Takhisis
Perhaps unfairly dismissed as a novelty, this band played a striking form of gothic country rock, and earned a respectable following without ever quite breaking into the mainstream, and eventually split after being dropped by a record label who had heavily promoted them in pursuit of said missing mainstream crossover. The heavily gothic image appears to have estranged the country audience, and the rootsy elements did not endear them to the goths, leaving the band trapped between two stools and ultimately unsuccessful. Both elements might have found the band's name, drawn from an evil Goddess in a role playing game, a little too metal as well.
The band's first mini album, Chromatic Dragon staked out their territory from the off. A mix of country standards and originals, the sound was dominated by Rhiannon Steele's strong voice and Nimue Ravensong's violin playing drones akin to an acoustic shoe-gazer guitar. The was a cover of the Grateful Dead's Box Of Rain which impressed many, but taken as a whole the rest of the album sounded like generic noughties Americana with a few gothic flourishes thrown in. The appalling cover art, showing the band posing in fetish gear in a dungeon full of badly sculpted fake torture victims who looked like they'd been stolen from the set of a low budget '80s zombie film, impressed nobody.
The album did impress Maverick enough to sign the band and Stanguary appeared the following year. This showed a rockier sound, with more amplification, and goth's traditional phasing and flanging effects all over the string instruments. Steele's voice had improved immensely, sounding warmer and less forced, and the songwriting was also improved. However, the more conventionally rocky sound drew less attention than the earlier record, and despite a heavy push on the two singles, the album bombed.
The band's final bow, Coprophilliac's Anonymous, emerged after two years of negotiations with the record company. Rumours of suppressed album sleeves and an unreleased video for a planned single persist, but remain unproven. With lead guitarist Jerome Bakshi having left to join the British drone rock band Stone Machine, the band reverted to a largely acoustic sound, and performed a barnstorming set of countrified covers of classic and alt rock songs, to surprisingly impressive effect. The approach particularly suited the one single released from the album, a cover of Husker Du's "Diane" which may well be the band's finest hour but never had a hope in hell of charting.
Following the band's dissolution, both Steele and Ravensong went into folk oriented bands, Steele forming Skystone with former Takhisis utility player Ross Swithin and an even more kinky image, and Ravensong joining former Iron and Wine members in The Mugwumps, a much more conventional looking freak folk revivalist outfit. Nothing further has been heard from any of the other members.
Chromatic Dragon **
Stanguary **
Coprophilliac's Anonymous **
The audition was surprisingly thorough. I'd schlepped out to Essex with my bass, expecting to be told to play through a song parrot fashion, and was surprised by the absence of any musicians when I arrived. In fact, I didn't speak to anybody in person until I was offered the job.
The address turned out to be a smallish unit on an industrial estate. None of the other units looked like they were being used. I parked, found the door and used the four digit number I'd been texted to open it. Once inside, I found myself in what would have been a fairly impressive home studio on one side of a screen wall with an intercom mounted over it. There was a webcam next to the intercom. Somebody liked their privacy.
I also found a music stand set up next to an amplifier, a two seater leatherette sofa for those who'd prefer to play siting down, and a number of acoustic instruments on stands. The couple of acoustic guitars were expensive models, but I couldn't hazard a guess about the banjo, mandolin, lute or bouzuki. I wondered how many people had fallen at the sheet music hurdle, as a lot of rock musicians don't read music, and even folk and jazz musicians can have problems with that.
The intercom buzzed. "Hi," a voice said. Male, REP English, soft. There was a hint of distortion on it from the intercom, but that might have been deliberate. "I hope you don't mind getting straight to it. Could you play through that piece on the stand, please?" I plugged my Mustang into the amplifier and did so. It wasn't a particularly tricky line, and looked suspiciously like the root notes to a set of chord changes. "Great," the voice said. "Your resume mentions that you were the lead guitarist in the Moonfish. Think you can handle the piece on the next page on an acoustic?"
I looked at the next page on the stand and tried not to smirk as I realised I'd been right about the root notes. There were some rather fancy fills and riffs mixed in around the chords. "I think so," I said.
"Great. Let's hear you take a stab at it. Use the Washburn and don't bother plugging it in." The Washburn was one of the thin bodied electro acoustics. I picked it up, adjusted the strap and started playing. On an acoustic, the tune was quite folky sounding, Roy Harper or John Martyn rather than the drone drone drone whine whine whine approach idiots who thought Devandra Banhart was a role model were into at the moment. Something duller would have been easier to play, but I hit all the notes. and hoped that I'd proved I could read music.
"Could you try again, but play around the tune a bit?"
"You mean try my own riffs and fills around the chord changes and root notes?" I asked.
"Yes, please."
"I'll give it a go," I said, and did. The chord changes were pretty basic. I arpegiated the chords instead of strumming them, inverted one riff and spread another into two separate fills, ignored the rest and filled in the gaps with other stuff. There was a longer pause when I finished this time, but I didn't think I'd disgraced myself.
"I think that'll do for now," the voice said through the intercom. I might be flattering myself, but they sounded a little impressed. "You play bass rather than guitar when you can do that because it's easier to find a gig?"
A perceptive question. "Partly," I said. I didn't mention that they'd advertised for a bassist. Maybe the advert for a bassist was some sort of elaborate double bluff. A lot of bassists are frustrated lead guitarists, after all.
"Do you play anything else?"
"Rudimentary keyboards," I said. "I played violin at school but haven't touched one since. I'm not bad on the harmonica, but hard as it may be to credit, there isn't much call for that in goth or hard rock bands."
"No other strings, then?"
"No, I don't play the banjo, the mandolin or any other rootsy instruments," I said.
"Hardly anybody does," the voice said. "Still, a guitarist will do for now. Why don't you come through and have a chat about the gig?"
"Be happy to," I said. I put the Washburn back on its stand, turned off the amplifier, and opened the door in the screen wall. Rather than turning around running the other way when I saw what was in there, I skipped a beat while I told myself I needed the money, and this was a band on the way up.
It's easy to be wise with hindsight. A goth type band advertising for a bassist but actually wanting an acoustic guitarist and with a load of acoustic folk instruments in the audition space should have suggested Skystone, but nothing had been said about Ross Swithin leaving the band yet.
Skystone had a kinky image. It was always assumed, if anybody even bothered to think about it, that this was a put on act for the stage, and they wouldn't bother with that at other times. The spectacle that confronted me as I walked into the space they were holding the auditions from gave a lie to that.
Two members of Skystone were sitting in the room. It was easy to tell which of them was in charge: she was the one sitting in the armchair. The guy I'd been talking to was kneeling at her feet with the intercom control in front of him, and a mixer that the amplifier next door and the microphones I hadn't spotted were hooked up to. He had a laptop as well. There was a MacBook on a side table next to the armchair, but that wasn't switched on.
It's perhaps a bit unfair to say that they weren't dressed down a little. Rhiannon Steel's hair was pulled back into the sort of ponytail that reminds you just how long a horse's tail really is with a not very fancy rubber bunji, and she was wearing spectacles rather than the contact lenses she always wore on stage and in public, and I hadn't known that she needed. Apart from her glossy black nail polish, she didn't seem to be wearing any makeup. That was as far as the dressing down went: she wore a black PVC corset dress with a puffball skirt that went to mid thigh, Stevie Nicks platform calf-boots and sheer stockings or tights. She even had little fishnet gloves on her hands, with frills around the wrists. Maybe that was why she wasn't using her laptop. it wasn't the full-blown Dominatrix getups she wore on stage and on record covers and interviews, but it was pretty fancy for day wear.
Her accomplice was a lot kinkier looking on this occasion. A black and pink zebra print t shirt was the most conventional thing he was wearing. Some sort of metal jockstrap or was hooked to a chain around his waist, and he wore pink woollen leg warmers, that I later found out had soft pads over the knees. His hair was pink as well, dyed the same shade as his Mistress' and cut into a short wedge with the sides shaved up over his ears. he wore one of the loose metal slave collars that's like a big ring around his neck, and padlocked metal manacles on his wrists and ankles. He did wear makeup, very gothy looking white foundation, deep red lips, and more pink on his fingernails and eyelids.
Taking all this in was where I skipped a beat. I have an idea that my expression might have betrayed me. Certainly a smile flitted across the singer's poker-face as I tried to pull myself together. She waited for a second to make sure I was properly unnerved, and then threw me a lifeline.
"Come in and take a seat," she said. There was another smallish sofa facing her armchair. I sank into it and told myself they were just messing with my head. At least I'd made an effort to dress up a bit, even if a black and white polka dot shirt, black drainpipe chinos and suede chelsea boots were a lot less fancy than her own get up, at least I hadn't turned up in jeans t shirt and trainers. That never went down well with goth bands.
"Thank you," I said. "Hello. Can I ask what the situation is?"
Rhiannon Steele smiled and gestured. "As you can see," she said, "I'm a slave down, and I need a replacement. You might be the boy, if you're interested."
It didn't escape my notice that she said "slave" rather than "musician". Skystone were pretty much a goth version of Peter Paul and Mary with a kinky image. It looked like that wasn't purely a put on image, unless they were living up to it to give potential new members a taste of how they handled the media.
