.

whats sadder is when you meet people in their 40s(you will do if you hang around camden enough)who sport say a cyber goth look(could be any subculture really, the couple i met was into that scene+festish)and it is just about the dressing up/image..when someone is 18 and wants kudos for their image and they dont develop as person(by thinking deeply about things fro example) much beyond their look that is sad!
but it is ULTRA sad when someone is 45 and the ENTIRE focus of their life is their presentation doesnt matter if you are a "glamourous footballers wife"
or a "cyber dog" person..

 

[Cloo]

I'm talking about people who dress now exactly as punks dressed in 1978, down to the last stud. I'm all in favour of DIY - DIY doesn't seem to me to be about regurgitating 30 year old fashions and reproducing them note perfectly.

A lot of those sorts of punks (sort of postcard punk) seem to be from abroad, IME - Germans and Eastern Europeans. I guess a lot of them come to London as the home of that kind of punk.

BTW, out of interest, whenabouts did the studs n mohawk look really emerge? I think of original punk as a slightly more subtle beast, as in tight trousers messy black or bleached hair, skinny ties kind of thing, but the classic image of the mohawked punk I assume emerged a bit later on.

 

[foo]

why goths/punks put together like that?

punks and goths are very different creatures in my experience.

 

[El Jefe]

BTW, out of interest, whenabouts did the studs n mohawk look really emerge? I think of original punk as a slightly more subtle beast, as in tight trousers messy black or bleached hair, skinny ties kind of thing, but the classic image of the mohawked punk I assume emerged a bit later on.

The mohawk and studs look is later - 79 / 80 maybe? But to be honest, punk when it started (outside the Kings Road at least) wasn't even as you describe it. It was cheap regular clothes doctored with a pin or some badges.

 

[foo]

The It was cheap regular clothes doctored with a pin or some badges.

yep.

i was a diy punk at 14. homemade ripped and safety-pinned t-shirts with writing on (in biro ), lots of band badges. food colouring in back-combed/crimped/scruffed hair. ripped leggings and big fuck off boots.

 

[Cloo]

i was a diy punk at 14. homemade ripped and safety-pinned t-shirts with writing on (in biro ), lots of band badges. food colouring in back-combed/crimped/scruffed hair. ripped leggings and big fuck off boots.

I can see it would have to be DIY, as most punks wouldn't have been shopping at Sex/Seditionaries!

 

[RubyToogood]

why goths/punks put together like that?

punks and goths are very different creatures in my experience.

Because it was a goth/punk pub I was in, equal parts of each.

 

[El Jefe]

Because it was a goth/punk pub I was in, equal parts of each.

That's pretty common. Most small towns seem to have a pub where goths, mods, punks and skins drink together, presumably because whilst there are differences, there are still more similarities than with people in other pubs

punks and goths are very different creatures in my experience.

It's not that clearcut IMO - I don't know if they are that different really. Remember you've got your more old school goths - Siouxsie and Bauhaus fans - who are quite likely to cross over a great deal with older punks. Younger goths are likely to have more of a metal / industrial / emo crossover. But there's always interconnections, these people don't (usually) exist in bubbles.

 

[foo]

that's not how i remember it at all - but i'll take your word for it that how it is these days. ime goths and punks have very different attitudes and style.

 

[El Jefe]

that's not how i remember it at all - but i'll take your word for it that how it is these days. ime goths and punks have very different attitudes and style.

That's not quite what I meant.

i was a kind of goth / punk in the mid 80s. I was never really more one thing than another, and I knew a lot of people like that. In our local 'alternative' (spit) pub there would be proper old punks and none-more-dead goths. But they were a minority, with most people sitting somewhere in between. Like me. I liked Bauhaus and I liked The Clash, that sort of thing. I had a mohawk and a leather jacket, but I also had pink hair and wore goth t shirts.

And this was my experience in Oxford and London too, when I still frequented such unseemly circles.

 

[kyser_soze]

that's not how i remember it at all - but i'll take your word for it that how it is these days. ime goths and punks have very different attitudes and style.

Yeah, Goth's internalise their fear and anger and wrap it in purple velvet and black skinny jeans and punks externalise their fear and anger through spiky hair and tartan trousers with DMs, and drinking lots (and probably doing loads of K these days too, mores the pity)

 

[foo]

El Jefe

well you must be right then. my memories are obviously wrong.

or it was different 'round here.

my experience of that time was, punks and goths did not mix.

 

[El Jefe]

well you must be right then. my memories are obviously wrong.

or it was different 'round here.

in my experience of the 70s, punks and goths did not mix.

To be honest, goths didn't exist in the 70s. Hard to say when they came into being, but definitely not before 1980. The style didn't really gel until the days of the Batcave club etc, and that was 82 and later..

 

[foo]

To be honest, goths didn't exist in the 70s. Hard to say when they came into being, but definitely not before 1980. The style didn't really gel until the days of the Batcave club etc, and that was 82 and later..

i got my decades mixed up. see edit.

 

[El Jefe]

i got my decades mixed up. see edit.

Well I'm not saying it never happened that they didn't mix, especially in the earlier days, but my experience is that things became much less rigid as time goes on. Remember, goths are very much an extension of punk - all the bands goths liked at first were punk or post punk bands, it was only later that bands formed that were explicitly goth. Also, as goth and punk numbers (and other subcultures) dwindled as the late 80s became the 90s, they'd have been by necessity thrown together a bit more

 

[foo]

you're probably right.

my memory is shocking - and i have no sense of chronology (can't even spell it ). i was a punk for a very short time*, and as you say, there were probably no goths around then.

my aversion to goths must've happened at a later stage......



*but the attitude remains....maaan.

 

[OurLastLament]

better to put skins and punks together than goths and punks

 

[damnhippie]

companies employ 'trend spotters' these days - a job that surely has 'professional cunt' stamped across it like no other - so most emerging grass roots subcultures get co-opted into mainstream commerce pretty quickly. and then appear on fucking soft drink adverts or similar.


...and so something like the emerging trend for riding fixed gear track bicycles, or at least dressing like you do, suddenly appeared in an advert a while ago (can't remember who, might have been Nike. the slogan was 'no brakes, no problem'.)

 

[pogofish]

The mohawk and studs look is later - 79 / 80 maybe? But to be honest, punk when it started (outside the Kings Road at least) wasn't even as you describe it. It was cheap regular clothes doctored with a pin or some badges.

Dunno, I can think of a few going around like that before then. Although the look was maybe more associated with certain bands whilst the more typical punk was as you describe.

 

[kained&able]

What i dont get is how comes the punks get such a hard time but your allowed to dress like a hippy and not be seen as just a rehash.

Its not fair!


dave

 

[foo]

Dunno, I can think of a few going around like that before then. Although the look was maybe more associated with certain bands whilst the more typical punk was as you describe.

y'see, i think i remember goths at school. and i left school in 76 (irrc) i was born in january '63 someone else do the maths please

i'm sure in my 5th year, there were the drippy kids with white faces and blackened eyes, dressed in black. and they were nothing like the punk kids, in attitude or in look. as El Jefe says though, maybe the music we were listening to was similar....



or maybe i'm getting dementia

 

[phildwyer]

y'see, i think i remember goths at school. and i left school in 76 (irrc) i was born in january '63 someone else do the maths please

i'm sure in my 5th year, there were the drippy kids with white faces and blackened eyes, dressed in black. and they were nothing like the punk kids, in attitude or in look. as El Jefe says though, maybe the music we were listening to was similar....



or maybe i'm getting dementia

People used to dress like Siouxsie in 77.

 

[phildwyer]

And the Damned. I don't know when they decided to make a whole Goth philosophy.

 

[foo]

yeh, Siouxie and The Damned. now i would've called them punks....

i'm probably wrong.

about all of this.....

who wants to come live in my world? it's fun, honest!

 

[mr steev]

That's pretty common. Most small towns seem to have a pub where goths, mods, punks and skins drink together, presumably because whilst there are differences, there are still more similarities than with people in other pubs

That was my experience growing up in the 80's. Not through choice though. The majority of pubs wouldn't let you in if you looked slightly different. Out of the few that did you were almost guaranteed a kicking in most.

 

[El Jefe]

That was my experience growing up in the 80's. Not through choice though. The majority of pubs wouldn't let you in if you looked slightly different. Out of the few that did you were almost guaranteed a kicking in most.

Yeh - in most smaller towns or whatever, there weren't the numbers to support a 'goth pub' or a 'punk pub' etc, so rather than risk a beating elsewhere, the subcultures would get forced together. Similarly, in a small town with not a lot going on, you'd all end up at each other's gigs, cos it beat going down the local disco

 

[mr steev]

Aye

Likewise you'd never get a goth night or a punk night, it would always be a generic 'alternative night', catering for all.

Worth noting that ime these nights, and the 'mixed' pubs never had much hassle compared to the local 'shirts n shoes' pubs and clubs which used to have fights and glassings several times a night!
Where I grew up, even walking past the local night club would be running the gauntlet, let alone actually going in (not that you'd be let in anyway - mostly for your own safety!)

This attitude certainly helped gel the subcultures and helped provide us with a fantastic drinking hole which the majority of the town seemed scared of drinking in

 

[Lost Zoot]

To me it seems that Its complety mainstream to dress what five years ago would have been seen as alternative.

 

[El Jefe]

To me it seems that Its complety mainstream to dress what five years ago would have been seen as alternative.

So if five years ago someone was dressing in an all-in-one purple lycra bodysuit with a dildo strapped the front and a crash helmet on, that would now be entirely mainstream?

Or are you talking rubbish?