Links! And more pretty visuals

There you see, I said I'd post something soon.

We'll start off with a few fun eBay finds before I forget about then completely. Looking for a quirky wedding present? How about these? Muppet-style vampire puppets with retractable fangs, customised to look like the real bride and groom. To be honest, they're damn weird looking puppets but I think the general idea is just adorable. If those are a bit out of your price range, how about this pretty dress? I've got my eye on that one at the moment. Not sure lurid purple can really be considered "Steampunk" but it's pretty, no?

Talking of things that aren't Steampunk, Regretsy have started posting things on that very topic. I'm particularly taken by the not-at-all-Steampunk-cat.

Anyway, I promised pretty visuals and pretty visuals you will have. Now, regular readers will recall that I am somewhat suspicious of tumblr (like blogger only for people with shorter attention spans), partly because the site itself encourages short, insubstantial tweet-like posts and constant reposting, but also because it seems to attract pretensious and arrogant people (case in point: if you search tumblr for "goth" you end up with this bloke who clearly isn't a goth, doesn't like goths and tends to post ugly pictures of indie kids wearing black, with only the occasional eighties post punk video to redeem him). Thankfully there are some good gothy tumblrs around too. Nowthisisgothic is an excellent collection of photos and scans, never reposted from elsewhere and quite often not seen online before. She posts fabulous pictures of big-haired new wave types from the eighties and beyond.

Deathwaves post lovely pictures of deathrockers, goths and cool, often obscure, bands, with the odd song or video thrown in too. It's a good place to look for inspiration and for links to other gothy tumblrs (most of which I won't bother posting here since if you're looking for band pictures there all you need do is type "fuck yeah (name of band) tumblr" into google and see what turns up).

One blog that doesn't need much introduction is the Gothic Charm School: Pretty Things page, which does what it says on the tin really: gothy fun things posted by Gothic Charm School Headmistress and blogger extraordinaire The Lady of the Manners. She does keep going on a Haunted Mansion kick though, not sure I quite see the appeal myself.

Another queue worth keeping an eye on for band pictures is Raw Goth Insurrection, a personal tumblr kept by a punky gothy bloke from Seattle. Lots of fun pictures of crusty punk types in spiky leather jackets, lots of slightly faded scans of bands with enormous hair, lots of good tunes, lots of slightly nerdy humour.

And talking of slightly humour, I have to say I get a real kick out of LOLbadseeds, like LOLcats but with pictures of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. There's a lot of bands whose photos lend themselves to LOL macros, why has no one thought of this before? And why, with all those silly pictures floating around, is there not a LOLDamned blog?

Oh and you know when I said there's a "fuck yeah" tumblr for pretty much anything? Well, on the plus side "anything" includes Skinny Puppy and this picture:

I'll give you a moment to absorb the sexy. Bare-chested, tattooed, long-painted-fingernailed, eyeliner-sporting, backcombed-haired, sinewy-armed sexy. Yup, I definitely have a crush on him. He's also prime Bloody Gorgeous material...

Annnnyway... Next time on postpunkpixiedust I'll be posting exciting gothy book reviews! Featuring: Gothic Charm School, Voltaire, Gavin Baddeley, Poppy Z, and Nivek Ogre! (You see, sometimes I even plan what I'm going to post.) And remember you can keep up with my less gothy reviews and rants over on my Triond page.

I'll leave you with a couple of videos for those who want to hear more of the sort of stuff I was enjoying last week at M'era Luna. Here's Unheilig, the happiest Neue Deutsche Harte band in the world with a suitably sweet song, complete with chorus of children.



I'm rather fond of Der Graf's exaggerated gestures here. And his beard.

And now, to counteract the adorable, here's some angry Laibach.



Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

And now it's time to shut up and go and make the most of Film4's horror season (notice the use of Bauhaus on the promo video there. Everything's better with a liberal sprinkling of Bauhaus).