Bash Compactor: Black Tape for a White Christmas

I’m no Goth chick. I’ve never worn lipstick-red Latex and I live on the Upper East Side. But I love black fingernails and Depeche Mode, and I’ve been to Hot Topic at the mall. And I did have a black vinyl vest in my closet I could wear with an angel-sleeved sheer black frock last week when I went to the monthly, Seven-Deadly-Sin-themed Goth party Paradise Lost at East Village hotspot Rehab.

“What do you think?” I asked my fellow partier, performer Joseph Keckler. He’d been to Goth parties back in Detroit but never in New York. Worried about passing muster at the door, he’d improvised some Edward Scissorhands drag—a black vinyl jacket strewn with miles of videotape over the chest and shoulders. Everyone loved the look, especially the dudes at the coffee shop later.

The club was packed and Joseph and I moved toward the back, where a woman in red fishnets was suspended from a rack. The room was tumultuous and when I accidentally banged into a lady wearing white contact lenses, rather than bitching, she touched my hand warmly. So much for the night’s theme of “Greed.”

Believe it or not, even though there’s no Hot Topic in Manhattan, according to DJ TERROR.chic there is a Goth and fetish scene in New York City. “The interesting thing about the fetish scene in is they tie into each other; the fetish scene, the Goth scene, the heavy industrial scene.” Paradise Lost has a fair number of “vampires” who show up regularly—well, at least their canine teeth appear to be fangs. And TERROR.chic will be DJing at a party at the China Lounge called Fang, where you must have a pair of sharp teeth to get in.

There were grunts and heavy breathing, what with another woman in a bikini hanging upside down by a rope and a man with a black hood and exposed buttocks getting lightly whipped, but there was no hard-core sex. The vibe was sexy, but most of the action happened after the party.

Romello, the former bouncer who runs the party, told me he was in it for the long haul. “I want to bring euphoria back to New York City’s underground night life,” he said. “I’m pulling together Goth, club kids, cyber Goth, fetish, glam kids, vamps, gays, straights, bi. It’s a very eclectic mix.”