About Me
The history of John Adrenochrome :-
Since 1976, I've always been interested in youth cults/culture, music, and alternative fashion. It started I remember as a youngster, when my parents took me with them on a mini-break holiday to London in 1976. In one underground station I saw my first punk, and followed him through the underground's corridors in total fascination. It was the middle of the day, and the reaction from the general public walking around was just as interesting to me. Back then, punk was still brand-new, and I noticed how almost everybody was turning around to stare at him...and as a kid this impressed me greatly :-)
He was probably the first punk most of the of the people had seen, characters who looked as freaky as that had until-then only appeared in sci-fi programs on TV, or in films. He was wearing what I would now know to be white Vivienne Westwood bondage trousers, with a Sex Pistols T-Shirt, held together with safety-pins. These days, I expect no-one would bat an eyelid. In-fact, I'd guess the only outfit which would provoke a similar response today would be to go around the tube station starkers.
When I got a bit older, I became a punk myself (or more accurately, by '78-'79, a "Post Punk"). It was quite hard to be a punk at a uniform-only school. But I wore my badges depicting punk-band, "The Plasmatics", on my blazer with pride, secretly pleased that none of my teachers realised that the singer Wendy O was in-fact topless in the pictures....so subversive! And great fun for a 12-year-old. I also started spiking up my hair at this time, earning myself the nickname "Spike" in many quarters.
Later my taste evolved into the emerging New Romantic / Futurist electronic scene ('81 to '82), thanks to my big sister. In late 1980, when she was 17, she had started going along to "Freaky Friday" at the Kirk nightclub. This new Futurist/Electro scene had begun to eminate up from London, and all of the weird new British and European electronic stuff she started playing at home totally took-over my life. I was still far too young to go along to The Kirk too, but nevertheless, pretty quickly I ditched all that old punk crap. Every Saturday I would hassle her about what the DJ had been playing the night before, and what the latest weirdo haircuts and outfits were all about. I grew out my Spike haircut into a Wedge, and then into an exaggerated Wedge. So exaggerated in-fact, that for around 18-months I never saw anything through my right eye. My dad used to warn me that I would develop "Lazy Eye Syndrome", (whatever that is), and that I would end-up looking like Marty Feldman. But from 1981-on, the mad wedge-haircut stayed, and early Human League, Japan, B-Movie, Soft Cell, Kraftwerk etc became where it was at for me.
Then, after about 2 years, in 1983, I first heard The Danse Society on the John Peel show on Radio 1. Musically, they weren't too far removed from some of the electronic stuff I had already been listening to, but they had a definite darker element to both their sound and their image which interested me. I soon discovered they were one of the biggest bands on the emerging new "goth" scene, the UK-derived movement which was just getting underway at that time. Almost immediately, I ditched all of that old lightweight futurist-electronic crap, and became a goth. (Though as the scene was only just becoming established, initially in the media we were often called "Modern Gothics")! I started backcombing and growing-out my Wedge, and later dyed it black. Hey Presto, I was all set for the next 20-odd years!!
Whilst, with the fickle impatience of my early adolescence, the first couple of youth cults I had been into had lasted only around two-years each, since that time in 1983, I've really been only into goth. Primarily, my main interest is still classic British Goth music from around 1980 to the early/mid 90's, most of which sadly hardly ever gets played in alternative clubs any more. :-(
At my age, it's probably unlikely that I'll ever jump onto another musical bandwagon. Though when it comes to new-and-current music, I'm not yet a totally lost-cause ;-) I like quite a bit of new music, from the darker side of current indie (The Editors, The Killers, and Interpol), to some of the bleepy cyber-orientated stuff, such as VNV and the like. I also keep one ear on what's happening with all the new (trad)goth bands, though unfortunately I usually find them a bit too derivative.
In-fact, pretty much the only music I don't listen to is Hip Hop, R&B, Rap or Urban etc, and I don't like any sort of cheesy pop, house, or techno/rave. And I don't listen to any sort of metal.
Music and alternative fashion aside...I also like fast cars. I also like cats. I also like art and paintings, predominantly 19th-Century English, especially the late-Victorian Pre-Raphaelite stuff, particularly JW Waterhouse. I also like 21st-century technology. I also like lots of other things too, if you're wondering what else then ask me.
By the way, lots of old piccies of me and my friends here :-
John Adrenochrome's Fotki account
