The fire in your eyes

Happy (belated) [it was actually on 12th, but the party's tonight] 60th birthday, Lou!

Once a Goth, always a Goth...

...and here's the "Gothiest" of all Goth anthems, by way of a celebration:

The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary

Oh, the heads that turn
Make my back burn
And those heads that turn
Make my back, make my back burn

The sparkle in your eyes
Keeps me alive
And the sparkle in your eyes
Keeps me alive, keeps me alive

The world
And the world turns around
The world and the world, yeah
The world drags me down

Oh, the heads that turn
Make my back burn
And those heads that turn
Make my back, make my back burn, yeah

Yeah-hey...

The fire in your eyes
Keeps me alive
And the fire in your eyes
Keeps me alive
I'm sure in her you'll find
The sanctuary
I'm sure in her you'll find
The sanctuary

And the world
The world turns around
And the world and the world
The world drags me down
And the world and the world and the world
The world turns around
And the world and the world and the world and the world
The world drags me down

Sanctuary
Sanctuary

Indeed.

"Normal" service might be resumed tomorrow on our return from Dorking. Or maybe not. We'll see how it goes...

Wunderbar!

Only a week late [and somewhat shame-facedly, after all that build-up of "more to come" that I gave her a few weeks ago!]...

...I feel we really need to celebrate the fact that Our Patron Saint of Crazy, Fraulein Nina Hagen blew out 70 candles on her cake last week! (Gulp!)

Our Nina is a remarkable woman of many talents, and since she first emerged into the limelight - across of the ruins of the Berlin Wall that had once divided her birthplace in the East from the rest of the world - she has certainly embraced a whole range of genres. All in her inimitible and unique style, of course!

Here she is in her full-on Goth-Punk heyday in 1982:

Nina Hagen - Smack Jack

...here, covering a Glam Rock classic originally by Sweet:

Nina Hagen - Ballroom Blitz [live in Rio]

...from Glam to glamorous, here's her tribute to wartime star Zarah Leander:

Nina Hagen - Wunderbar

...and she also had a rather brilliant foray into House music:

Adamski Featuring Nina Hagen - Get Your Body

...but whoever thought she would turn a Doris Day number into a dance track? She did, obviously!

Nina Hagen - Pillow Talk

...and she even fronted her very own Big Band:

Nina Hagen & Leipzig Big Band - Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

To finish - and to top it all - here is one of my favourite clips of the lady, surprisingly duetting with none other than that beloved purveyor of multilingual smoothness Miss Nana Mouskouri! When worlds collide, indeed...

Nina Hagen and Nana Mouskouri - Lili Marlene

There is no-one quite like Catharina "Nina" Hagen (born 11th March 1955).

All hail!

I don't know why I don't know why

Heavens. You know you're getting old when you discover...

...that the faboo Goth-before-"Goth"-was-even-a-thing Mr Dave Vanian of seminal punk band The Damned is 65 years old!

I think some thrashing music is in order; their debut single was, after all, the first punk record to hit (the lower echelons of) the UK charts way back in 1976, 45 years ago this month:

The Damned - New Rose

Is she really going out with him?

I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be

I gotta new rose I got it good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town

See the sun see the sun it shines
Don't get too close or it'll burn your eyes
Don't you run away that way
You can come back another day

I got a new rose I got it good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town

I never thought this could happen to me
This is strange why should it be
I don't deserve somebody this great
I'd better go or it'll be too late

I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be

I got a new rose I got her good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town

Interesting fact about Mr Vanian - he was in fact "The Monmouth Vampire", the mysterious apparition that made the local headlines in Wales back in 1980! As he revealed in an interview in 2018:

He was recording the band’s Black Album at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth when he decided to step out for a breath of fresh air one night and take a stroll to a nearby cemetery.

“There was a full moon and Monmouth in the full moon… you can see everything, It was very bright because there’s no city there; it’s just countryside.

“So I went for a walk to the local graveyard, which was, like, a mile down the road… and I walked around and as I left and started heading back up the lane to the studio, I was caught in a Mini’s headlights as I was coming out of the cemetery, and the car veered off the road almost and then screamed round the bend.

“The local newspapers, the next few days, had a thing, where a woman claimed she had seen the ghost of a vampire coming out of the local cemetery. It became a big deal and I decided to say nothing.”

I'm sure he loved it!

Many happy returns, David Vanian (born David Lett, 12th October 1956)

The Ice Queen

"There is a fun, flippant side to me, of course. But I would much rather be known as the Ice Queen."

Gulp. Our Patron Saint of Fishnets, Miss Siouxsie Sioux is 60 years old today!

I have always adored Siouxsie. Ever since first seeing her on Top Of The Pops strutting like some unearthly Amazon to Hong Kong Garden, I just knew she was something very different; an awesome talent with an awesome stage persona, and excitingly scary. As Ben Hewitt in the Guardian put it so succinctly: she has a "macabre mystique". Siouxsie was second only to Debbie Harry among my adolescent icons.

Irredeemably photogenic, hers has to be one of THE faces of the 20th (and any other) century - instantly recognisable. Her musical legacy, too, is wide-reaching and well recognised. Without her (and the Banshees), there would be no "Goth movement". Her songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Massive Attack and Red Hot Chili Peppers; myriad artists - from Morrissey to PJ Harvey, from Bono to Sinéad O'Connor, from Courtney Love to Ana Matronic - have all paid their due homage to her influence.

There is only one Siouxsie.

And thank heavens for that! Here are some of my choices from her vast repertoire...

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Spellbound

The Creatures - Right Now

Peek-a-Boo (Spec Goth Disco Edit):

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Christine

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dear Prudence

However, this remains my all-time favourite (and is among my top tunes ever) - Happy House:

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Happy House

Many happy returns, Siouxsie Sioux (born Susan Janet Ballion, 27th May 1957)

Wears a coat that's black and long

It happens. All those ground-breaking, scary, energetic "rebel hearts" of our youth are getting older...

Mr Dave Vanian - the man who was (alongside Siouxsie and Robert Smith of The Cure) a "Goth" before "Goth" was invented - blows out sixty candles on his cake today! Gulp.

Mr Vanian and his band The Damned were pioneers of Punk; among the original clutch of bands who defined the genre and the first to get a hit single way back in 1976 (New Rose) - even before the Sex Pistols. In its original incarnation the band included notorious members Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies; by the 80s, Mr Vanian was the only original member in the band.

It was at this late stage that they (he?) achieved their greatest commercial success. And among those later hits was this rather fab one:

The Damned - Grimly Fiendish

Many happy returns, David Vanian (born David Lett, 12th October 1956).

Monster mash (up)

It's Samhain, Allantide, Hallowe'en, Calan Gaeaf or Hop-tu-Naa...

What better way to celebrate than with a Bauhaus mash-up?

DJ Alan T - Bauhaus mash-up - Tear You Apart/Bela Lugosi's Dead/She Wants Revenge

Spooky, indeed.

Watch your goolies, everyone!

Bauhaus

'Neath that far off lantern light

It was the annual Whitby "Gothic Weekend" get-together last weekend, and assorted punky black-clothed dressing-up addicts congregated on the North East harbour town - the mythical landing-place of Dracula in Bram Stoker's story. It looks like fun...

Meanwhile, this gives me the perfect excuse to feature one of our fave "founding mothers" of that particular genre - whose 60th birthday (gulp!) I shamefully missed last month - Fraulein Nina Hagen!

Here she is in her full-on Goth heyday in 1982, with Smack Jack:

Nina Hagen - Smack Jack

And here is one of my favourite clips of the lady, surprisingly duetting with none other than that beloved purveyor of multilingual smoothness Miss Nana Mouskouri on Lili Marlene. When worlds collide, indeed...

Nina Hagen and Nana Mouskouri - Lili Marlene

Catharina "Nina" Hagen (born 11th March 1955)

The last goths of Tashkent

"With their pale painted faces, carefully sculpted dyed-black hair and heavy eyeliner, goths are not a common sight in the predominantly Muslim central Asian nation of Uzbekistan."

If that doesn't pique your interest in reading this article, nothing will!

Read more on the BBC

I found it fascinating...