Goth clubbing is a disappointment

For context, this is written with 7 years of experience in goth clubbing that is very specifically in Paris, France. 

Two weeks ago I went to a Twin Tribes concert after three years of being a huge fan. It was beyond perfect, and it motivated me to go to my first goth party in a year and a half. I really wanted to immerse myself a little more in my favourite music. I'm well aware that a concert and a nightclub don't have the same intensity, but still, it was nothing like I imagined.

I started going to goth clubs 7 years ago. I went to five different parties, but one of them became my main one, and I went there more times than I can count. Over the years though my participation dwindled to twice a year, then once a year, then even less, for really a whole bunch of different reasons. While most of them are related to logistics and time and an all too frequent lack of energy on my part, one of the reasons is that this party started getting worse and worse.

I still cared about it a great deal and often missed dancing all night long, accompanied by the singular yet familiar and comforting smell of patchouli and fog. So, despite knowing it was not like it used to be, I went last night. And I hated it.

Goth parties disappoint me. At the very least this very specific, Parisian, well-established goth party. My point is not to say that this specific party sucks, but to share my personal feelings which would apply to any other goth party that would be organised like this one. 

Tonight, my friend, whom I met 7 years ago after a She Past Away concert and with whom I've shared almost all my concerts and goth nights since, came to my place to get dressed. We listened to my CDs while we chatted and did our make-up and exchanged accessories. Then we left for Paris, arrived around midnight with her and my partner. We were genuinely so happy happy to be there. We danced for half an hour to an hour... and then it all went to hell.

She left the party at 3. I stayed until closing time at about 6, as my first train was at almost 7 anyway. But from 3 to 6, all I wanted to do was cry my eyes out because I wasn't having any fun. I told her she hadn't missed anything, and it broke my heart. I would have loved to tell her she should have stayed, that she missed a lot of good songs, that the vibe was so cool, but that's not what happened at all.

The people

There's always been a significant amount of tourist-like, non-goth people at this party, but tonight? A parade of simple t-shirts and Halloween-like costumes and fetish outfits. And with it, an excruciatingly annoying behaviour. I've seen my fair share of drunkards and randoms who arrived already stoned. They are a pain in the ass, but it's always still manageable. This, however, is on a whole other level. More than half of the dancefloor (this is not an exaggeration) spent the entire night talking over the music. It's all the more annoying (annoying really is a euphemism at this point) knowing that there's a whole terrace meant just for that and that you can even go in and out of the venue at will. And then there's a ridiculously large amount of horny people (and not just the fetish ones) who actually perform sexual acts. In front of everyone, without anyone's consent, and sometimes in a an pretty explicit way. I'm not talking about making out here, I'm talking about almost crossing the already very thin line between public displays of eroticism and actual, full-blown exhibitionism and public sex. I wouldn't say it's traumatic, as I don't want to use that word lightly, but it makes me seriously, incredibly uncomfortable. If you're thinking "well just don't look then", no, that's not how it works. It's become so widespread that it's physically impossible to look away as these people are all around you, even making you the collateral victim of a session of sexual whipping (yes, that just happened to me and it felt fucking gross). 

When I saw this behaviour for the first time two or three years ago, I was shocked but thought, well, it's just an overly horny couple doing their shit without respecting anything, it's annoying and gross as hell but hey, let's focus on the music. But then it was more and more practiced. And now it's everywhere, and I wish this was a hyperbolic statement but it really isn't. That's even what motivated my friend to leave early, and it bothers me tremendously because that's not what we come here for. Hell, that's not even what other people are supposed to come here for, considering there's absolutely nothing in the description of the event that says it's a fetish or sexual night. And yet it's completely tolerated to the point where these practices have become totally widespread.

To be clear, I'm not saying "eww, sex is gross". I strongly encourage people to explore their sexuality as they see fit and do what they want with their bodies - but without me, and in the places that are actually dedicated to it. It seems to me completely vital to separate goth clubs from fetish clubs. Make the fetish club also goth if you want, sure, but don't bring fetish or any kind of sexual acts or expressions in my goth-only night. By opening the door to this behaviour at our parties, they're neither respecting the people who didn't ask for it nor the integrity of our culture. This separation is all the more vital in the context of the sexualisation and fetishisation of goth women, of which I myself have been a victim far too many times to count. We go about our day wearing a corset or vinyl or leather and everyone thinks we're doing BDSM or sexualising ourselves, which they think give them the permission to sexualise us further. Goth parties are supposed to be places where we're freed from these behaviours, where we're truly understood, where linking us to sex is not even thought of even for a split second. Leaving the door open to sexual behaviour is a double disrespect. It's the disrespect of goth people, especially women, who are no longer emotionally or physically safe from non-consensual fetichisation, and the disrespect of the goth culture itself through the acceptance or even encouragement that "goth = sex/fetish", and misconception we've been fighting against for years on end.

On a very personal note, I never understood the idea that nightclubs are for talking, drinking, flirting, having sex, and only then dancing, to music you don't even really care about. Even when my knowledge of the subject was still theoretical, goth nights were the opposite of that. I grew up thinking that goths go to clubs to dance to their favourite music, and incidentally to chat while being mindful of the people around them and the music. This approach was clearly validated during my first years of clubbing, so it's not like I was idealising it. But now these mainstream clubbing behaviours have gradually seeped into our goth party, to the point of making it unwelcoming, dare I say hostile, for those like me who are there purely for the love of this very specific music and who only want to concentrate on nothing else but that for the duration of the night.

The music

The club in question claims to be, and I quote, "goth, batcave, post-punk". And sure, there was some of that, there's no denying it. But there was also, and above all, an entire storm of non-goth music, typically mainstream hits from the 80s and adjacent stuff that's perhaps less mainstream but still not goth to any extent. Back then, these off-topic moments were occasional pleasures. They were eye-rolling and always an exasperating disappointment, but it remained occasional so it was tolerable. Now? I just came back from a night where there were several hours of this, probably half the whole night. Even though it wasn't announced anywhere. 

What makes me even sadder is that this is what works best. These are by far the moments that bring in the most people, even though it's objectively irrelevant to the theme.

As well as being nonsensical, giving so much priority to non-goth music at a goth night is a scourge on our culture:

5 years ago, I wrote: "I'd just criticise the DJs for going too much in circles and not giving modern goth music or smaller bands a chance. I remember how one night we had Alice by the Sisters three times... and it's rare that you hear modern songs or songs by lesser-known artists."

Needless to say, it only got worse. I admit that tonight I was surprised to hear some lesser-known songs by well-known old artists. It's an effort for which I am genuinely grateful, but it's worthless when the rest doesn't follow. By playing hours of 80s radio hits that are not goth, there's obviously even less room for modern or lesser-known goth bands.

Why?

Here I am, at 4am, forcing myself to move my body ("dance") to get my mood back, to get some perspective and stop being a whiny asshole, and at the same time I'm trying to think why my beloved goth club changed so dramatically. Several ideas came to mind:

A generation gap

The average age of the audience is 40-50, which means the 80s are their youth. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and I have no doubt that this is at least partially what motivates DJs and party-goers to indulge in so much non-goth music on one hand, and to favour classic goth music that's been heard time and tome again on the other. I understand the mechanism, however I don't think it's justified. If it's off-topic, it's simply off-topic, full stop, and being on-topic without making any effort, while staying on the surface and in your comfort zone, is of no interest to me personally and is detrimental to the well-being of the goth scene as whole, both music-wise and community-wise.

I was always positively amused by that age difference, I thought it was cool and, well, harmless. Unfortunately I'm not amused anymore, because I feel like  this gap can be felt more and more. I now feel the need to go to events organised by people whose mentality towards goth is similar to mine, and I feel that's only possible if I find an event with people of more or less my own age. It's funny, in a way, because I should have felt out of place dancing with forty-somethings when I was 18 rather than 26... Anyway, my point is that there's a clear generational gap, and that it has a direct influence on how the parties feel.

Genuine passion / just for fun

The other day I saw someone ask "what do you like about goth music", a vast question that I pondered over for several hours. My answer focused on the different characteristics of this music, but I ended with "I don't really know, it's such a deep and abstract feeling. Even after 16 years, goth is simply where I belong."

I'm deeply passionate about goth music and aesthetics. I'm a bit disconnected from it at times, musically because I also love a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with it, aesthetically because I'm lazy or lack the opportunity to dress well. However I'm still actively passionate about it, goth is my daily life, it's an enormous and active part of me. Although passion is first and foremost an abstract inner feeling that's impossible to quantify or prove, I think it's fair to say that a significant proportion of those who attend my parties don't share my feeling.

When it comes to the music, most of them seem to appreciate only a small fringe of goth music, the one that is old and well-known, and not too dark either. The crowd has so much fun on famous 80s hits and a portion of them do enjoy goth rock, but the dancefloor immediately empties at the first hint of darkwave, post-punk, coldwave, minimal synth or deathrock.

When it comes to fashion, most people seem to appreciate the goth aesthetics only from a distance, if at all, since most of them are dressed in very simple way, sometimes not even dark at all, or go full-on cliché and Halloween-y. Tonight I came with an outfit I have never worn before, I've worked on it for a few days, it's got lots of different elements and comes with my signature overloaded black make-up, which fits very well within the traditional goth look. I've only seen one other person dressed like me. Just one. The rest prefer simple t-shirts and leather trousers, or worse, fairy costumes and latex suits. 

The look is secondary, the music is the most important, yes, definitely. I actually wouldn't have anything against a party where we're all dressed super simple, but then the attitude has to follow: we'd all would have to be there just for the music, which would have to be super specific and on point. Which, as you understand by now, is not the case here. At the end of the day it's still a socio-cultural event that's supposed to focus on a particular subject. The fact that so many people aren't interested in an annex but still important part of that subject contributes to my view that the true enthusiasts aren't the majority of the audience. 

Most of them (many of which are regulars) seem to be there simply to unwind after a work. That's entirely understandable, but it's so far removed from my own approach to these nights, which I see and experience as a whole little ritual, a moment not just of decompression but of active passion about music, aesthetics, community and friends.

Conclusion?

Last night wasn't a total waste of time: for the first time in my life a stranger came up to me and said he recognised me (as in, Neph the blogger), I went all out on not one but two Twin Tribes songs and I was so grateful for it, I loved having two She Past Away songs, I was surprised to hear a JE T'AIME song, and the presence of a song but Diva Destruction, Lebanon Hanover, London After Midnight and Kaelan Mikla, as well as some Sisters of Mercy or Skeletal Family classics, was so heartwarming.

The thing is, it's far too little. Just a dozen or so songs that are really to my taste and a short hour of nice deathrock and goth rock, in an night that lasts 7 hours, is far too little. 

I don't want to be a closed-minded elitist just for the sake of it. I'm aware that DJs can't play only the music that I happen to prefer, that's obviously not realistic or fair to other people's tastes or even to the variety of goth music. But when a party marketed as goth and nothing else is, broadly speaking, half very literally not goth and half doing the bare minimum, with usually zero exploration of modern or lore obscure bands... it's just false advertising at this point.

This attitude goes against the very nature of the goth culture, which is at its core to be passionate about music that is both very precise and very diverse. Even worse, this attitude actively contributes to the impoverishment of this culture, for us and for tourists alike. When looking at the state of our nightclubs, I cannot be mad if people think that goths are just attention-seeking idiots who dress in black in a pseudo-rebellious way while there's nothing special about their so-called culture since their nightclubs consist largely of mainstream radio music. Add to that the amalgam of fetish and it's just over. A culture completely diluted, that voluntarily no longer respects itself. That willingly changed its identity to the point it doesn't mean anything anymore.

All this saddens me even more when looking back at the context I mentioned earlier: I went to this club to prolong the pleasure of the Twin Tribes concert. But the contrast with that concert is deafening. I experienced the concert as a real moment of socio-cultural communion, with lots of well-dressed people clearly loving the band's music and, by extension, the darkwave/post-punk and modern fringe of goth music. It was really euphoric beyond my personal love for this particular band because there was a real synergy in the audience, a palpable energy, a strong, tangible and undeniable love. Again, I get that concerts and nightclubs aren't the same, but in my first years of clubbing I have absolutely felt that sort of energy, because we were all here for our shared love of goth.

As if to rub some more salt in my already gaping emotional wound, Twin Tribes have just shared a video of Russian nightclub. Just one short clip is enough to show the abysmal difference in atmosphere between our two nights, both supposed to be goth, taking place on exactly the same night, playing the exact same song. In Moscow, everyone synergises in both dance and look, everyone is there for the same thing. Without of course being a conformist hivemind, you can see how the entire dancefloor is sharing the same deep passion. 

Tonight was the complete opposite of this. I was part of the minority who was there, at the very least ostentatiously, for the love of specifically gothic music, and by extension the specifically goth look. At the gig, we all sang along to the iconic Fantasmas while dancing and jumping around. Ever since its release in 2019 this song has been described time and time again as a dancefloor must-have by random goths and goth press alike. At the party, I was so happy that this song played, but I was the only one singing and living this song with all my being. I'm obviously not asking people to be as expressive as me. The thing is, they totally can. They just prefer to save that for Ultravox, Eurythmics and Indochine, you know, those bands soooo famous for being goth... 

I'm writing this as a testimony of my subjective experience, but also of my deep fear that the French or at least Parisian goth scene is dying, abandoned in the hands of ease, laziness, resignation, disrespect, a rejection of novelty and the embrace of mindless nostalgia.

Gothic music, both old and new, is incredibly rich. To give such prominence to artists who already have a cult following, or worse, to go off-topic for several hours at a time, is an abject waste.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Following this article, I had a chat with, to put it simply, an organising insider, and here's what he had to say on the most relevant points.

The organisers were passionate at the time, but now they really favour the quantity of people and events over their quality. DJs have already been scolded by the production team for not playing enough openly non-goth music. Meaning that my feelings weren't blindly subjective, I'm not a bitter elitist, there really is a dilution and mainstreaming of these parties. 

This is a deliberate move to attract other audiences in order to get more people in the door and alleviate the financial problems caused among other things by the previous failures of ridiculously over-ambitious parties. As a result, my generation of passionate goths in search of small and genuine parties have to suffer the consequences of the idealistic and cash-grabby choices made by older goths, who opted for an obviously misplaced grandiloquence over simplicity and quality.

A few other points were brought up, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say they all sound like scapegoats to me (the so-called insecurity problems of organising venues in other neighbourhoods when attacks happen everywhere all the time, the fact that "it's not the 90s anymore" when goth culture is clearly still very much alive, etc). As far as sexual behaviour is concerned, the person assured me that it's not supposed to be normal, but it's been tolerated for several years to the point where it's become very common and happening directly under the eyes of the DJs who don't bat an eye, so excuse me while I find hard to believe in how it's supposedly not normal.

I have no doubt that organising a party around such a niche musical culture is not without its issues, and I sincerely thank the organisers for having kept the Parisian goth scene alive for a while, even when I wasn't born yet. But the way things are done now is intolerable. There's a real complacency in the mediocrity, a dumbing and watering down of our culture, an active refusal to do better, an active refusal to even admit that things could have been better or could get better in the future, hiding behind bad faith and inadequate, off-topic justifications.

There's clearly a clash of mentalities here, with them seeing things from a very financial, defeatist, no-risk angle, and me seeing things from the angle of passion, confidence in my culture and the desire to try, which means that I'm no longer the target audience for these events. I'm not here to create confrontation with anyone, I don't want to play the demanding diva or whatever. I just want to dance to my favourite music, simply, effectively and sincerely, and I want my culture to be respected. Call me naive or boring if you like, at this point I couldn't care less. This way of doing things is simply not what corresponds to my desires and my values. I'd rather just keep on blasting my favourite bands in my own living room.