So I was sitting around drinking beer with my gargoyle pal Eddie, who was on vacation from his job high atop Notre Dame Cathedral, when the subject turned to Goth Rock. “Everybody expects me to be a big fan seeing as I’m a gargoyle and all. But truth is I’m more of a New York Dolls guy. Goth is too gloomy, I mean, cheer up already. Buy some ice cream and binge watch Seinfeld. Go to a petting zoo. Life’s short. Except for me, of course. I’m made of stone.”
“I’m not saying all Goths, mind you. I like the Cure as much as the next gargoyle, And Bauhaus has some good songs. I’m talking about your Goths who have this whole Medieval thing going on. Take it from me, the Middle Ages sucked ass. Your biggest sport was running from the Black Plague, pizza delivery took forever, and the only beer on the market was Bud Light. Somebody should drag these ghoul wannabes back to the Dark Ages. Introduce them to the vermin.”
“Are you thinking of any band in particular?”
“Dead Can Dance come to mind. Check out 1988’s The Serpent’s Egg if you don’t believe me. A friend gave it to me for Christmas one year and I packed if off to the used record store the next day. Gave it to them for free, just to get the damn thing off my claws. Why do they call their music, neoclssical dark wave? That should tell you everything you need to know. Lisa Gerrard sounds like she’s trapped in a crypt in Père Lachaise Cemetery with Lurch from The Addams Family on harpsichord Except Lurch is more cheerful.”
“You’re ignoring much of the album,” I said.. On “In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings” Brendan Perry sounds like he’s doing a bad Ian Curtis imitation. That should count for something. And he does the same on “”Ullyses” and “Severance.” None of them have a Medieval vibe.”
“Granted. And they’re the only remotely palatable songs on The Serpent’s Egg. But take “Echolalia,” and “Orbis de Ignis.” What you’re basically getting is a bad imitation of a Gregorian chant, with the Hunchback of Notre Dame on church bell. It’s enough to drive a symbol of evil and waterspout turned tourist attraction to distraction. And don’t even get me started on “The Writing on My Father’s Hand.” What’s that all about? Are we talking cheat sheet? And Gerrard’s vocals? Full-bore Renaissance Faire horseshit. Your tourist types eat this stuff up. But your average tourist is a trained sightseeing monkey being led around by the snout by the travel agencies to every musty historical eyesore in the City of Lights.”
“Bottom line is the pretentious lunkheads in Dead Can Dance make that band Renaissance sound like the Archies. What does it say about us as a culture that people actually listen to such drivel? Go to a Latin mass instead. Form a Joy Division tribute band. Become a castrato. Listen to enough of this stuff and your balls with shrivel up and fall off anyway.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit harsh?”
“Not at all. I’m an open-minded guy. I love Black Oak Arkansas. And David Bowie, except for that “Let’s Dance,” which he should have been drawn and quartered for. But Dead Can Dance are precious as a geriatric heiress’s poodle. The frilly undergarments of rock and roll. Dead? I wish. Dance? Sure, if you’re doing the St. Vitus.”
“Are you speaking for the entire gargoyle population in Paris?”
“I know a gargoyle at the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur who likes them. But he likes Blackmore’s Night too. Play him some Iggy and the Stooges and he’d topple over crushing a tour group from Iowa. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, come to think of it.”
“Another beer?”
“Make it a Bud Light. Spend a couple of centuries drinking swill, and it grows on you.”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D-
