Black Moods

It's time to post about something else! 

Friends let me know about this nice article from The Guardian about superannuated Goths. I am older than all of them. I do know one, but recognised Mel Butler who was interviewed for Woman's Hour a couple of weeks ago. I meant to put up the interview here, and in need of a missive from normal times, thought I would do so now. 

"I kind of pinpoint it to the year 1985. I’d just turned 13, but prior to that, I used to watch Top of the Pops a lot, and I was exposed to bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure, Bauhaus, Echo & the Bunnymen, and there was also The Tube as well, and also Whistle Test, so it was always music driven, but as you gradually got into being a teenager, you try to find your own identity, and that to me was the start of it. I didn’t consider myself a Goth, it was more like sort of an alternative person, it’s just like, I like to wear black a lot. So I  just graduated on from there. In the 1980s, especially where I grew up in the Northeast, there was high unemployment, and there wasn’t really much to do for teenagers, so I suppose music and being part of a subculture and getting an identity was like escapism, really.

"I would never ever leave the house without full make-up and my hair crimped and back-combed; it was dyed black. I used to wear a really long skirt. They used to be called tasselled hippy skirts. They were floor-length skirts and they had like tassels on the bottom, and pointy boots. I used to wear cinchers. The biker jacket was also part of the look as well, usually embellished with band logos and badges and things. I really didn’t like mainstream fashion. I think round about 1985, 1986, everybody started wearing pastel colours and that was not me at all. And the big perms as well, what was all that about? I wasn’t one for wearing black lipstick, I used to go for the heavy eye make up, a lot of black eyeliner – it’s strange, I plucked all my eyebrows out and you’d just draw them back on again, which is a bit surreal. I used to crimp my hair every day and back-comb it to an inch of its life, it never used to move because of all the hairspray which is quite amusing.

"I had a terrible time at school. I got bullied a lot because of the way I looked, just to be slightly different. I mean, I did tone down a bit at school, I might have had my hair crimped and slightly spiky, and I did try and customise my school uniform a little bit. So yeah, it wasn’t a good time but you develop a thick skin, and when you do get out into the wider world you do find people with a similar taste in music, well a similar outlook in life basically.

"I remember my first day at art college when all the new students assemble in one room and you look across and think, My God, there’s somebody who looks like me, and another person who looks like me! It was a good two years and good friendships were formed.

"I just mainly sat up in my bedroom and listened to music and read music magazines like Melody Maker and Sounds and NME, and when I did reach the age when I was able to go out clubbing and things like that, I used to go to places like the Riverside in Newcastle, and there was a couple of nightclubs close to where I lived. The first band that I saw was The Damned in 1986 in Newcastle City Hall. I was just mesmerised by it. I felt a little, I wouldn’t say intimidated by it, because a lot of the audience was four or five years older than me 'cause I was only about 14 at the time. I still go and see them to this day and I still get that sort of tingly feeling, when I see them, with excitement, I just think they’re an amazing band.

"My late father, he didn’t like it at all, but I think because of my nature, I’m quite determined, and a little bit stubborn, it just made me rebel even more. My mum was more understanding. At first she thought it was just a phase, but nearly 35 years on, No, it’s not a phase, it’s just me. 

"I used to wander the town centre of Middlesbrough, and also York, taking photographs of people who looked alternative, either with black crimped hair, or ripped jeans, biker jackets, paisley shirts, that sort of clothing. That’s how I met my husband, I took his photograph. A couple of years later I saw him in a nightclub and I tried chatting him up, and he wasn’t having any of it, so fast-forward about twenty years after that event, and we found each other on Myspace, and obviously romance blossomed and we got married. He had long black crimped hair, and he was wearing a big overcoat and he had pointy boots – yeah, he was pretty cute-looking then. He still is!"