I wanna go out 'cause it's raining and blowing...

but I cant' go out because my roots... well, actually my roots are fine. It's my ongoing sinus issues that are keeping me from getting anything useful done. Post about the fabulous Bar Sinister will be up this week. But in the meantime, here's a picture of my gothtastic Magic the Gathering deck that's been providing good times while the household tries to recover from this not gothtastic at all cold and flu thing. The deck itself was built around vampires, with some cool artifacts and buffing cards thrown in for good measure. Ok, back to couch now.

Of Airship Pirates and Other Sub-sub-cultures

This past Saturday, Gothtastic went an outing to Bar Sinister (to be covered Thursday) in Los Angeles, to witness a rare appearance by the popular steampunk band Abney Park. Steampunk is generally considered a subset of the goth genre, due to our common interest in the Victorian era and an affinity for overly elaborate clothing. Indeed, a number of individuals who looked like they had escaped from a League of Extrodinary Gentlemen convention decended upon Bar Sinister, looking quite dapper with our goggles and waistcoats and other adornments.

It certainly made for fun people watching, which was good because the band did not take the stage until nearly midnight. This meant a whole lot of standing around in the courtyard (elegant though it may be) in order to secure a decent line of sight.

However, when Abney Park did take the stage it was good times. They entertained us with a mix of old favorites and songs from their new album, wrapping up with their fan favorite, "Airship Pirate". Check out their performance of the song at the Edison to get an idea of what you missed:

gTunes: Celldweller

In a universe that was fair, Klaton would be the heir to Trent Reznor's liar's chair and Celldweller would be the new Nine Inch Nails, etc etc. But the universe isn't fair (and hey, if it was, would goth still exist as a sub culture?), so Celldweller is instead an obscure electronica group that is actually just Klaton making awesome music. On the upside - I was playing Dead Rising 2 and heard "Own Little World" playing in the background, and it made me happy. YOU might recognize the song "Birthright" for the trailers for both Iron Man and Speedracer. Anyhow, here's the video for "Switchback", which is also made of awesome. Maybe someday KROQ will stop pretending to like electronica and actually play something recorded by someone other than Trent. (Or you could just go on iTunes, Rhapsody, or Amazon and enjoy them now!)

M.A.C. Attack

M.A.C. loves a good collaboration – they’ve done a M.A.C. Barbie collection, a M.A.C. Hello Kitty collection, and regularly team up with famous females like Lady Gaga and the gothtastic goddess Dita Von Teese for their Viva Glam collection. Now, they’ve partnered with Disney to offer cosmetics in some truly gothtastic colors, featuring your favorite Disney Villainesses (and one Villain), M.A.C. Venomous Villains.

Maleficent being one of my favorite animated characters of all time, I was excited to see they are offering both a nearly black plum colored lipstick and matching lip glass (lip gloss taken to the next level) adorned with her likeness. (I actually have the lip glass in “Wrong Spell” on order – I’ll do a review when it comes in.)

Besides touting fun packaging, the makeup collections reflect the characters – for example, the Maleficent collection is a whole coordinated grouping of eye shadows and lip colors in rich greens and purples, while Cruella De Vil is more reds and browns. They also have a pretty fun website set up for the collection which includes suggestions on looks using the various cosmetics together.

It’s certainly pricier than the Manic Panic collection I told you about before, but so far I’ve been pretty impressed with M.A.C.’s quality. I picked up a black lipstick from their last goth themed collection and it’s become my favorite thanks to it’s creamy texture and staying power. A similar lipstick with a saucy Maleficent design? Even better.

Make up that says "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch me!"

When it comes to gothtastic hair dye, we all know Manic Panic is the go to brand for all your punky color needs.

BUT, the fabulous Tish & Snooky have seen fit to put their talents to providing you with a collection of gothtastic make up titled "Creature of the Night" (which also fits in well with the Rocky thread this week).

So far, I am impressed with the price point of the items offered - perfect for the gothtastic gal who doesn't have alot to spend, but still wants to get her goth on, or the goth-curious who don't want to invest a big chunk of change into their Halloween/club going makeup. The piece of the collection I'm most excited about is the Total Look kits, though. Small enough to stuff in your messenger bag and priced at $20, this looks perfect for those on the go days where you don't want to tote your whole makeup case around with you, but are planning on hitting Bar Sinister (or whatever rocks your clock) later that night. The collection is also 100% cruelty free, if you were wondering. Unless breaking emo boy hearts counts as cruelty.

Doing the Time Warp AGAIN!

The only thing that's really important here is to know that we were mooned by Barry "Brad/Asshole" Bostwick while sitting in the front row of the historic Million Dollar Theater while attending the 35th Anniversery showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, hosted by the lovely folks of the Sins of the Flesh shadow cast in LA. And you weren't. Unless you were there, in which case, high fives to you. Otherwise, you will have to experience it via this YouTube video someone posted, which is good, because about five minutes after we got in line at the theater, I went to begin my documentation of our night, only to realize I did not have an SD card in the camera. So, that picture up there of the cool little program from the con is all you get from me.



Now, we did not actually attend the con, due to a lack of vacation time and the funds to cover such a trip, but we did spring for the VIP tickets for the 35th anniversery Shadow Cast, which included front row seats, a program so we could be sad about all the activites we missed out on, and a prop bag, because what's Rocky Horror without a roll of cheap toilet paper to nail the back row with during the boring dinner scene?

VIP tickets worked out well, because we got a nice close view of the slide show of various pictures (mostly from the Midnight Insanity and Sins of the Flesh shadow cast archives, as far as I can tell), gothtastically dressed party people rocking out to a quirky DJ set before the pre-show, and the New Jersey "Home of Happiness" cast was there to promote their own con next year (the not very creatively named 4-7-11 con, if you plan on being in Jersey around that time, or feel like taking a Rocky themed vacation next spring). The Jersey cast actually put together an impressive commericial/music video for their con, set to the song "Shots Shots Shots", then proceeded to dance through the audience and threw out some of those little mini bottles of pre-mixed shots you can get BevMo with custom labels. (Which was actually a pretty creative advertisement method.)

Then there was a really long preshow hosted by the amazing Barry Bostwick, which you probably already watched, but if you are at work and can't watch it - you're missing out on Barry mooning the audience, an appearance by Little Nell AND Patricia Quinn, and general madness in a Rocky style.

The shadow cast was a mash up of various international casts, including one from FRANCE, as well as our own hometown heroes from Sins of the Flesh and Midnight Insanity. (Go Bill!) They made good use of the stage with lots of props, including a lifesize door and balcony setup, all Romeo and Juliet style (maybe more Tromeo and Juliet style?) But my favorite part was the multiple Trixie dance at the beginning, which was like Vegas burlesque show meets Rocky, so that was fun.

One of the odd observations was that unlike your usual Rocky Horror night, where everyone knows all the lines and you get this stereo effect where everyone shouts the same thing at the same time (which has its own "sense of community" appeal), there was instead an increasing chaos during some parts of the movie, as everyone shouted out the call backs from their particular Rocky. When you could make out the unfamiliar lines, it was cool to learn some new funny call back that could be added to your local showing, when you couldn't, it was just this wall of sound, which was interesting in its own tribal kind of way.

So, all in all, good times were had, and I'm glad we went, even if we had to miss out on the other fun con activities. I'm sure we'll be doing the Time Warp again.

Gothtastic Costumes - Under Her Black Wings...

Trying to catch all the gothtastic party people out there tackling the biggest question of the season - WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR ON HALLOWEEN!? You would think this would be an easy question for the goth crowd, but really, when every day is Halloween, how do you do something special for that most gothtastic of holidays? We'll try to tackle that in a series of posts of Gothtastic costume ideas.

So, we all know that the "goth fairy" is probably the most ubiquitous of goth themed Halloween costumes, so it might seem to be a pretty lame choice for your All Hallows Eve themed bash. But there are certainly ways to do something a little more creative than a $20 costume from some department store with cheap wings that will fall apart before you're even out of the parking lot. (Seriously, this happened to me at Jareth's Ball once, so not cool.)

My suggestion - if you got some cash to splurge on something nice, indulge yourself with some beautiful handmade wings or a pretty leather mask worthy of a true fairy queen!

The wings above are from the gothtastic artist at Art of Wings. And she doesn't just make awesome fairy wings in all kinds of colors and materials. She also has fairy crowns, amazing feather gauntlets, and even light up hair accessories! Squee! And if you want to be something more unique than a fairy, she also has dragon or bat wings available. (And what gothtastic person doesn't love dragons and bats?)

The mask above was a gift from my sister, but similar masks can be purchased from sites such as Angel Mask. Perfect for your fancy schmancy masquerade ball. (Also a perfect occasion for wearing that 20 pound Victorian dress you found at the consignment store, but haven't been able to wear since Bats Day because it's too hot to dance in.)

Lastly, I recommend combining your gothtastic accessories with your most fairy-ish dress. Or sieze this opportunity to visit your local consignment shops for someone's under appreciated prom dress. Or rock a great corset and skirt combo. Really, it's up to you. Just make it yours and make it GOTHTASTIC!

Next Post: DIY black pom poms for a gothtastic cheerleader outfit because it's fun to lose and to pretend... (ok, Nirvana is grunge, but how awesome were those cheerleaders in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video?)

A Mouse in Black Eyeliner

Gothtastic took a trip to the first weekend of Disney's Halloween Time and decided to take a look at the 5 most gothtastic things we could find at Disneyland:

5. During Halloweentime (the most gothtastic time you can visit Disneyland), the already pretty awesome Space Mountain gets a spooky makeover into Ghost Galaxy. Eldrich horrors reach out to snatch you into their dark domains as you zip around a nearly pitch black expanse. Sure, it's not going to give Knott's a run for it's money, but it's still surprisingly scarey for a Disney ride.

4. Nightmare Before Christmas... Fishnet... Armwarmers! The single most gothtastic accessory I ever found in the park.

3. Goth Mickey. Disney's latest collectable scam... I mean idea... is little overpriced vinyl figures. However, I would have totally snapped up this "on my way to a NIN concert" decorated Mickey if they didn't only come in unmarked boxes at $10 a pop that are randomly packed.

2. Haunted Mansion Holiday is, of course, Disney's original plan to capitalize on the unexpected cult love for Nightmare Before Christmas. Every year the decorations get a little more elaborate in this terrific homage to Disney's most gothtastic movie.

1. Bats Day! The single most gothtastic thing you can do at Disneyland is, of course, the fabulous Bats Day. When I was in high school, goths used to just randomly gather around New Orleans Square and hang out and be spooky (and occasionally mistaken for cast members). Then, someone had the brilliant idea of having an offiically gathering of people in too much eyeliner and large amounts of black clothing. Visit to show off your most gothtastic outfits, check out other gothy folks, and attend some increasingly awesome events. (Click the poster above for more info.)

Gothtastic will bring you more gothtastic things we can find on the web, in magazines, at clubs, or just wandering the greater LA area every week! Check back in a couple days for more!

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