ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to highlight the characteristics of gothic music prior to its creating a 'subculture' and to describe a point of radical disjunction at the site of emergence of the particular form of Gothicism. In theories of gothic music, and within the gothic subculture itself, the violence of this site of emergence has been forgotten. Gothic musicians used their bodies as instruments; they used their bodies to inform their audiences that there was something not entirely 'human' about the workings of society, the world, the music industry and politics. The vampire, the undead individual who is immortal and infinite became gothic rock's sign for the underside of the 'star', the very epitome of individuality. While the individual-as-star gained its immortality through 'fame', the individual-turned-vampire, the undead decadent individual, garners his through condemnation, to forever live by draining life from others.
