Cybertron at Santo’s Party House

Jan 31, 2015

By Doktor John

New York NY
Cybertron at Santo’s Party House
Jan 31, 2015

By Doktor John
New York NY
I’ve been to countless Goth-industrial music and social events in the past 25 years or so, and many hosted by Vampire Freaks, the online community and seller of Goth clothing and paraphernalia. I have hit all the events in the NY, NJ and Philadelphia area along these lines. I travel regularly to Germany and Poland for world-wide, like-themed events. I’ve also long admired the sound of Colorado-based electro-industrialists VAC. Nothing in my prior experience all these many and varied events could have prepared me or my similarly-experienced friends for the rude, crude and inexcusably inane experience this miserable Saturday in this incredibly uncomfortable lower Manhattan venue.

It was the coldest night on the coldest date in 2015. Vampire Freaks, the supposed hosts, as they are of many such club nights, announced that the starting time was — on short notice —postponed to 11 pm. All well and good. Pity those who came when doors officially opened at that time. The line of soon-to-be maltreated event-goers stood in freezing wind for up to an hour, while unsympathetic bouncers served as gate-keepers, letting in the slowest trickle of ticket-holders at an agonizingly glacial, and inexplicably slow rate. I was frozen, and I was wearing a full-length leather coat over a series of layers that even included a leather vest and heavy-duty cargo pants. Woe for the scantily-clad goth-chicks, whose fishnet tights and bikini bottoms offered considerably less in the way of protection. They stood in that line, most of them, for over an hour, adjacent to frigid buildings and on icy sidewalks while the 19ºF and 30 mph wind whipped us all until well past midnight.

Wait! That’s not the worst of it. Our bouncer, whom we all know wasn’t responsible for the incompetence of the management or the decree about to be announced —while stopping to check the I.D.s of everyone on line (including gray-bearded oldsters)— informed each of the outrageous and purely gratuitous policy of “Mandatory Coat Check!” What in the world was that about? Just to squeeze another $4 out of each patron?! The effect it had was to then create another tedious and obnoxious line inside the venue where we were commanded to remove our outerwear (for many, this was part of their Vampire Freaks-acquired fashion-statement) for no good reason, made to pay $4 per item, under signs that warned that gloves, hats and scarves would not be allowed in pockets or sleeves, but had to be checked, each a separate item, by a single, overwhelmed and overworked coat check girl!

Wait! That’s still not the worst of it! This night we were forced not into the club, but into the downstairs basement, the low-ceiling, painfully cramped and overcrowded cellar where there was neither room to move, to reach the bar nor to get a decent view of the performers, who after all, had started playing long before the throngs of spectators had even gotten into the building and certainly before they had cleared the coat-check regimen. It’s well that the bar was hard to reach. Straight drinks went for upwards of $12 and $13.

Openers Mindless Faith played their version of industrial. DJ Sean Templar spun some dance tracks, but there was no room at all to dance. VAC, who sounded a lot better on disc and at better venues, blasted their set, some of which was with the accompaniment of a gorgeous, platinum blond female vocalist. Fans knew her as Donna from Ego Likeness.

If I hadn’t paid for the tickets in advance, I would have left the outdoor line after an hour in the cold. As it was, cramped into a dark hovel, unable to see each other or converse with fellow-victims, we pulled out in the middle of VAC’s second or third set, and after frontman Erickson’s angry, if stereotypical tirade which included, laughably, a denunciation of “Bush.” It came across as smug, politically-correct and way out of date.

Santo’s Party House basically screwed all three victims: VAC, Vampire Freaks and the audience!

Exhibition Opening
Morbid Anatomy Museum

Brooklyn NY

A wine and cheese party was held at this uniquely eccentric Brooklyn museum to celebrate the opening of a new, mind-boggling exhibition, called The Collector’s Cabinet, the second at this institution since its opening last June.

The festivities began when curator and co-founder Joanna Ebenstein introduced the exhibitors, each a collector of oddly interesting items, and invited them to expound upon the items in their own display assemblage.

Antique dealers, eccentrics and hoarders of unusual artworks plus a few medical professionals made up the list of contributors.

The range of things on display was eclectic to say the least, and included painted wooden religious figures, dental models representing the wide range of shapes of human teeth, séance props, a disarticulated skeleton and historic anatomical charts.

One wall was covered with an artistically-cheesy, carnival-type tent banner for a magician. Large glass cases in the middle of the room contained taxidermy specimens of squirrels dressed and posed in anthropomorphic situations: patrons imbibing at a bar and bikini clad, topless exotic dancers.

A pair of candlesticks was unique in that it was composed of actual, preserved baboon forearms. One wall display was a ViewMaster-like, 3-D, back-lit viewer with images of 19th century French miniature, sculpted diabolical tableaux. On display also was a series of cute little paired terra-cotta figurines of Death leading medieval characters to their doom, examples of what is called Danse Macabre or Totentanz.

One by one, each collector spoke briefly about the history and significance of the item or the array that they had lent to the Museum for this show. Art historians, antique enthusiasts and lovers of the off-beat crowded around and took obvious delight at each station.

Among the luminaries to present was Evan Michelson, co-star of TV’s long-running series, “Oddities” and co-owner of the NYC antiques boutique, “Obscura.” She demonstrated a pair of primitive artificial arms that once belonged to an unfortunate railway brake-man who lost his own arms in a terrible accident, but resumed his railroad career with these wooden replacements!

The several taxidermy specimens included a kitten born with two faces, a two-faced calf-head, plus a seven-legged, two-bodied piglet.

Morbid Anatomy Museum co-founder and board chair Tracy Hurley Martin loaned one of the more serious and prestigious of the antiquities, a leather-bound first edition of the 18th Century Kuper-Bibel (Copper Bible), a compendium of art, mysticism, religion and science, containing exquisite copper engravings of cosmography, paleontology, zoology, botany and anatomy. This volume, along with various unclassifiable curiosities, articles of religious iconography, and tame, antiquated erotic images comprises representative sampling of the diverse spectrum of objects that embody the spirit of this museum of the forgotten but truly fascinating.

Rise Again

Metropolis Records
By Doktor John

Stabbing Westward’s lead vocalist Christopher Hall and programmer/keyboardist Walter Flakus have been reinventing themselves as The Dreaming since the demise of the parent band in 2002. Three EP releases, a video, a track for the movie “Elektra” and live performances on the West Coast have kept them busy since the band’s inception. Joined by former SW drummer Johnny Haro, plus a bass and a guitarist, “Rise Again” is clearly a resurrection of the immensely popular Stabbing Westward style.

The newest CD, “Rise Again” is scheduled for release this coming February and captures all the intensity and ecstatic bombast of the original band.

Consisting of 10 tracks, “Rise Again” is characterized by Hall’s extraordinary tenor vocals, full of intensity and defiance, accompanied by bombastic, symphonic metal.

The titles and the lyrics are profound and penetrating, mostly probing harsh, even painful emotions. The third track asks, “Why do all your kisses taste like death?” The fifth track aggressively asserts, “I will not be afraid anymore” as a kind of self-assuring mantra. I think you get the idea.

From the first track, “Alone” with its galloping cadence and accusatory tone, to the final and title track, “Rise Again,” every track has a delicious, melodious hook and a restless, hypnotic groove. Angry, belching guitars are woven into fast-paced electronic rhythms that will have industrial dancers in a frenzy on the dance floors or fervently bobbing their heads on the sidelines. For those who loved and sorely miss the now-defunct Stabbing Westward, this revival of that sound is more than welcome.
Rating: A+

Transcendent pre-dawn image from 3rd floor window in Totowa

Acrylic on 22″ X 28″ board

Doktor’s Bag

Acrylic on Canvas
Done while working in the in Madison NJ studio of Arie Galles, professor at Fairleigh Dickinson, in 1977

This is the newsprint version of the report on Halloween in New Orleans 2014

Here, Marlon Brando plays the character “Stanley Kowalski” from the Tennessee Williams play. The original acrylic on canvas painting was sold to the Rafael and Dorothy Venezia Family in 1996. This image for this website was made from a 16″ X 20″ color print. The original was undertaken as a tribute to the great writer and cultural commentator Professor Camille Paglia, herself a great admirer of Brando. The inspiration was a book review she wrote of a biography of Marlon Brando by a TIME Magazine movie critic. She panned the book, but expressed her praise of Brando as an actor and cultural icon. Actually, I tried to make this print a gift for Dr. Paglia whom I met at a book-signing, but she declined to take anything from me on grounds that she was traveling light.

The tattoo shown below was completely made up to honor Dr. Paglia, and is not part of either Marlon Brando’s or Stanley Kowalski’s personal appearance.

The Birthday Massacre
“Superstition”

Metropolis Records

By Doktor John

This ten-track release by Canadian Goth-rock sextet The Birthday Massacre represents their sixth studio album. It lives up to the hopes of those who have come to expect gorgeous, dark-themed female vocals by lead singer Chibi, delicious minor-key melodies and symphonic elements realized through heavy, down-tuned bass and guitar as well as synthetic accompaniment.

From the opening track —“Divide” with Chibi’s ultra-sweet vocals and menacing, drone-like bass background — to the all-instrumental concluding track, “Trinity,” the theme is dreamy, hallucinatory and ethereal. Occasional hissing, menacing male spoken word interjections are set against her luscious singing. The flow is generally upbeat, with a few ventures into more complex, syncopated rhythms., The title track “Superstition” slows the tempo down to a pace that is just shy of depressing, giving the entire ensemble a chance to be heard and for soloists to sound off alongside a blend of synthetic effects.

Fans and newcomers to The Birthday Massacre will enjoy poetic narratives, the seductive if somewhat vampiric propositions, the allegorical portrayals of such phenomena as the ocean, rain, the so-called coming of age and the mysterious “other side.” Above all, they will find themselves drawn into succulent melodies and mesmerizing rhythms that have been the signature sound of this band from their earliest appearance on the dark-music scene.

by Doktor John

There are tons of Halloween related events here in the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia area, but this year something possessed me into traveling with my crew south, to the Big Easy — to the capital of VooDoo in America — New Orleans, Louisiana. Staying at a hotel right on Canal Street provided easy access to the fabulous attractions of French Quarter, where everything that anybody ever yearns for is available in abundance…including Halloween celebrations.

The Ghost and Vampire Tour

First up for us was the notorious Ghost and Vampire Tour hosted by Lord Chaz (www.lordchaz.com) that begins after dark and leads you around the scariest haunts on the periphery of the French Quarter.

Lord Chaz narrates the Ghost and Vampire Tour

Astonishingly informative, highly educated and surprisingly courteous, Lord Chaz is a huge (in every sense), hideously eccentric NOLA icon, top-hatted and shod in 6″ platform shoes that deliver his 6′ barrel-shaped body to a towering and intimidating 6’6” height. His tour has been a NOLA fixture for more than 26 years, and commences at a dive bar, Johnny White’s “Hole in the Wall” on Bourbon St., where tour goers are encouraged to grab a tall drink to carry on the tour.

Lord Chaz leaves a lasting impression

Anywhere up to 40 tourists are led on an hour-and-a-half trek through mostly dimly lit sections of the French Quarter while Chaz regales them with well-rehearsed stories of mass murders and hauntings from the history of the Quarter. Unsolved killings, second hand reports of apparitions and reference to a convent, where the remains of buried infants were found, comprise the meat of Lord Chaz’s dissertation.

He spices things up with ambiguous, autobiographical, semi-confession of his own other-worldliness, gesturing with inch-and-a-half, pointed fingernails. He starts the event by a very convincing display of uncanny ability to stop his own heart, which numerous physicians & nurses in the group confirm by directly checking his pulse. It stops and dramatically restarts on his command!

He makes much of his assertion that his cold, clammy skin and lack of need to blink are indications that he may actually be a vampire. And indeed, he feels as cold as a cadaver to touch, despite wearing robes and a hat in addition to his Goth attire over his 2 foot-long tresses. About halfway through the tour, Lord Chaz brings the group to another bar for more drinks and a restroom stop. You bet that these bars appreciate Chaz’s patronage.

At the end of the tour he mounts an incredible display of piercing his own forearm with one of those menacing fingernails and drinking the unmistakable trickle of blood that flows from the wound. But not to worry! Before dismissing his spectators, he reveals an intact forearm, claiming that it had healed itself in the few minutes following the stunt. Hokey or real, Lord Chaz’s reportage, his claims and his performance are unanimously deemed powerful entertainment and super-fascinating by all who attend.

The Lestat Coronation Ball at Undead Con 2014

Halloween night started at the Lestat Coronation Ball, in a music venue called Republic New Orleans. It is apparently the main social and entertainment event in the middle of the Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club gathering at Undead Con, a convention held annually. We were somewhat out of place here, where the main population consists of devoted and die-hard Anne Rice readership.

Once a crowd had filled the venue, the entertainment began. A female drum ensemble, Skins and Bones started the evening, charging up the crowd with a tribal, chanting, percussion-driven set.

The percussion ensemble “Skins & Bones”

Then the supremely talented Mary Fahl, former lead vocalist of the sorely missed band October Project, came on stage. Her act only consisted of three songs, but she sang superbly under the less-than-ideal acoustic circumstances.

Mary Fahl on stage at the Lestat Coronation Ball

One of the songs, “Exiles” is specifically written for the audiobook version of Anne Rice’s book, The Wolves of Midwinter, and was delivered in Fahl’s moving and inimitable vocal style. After her set, we visited with her at a booth alongside of the stage, grabbing a hug, a compilation CD and an autograph.

Shmoozing with Mary Fahl

Anne Rice addressed the crowd from a loft overlooking the main floor, not unlike a pope — even a goddess to these fans —acknowledging the crowd and complimenting them on their grotesque, vampire-themed costumes. The mere sight of the author and the thrill of hearing her address literally brought tears to the eyes of many of her devotees.

Anne Rice addressing her people from on high

But the crowd was so dense and the dance floor so jammed, that we bailed out soon afterwards, choosing instead to wander the VooDoo shops and crowded streets of the French Quarter in order to observe the Halloween celebrants before calling it a night.

The Cemetery Tour

The following day we once again tapped the venerable Lord Chaz who took us on his famous tour of the St. Louis Cemetery No.1, New Orleans’ oldest graveyard yet still in current use. En route to the walking tour Chaz discussed various social, architectural and economic issues of the neighborhoods through which we passed.

High points in Lord Chaz’s Cemetery Tour

Once we arrived, he explained the necessity for above ground burial in this below-sea-level town. Instead of a grave, each deceased is interred in a brick and stone, reusable mausoleum. Grotesquely, each mausoleum becomes a sealed solar oven in the hot Louisiana/Gulf of Mexico sun, reducing the remains to an insignificant pile of dust that is subsequently swept onto the floor of the tomb a year later, making room for the next eligible family deceased. He pointed out that our visit on All Saints Day was the ideal time to tour, being the day when visitors come to honor their dead according to Roman Catholic tradition.

Indeed, upon entering the cemetery we were witness to a disciple kneeling devoutly at the tomb of VooDoo queen, Marie Laveau (1801? – 1881?) and carrying out a ritual with candles, icons, tobacco smoke and an alcoholic beverage.

Anonymous VooDoo devotee conducting a ritual honoring Creole VooDoo Queen Marie Laveau on All Saints Day

There was more to the tour, but nothing else could top that auspicious and serendipitous experience.

Endless Night Vampire Ball

The Endless Night Vampire Ball, a recurring and world-wide event since 1998, and brainchild of producer and fang-maker Fr. Sebastiaan — this year themed “Victoriental” — took place at New Orleans’ House of Blues on All Saints Day, the day after Halloween. It turned out to be one of the most over the top entertaining and social events ever to come out of this eccentric and eclectic subculture. Goths, vampires, full time dwellers of the demimonde as well as poseur wannabes were treated to a true spectacular of music and performance art by impresario Fr. Sebastiaan and his talented crew of functionaries, artists, performers, DJs and technicians.

Famous producer, impresario and Fang-Master, Fr. Sebastiaan

The NOLA House of Blues, one of a chain of eponymous venues, is uniquely themed for the event by virtue of its being in the Big Easy, America’s home to Voodoo, which religion provides a perfect backdrop for all things dark and preternatural.

The crowd was gorgeously attired and costumed in Victorian, Edwardian, and glamorous as well as horrific presentation.
NY DJs and two attendees

Young and not-so-young mingled affably in am atmosphere of supreme camaraderie, seemingly overjoyed to participate in the festivities. Famous NYC DJs filled the air and filled the dance floor with heavy EBM, and Gothrock, both classic and modern re-mixes.

Costumed attendees at the Endless Night Vampire Ball

Wandering the House of Blues we found an upstairs lounge where a bar and a side stage were located and where performances and rituals were taking place. Back downstairs on the main floor, just when it seemed that the night would only consist of fabulous DJ-ing by the likes of DJ Angel, Matt V. Christ and Xris Smack, a French-accented, flamboyantly and Baroque-attired moderator came on stage and announced, in a hysterically dramatic manner, the first live entertainment of the night, the gifted and multi-talented soprano Ariel De Ment. Fanged and highly made up, known in the New York area for her mind-blowing renditions of cinematic and operatic singing, Ariel stunned the audience with coloratura versions of, first, an opera aria, then the heart-rending “Point of No Return” from Phantom.

Following this thrilling act was a belly dancer accompanied by a kilt-clad violinist who led her with Middle Eastern and Celtic melodies. DJs filled the intervals between them, a burlesque dancer and then a staged, metaphysical vampire ritual involving sword play, bull-whip cracking, a priestess and several gorgeous, scantily-clad acolytes.
The headline band, Metropolis Records artists Bella Morte, performed an hour-long, well-received set of their melodious-metal Gothrock with touches of Linkin Park-style funk.

Metropolis Records band, Bella Morte

Best dressed contest

Eventually Fr. Sebastiaan came on stage to oversee selection of the most beautifully costumed female and male attendees, chosen by popular acclaim. He praised the crowd, and graciously thanked his staff, one by one, and by name.

Best dressed attendees

The theme for next year’s Endless Night, “Penny Dreadful,” was announced with much flourish and ritual.
The Endless Night 2014 continued joyfully and with more celebrating on the dance floor well into the wee hours of the next morning, while thoughts of next year were already on the minds of many.