I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but my boss has a side business in which he sells custom motor bike gear & parts.

He recently got sent a sample of a rather nice riding jacket. The leather is supple as it’s been well milled, but the design is somewhat… flamboyant. I’m left wondering if he’s going to be able to catch much of the biker market at all with a jacket like this.

But then again, a lot of biker gear doesn’t end up in the biker market at all. A lot of it ends up in the Metalhead and Goth scenes. Which led me to think that perhaps some people here might like to get a look at said jacket, and maybe leave some thoughts as to whether or not they’d get it.

Click the images for full size.

So the question remains, would you consider getting a jacket like this? And is it worth promoting to the goth and metal scenes?

And no, I cannot get you one of these jackets at wholesale. The wholesale one is already being purchased by me, for me.

Location: Insignia (corner of Flinders & Kings streets)

In short: Went to Black Widows on the weekend. Good time, no head-ache, reasonable conversation.

Crowd Type: Furries, Tamagothies, Cyberpunks, Generics

Drinks: Standard prices, no premiums other than beer.

Music: Mostly industrial and EBM.

I’ve gotta say, I’ve enjoyed getting back into the scene lately, and this is one of the Melbourne goth clubs that actually does it for me.

Possibly because nearly a decade ago I supplied Myki, the promoter, some 15gb worth of music and he’s been playing mostly the same tracks since, but mostly because it’s not quite so stereotypical a ‘club’, goth or otherwise.

One of the things that irks me about clubs is that people form cliques. If you’re new and don’t know anyone, it’s often bloody hard to actually get to know people. Between the music basically destroying any chance of having a conversation, and people assuming you’re a sexual predator if you want to buy them a drink, you usually have Buckleys. Added the regular “air-hair-lair” snootiness that’s tied in with the old school goth scene, or the “Oh, I’m an electro-steam-graver and you’re not” endless subdivisions in the younger crowd, it’s nice to go to  place where people will actually be friendly.

That’s not to say there aren’t established groups at BWs, but they’ll more often than not talk to you if you want in on the conversation, and there’s a bit of diversity in crowd types between the cliques in the first place. It’s also not to say it’s not the kind of club that you can’t go to to hookup. Quite the opposite in fact. This weekend, pretty much anyone that tried (or didn’t… remember, act nonchalant!) managed to get somewhere from what I saw. But unlike a lot of other crowds, you’re not on auto-shun if people know you’re already taken.

All up, an enjoyable night out.

Which is to say that there are none there .

Well, not quite. I saw a set of goth parents,and their brightly coloured, Wiggles bedecked spawnling. Why is it that the children of goth couples are always so brightly coloured?

What there was in abundance were emo children. Everywhere. Emo and scenesters, and “rave cave” stands full of glowing and LED ridden crap at 400% markups and… and… and almost nothing to take advantage of these cashed up bubble heads except a rather well done horror train, which I didn’t even manage to get a ride on due to insanely large queues.

Why god, whyyyyyy!?!?

There was one potential stab at making a bag suitable for goth/emo kiddies though. The “Black Angel” bag. Cheapest possible synthetic satin gloves, black feather wings, a wrist band, and a black wig. All this for a paltry $20… or was it $25.

Whatever, it was overpriced considering that you could get all those things at a cheap asian discount store for about three quarters the price.

Which has made me realise that there are two market segments that are not being catered for at the Show:

1) Tamagothies and Emo children; and

2) Sexual health.

In terms of sexual health, it’s simple. There just should be something aimed at all levels.

Family bag so you can explain it to the preteens, something for teenagers loaded with condoms and pamphlets about “use them, or you’ll get electroghonorrea – it’s the noisy killer”, and then for the money maker, you sell single guys, single girls, and couples bags. A few appropriate toys, some lubes, a couple pamphlets on sexual health services and some of those “have you been drugged?!” drink coasters. Bam! State government initiative right there. They’ll be throwing money at you! Could probably even have a few GLBT bags for kicks… like the Hardcore Lesbians Bag: Flannel shirts and a rounders bat.

The goth bags, now there’s a guaranteed money maker.

Firstly, you’d need the appropriately themed stand, with a name like “The Gloom Room”.

All the bags would be easy enough to arrange. Just get black plastic bags for the cheaper ones, and some cheap black PVC courier satchels for the “expensive” ones. Maybe iron on patches so you can tell them apart when grabbing them from the back. Some My Chemical Romance stickers, a rubber spike wrist band and cheap button badges. Presto! Generic Emo bag ready to go. NIN Patch, rubber choker, and cheap white foundation and black lipstick. Zonino! Goth bag!

And the magic is that all of these things would be dirt cheap if bought in the quantities needed to make 2,000 bags.

Anyone feel like going halves in a business proposal for next year’s show?

Sorry folks, no drink today.
I haven’t been drinking that much in a social setting lately (albeit raging alcoholism has been happening behind the scenes… personal life shit), and therefore not that much experimentation been going on.

To make up for this, next week I shall invent five halloween drinks and pre-schedule them for you.

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