the_spirit_mage

Well, you're here, reading this page, so we mind as well get to spamming and shameless advertising:
Join my group, Faerie Goths, if you have an enthrallment with the dark subculture and the mystical, mysterious world of the fae! http://www.last.fm/group/Faerie+Goths
Now that that is over with...

I have come... TO PLAY MUSIC (tracks)! And spam!

Well, since this is a music community, I guess I'll start with that.

I REALLY like music.

My existance might cease without it in this bleak, boring world.

That being said, I enjoy a little bit of everything, though I'm more attracted to music that is dark, ambient, nostalgic, eerie, melancholy, dramatic, and tragic. People use the now rather broad term "gothic" to describe my taste, but it goes deeper. I am especially in love with neoclassical, ambient, ethereal, world, and folk based music.

I'll basically give anything a try, but there is some stuff that I hate or just can't stand sometimes (and I will say things that some people think but don't want to say out loud for fear of getting flamed, and I'm here to say, "BRING IT ON, BITCHES."):
1) Just about anything that is played on ClearChannel, MTV, or VH1 for hopefully obvious reason (Hint: PAYOLA).
2) Gangsta rap (How did a genre like hip hop go from politically and socially conscious themes to talking - yes, TALKING; not any form of singing or rapping - about sex, drugs, and weapons like in this suck-ass genre?)
3) Country. I was indifferent to this stuff until about a three years ago, 'cause you know us carpetbaggers: we say how we hate country quite diligently, even though it's not played enough in urban areas for us to listen to and hate. But I woke one night to hear a country song playing on my radio, and I thought, "Holy shit! How depressive and crappy can a song get?!" I must sound like an idiot since I listen to the epitome of what the public finds "depressing".... I only like one country song: "Black Soul Choir" by 16 Horsepower, and some call them "goth Americana", sooooo... (Update: LIES. 16 Horsepower AND Woven Hand are awesome.)
4) Black Metal. Just don't agree with a lot of the subject matter and I'm not much of a death screeching gal since it kind of causes a headache after awhile... This goth likes deep growling. :) Though, I can tolerate some metal with black metal influences like pagan metal stuff.
5) Nu Metal (so glad I grew out of this stuff)
6) A lot of techno music (grew out of it, too)
7) Emo and pop punk. Okay, maybe they're not entirely or virtually the same, but they still have the same amount of annoyance.
8) Female-fronted symphonic and gothic metal. Why does this seem like more of a beauty pageant than any sort of musical fandom? Why is it that a band is considered gothic or symphonic if their is a pretty front woman? And good grief: It seems that only Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Within Temptation, Theatre of Tragedy, and Elis have the ingenuity to NOT have some simple-minded band name ending with an -a, like KrpyterIA, LunaticA, ImperIA, SirenIA, MagicA - basically, adjective/noun with an -(i)a at the end. I'll toss EpicA and TristanIA a bone on this one, since they don't sound nearly as generic as some other bands - that and Tristania is a genus of flower and Sirenia is the order in which sea cows belong in, but for the latter I think they were going for the whole myth of the Sirens (which leaves me guessing with some of their vocalists). And I'm not particularly saying that all of the bands I mentioned as examples are just carbon copies of each other, but.... Anyway, I guess I just have my sights on male-fronted symphonic metal, neoclassical metal, gothic doom metal, and gothic symphonic metal bands that have more in common with neoclassical darkwave (like Chalice, Ava Inferi, Avrigus) rather than power metal (plus what ever happened to bands just quitting after their lead singer either left or died? I'm not saying that it's a good thing that this sort of stuff happens, but, it just seems like even if they sold millions of albums world wide, the band cared more about the individual and unique role that that person played in the group and the legacy that they carried, and selling another million copies with a new singer just wouldn't fill in that void. Nowadays, people don't even quit bands as much: they get fucking fired!).
9) The Cruxshadows. For real now: everyone hypes about them but I really don't get them (and believe when I say that I tried so hard to like these guys - or rather, guy and his harem). It can't be Rogue's nasally voice. Is it the almost sky-clad females prancing about the stage?Okay, not going into their wardrobe, but I don't see them as the epitome of darkwave. Personally, when I expect to hear a male gothic voice, I wanna hear a voice that is having sex with my hear drums (low, husky, masculine) not some squeaky squirrel monkey (Rogue). I dunno. Give or take another year, maybe I'll suddenly start liking them more (it's not as if a miracle like that has never happened before :P ).
10) Amy Lee's voice. Oi - just because your band got WOWINYOURFACE famous doesn't excuse you from vocal training. Okay, maybe it's not because she inherently has a flawed voice (she's not a bad singer), since her lower husky voice does make for good lullaby music in my opinion, but maybe it's how they layer her voice in the studio; frankly, it makes her sound like a two headed monster in some songs. Still too harsh? Well, aside from that, Evanescence puts out more drama than they do actual music.... They've been around since 1995 or whatever and they've only put out two full length albums??? The emergence of We Are the Fallen hasn't made anything any better - not that I have anything against them either - but in the end, the band ought to just change their name to Amy Lee and the Evanescence; it suites their drama quite well if you ask me.
11) A lot of cybergoth, such as Angelspit. Seriously, I only listen to two songs by them (as of 2/15/11, about six, so sue me), and I still managed to rack 40 something plays on them. I listen to "angry" music, but not the kind were they just say "bitch" and "fuck" over and over again.
12) Jrock/pop/metal, or rather, the Jrock/pop/metal "genre". IT'S JUST MUSIC FROM JAPAN (and, coincidentally, IT'S SUNG IN JAPANESE). No need to categorize it as if it's a special ed. kid. The same goes for contemporary music from Korea and China. I don't care what anybody says about this. MAYBE as a "tag" it's okay, but an entire genre of music, NOOOO.
13) Emilie Autumn. Another artist that people often think of as the epitome of gothiness. If this woman wasn't so caught up with her self-image, I'd probably take her seriously (come on - you really claim to be a direct descendent of the woman who modeled Alice from "Alice in Wonderland"? That's awfully convenient for your bloated ego). Stop totting your proclaimed mental disorder around just to sell more overpriced tickets to your Crumpet Club or muffins or whatever the shit your hyper fanbase is called (they're probably the worst part of E.A. Basically, as a good net colleague of mine put it, gothic/symphonic metal fans = Emilie Autumn fans, since she seems to cater to that crowd more than the actual industrial crowd. Sorry for generalizing, but the lot of you basically act the same as far as fans go). That said, I can't get that whole Attrition thing from a few years back past me, which leads me to say => Atrittion and Project = In for the Music; Emilie Autumn = In for the Money. Sure, I can agree that her music is unique (much like with Amy Lee's singing, I DON'T hate Autumn's music), but people treat her as if she received a degree in music that is higher than meth, and I like how they dressed up her biography in order to make it seem like so, even though Autumn mostly likely got the same education and treatment as anybody who went to music school got (but it's funny how it's never mentioned that she actually got a degree. Hmmmmm.....).
14) I also hate the whole metal vs. hip-hop debate. Okay: so I like metal way more than hip-hop (and I don't hate hip-hop, but I do listen to a certain type of hip-hop; refer to #2), but you'd think that the two scenes would be at a mutual understanding with each since, ya know: parental watchdog groups gripe and moan about how "metal and rap music are bad influences on my children because I let MTV govern their lives instead of my own parenting!" Whatever. But wait a minute -
15) MTV doesn't even show music anymore, a further downfall of modern music. But I guess over-protective parents with nothing better to do during daytime television time have less sources to blame their kids' badass behavior on the blame is being pinned on them more often now.
16) Something else that I can't remember at the moment (you're there! I KNOW it!!)

If you have any arguments with the above, then that's fine - I'm still going to say the same thing at the end of the day. And if you feel that you must degenerate my musical taste by talking down on the artists that I listen to, you may go right ahead with no interference on my part. After all, you're insulting them, not me.

Me in general? I think it's easier to say 1) I was born in the wrong century (though I'm more or less grateful that this century has a cure for T.B., typhoid, and syphilis) and 2) I was not a human in a past life. What was my past life? Probably a dryad.

I'm serious.

I had more description of myself, but I didn't want to be a blabbler mouth, so you can either a) buy my autobiography when I hit it big or b) befriend me NOW.

Don't be shy! I only bite the first time (I need to taste your worthiness)! :D

(About friending me: I really don't care. I'm not a "friend collector", as I feel that it is redundant on an online community such as this. We're all in this for the music and NOTHING ELSE - though it would make more sense if you have, at least, a "high" music compatibility with me)

Other random stuff that I like:
Cats, candles, cupcakes, neo/medievalism, vegetarianism, faeries (not fairies), urban legends, trees, spooky films (not scary. gory films), gargoyles, gloomy, wet days (the best are in spring and fall), wittiness, nature, walks through the forest (in all seasons except winter), Hellenic and antiquity, animals, goth and gothic, pagan holidays and holidays that fall around pagan holidays (yes, God-fearing Christians: this includes X-mas), neo/Victorianism, corsets and bustiers, animals, the arts, spinach, anything that smells like autumn (pumpkin, cinnamon, etc.), snow (in December ONLY), the ancient world, sardonic, black, and deadpan humor, dark/Romanticism, the "Orient", blossoms, portabella mushrooms, cartoons, arts and crafts, guinea pigs, the house to myself, sunny autumn days when the leaves are changing color, meditating and thinking alone, piercings and tattoos (though I don't like getting them because I don't like pain), comics/graphic novels/manga (as you can tell from most of my avatars), sewing, nifty trinkets, shiny, chocolate, spiders, pizza, fresh laundry, green, bats, the Renaissance, paranormal programming, pita bread, purple hair, butterflies, lace, striped stockings, sarcasm, purple lipstick, green eyeshadow, video games, a clear, winter night with a full moon (observed from the comfort of my room), purple and violet, flowing sleeves, chokers, twilight (NOT the book - EVER), spooky tales from beyond the grave, old black and white movies (despite the racist charm), Halloween, the bigger picture, and beating you up.