Sunday, August 7, 2016

A Look At The Week (7/31-8/7)

       Let's get right into it.

                                 













What I've Been up To:

      I've taken to drawing stripes on my face. This may or may not be the direct result of watching too many Black Veil Brides videos. Regardless, I think it looks cool.

       This post is going to be completely full of pictures. Let's just make that clear right now.

       Since this was the last week before my partner arrives (tomorrow!) I spent some time with friends and family. We went out for a day in Berkeley, got some amazing clam chowder in San Francisco, and went to Alameda beach. I'm going to miss all these things so much when I go away for college.

                                










       Above are my parents when we went out to San Francisco. Apparently they used to go to this restaurant, The Clam House all of the time. It's historical too. They had a plaque saying it had been open in the same location since 1861.

       This week I also started a new series, Goth Reviews, which you can see in my previous post. Besides that I have just been cleaning and organizing my stuff, getting ready to pack. I have finally gotten to see the course catalog for Amherst, so I've been thinking about what classes I want to take too./

What I've Been Listening To:

       I'm still on quite a Black Veil Brides kick, but I have also been listening to O.Children and Shayfer James as part of my Goth Reviews series.

Some Posts I've Liked:

       Devin Faye at Alternative Enby wrote a great post on goth hair colors other than black. It's a good post and I love the amount of diversity included in the pictures. Check it out here.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Goth Reviews: O.Children

       I'm starting a new series on my vlog called Goth Reviews. In it I am going to review goth and otherwise dark media from a goth perspective. Some of it will definitely be goth, while other things will simply be pieces of media that I feel would appeal to a goth audience.

       I'm planning to focus mainly on small artists or things that are fairly unknown. As the series gets bigger I may occasionally go over more well-known things, especially if they have remarkably good representation or I am just really enthusiastic about them.


       Anyway, in my first video for the series, which you can watch above, I talk about the UK-based band O.Children. O.Children is a modern band with a very traditional goth sound. Recently I have seen a lot of discussion over whether or not traditional gothic rock and post-punk music is dying out. Finding this modern rendition of old school sounds was both tickling and encouraging.

       O.Children is fronted by Tobias O'Kandi. He has a magnificent voice, is far taller than everyone else in the band, and is also black. I wish that wasn't so uncommon in the goth scene, but unfortunately it is. With the utter lack of POC representation in the goth community, finding a goth band that is fronted by a black man was absolutely thrilling. As I say in my vlog, representation is vital to feeling accepted within a scene. If you never see people like you in the community it can be really difficult to feel like you belong. Because of that it is really important to bring attention to the POC artists in our community.

       Currently O.Children has two albums released: the self titled O.Children (2010) and Apnea (2012). I haven't been able to find any information about the group that is newer than 2012 so I am not sure if they are still together or if there are any plans to release more music.

       This group has a number of interesting stories. O.Children grew out of the band Bono Must Die after they were forced to change their controversial name. Between the release of O.Children and the completion of Apnea, Tobias O'Kandi also faced a number of legal problems which lead, surprisingly, to Apnea being a far cheerier album that O.Children was.

       I look forward to reviewing more goth-friendly media. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment here or on the related YouTube video.