"Let's go dark to see what we find.
Turn out the lights and start to lose our minds."
-- God Module, "Let's Go Dark"

So, I had a weird night last night. In some ways it was amazing, in others, really kind of crap.

Let's start with the amazing, shall we? (I'll leave the crap part for the end so that you can skip it.)

The show at DNA was fucking awesome. Hands down. Do not pass Go. Balls to the proverbial wall. AWESOME.

Quick run down:

Twitch the Ripper was an interesting 2-man crew. Good beat, high energy. A sort of strange electro with Depeche Mode-style vocals. I'm not sure completely what my final analysis is. They were odd without feeling goofy. They were energy intensive, without being over-the-top. I definitely enjoyed them, so, thumbs up, I guess? How non-committal of me.

System Syn was a whole lot of awesome. Good solid energy and they played well to the crowd. You probably already know how good they are if you've heard any of their albums. So multiply that by two, at least, when seeing them in concert.

God Module - How to describe these guys? Imagine the best parts of the Cure getting in a car wreck with a bus-load of Heaven's Gate cultists. Limbs mangled and twisted and their music and screams turned to a rhythmic shriek of twisted steel while half of them start turning into zombies. Well, that's what I think of God Module.

In case you couldn't tell, that's my morbid idea of a compliment.

Imperative Reaction - The headliners. The primary reason many of us were there (not to say that System Syn and God Module weren't excellent draws on their own, but IR is really damned awesome). These guys were even better than the last time I saw them back in March. Pure high-intensity electro-industrial pretty-boy goodness. Where everyone else's energy was high, these guys were through the fucking roof and they didn't stop the whole time.

Of course, Clint Carney was basically on stage for everything except Twitch's performance, since he's involved with all three of the latter bands. If he was exhausted, he didn't let it slip, though.

Also, the whole crowd sang Happy Birthday to Adam Vex... Let it not be said that SFGothic wishes anything different: Happy B-day, Mr. Vex. I hope you found your party as much fun as I had watching it.

The evening closed with a final IR song with all the bands taking over the stage and screaming into the mics. Pure, unadulterated awesome, straight to into my black little soul.

Which was nice, considering that the non-musical portions of the evening kind of sucked ass. (This is the part that is skippable, if you're not interested in anything other than the performance - but it's my blog, so I'm going to take the space to vent some of my angst.)

First, I was stood up. That was extremely disappointing and left me in something of a funk as the show started up. (I'm trying to pacify my indignance with the knowledge that this person missed a very excellent show.)

Second, one of the DNA staff kind of jammed me up about dropping off my business cards for SFGothic. Now, I've asked the bartenders in the past if it's okay for me to leave cards laying around and they didn't seem to object. The remainder of the staff has seen me dropping off my cards for the past six months (including this staff member that gave me the hard time). And, to add insult to injury, I just spent part of an evening last week defending the DNA staff from some acquaintances that were complaining very strongly about past issues they've had with them.

To be charitable (and in retrospect), the staff-member was certainly just trying to give me a more-than-fair warning - he told me that the staff have been instructed to immediately eject people doing what I was doing. And, instead, he gave me a warning and let me stop. So I should probably be immensely more grateful than I'm coming across.

But it came off a little intimidating and, coupled with the aforementioned "being stood up", it just threw more bad feelings all over my evening.

Third and finally, heading home, I was going a bit too fast on the Bay Bridge. So, like those guys I'm usually laughing at, I got pulled over by the CHP. They gave me a quick sobriety test and a pleasant, but stern, warning (rather than a ticket) and then very politely gave me directions on the best way to get back on the 80 after being pulled off onto the 580 for my temporary detaining.

But still. Most surreal evening in a very long time.

-- Mr. M.

"Run around in the radiation.
Run around in the acid rain.
On a Black -
Black planet."
-- Sisters of Mercy, "Black Planet"

Spent a second night in a row at the Vagabond Ballroom, this time for Club Nocturne, DJ Burning Skies' submission to the Oakland goth scene (along with the help of DJs Xiola and Crow1369).

As usual, the Vagabond itself was classy and cozy.

But what do I have to say about Nocturne?

If you like your goth classic, with people dressed in black on black and the music all deathrock and post-punk, then Nocturne is definitely the place for you.

As opposed to the romanti-gothic Solace, Club Nocturne is more like the height of early goth; more 1980s than 1780s, more Siouxsie Sioux than Lord Byron, and far more underground club than Victorian salon in style.

I was only able to hang out for a few hours, unfortunately. I say "unfortunately" because the whole event was excellent. A sort of tenebrous homage to the ideal old-school goth aesthetic. Everyone in attendance was a vision of macabre and jaded beauty, as if I had fallen into some sort of time machine of morbid awesome.

On the plus side, they've already got the next installment of Club Nocturne planned for next month, on Saturday, November 26th, and there's talk of making it a regular monthly club-night. So I'll have plenty of opportunities to catch up on lost time. Don't be surprised once I get confirmation to find it added to the SFGothic.net club listings.

And don't be surprised if you find me there on a fairly regular basis.

-- Mr. M.

"But down in the underground,
You'll find someone true.
Down in the underground,
A land serene,
A crystal moon..."
-- David Bowie, "Underground"

So I just had a wonderful evening last night. And where did I have it?

Attending the season-opening performance of the Vespertine Circus at the Vagabond Ballroom.

Let's start with the music: the Vespertine Orchestra (who is not always in attendance, as I understand) struck me as a strange mix of Emilie Autumn and calliope music. Which, if you've heard Ms. Autumn before, you probably realize is actually fairly awesome mix and perfect for a small circus. (That sounds like a dig at Emilie Autumn somehow... it isn't really).

When the Orchestra wasn't playing, bits and pieces of interesting discordia was piped through the speakers, including bits from certain awesome soundtracks (I definitely heard some Sherlock Holmes in there).

As to the performance: a little bit vaudeville, a little bit punk, a little bit romantic, and a whole lot of charm; the entire evening was filled with astonishing delights and amazing acrobatics, amusing clowns and astounding juggling.

The ringmaster, Dr. Jack, was striking in his eye-directing bombasity and hoodwinking charlatanry. I was near to buying a bit of snake-oil from him myself.

Clowns Phineas and James MacConn did daring acts of balance and great physical comedy, and, along with fellow clown Elijah, they performed some amazing jugglery (and no shortage of tomfoolery).

The Mechanical Doll, Jezebel Wilder, was lovely and graceful, not to mention an elegant vision of beauty during her aerial silk ballet. While the handsome Phineas (mentioned above) also does positively astounding rope work himself.

And Elijah, one of the newest members of the crew, pulls off some immensely awesome hoop work.

Last night they were also accompanied by Jingles Frasier, a bellydancer extraordinaire, with some excellent shimmy and lots of jingle. Quite the pleasure to watch.

And finally, my personal favorite: La Petite Tilly Rex, the very tiny and super adorable enfant-terrible of the Vespertine's clown-set. She is a physical humorist of no mean talents. Also, she eats fire. So rather super awesome, too.

I don't want to ruin all the surprises for you, so I'll leave it at that.

The fact of the matter is that the Vespertine Circus was an immense delight, and my words can't really endorse or recommend them nearly as well as they deserve. A charming set of performers and personae who put on a lovely show in a comfortable space and are a pure joy to watch. They make me want to run off and join the circus.

Certainly worth a Friday evening with friends or a significant other (or potential significant other, hint, hint). Though I'd definitely recommend pre-ordering your tickets either way for the best deal on entry - not that this crew isn't worth full admission - just that you should take advantage of the fact that they are so willing to give you such a great price on such a lovely evening.

And for those that are wondering, I'll likely be at Club Nocturne tonight at the very same Vagabond Ballroom. Feel free to stop by and buy me a drink.

-- Mr. M.

"Unable to fight it.
It's pulling tighter on the noose.
Pumping concrete through my veins.
No way to get out of these fucking chains."
-- Imperative Reaction, "Panic Cycle"

I had a busy weekend. Then I kept going out to do more stuff instead of staying in and writing a blog post as I intended.

Oh well. Here it is.

I finally got out to Die Maschinen back on Friday night. It was pretty cool, all-told.

It was a little strange, as I didn't get out to the Cat until after 11. But the place was fairly empty upon my arrival. Yet, by midnight, the numbers jumped about three-fold. Not as packed as, say, Dark Shadows, but still a fairly solid attendance.

My only complaint was, at one point while waiting for the slated performance, the DJ in the back room seemed to be playing some kind of meta-beat and jamming songs into that arrangement - so you couldn't really tell when one song was ending and another beginning... not that any of the pieces were fairly distinguished, themselves. So, as we waited for the coming performance, it just sort of dragged the energy down in the back room with unending beats that didn't even really inspire dancing.

Bad form, that.

Eventually Demodulate played in the back. Very danceable, which was good. Got some serious work out on the floor thanks to them, alongside my new acquaintances from DG last week: Collin, Amelia, and Pythos. On the other hand, I was under the impression that we were there for a Down Machine Down CD release party... Maybe a last moment cancellation?

So, I finally got back out to Solace on Saturday, after all these months of fate fucking with my time-table. So imagine my disappointment when I heard that Solace is going on a couple-month hiatus while Persephone and Darkmoon find a new venue. Turns out they've been having some problems with the Vagabond's new pricing scale which seems to fail to take into account the fact that the Ballroom is fairly small (ruling out large crowds entirely) and in a fairly questionable part of Oakland (further depressing attendance). Needless to say, very small events like Solace and fellow Ballroom events the Cell and (recently) Club Nocturne can't really afford a price-jack based on unreasonable expectations from the VB's commune-inhabitant/caretakers.

It's a shame, because the Vagabond is a very awesome space. But the fact is that they're basically pricing themselves out of the small venue market. And the event promoters talk with each other, so when one of those promoters finds another suitable venue for a better price, the VB crew are like to lose the majority of their events in one fell swoop.

Regardless, Solace was awesome, if a bit morose from the announcement of the expected and necessary changes. Persephone and Dark Moon sound like they're shooting for a January reboot. So let's keep our black-nailed little fingers crossed, shall we?

As to Death Guild... Well, it's fucking Death Guild. It was awesome, as always. I can't usually afford to go to DG as often as I'd like. Not because of expense, mind you. I just hate going to work the next morning feeling more undead than usual.

So for me to hit DG two weeks in a row was a bit unusual. Last week I was able to take Tuesday off to escape the issue of getting up and being functional. This week, though, I got a last minute birthday party summons (BTW: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIE!! Also, Happy B-Day to Tawny and all those other folks that were celebrating birthdays that night as well... Seriously, there were fucking birthdays everywhere on Monday), so I managed to swing a deal with my boss to show up to work really late so that I could actually get some sleep and a shower before being expected to actually work on Tuesday.

Anyway... A busy but awesome week, all told. A week that's continuing right into this coming weekend - I'll be checking out the Vespertine Circus on Friday night for their first show of the season (missing Dark Shadows this month, unfortunately) and the second instance of DJ Burning Skies' Club Nocturne on Saturday (Reverence is just a bit too far for me this week - in distance and expense - but I hope they have an AWESOME HALLOWEEN PARTY despite my absence), both at the Vagabond Ballroom (I know, first I complain, then I go to the very venue I'm bitching about).

It's going to be a very Oakland weekend.

-- Mr. M.

"Confusion in her eyes that says it all.
She's lost control."
-- Joy Division, "She's Lost Control"

So I had an excellent time at Death Guild last night. So awesome that I had to take drugs to stop the body ache from dancing and slept in until noon today (boy am I glad that I took the day off - because wouldn't that have been a bit awkward?).

I got to spend some time chatting with the very lovely Ariellah about her upcoming ShadowDance event (more on that in a second) and got to make the acquaintance of some other extrmely awesome folks as well. A small shout-out and thanks to each them: Jenny, Collin, and Amelia and Pythos - the latter pair were kind enough to invite me to Die Maschinen on Friday to watch Down Machine Down perform (which I'm hoping to take them up on).

With that said, I wanted to focus a little on some amazing upcoming events of a non-club nature that have caught my attention and fancy:

SHEVIL Dead (Oct. 15th, 21st, 28th, & 29th) -
All the cheap gimmicky gore and goofy humor of Evil Dead, only without a fourth wall to protect you from the blood-spatter. Oh, and an all-female cast. All brought to you by the Primitive Screwheads.
Promised to be a conglomeration of both of the first two Evil Dead films and Army of Darkness, it sounds like we're not getting Evil Dead: the Musical... which is a shame, because the songs from that are wicked fun.
Either way, though, it promises to be a radical mess and, just like the films, in very poor taste.
Doors open at Cell Space at 7pm and the shows start at 8.

Beetlejuice LIVE! (Oct. 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 28th, 29th, & 30th) -
I only found out about this last night at DG. Some folks were handing out flyers for an "underground theater performance". Well, I'm taking them public in order to provide a little support (I'm a jerk like that).
Based on Tim Burton's infamous (and everyone's favorite) bio-exorcist ghost with the most, I can only imagine the potential heighth and/or depth this performance can attain to.
But it looks like good (and likely very goofy) fun.
Friday and Saturday shows start at 10pm. Sunday shows at 3pm. The horrors will be happening at the Dark Room Theater.

ShadowDance (Nov. 4th & 5th) -
Ariellah's two-night-long love song to dark-themed performance art is set to occur at the beginning of November. The first evening will take place at the Vagabond Ballroom and the second at the Oakland Metro Opera House. At both venues, doors open at 8pm and the art begins around 9.
It promises to be an amazing, intense, and unforgettable event, populated as it is with a myriad of musicians, puppetteers, DJs, performance artists, and positive scads of beautiful dancers.
Follow the link for tickets and a list of the performers and vendors to be in attendance (as the list is far to impressive to go into here).

Le Bal des Vampires (Nov. 12th) -
Brought to us by PEERS, the Annual Bal des Vampires is set to take place in mid-November at the Alameda Elks Lodge and runs from 6:30 to Midnight.
Dress in your favorite anachronisms or as your favorite goth or vampire-related icon. Ballroom dancing upstairs and general "club" dancing downstairs. the Ball will feature musical performance by chamber ensemble Bangers & Mash in the ballroom and DJing downstairs by DarkMoon, and a half-time show provided by Le Theatre des Vampires.
Tickest MUST be purchased in advance. No sales at the door.

And that about sums it up for today, my darklings.

I'll probably be at Die Maschinen on Friday and, hopefully, Solace on Saturday, for those that care about such things and want to have a chat or buy me a drink.

-- Mr. M.

"I'm all about the excess, baby.
I know you don't want it this way.
But let me show you just how I
Love, love
I'll shove it down your throat."
-- Dismantled, "Excess"

Dear Friday Night Meph,

This is your Saturday-morning self, leaving you a note for future consideration.

When you have plans fairly early the next day, it might be a wiser option to not stay at the Cat Club until 2 a.m. and then drive home from San Francisco. I realize that you often get distracted by all the excellent music, awesome people, and beautiful views (alright... seriously beautiful views), but, really now, one should consider the effects that all this idle hedonism is going to have on us the next morning.

So I'll thank you to keep me in mind while you're out carousing and flirting, you dissipated sybarite.

Eight hours in your future,
-- Saturday Morning Mr. M.

P.S. Strangelove was excellent, by the way. I've had some trouble getting out there the last couple of months, but I was very happy that I managed to get to the Undead Wedding.

P.P.S. Now that I've finally made it out to something, I have found out about a whole mess of crazy things going on this month  and next, so I'm going to be editing the blog post from the other day with updates.

"A quick taste of the poison.
A quick twist of the knife.
When the obsession with death
The obsession with death becomes a way of life."
-- Emilie Autumn, "Dead Is the New Alive"

(EDIT: New updates are marked in GREEN)

Now that October has rolled around, we seem to be in the Grand Tour season for the overly-eyeliner'd.

It makes sense, really. Between All Hallow's Eve (a favorite holiday among many a darkling heart) and the dropping of temperatures allowing for more heavy attire, as all the Romantic and Victorian goths no longer have oppressive heat and sunlight keeping them out of their nicer duds - this really is the time of year for the undead to kick off their coffin lids and come out to torment the living.

And boy are we ever. The set list for the coming months is positively a mass-grave of concerts and Halloween parties and even a ball. So I figured I'd wax lyrical a bit of stuff coming up in the coming nights.

To start, don't forget about your regularly-occurring clubs to get your through the lengthening nights:

• Death Guild (every Monday, in SF)
• Swing Goth (1st Tuesday, in SF, and 2nd and 4th Tuesdays, in San Mateo)
  
• Bondage-A-Go-Go (every Wednesday, in SF)
• Apparition (every Thursday, in San Jose)
• Asylum (every Sunday, in Sacramento)
• Bat Cave SF (every Sunday, in SF)
• Caritas Karaoke (every Tuesday, in SF)
  

And now for some of the less commonly occurring events of note (that I know of as of this writing):

Friday, Oct. 7 -
Strangelove's Undead Wedding will be happening at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)

Saturday, Oct. 8 -
Barely Legal's monthly Rocky Horror Picture Show performance will be happening at the Albany Twin. (Albany)
Club Gossip's Tribute to Ministry at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)

Friday, Oct. 14 -
Die Maschinen at the Cat Club - Featuring Down Machine Down CD Release Party (San Francisco)

Saturday, Oct. 15 -
Munsters Go Home and Butch Patrick at the Bal Theater. (San Leandro)
Club Solace at the Vagabond Ballroom. (Oakland)
Club Satori at the Blank. (San Jose)
SHEVIL DEAD at Cell Space (San Francisco)

Thursday, Oct. 20 -
DavidJ DJing and CD Release at the Cat Club's All 80s Thursday (San Francisco)

Friday, Oct. 21 -
Portishead at the Greek Theater. (Berkeley)
Dark Shadows at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)
Hubba Hubba Revue's End of the World Party at DNA Lounge. (San Francisco)
SHEVIL DEAD at Cell Space (San Francisco)

Saturday, Oct. 22 -
Reverence's Halloween Party at Club 21. (Sacramento)
Club Nocturne at the Vagabond Ballroom (Oakland)

Sunday, Oct. 23 -
Anthrax and Testament at the Warfield. (San Francisco)

Thursday, Oct. 27 -
Bone Bash XII (featuring Judas Priest) at the Pavilion (Concord)
Imperative Reaction and God Module at DNA Lounge. (San Francisco)
Zombie Science Night at Nightlife (San Francisco)

Friday, Oct. 28 -
Dancing Ghosts' Halloween Party at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)
SHEVIL DEAD at Cell Space (San Francisco)

Saturday, Oct. 29 -
The Damned at Slim's. (San Francisco)
SHEVIL DEAD at Cell Space (San Francisco)

Sunday, Oct. 30 -
DNA's Halloween Extravaganza at DNA Lounge. (San Francisco)

Monday, Oct. 31 -
Death Guild Halloween Bash at DNA Lounge (San Francisco)

Thursday, Nov. 3 -
LESTAT at Apparition at Club Lido. (San Jose)

Friday, Nov. 4 -
Strangelove's Dia de los Muertos Celebration at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)
Shadowdance (part 1) at the Vagabond Ballroom. (Oakland)

Saturday, Nov. 5 -
Disorder at Bar 355. (Oakland)
New Wave City's Duran Duran Video Dance Party at the Mighty. (San Francisco)
Shadowdance (part 2) at the Oakland Metro Operahouse. (Oakland)

Friday, Nov. 11 -
Die Maschinen at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)

Saturday, Nov. 12 -
Le Bal des Vampires at the Alameda Elk's Lodge (Alameda)
Barely Legal's monthly Rocky Horror Picture Show performance will be happening at the Albany Twin. (Albany)

Friday, Nov. 18 -
Dark Shadows at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)

Saturday, Nov. 19 -
Club Solace at the Vagabond Ballroom. (Oakland)
Club Satori at the Blank. (San Jose)

Monday, Nov. 21 -
VNV Nation performing at Slim's. (San Francisco)

Friday, Nov. 25 -
Dancing Ghosts at the Cat Club. (San Francisco)

Saturday, Nov. 26 -
Reverence at Club 21. (Sacramento)

Thursday, Dec. 1 -
The Cell triumphantly returns to the Vagabond Ballroom. (Oakland)

-- Mr. M.

"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence."
-- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)

It seems some entries to my contact form are being routed to my spam folder by Gmail. And I'm not exactly sure why, since Gmail isn't really all that consistent about doing this.

So imagine my surprise when I realized and found a note in my site comments asking that I take a listen to an album... a note from the better part of a month before my buddy Draeden recommended that I start reviewing albums (to make up for my non-attendance at clubs lately).

It's like an awesome synchronicity...

As such, with no further ado, I present my opinion on Infirmus, the new album by Suboculis, the local solo project by Dan Menapace (also of another local act, Kineto).

Artist(s): Suboculis(a.k.a. Dan Menapace)

Album: Infirmus

My Thoughts: So the Infirmus album is a short series of tracks consisting largely of a minimalist collection of rhythmic industrial noises, moody bass riffs, and some choice sound-bite samples.

The guitars are highly reminiscent of Tool, especially some of the pieces from 10,000 Days. The combination of the guitars with the rhythmic noise creates what could be a solid backdrop for either some hardcore industrial tunes or the background scoring for some dark-edged sci-fi film.

Highlights: I've only had the opportunity to listen to it once or twice, but I've already gotten a few favorites.

"Phobophobia" starts off with swamp sounds and a sketchy beat, only to whip out some thick and inexorable guitar about 40 seconds in, and then some intense electric sitar at around 1:30 that just oozes dark and sultry.

"Reset Node" starts off with some bits that sound almost sampled from an old Atari game. Then it kicks into a high frequency noise and an uptempo beat, again reminiscent of a video game, but with more aural depth.

Finally, I really enjoyed the last track: "the Sludge Chronicles" - mostly because it had a spoken track and vocalized chorus accompanying the noise and electric cowboy guitars. Makes me think, a little, of "Bad Things" by Jace Everett (yeah, you know, the theme music from True Blood). Not too much... just something about the industrial cowboy edge to it all.

Final Thoughts: Ultimately, there's a lot of really neat stuff on the Infirmus album. It shows a depth of vision and a width of talent on the part of Menapace (between his guitars and his noise-beats) that would make a concrete backbone to any industrial, gothic, or prog-metal band.

If I have any complaint, it's due to my overwhelming need for lyrical expansion. In other words, not a fault in the artist, but in the listener and his (my) desire to add verbalized meaning to these intense tracks of awesome sound.

The cool part is: you can listen to the entire album for free. Just head over to www.suboculis.com and basically listen to a free sample of the whole thing (and if you're interested in following Dan's work on Facebook, just go here).

Seriously. I think you'll be impressed.

-- Mr. M.

EDIT: Dan just informed me that he's made "Phobophobia" available as a free download on Soundcloud - so instead of just listening to it online, you can now put it on your MP3 player and listen to it ALL. THE. TIME.You should be able to find it here (though I seem to be having trouble accessing the site at the moment).