Reports are coming in fast and fervent from several friends who attended this year’s Tribal Fest in Sebastopol that the following duet between Rachel Brice (featured many times on Coilhouse) and Illan Rivière (also featured here previously) was one of the most electrifying performances at the diverse and thriving event:

Illan’s solo performance and Rachel’s group piece with her PDX troupe Datura are inspiring to watch as well. In fact, the entire video list for Tribal Fest 2012 over at YouTube is chock full of beauty and splendor and kinship. It would be easy to lose hours watching all of these wonderful dancers.

By the bye… a reminder that print Issue Six of Coilhouse Magazine features a beautiful in-depth feature about Brice and the modern tribal belly dance movement. We still have copies available for sale in the online shop, and when you buy that way, you also get a free, high quality download of a Rachel Brice music video that was produced for Coilhouse by the wonderful folks at Purebred Pro.

Post tags: Cirque, Dance, Events, Multiculti

Happy horrorday, batlings! Shake ya cobwebs.

(Or if you’re feeling more subdued, you can always just peruse the rather vast archive of Coilhouse posts tagged “Goth“.)

“I’m So Goth I Shit Bats” needlepoint by Defiant Damsel, available on Etsy.

Post tags: Dance, Events, Goth, Silly-looking types

Good morning. Pretend for a moment that this is not, in fact, the Spring of 2012, but rather the Spring of 1982, now thirty years past. We’re in England. New Romance is budding. Rocky Horror is a’rockin’. The likes of Gary Numan, Spandau Ballet, and Klaus Nomi rule subterranean radio.

Under the banner of SHOCK, two young London lads with very excellent bone structure and pop ‘n’ lock skillz named Tim Dry (who would one day become Tik from the robotic mime duo Tik & Tok) and Richard James Burgess (who would go on to produce all manner of sophisti-pop) have joined forces with two young London lasses with very large hair and dovelike coos called Carole Caplin (who shall one day become far better known as the tormented fitness and fashion consultant to Tony and Cherie Blair) and Barbie Wilde (who is soon to be immortalized in celluloid as the creepyhot female Cenobite from Hellraiser II).

And they make this splendiferousness happen:

Via Brian Moroz, with giggly thanks.

If you enjoyed this darque ‘n’ tender morsel of obscure nostalgia, you may also appreciate:

• Teen Goth
• Poésie Noire: “Tragedy”
• The MegaMen
• Bristol Punks
• Tim Curry in “The Worst Witch”
• “Die Sonne”
• Crowleymas, LOLeymas
• Darque Dungeon
• Haysi Fantayzee
• Nosferatu Vogueing: A Symphony of Horror
• Going to MTV Hell With Nick and Blixa
• Lene Lovich

Post tags: Better than coffee, Britannia, Cyberpunk, Dance, Geekdom, Goth, Hair, Music, Punk, Robots, Sci-fi

I may have just peed a little in my witchy-pooh panties.

And that’s all I have say about this:

The sprawling, quicksilver lyrics to this bilaterally symmetrical magnum LULZ opus have been posted below, because they’re… well, just read ‘em. And weep bitter crimson diamonds. Ov Darqueness.

[via DJ Dead Billy / Dangerous Minds]

Read the rest of “Pentagram Sam” by Da Grimston & Mist-E

Post tags: Adornment, Cosmos, Crackpot Visionary, Cthulhu, Culture, Dance, Geekdom, Horror, Magic, Occult, Silly-looking types, Testing your faith, \m/

A quick heads up: NPR just posted “The Music and Meaning of Paris Is Burning“, an article by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd that discusses Jennie Livingston‘s classic 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and the legendary scene and songs that it celebrates.

In addition to providing an overview of both the documentary and vogue ball culture (both past and present) the NPR feature includes testimonies from Big Freedia, Light Asylum, Zebra Katz, Del Marquis, and many others. A quick, great read. It’s also exciting to discover that the documentary –which has been, for decades, fairly difficult to track down a decent copy of– is now readily available on iTunes and Netflix Streaming.

The realm of Paris Is Burning: resonant and radiant as it ever was.

Post tags: Culture, Dance, DIY, Faboo, Fashion, Film, Gender, Grrrl, Music, Personal Style, Queer, Revolutionary, Sexuality

Bonjour, mes petits concombres!

If you’ve already experienced Will Sweeney and Steve Scott‘s animated psychedelic 2009 music video for Birdy Nam Nam‘s tune “The Parachute Ending”, look away. Or, hey, don’t. Because you know it’s trippin’ AMAZEBALLS and you probably won’t mind watching it again over a nice morning bowl of strawberries ‘n’ Special K.

Most Birdy Nam Nam-related things tend to be –in this blogger’s humble opinion– pretty thoroughly amazeballs. The BNN DJ crew is comprised of four fabulous Frenchmen known as Crazy-B, DJ Need, DJ Pone, and Little Mike. They joined forces in 2006 and has been steadily gaining notoriety ever since thanks largely to their novel and challenging style of music-making: they take thousands of samples gleaned from various sources, press all of the beats and patterns into towering stacks of vinyl, and then assemble/spin these kaleidoscopic collaged elements live. It’s bleepy bloopy bonkers brilliance.

Enjoy, and have a gorgeous day.

© Birdy Nam Nam / Steve Scott 2009

[Hat tip to Mr. Maps!]

Post tags: Animation, Better than coffee, Dance, Drugs, Faboo, Music, Robots, Sci-fi, Vive la France

But the beat must go on. Perhaps… in hologram form?

In (somewhat oblique) honor of the departed (and because NO halfway decent excuse to feature the Mael Brothers on Coilhouse should ever be passed up) here’s a fabulous performance of “Pulling Rabbits out of Hats” by Sparks on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in 1984, followed by a unexpectedly sweet and silly “interview” between three very disparately distinguished gentlemen. SO GOOD.

Previously on Coilhouse:

• “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us” Top of the Pops, 1974. (A very old post, wherein I get grumpy about Bedford Ave. hipsters and the SPARKS energy drink. Ignore that bit. S’all about the MAEL LURVE.)

Post tags: Dance, Memento Mori, Music, Sci-fi, Stroke Material, Television

Snarkily hilarious (abbreviated) animated version of Dubba Jonny‘s infamous dubstep tutorial piss-take. By TreeHouseCharles.

(WEEB WOB WOB WUGGUDUDDUH WARG WOOB WOB)

Post tags: Animation, Dance, Music, Silly-looking types

(Via Jesse Kaminsky.)

If, upon surveyance of the above clip, compulsive butt wiggling occurs, you are probably Bat-deficient.

Here’s another test to help determine whether or not you are Batmanemic:

Did you lick the screen? If yes, consult your general practitioner immediately.

This has been a public cervix announcement.

Post tags: Better than coffee, Comics, Dance, Medical, Silly-looking types

Via TouchTheSun.

Many of you are, no doubt, already familiar with these darque dance styles… or various iterations/amalgams thereof. (For instance, those “Cobweb”/”Cappuccino” moves are quite similar to an ancient SoCal spookypants maneuver known as “Pick a Penny Up, Put it Over There”. And “Step Over Your Dead Friend” is a kissin’ cousin to the time-honored “I Have Shit Myself and I’m In Distress” dance often seen in Atlanta, GA goth clubs shortly after a new shipment of ketamine has arrived in town.)

Well done, Hubba Hubba batlings! We await your cyber-industrial tutorial with bated breath.

Post tags: Dance, Faboo, Film, Geekdom, Goth, Music, Silly-looking types