#90s punk

[sleepingonsunday]

[rainedragon]

SAMPLING Volume 1 September 1998 A selection of 12 pairs of Vivienne Westwood Rocking Horse Shoes

[slicedupapple]

Bikini Kill Performing at Club Asylum in Washington, D.C., 1992.

[allwhiterain]

Matthew Lillard as Tim LaFlour in Senseless (1998)

[punkieagainsttheworld]

Courtney Love

[azathothsdreamgrrl]

kathleen hanna appreciation post.

fun fact: the quote "girls to the front!" was a revolutionary concept for punk rock concerts where men would randomly start moshing, and in these mosh pits women would get trampled on and assaulted. because of this, a lot of women avoided concerts they really wanted to go to...kathleen hanna made her concerts more accessible to her audience by putting all the girls in the front so they'd be safe, and she could look out for them herself.

another fun fact: i'm in love with her.

[apricotcat]

Angelina Jolie, photographed by Marcel Indik (1995)

[mystic-sn0w]

[borninwinter81]

Queer horror from my teens

I periodically wonder whether these books are still known and read by young goths and horror fans as they were all extremely important to me in my teenage years, so I thought I'd share them.

Though I'm cishet, during the mid 90s two of my favourite authors wrote primarily queer fiction: they were Anne Rice and another author from New Orleans who is now known as Billy Martin.

He came out as a trans man in 2011, however these books were published prior to that so unfortunately you have to search for them under his deadname. This is why I've used that name in the tags on this post. I don't believe the books were ever reprinted with his current name.

Though I loved Rice, I always felt a more immediate connection with Martin due to his vivid portrayal of subcultures like goth and punk, and how it felt to be a teenager who was part of them. I could see myself in many of his characters as I had the same interests, listened to the same music, and shared the same sense of social alienation. Remember in the 90s the Internet was still a reasonably new thing, and many of us didn't have a home Internet connection at all. There was certainly no social media, no YouTube, and no real way to meet and interact with like-minded teens unless you were lucky enough to have another "weird kid" at your school. If you were a weird kid, you likely had very few friends and were bullied.

That as much as anything else led me to seek solace in books written by an author who I felt understood me, and characters who became my friends.

Lost Souls is about vampires in a kind of Lost Boys/Near Dark way. Fans of the YouTuber OfHerbsAndAltars might be interested to know that this book is where the name of his channel comes from - it's a description of the taste of Chartreuse liqueur.

Drawing Blood is about ghosts, a "murder house", computer hacking, comic art and a very beautiful (if rather messed up) romance. This one is probably my favourite of the three.

Exquisite Corpse is about serial killers, set against the AIDS crisis of the 90s. If you like the Hannibal TV series you'll probably enjoy this one - imagine if Dennis Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer had somehow met.

Martin doesn't pull any punches when it comes to descriptions of blood and gore, violence, abusive parents or his portrayal of toxic romantic relationships (of which there are many in his books), but if you can deal with those things there is also a great deal of beauty, phenomenally good writing, and a somewhat unique perspective on the supernatural.

Maybe I'm biased, looking at these through the lens of my teenage self. Maybe they'd seem horribly dated to today's young audience. But I still wanted to make this post in case there's someone out there who will end up loving them as much as I did.

[slayerrbunny]

[sabretoothleather]

Spiked and/or studded leatherinos

[meatpetz]

Dave Vanian backstage with fans - Newcastle Mayfair, December, 1993

[chazzzyy]

Billie Joe Armstrong

[slicedupapple]

Poison Ivy of The Cramps with her 1958 Gretsch 6120 Guitar. Performing at the Town & Country Club, London, April 1990.

[persephone-nymph]

Kat Bjelland, Babes in Toyland

[53v3nfrn5]

Irina Pantaeva and Janine Giddingns in ‘Escape of the Techno Vixens’ for Harper’s Bazaar (1994) photog. Wayne Messer