Gothabilly
Encyclopedia
Gothabilly is one of several music and cultural subgenres of rockabilly
. The name is a portmanteau word that combines gothic and rockabilly. The earliest known use of the word gothabilly was by The Cramps
in the late 1970s, to describe their blend of somber, rockabilly-influenced punk rock
. Since then the term has come to describe a fashion and music trend that bridges both the gothic and rockabilly subcultures.
s released by Skully Records in the mid 1990s.
Although the term is attributed to The Cramps
, their musical style is closer in formula to the surf rock sound of the early 1960s combined with the traditional "12-bar blues" format than to 1950s rockabilly rhythms and vocal styles. Occasionally, they have been associated with gothic rock
primarily because of their use of fetish clothing and outlandish makeup, including heavy, dark eyeliner on both male and female members of the band, which is also popular in the gothic subculture. The Cramps are considered to be equally influential to the psychobilly
genre.
Gothabilly is particularly active in the western portion of the United States
, with many of today's bands originating in California
.
and blues
influences of rockabilly but adds aspects of punk rock
and gothic rock
to create a distinct combination of styles. The gothabilly sound was defined in the mid 1980s embodied by a slower tempo and melancholy ambience with romantic, literary, occult and religious themes. More recent adopters had brought a faster pace and horror themes often with a humorous or comic attitude with deliberately cheesy themes, such as camp 1960s monster movies and the television shows like The Addams Family
and The Munsters
.
Gothabilly is frequently viewed as a sub-sect of the psychobilly
subgenre, as both use the upright double bass
and simple rhythms of rockabilly chord progressions and incorporating punk influences. However, gothabilly differs from psychobilly in that gothabilly lacks much of psychobilly's aggression and incorporates aspects of gothic music such as jangly guitars drowned in reverb, rolling jungle drums, organs, and tends to be slower and more atmosphere-oriented. While both incorporate monsters, ghosts and other horror imagery and themes, gothabilly adds aspects of the romantic and paranormal.
aesthetics of the rockabilly subculture, but with a dark gothic influence, blending retro rock and roll
fashions with the somber features of goth. Bands such as The Cramps were more influential as visual icons and stylistic archetypes than for their musical contribution to the gothabilly genre.
The gothabilly wardrobe incorporates some style elements from the retro culture revival, including: stylized flames, 50's tattoo
imagery, animal prints, creeper shoes
, cherry accessories and ubiquitous polka dot
clothes, pencil skirt
s, fishnet stockings and high heels, all popular in both the rockabilly and psychobilly scenes. The goth influence can be seen in the softer textures of black silk
s, satin
s, lace
and velvet
, corset
s, top hat
s, antique jewelry, PVC
, and leather
.
and share interests in B-rated horror movies, kitsch, hot rod
s (especially hearses), vintage fashion, the macabre and all things noir
.
The gothabilly subculture, while still comparatively small, is spreading through internet communities, blogs and chats as well as concerts and other social events around the world.
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
. The name is a portmanteau word that combines gothic and rockabilly. The earliest known use of the word gothabilly was by The Cramps
The Cramps
The Cramps were an American rock band, formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated much over their existence, with the husband and wife duo of Interior and lead guitarist Poison Ivy the only permanent members...
in the late 1970s, to describe their blend of somber, rockabilly-influenced punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
. Since then the term has come to describe a fashion and music trend that bridges both the gothic and rockabilly subcultures.
History
In the late 1970s, The Cramps helped to create a proto-gothabilly subgenre. However, the term gothabilly was not popularized until the release of a series of international gothabilly compilation albumCompilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
s released by Skully Records in the mid 1990s.
Although the term is attributed to The Cramps
The Cramps
The Cramps were an American rock band, formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated much over their existence, with the husband and wife duo of Interior and lead guitarist Poison Ivy the only permanent members...
, their musical style is closer in formula to the surf rock sound of the early 1960s combined with the traditional "12-bar blues" format than to 1950s rockabilly rhythms and vocal styles. Occasionally, they have been associated with gothic rock
Gothic rock
Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
primarily because of their use of fetish clothing and outlandish makeup, including heavy, dark eyeliner on both male and female members of the band, which is also popular in the gothic subculture. The Cramps are considered to be equally influential to the psychobilly
Psychobilly
Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly...
genre.
Gothabilly is particularly active in the western portion of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with many of today's bands originating in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Musical style
Gothabilly is a musical subgenre that developed from mixing the gothic subculture with rockabilly music. Gothabilly retains the country musicCountry music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
influences of rockabilly but adds aspects of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and gothic rock
Gothic rock
Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
to create a distinct combination of styles. The gothabilly sound was defined in the mid 1980s embodied by a slower tempo and melancholy ambience with romantic, literary, occult and religious themes. More recent adopters had brought a faster pace and horror themes often with a humorous or comic attitude with deliberately cheesy themes, such as camp 1960s monster movies and the television shows like The Addams Family
The Addams Family (TV series)
The Addams Family is an American television series based on the characters in Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 installments on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966...
and The Munsters
The Munsters
The Munsters is a 1960s American family television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. It starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era,...
.
Gothabilly is frequently viewed as a sub-sect of the psychobilly
Psychobilly
Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly...
subgenre, as both use the upright double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
and simple rhythms of rockabilly chord progressions and incorporating punk influences. However, gothabilly differs from psychobilly in that gothabilly lacks much of psychobilly's aggression and incorporates aspects of gothic music such as jangly guitars drowned in reverb, rolling jungle drums, organs, and tends to be slower and more atmosphere-oriented. While both incorporate monsters, ghosts and other horror imagery and themes, gothabilly adds aspects of the romantic and paranormal.
Fashion
Gothabilly style is a tongue-in-cheek play on 1950s-inspired kitschKitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
aesthetics of the rockabilly subculture, but with a dark gothic influence, blending retro rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
fashions with the somber features of goth. Bands such as The Cramps were more influential as visual icons and stylistic archetypes than for their musical contribution to the gothabilly genre.
The gothabilly wardrobe incorporates some style elements from the retro culture revival, including: stylized flames, 50's tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
imagery, animal prints, creeper shoes
Brothel creeper
Creepers or brothel creepers are a type of shoe.They found their beginnings in the years following World War II, as soldiers based in the deserts in North Africa wore suede boots with hardwearing crepe soles because of the climate and environment...
, cherry accessories and ubiquitous polka dot
Polka dot
Polka dot is a pattern consisting of an array of filled circles, generally equally sized and spaced relatively closely in relation to their diameters. Polka dots are most commonly seen on children's clothing, toys, and furniture, but they appear in a wide array of contexts...
clothes, pencil skirt
Pencil skirt
A pencil skirt is a slim-fitting skirt with a straight, narrow cut. Generally the hem falls to, or just below, the knee and is tailored for a close fit. It is named for its shape: long and slim like a pencil.-Style:...
s, fishnet stockings and high heels, all popular in both the rockabilly and psychobilly scenes. The goth influence can be seen in the softer textures of black silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
s, satin
Satin
Satin is a weave that typically has a glossy surface and a dull back. It is a warp-dominated weaving technique that forms a minimum number of interlacings in a fabric. If a fabric is formed with a satin weave using filament fibres such as silk, nylon, or polyester, the corresponding fabric is...
s, lace
Lace
Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...
and velvet
Velvet
Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed,with a short dense pile, giving it a distinctive feel.The word 'velvety' is used as an adjective to mean -"smooth like velvet".-Composition:...
, corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...
s, top hat
Top hat
A top hat, beaver hat, high hat silk hat, cylinder hat, chimney pot hat or stove pipe hat is a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, predominantly worn from the latter part of the 18th to the middle of the 20th century...
s, antique jewelry, PVC
PVC
Polyvinyl chloride is a plastic.PVC may also refer to:*Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military honor*Peripheral venous catheter, a small, flexible tube placed into a peripheral vein in order to administer medication or fluids...
, and leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
.
Culture
The term gothabilly is used not only to describe a musical genre but a fashion and a lifestyle as well. Gothabilly and psychobilly both enjoy the sound of the double bassDouble bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
and share interests in B-rated horror movies, kitsch, hot rod
Hot rod
Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Another possible origin includes modifications to or...
s (especially hearses), vintage fashion, the macabre and all things noir
Noir
Noir is the French word for black. It may refer to:- People :* Noir , Danish Dj & Producer. Owner of Noir Music...
.
The gothabilly subculture, while still comparatively small, is spreading through internet communities, blogs and chats as well as concerts and other social events around the world.