Music

Peeking Inside the Shadowy Crypt of Houston's Goth Community

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If Houston's Goth community has never been especially large — especially when compared to places like New Orleans, hometown of Goth figureheads Marie Laveau and Anne Rice — it's had its share of colorful characters. Sadof remembers a pale blond woman named Sarah whom he approached at a Dead Can Dance show about hosting a Goth episode of his Buzz show "What the Hell Is This?" Everybody knew Sarah, he chuckles, because she drove a hearse. Another key figure in local Goth lore is DJ and model Dana Dark, who Mina says has temporarily dropped out of the scene after having a baby.

Over the years, besides Numbers, local Goths have gravitated to places like Laveau's in Montrose, the Vatican on Washington, the Axiom on McKinney and especially Power Tools, the dank basement club on Franklin Street downtown that to date is Numbers' only serious rival as Goth's Houston home base. ("I don't know how many times I fell down those stairs," laughs Mina.) Today, besides Underworld, the other major Goth outfit in town is the Havok collective headed by DJ Naika, which hosts the more industrial-leaning Ataxia night at Jet Lounge on Tuesdays, as well as special events at the Engine Room and its own recently acquired warehouse on Luell Street.

Similarly, the roster of local bands who qualify as Goth is fairly thin. Houston birthed bygone bands such as Bozo Porno Circus, Dethkultur BBQ and the Pain Teens, who married Goth to industrial, noise and metal. Still extant, though rarely playing out, is Asmodeus X, who made enough waves to warrant a 1999 Houston Press article. Today, Opulent, which also combines Goth with generous amounts of industrial, metal and dance music, is one of the few Houston Goth practitioners that books shows on a regular basis.

"Our scene is kind of low-key," says Opulent frontman Allison Scott, whose band shares a practice space with Asmodeus X. "There's bands out there, but they don't play that much. It's kind of hard to get support for it, to be quite honest with you. Some venues can be hard to get in, and because you're not always playing with other Goth bands, it can be hard to match you up with somebody that you fit in with."

Luckily, if there's one thing Goths are used to by now, it's not fitting in. Years of constant misconceptions and outright stereotyping have given rise to a community that's unusually tolerant and accepting of outsiders. Besides, adds Mina, it's not always that easy to spot a Goth. They're not always the guy with too much eyeliner or the girl in fishnets.

"There are a lot of people that are into Gothic music that don't look the part," she says. "The way we feel about it, as far as my general group of people I hang out with and the people I attract to the club, is it's more about the music. You don't have to wear a certain color or fit a certain style. You don't have to wear a corset."

chris.gray@houstonpress.com

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