Dinah Cancer, Ron Athey and Tequila Mockingbird at Lethal Amounts for book launch of Phantoms. All photos by Tequila Mockingbird.
Last Saturday there was a launch party for “Phantoms: The Rise of Deathrock from the LA Punk Scene” at Lethal Amounts, followed by a party at the Monty Bar. Nervous Gender Reloaded, Gitane Demone Quartet, Fat and Fucked Up, Only Theater of Pain, Witness with Ron Athey, and Snowsnake Orchestra with Don Bolles and Paul Roessler provided music for the epic Gothathon.
The book, a Herculean labor of love from English punk, Mikey Bean, is a treasure trove of information with over 680 pages of posters, flyers, and interviews. Phantoms took 10 years of collecting, writing, and editing and is the bible of Goth and Death rock, a musical genre thats in the late 70s (sometimes known at Gloom).
The book features the early scene, and also includes lots of insider info continuing up until today. Sort of a “Where are they now?” Even though a lot of us from the early Goth scene are gone, I have a feeling that the phantoms reanimated and joined us at this very special galactic occurrence.
