"And all the time I'm putting those two words together - MUSIC BUSINESS MUSIC BUSINESS MUSIC BUSINESS MUSIC BUSINESS - until by some chance I bump into Bobby Gillespie in the street and suddenly, instead of just asking for his autograph, I asked him a few questions and it all just sort of snowballed from there." She stops for a breath. She's a nice enough woman, but even so, I'm so glad. I have been talking about Famous People We've Met with this woman called Judith for six solid hours, and only now has it occurred to me that I have absolutely no idea how I met her. It wasn't through a mutual friend, nor some chance meeting. She might have been having a post-Slimelight breakfast in McDonald's with some people I know... I'm lost completely and try to re-cap some events in my head quickly, before her life-story retreats even further back to beyond the foetal period.
All Goths, in the end, love a bit of competition. Whether it's to dress better, dance better, have
better make-up, more outlandish hair... Whatever. We thrive on rivalry. And so we organise
ourselves into little cliques, generally with one figurehead leader that everyone in the world
recognises and has somewhere in the background of all their Whitby photos, yet they seem to
know no one, and ramble through life having strangers shouting their names across the street.
These little cliques will then try to out-Goth the others. Posing in their special corners in nightclubs
where they always sit. Particular members allowed to flit in-between because they just can't stop
their own Social Butterfly nature. Others may cling to the outside. Leeching off the coolness of
the Inner Circles. Some are even brave enough to ignore the cliques and claim to be
individuals. This, of course, is a clique in itself, as it's probably harder to be
accepted by the individuals as a true member and not just a geek with no mates. But in the end,
you're in that clique, I'm in this clique, and never the twain shall meet.
And somewhere in this peacock lifestyle that we live, we have what my mate Cath calls Star-Shagging Stories. You don't have to have slept with the star in question. Just spend a little time with them. Mine is meeting ex-Soft Cell other half, and now member of The Grid, Dave Ball, in the Electric Ballroom. I've told so many people this story that it would be boring to repeat it here (in fact the sad truth is that ALL Star-Shagging Stories are boring, but we normally don't care), suffice to say that I walked away with his studio's phone number and owe him many, many beers. My mum also used to work as a cleaner in the old Playground recording studios when such acts as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Thomas Dolby, The Associates, and Bauhaus were recording there. I played on the piano that Daniel Ash played for Who Killed Mr. Moonlight? I sang with legendary producer Mike Hedges at a Christmas party there. And countless other tales of brushes with the stars, blah, blah, blah...
And yet here I am, in the Devonshire Arms, for six hours, trying so desperately to beat the stories of fanzine editor Judith, who has interviewed Skinny Puppy, Type O Negative, Miranda Sex Garden, etc. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm wondering just why the fuck am I even trying to compete? Because I thought maybe I was somehow above it all. I bought into the whole Gothic look, copied all the good old albums I never bought as a kid, and made compilations of all the best tracks off the new okay albums. But, not having bought into the whole black roses, candles, bats and skulls and Alchemy jewellery shit which I find so crass, I never thought of myself as a Goth on the inside. The Great Pretender. But I'm still doing it. An amateur Star-Shagger battling against a professional, until eventually I just give in and allow her to tell me the story of her life.
Now this is always a big mistake anyway. It usually turns into one of those Events In My Life That Made Me A Goth soliloquies. Which ranks up there with other gothic topics such as "Why Are You Called Vlad?", "How Old Goth Is Better Than New Goth", "Why The Slimelight Isn't So Good Since They Moved The Goth Floor", and the old perennials "I'm In A Goth Band", "I Run A Fanzine" and "Why Do All The Pretty Goths Fancy The Opposite Sex From Mine?". And I sit and listen as everyone always does, paying not a blind bit of notice to what she's saying, but pretending very well with appropriate "hmmms" and "yeah's" and the occasional nod of the head, still trying to think of some long-forgotten Star-Shagging story that would beat all of hers. Even if it isn't my own. After all, you have to shine to be accepted as a Goth, and I really want to be accepted. And that's what makes me compete. Because deep down inside I am a peacock. A Goth Tart, if you like. It's instinctive for me to want to somehow look better, dance better, know more bands, songs, trivia, famous people and lyrics than anyone else. Hey, maybe next time I meet Judith, I'll have been back to Turkey to continue my sordid sex romps with Peter Murphy. Only this time, I'll have the photos to prove it.
