Costumes and Props Galore

Tuesday, I checked out Premiere Props' warehouse in El Segundo for the Underworld auction this weekend. Story and photos with the Weekly.

M/R/X Back in Action

I think I nearly went crazy since Roberto's stopped hosting clubs and M/R/X-Wolfpak went on hiatus. Thankfully, the club came back to host Mark Lane's first LA gig in twenty-five years. Lane is one of L.A.'s first synthpop performers and he actually didn't earn his due recognition until he moved to Europe in the mid-1980s. I would tell you more, but I have a profile of him coming out on Thursday and don't want to spoil the story.







Everybody, it seemed, came out for the event. We ran into many old friends and a few new ones, like Carmen of the blog La Carmina. I had met Carmen and her friends on Thursday at Perversion and recommended that they hit up the club, which they did and seemed to enjoy immensely.

The crowd was keen on dressing for the occasion. Lace and heart-shaped mouths were a big hit. I'm not sure if it was part of a theme, but it looked amazing.







I would post more, but it's time to hit the town again.

Goth in the LA Weekly

It's not secret, I used to be a goth. I probably still am a goth, I just haven't really gone to the clubs since 2000. But then I started to check out Ruin Hollywood, which is a good time, and wrote about it for the LA Weekly.

Go forth and read.

Still Undead After All These Years

When I was a teenager, I was really into vampires-- Anne Rice novels, Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls, VHS copies of Dark Shadows, etc. I even once wrote a story for my freshman history class about an immortal waif "contemplating her contemplation." We were studying the Romantics. And you can stop laughing now.

Then I got over it.

It wasn't until a year or two ago that I rekindled my love of the undead. I started watching Trinity Blood and the "Never Land" episode gave me the creeps, so I kept watching it (and started reading the light novels too). Then I got hooked on Blood Plus (and, of course, the original Blood), which I absolutely adore. Seriously, if I had time, I would probably write Saya and Haji fan fiction.

And then someone suggested that I read Twilight, so I am. Through that I found out about a whole slew of YA vampire titles (both actual books and manga), which I am now in the process of acquiring and reading. In some roundabout way, this all leads up to me dragging Carlos to Huntington Beach so that we could go to a Barnes & Nobel in the middle of one of those non-mall malls for the Pitch Black Book Tour. The tour featured Nancy A. Collins (Vamps), Claudia Gray (Evernight) and Ellen Schreiber (Vampire Kisses).

About five minutes into the event, I realized that the audience for vampire fiction is pretty much the same as it was back when I was geeking out over Lost Souls.  

Most of the crowd was under 18 and female. In fact, the only boys I saw looked like they didn't particularly want to be there. The girls traveled in small teams and more or less looked the same. It was, primarily, a sea of black-- black sweatshirts, black tattered skirts, black shoes with shiny silver buckles. Their hair was either dyed black/something Manic Panic or was left its unfortunately natural shade of mouse brown and their lips were painted a dark, scabby shade of red that I'm almost certain was the same Revlon Blackberry lipstick that was the coolest thing ever in 1992. Within every mini-pack, there is one normal, you know, the friend that's been around for so long that everyone overlooks the fact that she wears neutral colors. Either some things never change or there's a serious '90s revival heading our way.

Call Me Azrael

It's sort of amazing that my brother had never been to a goth club before, considering that a) his favorite artists are Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and Nick Cave and b) I'm his sister. But, then again, maybe it's not so amazing that he had never been to a goth club since he's one of those "prefers not to self-identify" types.

And so, we went to his first goth club last night. It was Ruin, held for the last time at Monte Cristo, which is right next to the old Bullock's Wilshire building/Southwestern Law School. We walked through the thin, upstairs maze leading to the door, entered the spacious, red-lit club with the cool view of Wilshire Blvd., and then headed out to the patio, which was filled with art and goths.

Henceforth, I was supposed to refer to my brother as Azrael. I think he said that as a joke, but you don't joke with me like that because I will proceed to call you Azrael while howling with laughter for the rest of my life.

I told him that my nome de goth was Lucretia, or maybe Lucrezia. It was bestowed upon me by a friend and only used in conversation a few times, somewhere between such catchphrases as "I'm just a cold, dark candle in the cruel, white world" and "I'm so goth, I shit cobwebs."

"As in 'My Reflection?'" he asked, referencing a Sisters of Mercy song.

"Kinda, but more like Borgia," I answered.

"That's good," he said, setting up the Sisters' punchline. "I don't really want to dance the ghost with you."

Azrael was feeling out of place because he is actually quite a conservative dude and was dressed in a black polo shirt and pants that were probably made by Ralph Lauren. I told him the he should have worn that poet shirt he has from an old Halloween costume and maybe those tights left over from a college skit.

"The tights ripped," he said.

"Too bad, that would have been resplendent."

Resplendent is an inside joke for us, stemming from the episode of King of the Hill where Bobby joins a coven headed by a character voiced by David Cross. I'm kind of surprised that neither one of us managed to work the term "dog quaffer" into a sentence.

"So, does this place get more jumpin' later on?" Azrael asked me.

"It's a goth club, I don't think jumpin' is the appropriate word."

"Okay, does it get more angst-filled?"

"Yes, yes it does."

Back inside, Azrael observed the dance floor, where ten or so people were spinning around to The Knife.

"You know, if the dance floor got packed, someone could lose an eye," he said.

"I think I've seen that happen before." Okay, maybe not an eye, but definitely a sense of balance and articles of clothing.

And so we retreated to the patio once again, where the members of Flow Temple were dancing with fire. I took a few photos.











As Azrael learned that night, goth clubs can be fun. You've got costumed patrons, fire dancers, good music (for the most part, at least). But in order to enjoy ye olde goth club, you have to keep a sense of humor, otherwise your experience won't be so resplendent.

Valentine's Day without the Cheese

I was wearing a white empire-waist dress covered in little red hearts, not so much because it's Valentine's Day, but because we're going to a goth club and I figured this was so not-goth, it was totally goth. We went to the goth club because it seemed fun and it was right next to Philippe's and we had to go to Philippe's because it was the least romantic place you could go on Valentine's Day. My dad said that we should get eat the pig's feet, so he could live vicariously through us. I couldn't handle the thought of that. Carlos probably could, but the pig's feet are pretty massive, so he didn't. We took a picture instead.



Outside on Ord, we could see the lights of a building maybe a quarter-mile away, lit up like a heart. I took a picture, as best as I could until I figure out how to deal with night time pictures on my new camera.



And then we went to Severance over at Roberto's.

Siouxsie and the Banshee's have a song called "Red Light." If you were ever a goth, ever went to a club with some sort of dark element, you probably heard it at some point. Every time I go into a goth club well before midnight and I see the red club lights penetrate the dry ice-induced fog, I think of that song.



The DJs didn't play "Red Light." Instead, one dropped "Tattoo," b-side of "Dear Prudence" and best Siouxsie and the Banshees song ever laid to record. Carlos was taken by the dub-like production and killer beat. DJ Baron seemed more than willing to play my request for Sixth Comm's cover of the Death in June song "The Calling," which was a pleasant surprise considering that it's a freakin' obscure request. Where else can you go and say, could you play this record that is barely in existence, it's a cover of the only thing resembling a hit from a band that's never had anything resembling a hit, and actually hear said song? Nowhere, I tell you. Hence I recommend that anyone reading this blog head out to Roberto's on Thursday nights for Severance.

And so we did Valentine's Day without the cheese, well, except for the bleu kind that was on my sandwich.