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By Jeff Bateman |
It was all there, at Lollapalooza. Every alternative music style you could imagine. As young people celebrated their musical tastes, they made their own kind of statement.
Fashion is a statement of self. Put on a suit and tie, comb your hair and flash a toothy smile, and whether you mean it or not the look says you're ready for a fast track career.
Opt instead for a tattoo, nose ring, ripped jeans and rad haircut, and you're defining yourself as the determined outsider rebelling against convention.
Music can be just as effective in telling society and your peers who you are and where you fit in.
Metalheads appear to be, and usually are, a vastly different breed to Celine Dion fans.
Fashion. Music. Codes of conducts. Patterns of speech. Combine them and you have the superficial trappings of a tribal group, one that's unique and distinct from either society or any other tribe.
Most of us, young and old, belong to the tribe of the majority. We dress alike, share a common culture and think along similar lines.
It's the non-conformist, however, that TG will focus on over the next nine months and five issues. In particular, the musical tastes and fashion statements of the following small but influential tribes:
The rave is the year's hottest event, and we'll focus on the people and sounds to be seen and heard in hot, cramped warehouses in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver;
There's the disco/soul revival. wherein dancers bound to the deep grooves of Erasure and Deee-Lite while teetering on platform shoes of Canadian designer John Fluevog.
Hardcore/Garage is the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Rollins Band, and Seattle heavyweights like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. The look is baseball caps jammed on backwards, t-shirts and knee-length shorts.
Rap. Urban America comes to life. Ice-T. Public Enemy. Ice Cube. Dream Warriors. Raiders caps. Hooded sweats. High-topped sneakers.
And the hippie revival, all tie-dyed shirts, peasant skirts and happy, smiley-faced good vibes, tangoing with the sounds of the Greatful Dead and others.
tgmag@tgmag.ca