"You follow the path that you meant to avoid
A matter of time till an echo unfolds
What the next step might bring?You take a look back
While your heartbeat is raging to this song you sing."
-- Diary of Dreams, The Wedding

So, as some of you may already know, Splinter (promoted by DJ Femme Mystique) has closed its doors this week after an attempted reboot last month.

This makes me unhappy for a couple of reasons -

1. I missed the reboot because of the family emergency I mentioned in a previous post. I really wanted to go because, as I explained in that previous post on the topic, Splinter was going to be my kick-off for a crazy goth-y four-day 4th of July weekend. Ultimately, this means that I never got to go to Splinter before it died. And that makes me feel really bad - like I didn't do my job in supporting them enough.
2. More selfishly: I was really looking forward to going tonight. I had actually set it up to take tomorrow off of my day job so that I didn't even have to get up in the morning and could just dance myself stupid into the wee hours of the night. On an off chance, I checked Splinter's Facebook page only to learn that there wasn't going to be a tonight. Now what the hell am I going to do with my evening? I see a porn-centered consolation prize in my future.
   
3. This subtracts a monthly event from what had looked like a steady build-up of goth/industrial club-nights. As many have been wont to remind me when I talk to them about SFGothic.net, there was a time in the mid '90s when there was a goth club almost every night of the week in the City, if not two. And the last year or so seems to have seen something of a renaissance among the darkling community. But the scene is still small enough that one club lost means a loss of a measurable whole-number percentage of the entirety - for the mathematically-minded, it's roughly 2-3% of all the things I'd tagged for the month of July. So Splinter's absence effectively diminishes the entire scene - from Sacramento to San Jose.

So what do we do about all this? Ultimately, I don't know. I'm not even really sure why Splinter didn't work out, since I never got to go.

Femme Mystique's comments on the Splinter FB page suggest that she believes the Thursday night timing to be a big issue. I suspect she's at least partially correct. I think the "last Thursday of the month" element might be compounding that problem further, though, since "last Thursday of the month" might by the 4th or 5th Thursday, varying from month-to-month depending upon where the extra days after the first 28 fall on the week.

Also, the "single weeknight of month" aspect can be a big killer. It doesn't seem to be a deal-breaker for the Friday and Saturday events, but that's because they're Friday and Saturday nights. The only regularly-occurring week-night events seem to be every week (Examples: Death Guild and Bondage-A-Go-Go) or, at least, nearly every week (Example: Swing Goth). "Little" events like the Cell manage to make it by focusing on very small venues and catering to much smaller crowds than a San Francisco-based club is willing to risk income on - not to mention that the Cell also focuses on a very specific type of entertainment, what with the performance art and dance angle rather than a club-orientation.

Either way, I wish DJ Femme Mystique and her crew luck, and I hope to see them rolling out another club night soon. As she mentions on the FB page, they're looking for something on Fridays or Saturdays, which (as you can see above) I think is a better idea for a once-a-month event.

Here's hoping.

-- Mr M.

"Hey you hey you,
Let's hear you scream.
I'll spoon-feed you my imagery.
I need you, I need you,
to spit it out.
I'll be what everyone talks about."
-- Aesthetic Perfection, Spit It Out

So I want to thank all of you for helping promote SFGothic.net on Facebook! Now that we have enough "likes", we now have a Facebook page with it's own address: www.facebook.com/SFGothic.net. Hooray!

But it seems that I've gotten a taste of this fame thing and now I want more. And I've recently been playing with Google+ (which is fairly awesome by the way - if you have a Google account, I'd recommend giving it a try). So we've now added an awesome "+1" button to the page as well!

Since I'm limited by Weebly's software, it might be a bit before I can get a button for individual blog posts - but you can always follow me (MisterMephisto in case you've forgotten me) on Google+, and I'll do my best to keep you updated via posts there.

So, thanks again to all you awesome people that have supported SFGothic.net! And please continue to do so!

Because it starts to look a little funny when all I'm doing is talking to myself.

-- Mr. M.

"Everybody, everybody! Oh yeah!
Stand up, don't be shy.
People, people, people!
Get up! Get up! Get up!
Everybody: TESTIFY!"
-- Repo: the Genetic Opera, We Started This Op'ra Shit!

Dark Shadows

So I got to enjoy another evening of Dark Shadows on Friday (7/15/11).

DJs Melting Girl and Daniel Skellington have built a fine industrial and gothic club night with DS, and I look forward to it continuing for some time. And, as always, the Visceral Vixens were a treat to watch (I've started giving my favorites nicknames, since I don't know most of their real names - maybe I'll start doing a little "Vixen of the Month" entry?).

The only issue (and some secondary sources seem to agree) was that this third night of SF's newest (and already tied for the best) goth night was extremely crowded. I observed some element of this in my last post on DS as well: the way the Cat Club is structured makes the space extremely tight. And Dark Shadows' seems to be already falling victim to its own success on this account.

Is this something that can be fixed without costing DS attendance? I'm not sure. As I mentioned in that previous post, having a vendor take up one whole "sitting section" of the Cat Club certainly exacerbates an already problematic situation. But the crowd was big enough that I'm not even sure this fix would help in the long haul.

Or maybe I'm crying "fire" over a candle. Maybe the other night was simply an unexpected and irregular (but still good for the promoters) attendance spike and, with time, as DS becomes more of a fixture of the scene perhaps this will become less of a problem...

But now it sounds like I'm actually hoping against their continued success and that's not the case at all. I want DS to be wildly successful. And I always want there to be a crowd of awesome and interesting gothic folk keeping it strong.

So maybe I should just shut up about it?

Moving on...

Solace

I finally got the opportunity to attend Solace last night (7/16/11).

The short version for the tl;dr folks: Solace is lovely and charming and intimate and Meph plans on making it one of his regularly attended events.

Now the long version -

Happening once a month at the Vagabond Ballroom in Oakland (which it co-inhabits with other monthly events such as the Vespertine Circus and, my newest indulgence, the Cell), you already know that the event is going to be intimate and comfortable.

And DJs Persephone and Darkmoon have absolutely focused their energies towards taking advantage of these attributes of the venue.

Solace might be more aptly considered a salon (much like the Cell), in the classic sense of a group of people gathering in a comfortable space, listening to music, and indulging in company and conversation (from politics to art to philosophy... I even spent an hour discussing all-shows-geek with one fellow). Between the tenor and low-volume of the music (don't expect much industrial here, children!), the insistence on a dress code (no jeans, no sneakers!), and the open, genial nature of the attendees (who are a very welcoming but still close-knit crowd), it almost seems silly to call it a "club", at least in the modern sense of the word.

No thumping beats. No go-go dancers. No yelling over the music to a bartender that doesn't care who you are so long as you pay for that drink (speaking of which - while the selection may be a little limited at the modest little bar, the drinks are fair priced and well-mixed for your money).

No. Solace is for those with an interest in a more classical and elegant Romantic Goth scene (think Byronic and Victorian) involving pleasant interaction more than loud music, conversation more than gyration, and a warm and welcoming atmosphere more than the dour "isolation in a crowd" that many a club (and maybe a bit too much of the scene in general) offers.

Along with the natural ambiance of the Ballroom, the music that provides the mood for Solace tends towards swirly and "classic" goth, classical and neo-classical, ambient, and chamber music - with a smattering of little charming bits from things like the soundtracks of Labyrinth and Legend. And the dancing ranges from the well-known and flowing "goth style" to twirling waltzes and cotillions - it actually makes this dark soul want to learn ballroom dancing so that he can join in.

And now, my favorite part - the attendees. Never have I walked into a club and been so warmly welcomed and made to feel so comfortable and relaxed. Half the attendees know each other, but, instead of sitting in a little clique and excluding the irregulars, these lovely people are among them - personally welcoming them, asking how they like the club, and initiating (and sustaining) pleasant conversation in little knots throughout the venue space.

I would like to personally thank DJs Persephone and Darkmoon, Lorelei the Bartendress, the lovely Alexis (of Alexis Berger Designs), the delightful Madame Deidre Anaid (of the Cell) and Steven, Eve, Charles #1 (the dashing doorman), and Charles #2 (my geek-fu conversationalist) for making my first evening in attendance a lovely and thoroughly bewitching one.

-- Mr. M.

So when I initially envisioned SFGothic.net, a calendar of events was definitely part of "the plan" - someplace that my fellow darklings could go, click some buttons, take some glances, and see everything I could find to include over the next month or two.

But I quickly got caught up in maintenance and expansion and soon forgot about my dream of a gothic event calendar. For, y'know, a whole two months or so.

Well, the wait is over, kiddies. for the SFGothic.net calendar is now undead and kicking!

I'm sure it will be undergoing an occasional overhaul here and there as we move forward. But, for now, I've got all the current one-shot and re-occurring events/clubs on there.

Obviously, the club and event pages are still good for links and details and such - but now we can see, at a glance, all the weird and awesome stuff happening in the greater Bay Area... At least, all the weird and awesome stuff that I'm aware of.

As usual, let me know if your favorite event isn't on the list.

Thanks be to Saint Google, for her divine indulgence and righteous illumination. Amen.

-- Mr. M.

So, back on 7/8/11, SFGothic.net had over 130 different visitors in a single day. And the next day we had over 70. These are the two highest unique visitor counts we've had so far and it's amazing!

I'm attributing this more than a little to the lovely Madame Deidre Anaid of the Cell linking us on her Dark Fusion Facebook page and connecting her awesome fans to us. So many thanks go out to that classy lady!

Some of you with more web-experience are probably scratching your heads going: "Wow... really? That's all and you're getting excited?"

But the fact of the matter is this: SFGothic.net is a niche website. We're catering primarily to goths and industrialists and other alterna-folk specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area who are active enough on the Internet to actually find or hear about us, which makes us a niche-within-a-niche-within-a-niche. And while some of the information herein reaches out as far as San Jose to the south and Sacramento to the east, the info from those areas is spotty at best - so our core demographic is fairly centralized.

All of our advertising is word-of-mouth, the business cards I manage to drop off at events I'm personally attending, and a Facebook page that doesn't even have enough "likes" to become its own named address yet (that's my next goal, so I can put it on the next batch of business cards).

So, yeah. 130 different IPs hitting us in the same day is pretty awesome. Having it followed by another day of 70 is even cooler.

On the other hand... I know that there's more than just a few hundred people out there that could use the information provided on this site. So now I want to hit that 100+ mark every day. I want my next: "Awesome!!" to be about hitting the 200 visitor mark. Or, even better, the 300 visitor mark.

So if you're a fan of SFGothic.net, I want to ask you for a couple of small favors:

1. Go to our home page or to our Facebook page and "like" us on Facebook.
   
2. Tell friends and family and acquaintances about us, especially if they're of a darksider persuasion. Shoot them an email or mention/link us on your Facebook page a couple of times or "like" our links. Help us broadcast our existence! Let the world know that we exist!
   
3. Comment on the blog! Tell me if you find a post interesting or inaccurate or just plain ridiculous.
   
4. Send me (via the contact page or even just in blog comments) information about the events, shows, concerts, clubs, whatever in your neck of the woods (whether you're one of the promoters or just a fan) and let us advertise it here! It's free advertising which can only help make those events more successful.
5. Also via the contact page, send me suggestions of things you'd like to see on the site or hear about or maybe just things to chat it up about.

And you don't even have to do all of these things to help us out. Just one or two of the above could really boost our site traffic and get us linked on other people's pages and further disseminated throughout the region and the scene. And that slowly pushes us further up the rankings on Google searches, bringing even more people to the site.

And if you do any of these things, tell me. Shoot me an email or leave me a comment (on the blog or on Facebook). Let me know so that I can thank you for helping SFGothic.net be the resource it is intended to be.

-- Mr. M.

"I'm closing down my life, I'm making room for a brand new show.
It will consist of empty dreams, high fashion wars, and dollar smiles.
It will be filled with disco bombs. All I want is for you to be in the show."
-- Combichrist, In the Pit

So, I got the opportunity to go to the Cell for the first time on Thursday night (7/7/11).

The Unsinkable Molly Mitchell (who, I believe, occasionally performs there) actually let me know about it; mostly, I suspect, because she's just so damn awesome. So many thanks go out to her.

Venue: The Vagabond Ballroom

The Vagabond is a very cozy and classy little spot hidden inside a kind of "multi-warehouse" building right next to a little residential strip in Oakland.

Dominated by a small stage, with a nook bar to one side and pleasantly decorated all-around, the location serves as an excellent and charming space for Dark Couture. It's small enough to allow people to talk to one another while still hearing music and seeing performances, while still providing a surprising amount of open space (even with the furniture around the edges and near the bar).

My only complaint is that the bar has a very limited alcohol selection (though this may be something that changes from event to event). They had Bombay Sapphire, so I was safe - and scotch would probably have been limited to Johnny Walker Red... so it's still serviceable and we probably shouldn't hold it against them. I just really wanted some decent scotch that night. :)

The Vagabond is not a place for large crowds though. The space is small and best used for small gatherings and performances (such as the Cell and Club Solace).

The Performances:

Dark. Beautiful. Deviant. Elegant. Disturbing. Fun.

These are just some of the adjectives that came to mind as I watched the performances. Most of them were interesting goth and industrial fusion belly dance pieces, involving excellent musical choices and clearly skilled dancers.

There was even one "hip-hop" style piece, and, while I generally don't care for the style or the music, the dancer seemed technically proficient and was clearly enjoying herself and being enjoyed by the crowd.

If I knew the names of the dancers better, I'd really love to give shout outs on each performer. I recall one name, but to focus attention solely on her (even though she was exquisite to watch - I've seen her at some of my favorite events and my simple mind failed to recognize that her delightful dancing in those venues reflected a broader artistic intention) would be an unfair disservice to the rest who were also equally fantastic and enjoyable to behold.

EDIT:I've managed to get the names of the dancers I got to see at the Cell (Thanks to Mistress Paik!) -

Dusty Paik (www.snakechurch.com) - I missed Dusty's first performance of the evening unfortunately (as she describes it: a gory, grimy gypsy piece), and for that I am very sorry. But she was also our  "hip-hop" dancer mentioned above. I do want to make clear - despite my stated antipathy above to "hip-hop" dancing in general, Dusty was, in fact, a joy to watch. This latter performance was both saucy and fun. I hope to expand my appreciation of Dusty's repertoire in the future.

Ariellah (www.ariellah.com) - This dark angel is the one that I have seen dancing (and enjoyed watching) on the dance floors at some of my favorite clubs, all while failing to realize that she danced professionally. As I've come to realize, everything that Ariellah does is elegant and lovely. As with Mistress Paik, I missed her first performance as well as a performance by her troupe of students, known as Forlasi (For shame Mister M!! For shame!). But her second performance was one of a soft, understated, and dark beauty, supported with a somber music - like watching the ceremonial funereal dance for the dead emperor of a dead world.

Marjhani - This wondrous dancer came to us from the wilds of Arcata. I actually got to catch both of her performances, much to my immense pleasure. Marjhani's work was decisive, proud, and mysterious, backed by a solid industrial sound. And her intense eyes felt like they locked on you as you watched her, seducing you further into her power. I couldn't look away, and I hope to be so seduced again in the future!

Jodi Waseca - Jodi's piece was, in turns, haunting and disturbing, involving a cracked-faced porcelain doll, a black lace blindfold, and a blue shroud (really the only way to describe it)that she shed partway through alongside her blindfold. I honestly can't remember the music, because I was so rapt with her performance. I remember it being dark and moody and maybe a little fractured... which is fitting given that her portrayal was the same.

Final Thoughts:

The hostess (and occasional performer, though she didn't perform this night) Madame Deidre Anaid really has something to be proud of with the Cell. She's built something wondrous and darkly lovely with a feeling of neo-Victorian elegance and culture - exactly the sort of event that this self-appointed (and self-obsessed) art critic wants to see more of.

Concerts and clubs are awesome, of course. Don't get me wrong. But the style and intimacy of a salon is really an experience in itself and, as far as I'm concerned, we can all use a bit more art in our lives.

Ultimately, I'm hoping to see a broader range of performances at the Cell in the future (maybe small musical/vocal performances, poetry and other written art readings, single-scene single-act plays, non-dance performance art; just to name a few examples/suggestions) - but what I saw certainly sufficed for a first taste and a solid start.

As such, I'm adding the Cell to my own monthly "Grand Tour" of the Bay Area's Underworld.

So, I want to apologize for going dark this last week. I was forced to miss all the things I wanted to do over the Fourth of July weekend and the weekend prior - and I definitely want to apologize to the people I said I'd support and then wasn't able to.

First, I missed the Saints of Ruin release party back on 6/23 because I was leaving town for the weekend and needed to get packed. I hope those that made it enjoyed it. Anyone heard the new album? If so, tell me if you like it. I'm willing to pick it up if it's got some supporters out there.

Over the holiday weekend, I was hoping to go to the newly reborn Splinter on Thursday, go to Strangelove's Military Fashion Show on Friday, then go to the belly dance performance by the Standfire Collective on Saturday, and wrap up my weekend by heading out to Sacramento for Asylum on Sunday (since I was off work on Monday and wouldn't have to get up and be functional the next day).

It was going to be an awesome weekend of Gothic overindulgence and high fuel and bridge-toll expense - and I was totally fucking game.

And then a family emergency reared its head and destroyed the whole weekend. And since I had to now head down to Southern California, it was all of the expense and none of the fun (and three times the fucking heat, thank-you-very-much).

And, while the emergency itself resolved fine (thankfully), it also came with further and long-term bad news on the same front.

So, now, I want to punch Fate in the face. Also: cancer and heart problems. Fuck cancer and heart problems in their stupid ears with gigantic, flaming, spiked-and-barbed cocks.

I'm getting a little fucking tired of people I love dying all around me. This isn't the transhumanist, post-scarcity, 200-year-life-span future I was promised in my youth. Why haven't we cured the fucking plagues of the 20th Century yet even though we're in the 21st Century? Where are the god-damned hypo-sprays that just make this shit go away?

Why does making rich old people's dicks hard get priority over a baby's heart imploding on itself or bodies fucking cannibalizing themselves in some form of fucked up body-horror insanity?

I do want to thank my family (close and extended) for making this last weekend at least vaguely tolerable. You guys always surprise me with how well you roll with the punches and adapt and pull together.

So, at the risk of coming across sappy,thank you all for being so fucking awesome when the chips are down and the whole damn world is falling apart.

Even though most of you will probably never get around to reading my blog. :)

All that said, I'm hoping to make it out to the Cell's Dark Salon tonight at the Vagabond in Oakland (anyone care to join me?) to see some awesome dance performances and listen to some excellent music.

And maybe some liquor. Liquor would be perfect.

-- Mr. M.