Docs, Nurses, Attorneys, Music

[manny at telerama.com]

>
> Manny, what you fail to grasp is that people were using that term in
> Pittsburgh prior to the show in question. They were even hanging out
> with each other. They were even referring to it as a scene. That you
> weren't aware of this only shows that you weren't there. The fact that
> you didn't have the personal experience doesn't mean it didn't exist.
> You can only argue that without shows and club nights a scene doesn't
> really exist -  which is really the core of your argument and is
> actually a much more interesting question to consider.

No, in fact I'm NOT going to argue that, probably much to your surprise.

If in fact 1) there were people regularly using the term 'goth' to describe
an entire subgenre of music before The Garden's 1987 cassette (and I *was* there
for that, I got the tape to play on the air, which as I said, was part of how
the idea for the CMU show came about) in Pittsburgh, and 2) they referred to it
as a 'scene' (even if a 'goth' show hadn't actually happened yet in the area),
then I concede, the 'scene' could technically exist as a small bunch of people
hanging out, even if there were no shows or club nights
yet labelled specifically as 'goth'. Regardless of whether I knew it existed or
not.

Obviously, the term 'gothic' had existed to describe certain bands from the UK
since the late 70s (from the time of 'Bela Lugosi') and it must have trickled
down to at least a few people in Pittsburgh. Whether it was used by more than a
tiny handful of people in Pittsburgh, though, until about 1987 or so, seems
doubtful, otherwise I'm sure I would have heard the term on WRCT and WPTS used
to describe bands. But I didn't. For example, I taped the entire '
Top 88.3' countdown of WRCT in both 1983 and 1984 which included a wide range of
postpunk and college-rock bands, and no band on those lists was described as
'goth'. So, a 'scene' of sorts existed, albeit an tiny, undefinable one.

It's true that in 1986 when I put out the OUTWARD INWARD cassette
of what I thought were pretty much all the local experimental/electronic
groups, I didn't know of the existence of SDI, for example. But in 1986 I was
still more into both synthpop/new wave and industrial, and wasn't considering
postpunk/dark rock for an 'experimental' compilation anyway.

So it's a matter of precise wordsmithery. Instead of saying 'that show started
the Pittsburgh goth scene' I can instead say 'that show was the first in
Pittsburgh to be specifically labelled and promoted as being a goth show'.
And that is certainly pioneering spirit enough, given that it was, most likely,
Pittsburgh's first 'goth' show, and certainly the first large-scale one.