Encyclopedia Gothica (24 page)

X-TRA-X
German retailer of clothing and lifestyle accessories, since 1981. With four massive retail outlets throughout the country that stock Trad, Cyber, Lolita and other styles, host fashion shows, band autograph signings and more, plus their extensive online store, probably the biggest pusher of Gothic apparel in Europe. The original
HOT TOPIC
,
ÜBER
-sized.

YARBRO, CHELSEA QUINN
American author of historical horror (b. September 15, 1942), best known as creator of the Count Saint-Germain series. Starting with 1978’s
Hôtel Transylvania
, her more than two dozen novels re-imagine Saint-Germain (an actual shadowy occult figure from the past) as a
VAMPIRE
, then follow him around the world and through time, pitting him against everyone from the Incas to Ivan the Terrible. Along with
ANNE RICE
, Yarbro was one of the first to present vampires as heroic, sympathetic, romantic. Anyone can name-drop the Vampire
LESTAT
; for real
GOTH POINTS
, you read Yarbro.

YARNHEAD
A person, usually
CYBERGOTH
, sporting a huge head of synthetic hair extensions, whether or not they are actually made from yarn. Derogatory.

ZILLO
German magazine for Goth/electro/industrial/metal scene, launched in 1988 as a small zine (named for a club of the same name), now a glossy affair packed with the usual interviews and reviews with German and international acts and packaged with free sampler CDs. The comic strip “Dead,” by Markus Zysk and Nicole Scheriau, has become a popular brand of merch. The magazine has also organized its own open air music festival most summers, heavy on the Goth bands.

ZOLA JESUS
American singer (née Nika Roza Danilova, b. April 11, 1989), new on the scene but already leader of the newest wave of twenty-first century Goths — and not just because she’s favourably compared to
SIOUXSIE SIOUX
and
JOY DIVISION
. A formally trained opera singer with killer vocal prowess, she composes atmospheric pop music with a sinister lyrical edge, enhanced by the use of stark, lo-fi, bedroom-quality production. So what if she’s sometimes blonde? Her 2009 debut album,
The Spoils
, is a must-listen for those Goths still up for musical discovery.

ZOMBIE, ROB
American singer and filmmaker (né Robert Bartlen Cummings, b. January 12, 1965), a rock ’n’ roll star obsessed with horror movie monsters, who has given the world some groovy
INDUSTRIAL
metal riffs with his band White Zombie and on occasion some rather gothy homages. His biggest hit, “
DRAGULA
,” is an ode to
THE MUNSTERS
; his “Living Dead Girl” is your best choice for a Goth stripper song out there, with a video based on the silent classic spookshow
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
. Zombie may not be Goth himself (no beard that untamed allowed!) but he’s definitely your boogieman, ye-eeeaaaaaaah.

ZOMBIES
Flesh-eating undead creatures of voodoo lore and modern horror movies who have crawled out of the earth and taken over from
VAMPIRES
as the creatures everyone loves most. Public zombie walks, and even zombie car washes, popped up all around the world in the 2000s, a place for people to paint the town fake blood red. Well, dare I say, no matter how much we love the idea of a ghoulish uprising, there is nothing Goth about dirty finger nails and bad table manners. Can we all go back to dressing up in
CLOAKS
and
FANGS
, please?

13. Camden Market (London, U.K.)

Whether you’re Trad Goth, Cybergoth or Goth Loli, best hold on tight to your credit cards at this alternative shopping mecca. You’ll want to head straight to the zone called Stables Market, a former railway stables and horse hospital now lined with the most gothy of retailers ready to sell you the outfit of your dreams. Corsets at FairyGothmother. Poet shirts from Elizium. Neon alien-shaped dresses from Cyberdog. Elegant Victorian frocks from Sai Sai. And every kind of shoe or boot that ever stomped a dance floor. Sundays are the big day (the Electric Ballroom nightclub even opens an afternoon market), attracting tens of thousands, so even if you can’t afford to buy much, there is plenty of eye candy. Hit it now before it’s overrun with chain stores.

12. Whitby Gothic Weekend (Whitby, U.K.)

Now that you’ve purchased that long-dreamed-of, full-on Victorian ensemble at Camden Market, you need a place to wear it besides dark nightclubs with sticky floors. This Goth festival, located in a picturesque (read: touristy) town by the seaside five hours’ drive north from London, offers live performances from top-name bands but also downright quaint daytime activities, from falconry displays to Gothic sandcastle building. A fine place for Steampunk role play too.

11. Bat Bridge (Austin, U.S.)

The city of Austin, Texas, is home to the largest urban bat colony in America. At sunset each night from March to November, as many as 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats come streaming out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge and fly off into the night in search of food. And if you stand on the bridge, or under it, or near it, you can marvel as wave after wave of our favourite nocturnal creatures swoop overhead. For free. You don’t need to be a wildlife enthusiast or a cheapskate to know that’s one of the coolest things ever.

10. Bone Church (Kutná Hora, Czech Republic)

So you like skulls and bones, do you? Might even have a real specimen in your home, purchased from some legitimate medical science supplier or stolen from a grave at night? The gothiest übergoth in all of Gothdom has nothing on the men who, in the 1800s, decorated the Sedlec Ossuary, a.k.a. the Bone Church. About an hour outside of Prague in the town of Kutná Hora, beneath a Gothic church and surrounded by a cemetery lies a tiny chapel adorned with the remains of up to 70,000 dead — their exhumed bones arranged to form chandeliers, coats of arms and other such décor. Sadly, they don’t offer sleepovers.

9. St. Mark’s Place (New York City, U.S.)

With all the Big Apple has to offer, why can I not resist coming to the same street in the East Village on every trip? Because this small strip (actually 8th Avenue between Third Avenue and Avenue A) is where you’ll find the two-level shop Trash and Vaudeville, beacon of Goth and punk clothing. And while many of the other historic shops have long gone (Manic Panic, America’s first punk boutique, for one), replaced by Japanese bubble tea shops and outdoor sunglass stalls, there remains a high freak factor, a concentration of alternative culture so rarely found, even in urban centres. And Yaffa Café still rocks the kitschy décor and vegetarian yums 24/7.

8. Torture Garden (Various)

The fetish party to end all fetish parties, headquartered in London where it hosts its famed monthly events, but also spreading its latex-sheathed wings to other cities such as Tokyo, New York, Toronto and beyond. The most creative outfits, the most outrageous performance art and the most diverse crowd of beautiful pervs you’ll find anywhere. Halloween and New Year’s Eve have never been so shiny.

7. Highgate Cemetery (London, U.K.)

Any cemetery is worth a gander, a detour, a stroll through, of course. And one could argue that Paris’s Père Lachaise would be the most Goth-worthy. But this graveyard in North London is the only one with its own vampire. If you believe the local lore, in the 1970s vampire ghosts were seen haunting this place. And even if you don’t, it is the spot in Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
where Lucy Westenra rises from the dead, plus it was used as a filming spot for the Hammer horror picture
Taste the Blood of Dracula
. With all this connection to bloodsuckers, visitors may wish to keep their necks covered up. Or not!

6. Slimelight (London, U.K.)

Only Goths need apply at this famous warehouse nightclub. Seriously: it’s a members-only club that at one time had an application form questionnaire testing your Goth knowledge. And since the 1980s, it’s been spinning Goth, industrial and every subgenre derivation thereof every Saturday evening to Sunday morning. If you like to dance — or even just to stand and argue about whether the Trad Goth floor DJ is playing Trad enough Goth music — you simply must pop by. Dress up and make friends with a member heading inside who can sign you in.

5. French Quarter (New Orleans, U.S.)

Well, Anne Rice and Trent Reznor don’t live there anymore, so you can’t stalk their mansions. And Hurricane Katrina did do some major damage to the city. But no Goth will be bored wandering the French Quarter of New Orleans. Rather, you will no doubt run out of time to take in all the ghost tours, cemetery walks, voodoo shops, absinthe bars and the like. In 2010, local DJs launched the Southern Gothic festival, the first of its kind in NOLA. Don’t forget to tip the buskers; mimes gotta eat!

4. Bats Day at Disneyland (Anaheim, U.S.)

If you’ve always dreamed of going to Disneyland but the thought of spending the day in the hot California sun fills you with dread, why not go with people who will feel your pain — and not laugh at your parasol. At the annual Bats Day gathering, you’ll join a few thousand Goths who take over the amusement park with glee. You might still have to wait in line for hours to enter the Haunted Mansion ride, but at least there will be someone to lend you some SPF 50 if you run out.

3. Transylvania (Romania)

Hungry for a taste of “the real Dracula”? Romania’s tourism industry is banking you’ll want to visit the country’s historical sites connected to Vlad the Impaler, the Wallachian prince/warrior who allegedly inspired Bram Stoker’s vampire count. Indeed there are castles aplenty throughout the region’s Carpathian Mountains: the off-the-beaten track ruins of Poenari (“Dracula’s Castle”), the medieval fortress Castle Bran (“Dracula’s Castle”) and the Snagov monastery (“Dracula’s Tomb”). You can even rest your head at Dracula’s Castle Hotel. For the most fang for your buck, sign up with Dracula Tours’ Halloween weekend adventure.

2. Wave-Gotik-Treffen (Leipzig, Germany)

The world’s greatest gathering of Goths of all stripes. A horde of pasty-faced girls and boys from all over Europe and the world descend upon this city two hours drive south of Berlin each summer to eat, drink, dance and be merry watching hundreds of band performances, shopping and creating, if only for a few days, a kind of All-Goth State. They quite literally terraform the place with velvet and PVC and clove smokes. Picture Mardi Gras and then in place of jazz and drunken girls flashing their boobs insert EBM and boys wearing fishnets and deathhawks. From the most über to Babybats and recovering Elder Goths in jeans, everyone is welcome.

1. Catacombs (Paris, France)

Above the stone portal entrance, a warning: “
Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la mort
.” (“Stop, here lies the empire of death.”) What more of an invitation do you need? This subterranean ossuary beneath the streets of Paris is a dizzying maze of corridors pilled high with row upon row of skulls and bones. If being underground in a claustrophobic, dark space surrounded by human remains is on your bucket list, you won’t find a better spot.