People's Republic of Kascadia

Fiend Magazine

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:24:44 GMT

Once Austrailia had a goth magazine called Dark Angel, now they have Fiend Magazine with a good selection of bands, fashion, and text.

Gothic Beauty Magazine

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 02:20:21 GMT

Gothic Beauty has been around as a print magazine since 2000 showing off Gothic fashion. At first, it seemed like they shied away from any of the music but they have since warmed up to it. Still, they are dedicated to fashion and style of the goth scene. I disstinctly remember an Industrial friend of mine (in a band I won’t mention here) laughing about a magazine dedicated to clothing till I reminded him that the clothing market was much larger (and worth a lot more) than the music market. They do a fine job of balancing the two and being the premier goth magazine for the Americas.

There Facebook.

Wax Trax Retrospectacle

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:28:11 GMT

It’s the 33 ⅓ anniversary of Wax Trax Records and in memorial to its two founders, friends and family are putting on the Retrospectacle which will have Front 242, Thrill Kill Kult, Chris Connelly and others doing RevCo songs, En Esch and Gunther doing KMFDM songs, and other DJs and entertainment in Chicago.

You've Been Gothblocked!

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:37:51 GMT

Wave-Gothic-Treffen

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 02:40:14 GMT

Wave-Gothic-Treffen is probably the largest gothic/industrial music festival in the world/ 150+ bands and 20,000 “gruftis” in the city of Leipzig, Germany. Always held on the German holiday weekend of Pentecost and now ongoing for 20 years this June. Spread out across the city in multiple venues including the 16th century fort of the Moritzbastei which holds several bars and rooms for after hours events, the shows can range from small and personal to large festival shows such as in the main Agra hall that can old 10,000. Besides shows, a huge vendor hall, and campground, the festival also includes a viking village, steampunk picknic, and near 24 hour parties.

Graceless Magazine

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 03:54:26 GMT

Graceless is a “journal of the radical gothic”. 117 pages of magazine either downloadable from the website or ordered via Print on Demand via Amazon.com.

Whitby Gothic Weekend

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 04:30:11 GMT

Whitby Gothic Weekend isn’t one of the larger festivals around, but it does seem to be one of the better known. Starting in 1994 on Whitby Island (where Dracula’s ship landed) and now a two day gothic music festival held twice a year. It does pick up its fair share of publicity.

Bat's Day at the Fun Park

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:35:30 GMT

What if all the goths decided to go to Disneyland one day. That is exactly what Bat’s Day in the Funpark is. Consisting of two days at a hotel near Disneyland that are comprised of a meet and greet dinner, a vendor room that is open to everybody and not just attendees, and a night of music before Sunday is spent at the park itself. Although it’s an unofficial event, there is a sizable amount of black running around the park that day. Enough to make everybody else wonder where the cameras for the movie they're filming are hidden.

Vampire's Masquerade Ball

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:08:55 GMT

The Vampire’s Masquerade Ball is the premiere goth event in the Pacific Northwest. A single night of dancing, music, performers, and vendors held in a historic ball room in Portland Oregon that has been going on for nine years now. Their Facebook can be found here.

German Magazines

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:11:04 GMT

When talking about the gothic or industrial scene in Europe, one is mostly talking about Germany these days. Britain has some but the shere amount of German stuff out there tends to overpower the rest of Europe and the world. As an example, the Germans have at least found major magazines that cover such music that have been going on for at least a decade. There are Orkus, Sonic Seducer, Zillo, and Gothic. All are beautiful professional magazines with their own music festivals and such. Not too much use unless one reads or wished to learn German, but they do have lots of pictures and each issue can be ordered with a CD or DVD compilation of music.

Nemi

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 02:09:26 GMT

Nemi is a Norwegian comic whose main character is a sarcastic goth/heavy metal girl. Other characters include Cyan, her strange yet more trendy best friend, and cyan’s forgettable boyfriend. Drinking, sex, and music seem to be the main interests in Nemi’s life along with an aversion to the main stream. The English verison of Nemi can be found on the UK Metro web site and an archive of old cartoons can be found here.

Carpe Nocturne

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:37:06 GMT

Carpe Nocturne (not to be confused with the Carpe Noctem ) is a quarterly online magazine dealing with the usual array of goth/industrial/steampunk/whatever. They currently are a flash or PDF magazine whcih can be viewed online or downloaded to your computer. The Fall 2010/2011 issue is just out and it pays tribute to Peter Christopherson and is some 226 pages in length, filled with stuff. I highly approve of what they are doing.

Dracula's Ball

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:18:08 GMT

Dracula’s Ball is a quarterly dress up event in Philidelphia that has been ongoing since 1998. Featuring bands, a vampire theme and costumes as the main attraction, it still seems rather inclusive beingt all ages and having no dress code.

Sigh Co. Graphics

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 05:41:21 GMT

Do you need a Cthulhu t-shirt, Zombie Vodka hoodie, or even an Anubus Absinthe etched glassware to drink from? Perhaps a “nice boots…” baby doll. Sigh Co. Graphics has all of those and more with original graphics related to steampunk, goth, Lovecraft, and other interesting stuff.

Kinetik Festival

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:39:11 GMT

The Kinetik Festival is an electronic music festival in Montreal, Canada that concentrates on various styles of industrial music. It is usually arranged so that each night is a different genre (electro, industrial, noize, etc.) with tickets on sale individually for each of the five nights although packages there for the main nights or all of them. There are some music and clothing vendors as well as a bar with DJs, but the main attraction are the bands in the main hall that begin in the afternoon and go on into the night all week long.

The usual venue is the Usine-C which is an old industrial plant. In the middle of Montreal and close to pulbic transit is has made an excellent venue, however, rumor has it that the festival is outgrowing the space and they might be looking for a new venue. They might find a larger one, but it seems unlikely they will find a better one.

The Edwardian Ball

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:02:38 GMT

The Edwardian Ball is a costumed event hosting dancing, live music, art, and vendors based on the works of Edward Gorey. It happens both as a two day event in San Francisco or a one day event in LA.

D-Side and Obskure Magazines

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:06:25 GMT

I am upset. One of my favorite Music magazine, D-Side has stopped publication. D-Side magazine was a French language magazine that I was able, for a time to pick up at the local music store. Despite not being able to read the language, it was a really nice magazine with cool pictures and, more importantly,came with a CD of new music in each issue. The the music store folded and after that, despite the wonders of the internet, wasn’t able to keep getting issues of the French magazine.

However, I hear that there is an inheritor, Obskure Magazine and I shall hopefully try and get an issue of this somehow.

Side-Line Magazine

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:19:31 GMT

Side-Line was one of the bastions of Industrial music magazines. Formed by two students in Belgium, it printed articles for almost 18 years before ceasing publications. It is now an online magazine that does have forums discussing industrial music.

Alt.Gothic and Convergence

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:53:53 GMT

In the early days of the internet before everybody assumed that it mean the web, there were the newsgroups. News groups were like a combination of forum and email and read with special readers from servers that replicated all the posts made to similar servers across the world. Today, they aren’t much more than a forgotten feature on Google. They were divided up into different categories so that each interest had their own newsgroup. Goth was one of them and there fairly early.

Alt.Gothic was one a major part of goth being online. Alt being a sort of generic catch all for things not computer, recreation, etc and gothic being gothic, it was a general gothic newsgroup where people would post about all the various ordeals of being goth. Then, goths online decided they wanted to actually get together and meet each other in person and Convergence was born. Once it was about the only national gothic event in the United States but, in it’s 17th year, is still going on.

Dark Beauty Magazine

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:03:29 GMT

Dark Beauty Magazine is a new magazine dedicated to the dark arts. They have both downloadable version as well as hard copy magazine available. Quality of the artists the choose seems very high and hopefully that of their product is also. They also have a blog and Facebook page.

Propaganda Magazine

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:49:11 GMT

Propaganda Magazine was the first goth magazine and will probably be the one that all others are held up against as a yard stick. It began publishing in the mid-80’s and was known for photos of pretty goth boys and printing articles on the same bands, mainly Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, and Siouxsie. Still, it was a goth good magazine, which was in itself good because it was the only goth magazine. Early issues provide a look into the earth goth scene when everyone had big hair. There were also articles on bands such as Hanoi Rocks and Guns and Roses that were probably more to the tastes of the editor, Fred H. Berger, like much of the rest of magazine. The last issue was printed in 2002 at which time the magazine had gone to a once a year publishing schedule at best. The theme had changed away from goth and then it disappeared.

The magazine existed before much of the internet became popular which is probably why there isn’t much sign of it online. The website it used in the last issue is being cybersquatted. Mr. Berger has put out a couple of photography books in the last five years but also does not show up on the internet too much. The later issues had fairly good production quality and distibution and can be found for sale without too much trouble. The early issues are quite rare but occasionally show up in places like eBay.

Noxenlux Chapeaux

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:37:36 GMT

Noxenlux Chapeaux is a Washington based crafter of hats: pillbox, top, bowler, tri-corn, etc. It is a very important thing as no one is properly dressed without a hat. Unfortuantely for the guys, they all seem to be for feminine tastes. The shop can be found on Etsy.

Sleep Chamber

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 02:15:42 GMT

The band Sleep Chamber was formed in the 80’s by John Zewiss and was fueled by sex and the occult. Their live shows consisted of female dancers on stage known as the Barbitchuettes who performed fetish acts on stage in a time before the internet when such things were still mainly seen in gay leather bars. Having produced over 70 albums between Sleep Chamber and side projects like the Women of the SS, they are still going. Some of their recorded music can be found on Inner-X-Musick. Streaming music of John Zewiss’ and associated projects can be found on the Inner-X-Musick Radio.

Clove Cigarettes

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:58:19 GMT

Clove cigarettes were originally created by an Indonesian man looking to make his lungs stop hurting, surprisingly enough. Clove oil helped for toothaches, so he thought he’d make a cigarette with clove oil and it would help his chest problems. This apparently worked for him, but he and others ended up liking them and they became known as “kreteks”, which models the crackling sound clove cigarettes make.

They have long been associated with Goths and for good reason, a great many Goths smoked them. This was probably because they could come in black as well as for their flavor. Sampoerna X-Tras were the main brand but after Phillip Morris purchased Sampoerna, it was decided to stop making them as they were for a limited market. Luckily they had competition with Djarum Blacks.

These days, they have been outlawed and exist only as “clove cigars” whose flavor is not on par with the original kreteks. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act not only moved control of tobacco to the FDA and prohibited them from banning any already existing tobacco products (Sec. 101) but also banned flavored cigarettes, specifically mentioning clove (Sec 907). It was signed into law in 2009. This was gotten around by some manufacturers by making them cigars instead but many people find the flavor changed and substandard when compared to the originals, and thus end up ordering online through the many companies that ship them in.

Auxiliary Magazine

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:28:51 GMT

Out of the publishing world, Auxiliary Magazine is in a place where I am hoping that magazine publishing is going. Their website is blog which they compile into PDFs issues that can be viewed online or downloaded, and they have dead tree versions for proper viewing or magazine fetishists (such as myself). Past blog postings as well as both PDF and printed versions are available from their website. So far they seem to be able to get an issue out every two months.

The entire magazine is very visual. There are interviews, record reviews, and a reoccurring editorial known as “My Life as a Goth Girl”, but the majority of the content are photos. They look at clothing, fashion, and make up with large full page photo spreads. It is a pretty magazine to view.