OPEN GRAVES

Marc Heuck, Vesta’s first employer, friend of 20 years, and  self-proclaimed goth-adjacent film nerd, might be our first guest to show up with pages of notes, and is definitely our first guest to lead to a two parter. This dissertation-level discussion is about the media that set the stage in the mainstream for goth to thrive later on. By this he means television, radio, and comics; the types of m...

Today on zoom we have one of Heather’s gothmothers, Laura Coldheart. She discusses coming to the goth side through experiencing death in the family and the cultural influence of Dia de los Muertos, finding music through working at Sam Goody, and feeling that the goth community used to offer more support to its members. This evil librarian offers insight into how appearing dark and spooky can funct...

After a preamble about lingering Covid, summergoth pool parties, vasectomies, and laser hair removal, we revisit the ever-surfacing topic of The Addams Family in their many incarnations, this time prompted not by Netflix’s Wednesday, but by a recently discovered Pluto channel that plays only the 1960s television show. This time Vesta is fixated on deconstructing the capitalist themes in every iter...

We are joined today in some stereotypically bisexual and neurodivergent seating positions by Jared Eakin aka define.human, to talk about how they skipped right over goth to get to industrial, how health trauma in the family coincided with their introduction to goth and industrial, growing up in the homophobia mecca of Riverside, and now living in an entirely queer, nonbinary, trans, and poly house...

We open with Robin graciously and unexpectedly offering us sacrificial vinyl: The Glove’s Blue Sunshine for Heather and Bowie’s Loving the Alien for Vesta. DJ Robin Thomas discusses his history with KROQ and DJing nightclubs all over southern California, the inclusivity of the goth community as someone who may not identify as goth, coming from a musical family but still feeling like an outsider, a...

Goth, feminism, and comedy do coexist, and our guest Virginia Jones is living (and undead) proof. We talk about how refining her art allowed her to become more herself, having her own album title mansplained to her, and growing up as a Texas punk fascinated with California deathrock. We know that otherness unites goths and comedians, and the origins of both run deep; we learn about growing up Morm...

Since day one we have intended to do an episode (or episodes) focusing on The Addams Family, their many incarnations, and cultural and subcultural importance, but now it is impossible to do so without first addressing Netflix’s Wednesday series. Unsurprisingly, we have a lot of feelings. In addition to bitching about some of the choices of the television show, including but not limited to praise o...

It’s live music season, and this is an intimate recovery zoom after the chaos of the Cruel World festival weekend. Heather was fully prepared and committed with a wine bra and a She-Wee, while Vesta…is not a festival person. We discuss the overwhelming(ly positive) experience of the triple-stage goth-leaning music festival at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, including but not limited to Iggy Pop summoning...

After reuniting by sharing a tattoo artist, we have one of Vesta’s first goth friends and a day-one listener, BattyKat Weed. She tells us about being into Edward Gorey and Stephen King as a child, growing up with some unspoken parental mysteries, finding her way to goth through an interest in paganism and Renaissance Faire, putting her self-expression on hiatus to pursue acting, and how this may h...

Lovingly referred to as the mayor of the LA goth community, Darrick Walker welcomes us off of the dance floor and to his kitchen table. He opens up about his decades long commitment to dance, how it can take years to talk to people even when you go out every night, growing up in Florida dancing to hip hop, and coming to LA at 18 to pursue fashion. He tells us about growing up in the South with a R...

We are joined by self-proclaimed Elder Goth Pollyanne Hornbeck, as she tells us about getting into old-school LA clubs underage and hearing Bauhaus for the first time, working for the LAWeekly right out of college and interviewing Nick Cave, living in the Hollywood Hills with Courtney Love, and how motorcycles can be cooler than boyfriends. Her passion for community is palpable not only due to her...

After a truly crazy week, we have a pun-intended post-mortem download about the opening of Obelisk for Vesta’s birthday and Heather’s DJ debuts both there and at Chamber. Guess what, it is overwhelmingly and sincerely positive! We both experience an outpouring of support over competition in both settings, and the potential for this to be more prevalent in our community over the stereotype of drama...

Over homemade vegan queso and wine, we chat with Jak Syn about his DJ career and love of synthwave, starting a band and finding his way to the goth scene in high school, having to grow up quickly with mental illness in the family, how when clubbing became an escape that enabled destructive behavior, this lead to a growth and accountability within the community, and how the community supported him...

We’re on zoom today to lure you out to our first club night, Obelisk at Risky Business on Thursday, March 9th, which also happens to be Vesta’s birthday party and Heather’s DJ debut. Obelisk will be every 2nd Thursday, no cover. We also want to cross-promote within the community, and plug Nihil at The North End on Saturday, March 4th, which also might include a little birthday celebration. Additio...

We are joined on the “rough couch” by Heather’s dancefloor girlfriend, Natasha Boyer. She shares her experience of growing up as an anxious kid in a strict Catholic home, finding goth by way of 80s clubs, and how the importance of getting out of her comfort zone led to becoming a gogo dancer. She speaks about parental growth and mending that relationship as a tattooed adult and non-believer, growi...

Zooming in from Long Beach is the other half of the Release the Bats duo, Jenn Bats! Jenn shares with us a bit about her pre-Bats life going back to separating from her off-grid parents and moving in with her metalhead boyfriend at 16, how hippies and goths can relate to each other despite their differences, being a goth mom and pregnant at Helter Skelter, and a seemingly out of character candy ra...

We are joined tonight by the soft and soothing voice of Jolie, a breathtaking staple of the LA dance floors. She shares her experience of cathartic expression through dance, a palm reader directing her from the rock scene to the hip hop scene before finding her way to goth, and the support and acceptance she found in our community. As someone who stays away from social media, she elaborates on how...

As more studies come out about chronotypes and the variables in circadian rhythm, we have a deep desire to express our unprofessional medical opinions about how late-phase chronotypes might be disproportionately more common in the goth scene, how hard it can be to fit into a world designed for early birds, and how this has affected our relationships with school, work, and self-worth. There are val...

After overcoming some technical difficulties, we are honored to have a very special guest, designer of our show logo, Vesta’s longest term ex-partner and the father of the infamous Umbra, Michael Tenebrae. While drinking Boneyard Old Fashioneds, we discuss how Vampire the Masquerade turned this San Diego native goth, how being into metal might seem in conflict with the elaborate androgyny of goth,...

After a bit of a holiday hiatus, catch up with us for a casual hang on Heather’s couch, in which we touch on the experience of being goth in Kauai, Hawaiian Christmas water grannies, the winter Covid resurgence, Gothanukkah (yes, it’s a thing, more on that later), Icelandic introvert Christmas, and the world exploding with emotions over Netflix’s Wednesday series (and more on that later, too). And...

We’re back to discuss the second half of Rolling Stone’s “The 50 Best Goth Songs of All Time,” now opining about selections 25-1. Heather and Vesta become more likely to agree with each other and the article’s author in the second half…until we get to number one. Also featuring a She Wants Revenge impression no one asked for.

Rolling Stone recently published an article entitled “The 50 Best Goth Songs of All Time” written by Andi Harriman, and of course we have opinions. The list is an interesting combinations of basic staples and odd deep cuts, and we in no way claim authority in this divisive and subjective topic, but that doesn’t mean we won’t talk it to death. Embark down a journey of opinions as we explore selecti...

One musician named Davey was simply not enough, so we now welcome Davey Ferchow of the bands Dry Wedding and Swampland, zooming in from Portland. After airing some SoCal grievances, this pod full of poets gets into discussing how a sense of self can emerge from trauma, healthily and wholesomely acknowledging an addictive personality, disagreements about Nick Cave and his many iterations, and the r...

We’re here with our first minisode, in honor of Halloween! Vesta and Heather chat about how the goth community embraces the Halloween season, the time when the rest of society meets us where we already live. We air some grumpy vibes about haunts, conventions, costumes, and amateur nights, but also dig up a lifetime of reverence for the childhood experiences that led us to where we are today. Happy...

Charlotte Anderson is Vesta’s fairygothchild, and also affectionately known as Charlotte’s Goth Sometimes, Normcore Charlotte, and an “inside goth.” Our bubbly Canadian discusses neurodivergence and being bullied in school, a traumatic death in the family that led her away from the Anglican church and into the so-called darkness, and how she focuses on building community through her daywalker job...