Photo by Eric Doepp.

Black and white with splashes of metal, latex, leather and neon fill the small space. The music is electro, erotic and pulsing. Images of squirming amoebas, fetish photos and Dr. Caligari-like impressionistic snapshots project randomly behind the turntables of the reigning king of Augustan Goth, DJ Triskyl.

His look tonight is somewhat androgynous. His red hair is pulled tight into a ponytail with red glass bomber goggles wrapped as a headband. He wears a sharp Armani-like button-up shirt with a crisp and shiny latex tie.

DJ Triskyl accents this almost-corporate gentleman’s gear with black eyeliner and red lipstick. Once in a while his hanging suspenders whip into focus as he moves around his platform. The lighting above turns him an image of red. The whole view starts to betray his rather starched look.

He and his disc jockey talents are part of the draw for the crowd tonight. It’s his monthly Spectral Erosa goth gathering. And the evening will prove to be somewhat a microcosm of the entire gothic subculture: fuzzy on the inside, spiky on the outside.

Journalism student Ashley Campbell is attending the goth event for the first time. “I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to Room 9 for the gothic thing,” she later confessed. “I didn’t want to use their bathroom.”

But Campbell was surprised at the warm and friendly welcome she received. DJ Triskyl’s goth queen Rachel Foster said, “I think the worst misconception of goth is this idea that we live our lives fundamentally different than other people.”

Tonight, Foster is dressed in a fashion theme known in the subculture as cyber goth. Bright purple hair extensions have been weaved into her pigtail updo and framed with Bettie Page bangs. Her naturally angelic features stop short at a leather dog collar choker. A latex corset shows her girlness. The body-hugging piece blends into a puffy ballet-inspired taffeta miniskirt. Finishing off the look are fishnet stockings that meet knee-high multi-buckled Herman Munster-style platform boots.

The majority of the 50 or so goths are more than 25 years old and carefully sipping their bottled water or cocktails so as not to smudge their black lipstick. Foster tells me most of those present hold professional day jobs.

One example of the by-day persona versus the night persona is longtime goth night attendee Alan Dremel.

By day, Dremel is a senior chemist in Charleston. He feels mainstream evening scenes are far more questionable in both moral and shocking behavior.

“I went to Mardi Gras for the first time this year. I thought there would be all these creative and exotic people,” he said. “Instead it was a bunch of drunken 18- to 24-year-olds. It was like at a huge frat party. They seemed to be seeing who could finish the keg the fastest. It was awful.”

And though DJ Triskyl wishes to keep his day life separate from his goth life, he admits he has a degree-required corporate job. He says with a pinch of mystery, “In my day job, I work in a field that creates.”

Foster is another example of the dichotomy found in gothdom. She is a gregarious Augusta State University senior and model. During the day, the only tell-tale signs of her evening life are her jet black hair and ultra-pale skin. But Foster is so deeply committed to goth that she is also fashion editor for Gothic Beauty magazine.

With an underlying frustration, Foster talked of the goth scene. “There are a lot of big misconceptions of what the goth scene is. One of the big ones is that we are obsessed with death,” she said.

“In fact there are people from all religions in the subculture, from Christians to Buddhists, pagans. And we are not Satanists. They tend to be laughed at if they show up.”

Foster’s boyfriend DJ Triskyl added, “There are a lot of misconceptions in the media, too. For example, when Columbine happened there was goth being thrown around as involved. They were counter-cultural and nihilistic; into destroying society.”

Foster said, “The Columbine group were mean kids in trench coats who listened to horrible metal music. Those kids were pseudo members of an underworld subculture called the ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ that had nothing to do with goth.”

Many online resources on goth also distinguish the culture from another broad misconception. The Nietzsche-quoting angst-filled teenagers sauntering through suburban malls — hell bent on being miserable — are also not part of the real picture.
Dremel said the mature lifestyle-choice goths have names for those kids. Depending on the level of depressive aura the children exude, they are called either “Mall Goths or Mopey Goths.” Both terms are derogatory.

There are many goth-specific terms to label the additional subcultures within the scene: Bondage Babe, Spooky Kid, Perky Goth, Mansonites, Devil Bunny and Rivet Heads are but a few. This subdivision of types seemed in direct conflict to the mantra of “judge no one” the group I spoke to kept promoting as one of the goth culture’s strongest draws. Perhaps the anti-bounds-of-society subculture has also been unable to fight the human nature to delegate titles even within a clique.

Still, as a whole, goth is an open-arms scene. After one night at a goth event, Campbell was quick to agree, “Everyone was so welcoming. I felt comfortable actually. I will be going again.”

They only come out at night: visitors to goth night at Room 9. Photo by Eric Doepp.

As a subculture, goth is predominantly a branch of the punk movement of the late 1970s. When punk rock went mainstream, a determined set morphed into gothic rock.
The first to be recognized for the darker, bass-driven musical style associated with goth were the Cure, Bauhaus and Siouxsie & the Banshees.

By many accounts, Bauhaus’s song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” released in late 1979, is thought to be the actual dawn of gothic rock. It is still anthem of goth.

Musical popularity often creates fashion trends and styles, but DJ Triskyl said goth is not just about the music. “As time has progressed, goth has become a lot more eclectic and a lifestyle.”

He said of his playlist, “There’s been a change in the scene musically, too. Industrial music and goth have collided to create cyber goth. That’s the key inspiration that I drive from. It’s EBM — electro body movement.” Foster added, “There’s also ‘synthpop’ which is like ’80s Pet Shop Boys style music, but with harder hitting beats. It is also very popular in the clubs. It is what you would call our happy music.”

The gothic culture can and does attract fetish fringes, such as people into bondage, S&M or vampire culture.

The vampires found within the goth arena appear to be emulating the lore and characters found in history. Vampire fringe groups range from groups inspired by the darkly erotic novels of Anne Rice to others that are committed enough to have dental fangs designed and attached to their eye-teeth.

Foster says some of the vampires do mingle among the goths. They blend in, quietly sipping their Bloody Marys and imagining them to be Absinthes. The general looks of the two can be mistaken for one another.

Perhaps the basis of confusion can be traced to a long-gone silent film icon named Theda Bara, one of the world’s first theatrical divas. Many in both the goth and vampire worlds seem to have reinvented her fresh-from-the-grave with a glam deco-Egyptian look.

One population attending goth night can be described as fetishists. This co-mingling causes another misconception.

Foster talked frankly: “The S&M subject is an entirely different topic altogether. Most goth clubs only use the fetish component for shows because they look cool and extreme and a fashion inspiration.”

Again, because of a similar aesthetic, the goth and fetish scenes tend to collide. “There’s a lot of interplay because both groups are pushed to the edges of society,” Foster explained.

As a result of the goths’ all-are-welcome policy, many people believe that there is a taste for sexual deviance that permeates the subculture.

“Most people think goths are unstable, or that there’s a whole lot of promiscuous sex going on. The reality is most of the goths I know are in monogamous relationships,” technical support engineer and Erosa attendee Calhoun said.

Of course, a recent show at a Spectral Erosa evening helped cement that controversy in Augusta. The group invited the fetish duo known as the Terror Twins to perform.
Their motto is “Sexy first and safety second.” And the gist of their fetish-heavy show is taking angle grinders to each other’s steel bikinis. Music blares as metal-on-metal fireworks rise from their crotches and bounce off spectators.

Foster acknowledges the sex play in gothdom. “It’s not as strange as it may seem to those who understand. A lot of people into goth are into exploring other things, whether it’s in their sexuality or not. It’s in a very sex-positive way. No one is forcing anyone. The goth scene is open to all. As long as it’s consensual and they are not hurting kids or animals or anything, of course they are welcome.”

That may be why the bondage sector of the fetish lifestyle scene will also attend the goth evenings. “We are not going to judge you. The fetish scene likes that, so they tend to be attracted to goth clubs. And the aesthetics are similar. But in fact many goth clubs also do not have any fetish component,” Foster declared.

Dremel added, “I am not opposed to [bondage]. But it’s not my scene. No one pushes themselves on you or anything.”

DJ Triskyl is shorter in his view of sex-in-goth. “We find common ground in that we are both ostracized from society.”

Foster feels that the S&M factor really comes into play in the fashion sense similarities: chains, leather, zippers, latex and whip wear. She admitted, “Some people experiment with dominance/submission, but that’s not what goths are about. And in our scene, dressed as we are, no one is playing grab-ass with you like at some mainstream club.”

She points out, “The BDSM (Bondage, Discipline and Sadomascochism) scene is mostly comprised of middle-aged, white-collar Americans who listen to music from the baby-boomer generation. Most wouldn’t even know what goth was if it hit them in the face.”

“The Iron Rose Society is a BDSM group in the area, and only one member comes to the goth night. That said, everyone I’ve met in this scene is highly respectful of someone else’s private practices as long as they don’t harm anyone.”

We tried to contact the Iron Rose Society, but they did not respond to requests for comment.

That kind of willingness to accept others’ beliefs or kinks seems to be the true attraction of the goth subculture. There is a strong, almost bohemian, tolerance for originality and individuality that permeates gothdom.

Under the coverable body modifications, removable piercings and ornate accessories are people who conform to society during the daylight. They are at heart square-pegged into a round society. The gothic subculture offers an opportunity to take the everyday mundane, shake it off violently and become another for a short time.
Deborah (who asked that we withhold her last name) frequents the Spectral Erosa nights. She is an emergency medical technician. She said, “I wear a uniform when I work. I take pride in my appearance when I wear it, of course, but when I have the opportunity to go to the club and wear what I please, I tend to go all out.”

That’s the goth conundrum. The subculture is almost indefinable once you let go of the stereotypes in your mind. The sense of social alienation pervades. But underneath the melodramatic garments, the truth is goth’s core followers are gentle souls with wild sides.

Calhoun added, “There are also what we call ‘Baby Bats’ running through the culture. They are the young folks who have not yet chosen goth as a lifestyle. They are still in what I call the culling period.”

Baby Bats are what the layman would call wannabe goths. They are the gothically challenged.

Calhoun, who is considered a “corporate goth,” continued, “I have found most of the goths in the clubs to be in their late 20s and professionals, CEOs, stockbrokers, architects and generally extremely intelligent people.”Foster, who would be what the subculture refer to as a “perky goth,” added, “The gothic subculture, as a whole, has very creative people. Many are animal lovers. Many like myself and DJ Triskyl are vegetarians.”

DJ Triskyl, whose goth label fluctuates as often as his ties, feels, “The goth scene in general is a celebration of the darker things in life.”

Foster continued in an almost contradiction to the darkness her boyfriend relishes in. “We are very aware of the many bad things in the world. We open our eyes to genocide and we realize the world might be a very dark place, but we don’t want to make it darker. It’s kind of like Johnny Cash; we are in mourning for all the sad stuff around us going on in the world.”

Deborah said, “It is a very nourishing environment for the creatively minded person.”

The reality is goths’ outlandish fashions are the root cause of much of the goth misconception. The more extreme the look, the more anger the “norms” project toward the group.

While best known for black lipstick and pale skin, that is just the primer paint for their human canvas. The true goth then shades themselves deep into the macabre and theatrical by layering and expressing themselves via leather clothing, latex, PVC, lace, lingerie, corsets, collars and chains.

In the current goth scene, splashes of jewel colors or even dayglo are encouraged. All are meant as visual punctuations of their commitment to the lifestyle, and their desire to step away from the binds of normalcy — for a time.

Foster explains her desire for dressing up. “I think in our everyday lives we are so mundane. You have to wear the same suit everyday. When you go out to a club it’s a chance to step outside that everyday. To become this incredible fantastic and theatrical creature.”

Her preferred look of cyber goth has nothing to do with the Internet. It is more meant to represent cyborgs wandering through a red-light district in the year 2708. The style’s garments are more futuristic and accented with anything from motherboards and electronics to bright neon color accents with metal jewelry.

From a man’s point of view, DJ Triskyl said, “It takes time for a girl to look like that. She is theatrical and eye-catching. When I see a girl in typical goth club attire, it’s a lot more alluring than the everyday. It says something about that individual that expends that time to look different.”

Deborah added, “Quite simply, it is a lot of fun. I have an affinity for corsets. I think they are beautiful and do lovely things to a person’s figure. Where else can you go to wear them any day you please?”

For the boys, the goth-themed garb ranges from a pouty Edward Scissorhands powder-white stare, to an androgynous frock, to a baroque Lord Byron-esque, frill-embellished piece with plenty of pomp.

DJ Triskyl spoke for the men. “There’s an emphasis on a different set of aesthetic principles. It is not that Gap or Abercrombie 101 look. We want to look different from mainstream.”

Foster added, “The feminist aesthetic is emphasized. Our men are not transvestites. They don’t want to be women. It says nothing about their sexuality. It’s about the theatrics — it is more creative. Look at guys’ clothes in everyday life. They’re boring,” Foster explained.

Campbell said her initial trepidations were gone almost immediately after meeting the people. But her first reaction was not unusual. The first instinct of most of society is to quickly cross the aisle when a gothic person walks into the quickie mart for a Slurpee before heading out for the evening.

She said, “I loved the music and the outfits were amazing. I met all these really nice and creative people. It was definitely not what I expected.”

Campbell had also run into a friend she hadn’t even known was into goth. He invited her to the evening’s private after-party. He explained to her that each month a few of the regulars would head over to a friend’s home after the club closed for pie and conversation.

DJ Triskyl naps while Rachael Foster studies. Photo by WDR Photography.

There they sat in their corsets and latex — careful not to stick or tear upholstery — talking about world issues. All that was missing was the chilled glass of milk to go with the homemade cookies that were cooking in the oven.

For more info and Spectral Erosa event schedules, visit triskyl.com.