"We have come for your daughters"

Listening to: Mix I made for Austen

For several months I've maintained a relationship through text messages that amounts to, um, more text messages. Oh, she reads me here. So I need to be careful with what I say but that's immaterial to this post, at this point.

Anyway, from what she's told me, she has three gorgeous daughters, the oldest of which is a budding Goth (I mention that daughter in my "Listening to:" here as well as a previous post) and so I figured I'd make a "Special Edition" Guilty Pleasures disk that leaned towards the dark side. I'm not sure any of my readers would want me to create a disk like this for their daughters but as you all know, I'm of the Frank Zappa School of Libertarianism such that I prefer to expose my kids to whatever comes along and have an honest dialogue about what they've veiwed. Information is power and I prefer to think my children get a decent dose of truth rather than propoganda.

I'd appreciate any comments from old Goths on my choices with this mix:


Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel - The Only Good Christian Is Dead
Which kind of denies the whole resurrection theory (on some level) but invigorates every Goth fantasy;

Front 242 - Headhunter V 3.0
I just like the way this song made Goths wave their hands over their heads back in 1987;

Skinny Puppy - Deep Down Trauma Hounds
Probably the best self-critique of a scene I've ever heard;

Contolled Bleeding - Fodder Song
Austen's mom tells me this is the favorite song on the disk, interesting since Controlled Bleeding did this shit looooooong before "Industrial" or "Goth" were terms in common usage. Most of their stuff is damned scary (though not as scary as it gets, as you'll see below) and this is one of their more accessible cuts;

Ministry - TV II
"Connect the goddamn dots!"

Sonic Youth - Trilogy: The Wonder/Hyperstation/Elimination Jr.
OK, not exactly Goth fodder but one of the best cuts from one of the best albums that defined what 80's music could be - SHOULD be, - without having to stoop to pseudo-rap;

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Sex on Wheels
Simply stupid but infinitely dancable;

Nine Inch Nails - March of the Pigs
Goths bow down to the album this song is from and, in my estimation, this is the best song from this album;

Throbbing Gristle - Hamburger Lady
My text message "girlfriend" told me Austen was scared by this cut - and well she should have been - it's ugly (noise over P. Orridge reading from a medical text about a severe burn victim) but it's also where Goth (or back-in-the-day, "Dark Punk") begins. If you're going to make scary noise, Throbbing Gristle rules the roost;

Nurse With Wound - Nil By Mouth
The most underrated band here (or anywhere; they afterall knew the value in Zappa's ability to make noise-for-art's-sake), and aside from Current 93 (not included on this disk), masters of the extended mix;

The Beatles - Blue Jay Way
Yes, they were instrumental in inventing "Skronk" (a term Lester Bangs passed off on Robert Chistgau but hey, Bangs did well with "heavy metal"), especially with "Helter Skelter" and "Revolution #9". This song is from "Magical Mystery Tour and hints at what they'll later invent;

Attrition - Acid Tongue
A bit on the Trance/Electronica side of things, hinting at the stupid steps Industrial would take. However, if you listen to where the people we hate (i.e. brown people from the middle east) have taken electronica, geniuses like Talvin Singh, et al, make some sense;

Psychic TV - Fire Woman
More pervert P. Orridge trying to scare us all and doing a damn good job of it;

Pigface - Steamroller
Beats the shit out of Bauhaus;

Marilyn Manson, The Beautiful People
As Zeke says, "The Beautiful Pee Pole," and I suspect Marilyn is enamored with his own pee pole.

So yeah, I exposed a young (and extremely smart) adolescent girl on the threshhold of her teen years to some very scary music, roots of what's "Goth" - good for her, as I figure it. Give her the dirt and you have a better idea where she'll fling it. Knowing where and when to duck is most of the battle, anyway.