Blood Puppet submitted this photo with the comment: “This is an entire goth band in a tree circa 1993. Sure, the keyboardist is smiling but the bassist is in considerable pain taking almost her entire body weight on her sensitive stomach across the arching trunk.”
The best thing about this photo is the curly haired guy up the tree because I KNOW HIM. In fact, I used to co-manage a goth club with him back in the early 2000s and here’s the tragic proof from 2003 (don’t bother asking what I’m wearing - I’d come straight from work for the photo). This band is called Blood Puppet and I can attest to their gothness because I have been lectured about it for years in the “oh you should have been around in the good old days” kind of way. I don’t know the submitter, though, so I doubt she knows that I know the curly up-tree.
I’m pretty upset with my mate up the tree because I have never seen him smile like that. Ever. At least the rest of them aren’t smiling. It’s daylight and there’s at least two up the tree at a reasonable height.
4 out of 5 - Cronyism is alive and well in Goths Up Trees land.
la-chatte-noire submitted this photo and one other with the comment “I just fell upon these pictures of Lucas Lanthier and Daniel Ribiat from Cinema Strange, and I thought that they’d both qualify as goths up trees. I do apologize for the sunlight and Lucas’ obvious lack of any attempt to get up the tree. I found both photographs from the Cinema Strange fansite: cinema-strange.de.”
Just this morning I was thinking about how that this site lacks photos of goth boys frocked up and sitting in trees with giant fans and, low and behold, this photo was sitting in my drafts folder. What a coincidence!
So this is Daniel Ribiat from the goth-rock band/project Cinema Strange. These guys are well loved in the goth scene and I feel a bit silly that I don’t know a lot about them but I love them anyway because of giant fans and frocks and up-tree posing. There’s no smiling here and he looks to be a decent height up the tree. It’s daylight but I’m giving bonus points for the makeup, outfit, fan, glimpse of thigh, and regal expression.
4.6 out of 5 - You and I both know that a regular sized fan would have been ridiculous.
“I don’t know if this meets your criteria, but it’s worth a shot… This is a screencap from the video for Black No. 1 by Type O Negative, which I’m submitting to you because every time I see this bit of the video it reminds me of gothsuptrees. Type O Negative may not be a goth band, but they are liked by a lot of goths (like Rammstein, who you deemed goth enough to post a picture of) and this song is a homage to/parody of the goth subculture. The video also features lots of gothy individuals, including those up the trees. So, I put it to you: is a picture of some goths up trees (with Peter Steele in the foreground) in a rather gothy video for a song about goths worthy of being included on your site?”
Of course this bloody song is worthy of being on my site! I love Type O Negative and I haven’t seen this film clip in ages, otherwise I would have submitted it to myself. The screenshot is taken from about 1 minute into the filmclip and if you watch it you can see that there are others up the tree too. I have no idea why Peter is standing in front of a tree playing a double bass like a guitar while people up a tree wave their arms but WHO CARES.
The up-trees are high up, it’s night time and some of them look like they’re dressed as Droogs.
5 out of 5 - Enjoy Type O Negative in front of trees
Die submitted this photo with the comment “This is the entirety of Zombina and the Skeletones in various stages of up-ness of a tree in about 1999. The tree is admittedly fallen and it is daylight, but conversely it is also a dead tree and it is in a graveyard, so swings and roundabouts, eh?”
Swings and roundabouts indeed. To be honest, the volume of goth excellence in this photo provided by the up-trees and the supporting cast vastly outweighs any potential issues I have with fallen trees. The tree is quite massive so there are at least three goths high up it. There isn’t much smiling going on, thankfully, and the up-tree goth in the centre (with the excellent boots) is looking at the photographer like she wishes they were dead. I’d like to know what the guy up the top is pointing at. My guess is the photographer just made a terrible joke like: ‘What do you get if you cross a goth and a toilet? The cisterns of mercy.’ and the pointing guy is very much ‘LEAVE NOW’. Yeah, I’d leave now if I were the photographer. That joke was terrible.
It’s daylight, but there’s a boy with a skeleton t-shirt and a fez in the supporting cast. Take that.
4.9 out of 5 - Cisterns of Mercy! hahaahha
Ingrid submitted this photo with no comment.
Ok, OK, I know bamboo not technically a tree and to be ‘up’ bamboo would be very difficult but, to be honest, we can’t see if Siouxsie and Budgie from Siouxsie and the Banshees are off the ground. As far as I’m concerned it’s entirely feasible that they’re balancing on small trees among a bamboo forest. Yes, that’s it, small trees in a forest that we can’t see.
What can I really say about this? Uber punks/goths: check. No smiling: check. Night time: check. Height up the tree: questionable. They’re both wearing matching leather pants and Siouxsie’s going for a tribal vibe with her necklace and chest piece (looks a bit like a beaded curtain at my Grandmother’s house). Siouxsie’s frankly too cool to look at the camera and fair enough too. Budgie looks a tiny bit scared but if he’s balancing on the aforementioned tiny tree then that would make sense.
4.5 out of 5 - Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Patrick Von Peterson submitted this photo with the comment “Larvae, apparently”.
3 questions:
Is this a band or is it just a group of people who have one of those friends who happens to carry a warlock guitar around with him at all times? I know one of those people and they’re annoying to go to the supermarket with.
When he says “larvae” is he suggesting that they’re baby goths or is this the band’s name?
Why is the up-tree goth holding a wand? Is he going to do some expelliarmus-type spell to rid the warlock wielder of his guitar so they can go to the supermarket?
The goth girl in the supporting cast appears to be talking to the hat wearer. I imagine she’s saying, ‘Get out of shot, Barry. The rest of us gothed up like we had planned and you wore sneakers and a BEANIE. GTFO.’ I’d say the hat-wearer was the drummer on the basis of this costume error but I think the up-tree is actually the drummer (and the wand is a particularly goth black drum stick). Speaking of the up-tree, he is smiling, damnit. He’s a reasonable height up the tree but it’s daylight.
4.5 out of 5 - Don’t let your band members supporting cast outshine you.
Ettrick Scott from Newcastle (UK, I’m guessing) submitted this video with the comment “hi, video here of 80s newcastle goth band Slaughterhaus. at one point, they’re all miming up a tree (42 seconds) then at the 2.42 mark, the guitarist gets up into a tree and vandalises it. strong stuff….”
I’m just going to let you guys watch and learn from this lovely Novocastrian band of big haired goths. They’re up trees a lot. They’re hitting trees instead of drums a lot (tree abuse, to be sure). Watching the whole thing will probably hurt your eyes a bit due to blurriness but it will also show you that your hair could always be that tiny bit bigger and, if you’re having a craptacula day, you could always get up a tree and pretend to play an instrument and feel awesome. Enjoy!
4.5 out of 5 - Goths up trees IN ACTION.
crillyashes submitted this photo of the band Ashes to Angels with the comment “Whats any band shoot without a gratuitous tree shot?”
I tell you, Crillyashes, I would like more Goth bands to do gratuitous tree shots. Especially shots in black and white. That would make me happy in the pants. The posing in the tree encompasses 3 of the 5 phases of Goths up trees posing: 1) magnificently OTT crotch displaying pose, 2) staring down at the on-ground peons pose, and 3) casually sitting in the tree looking off into the distance pose.
The supporting cast is interesting also. One is clearly a Goth, the other is clearly a hardcore scene person (what is their official name? I don’t know). Only one person in this shot is looking at the camera. Let me guess. He’s the singer? Or the drummer. Don’t even get me started on drummers.
It is daylight but there’s no smiling.
4.5 out of 5 - MORE gratuitous tree shots
How could I ever top the Robert Smith up a tree post? I probably can’t, however I do have this gem that my friend alerted me to. This, my friends, is Rammstein. All of them. Up a tree.
Now I know what some purists are going to say: ‘HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MARBLES? RAMMSTEIN IS NOT A GOTH BAND!’ But I put it to you that you take yourself to a Goth club at about 3AM and ask the DJ to put on some Rammstein and watch what happens to the dancefloor and then tell me that they shouldn’t be included here. The truth of the matter is that drunk Goths love Rammstein. Many sober Goths love Rammstein too and that’s OK with me.
Here we have 6 for the price of one and that’s a pretty massive tree. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about Rammstein (other than I enjoy a drunken lurch to them and they like pyrotechnics and making pr0n filmclips) but I am comforted by the fact that the majority are wearing black and are wearing boots. It is daylight and I know I’m going to be slammed by the purists but to the purists I say this: just get really drunk and read this post while listening to Rammstein’s song ‘Engel’ from the album ‘Sehnsucht’ and YOU WILL BE HAPPY. For bonus Goth points, Rammstein did a cover of Depeche Mode’s song Stripped. Yes, purists, the lyrics are “Come with me, INTO THE TREES”.
