I love Scotland. I’m just over the border in Newcastle, and I can hear faintly, from over the horizon, the sound of music fans going absolutely nuts all the time. So I wasn’t at all surprised when news emerged of a dedicated goth and alternative festival cropping up there. I know plenty of bands, DJs and friends of a darker ilk there – I was only surprised it wasn’t Glasgow! Still, wherever it may be, the Scots give good party…
Less than a year ago, I teased you all with the news that new music was being released by a founding member of The Sisters of Mercy. To my surprise, we’re back again! Following Gary Marx’s release of Green Ginger Jive in October of last year, he’s back with a new album called “Sad Songs for Anthony” – and kindly indulged a few questions from me as well!
Good morning from Goth City itself, Leeds – where I am delighted to join a cabal of goth worthies, as we launch the Leeds Goth Hall of Fame on that most auspicious of dates in the dark calendar – World Goth Day!
Make sure you’re following me on social media, where I’ll share updates throughout the day. In the meantime, I reached out to Lee aka DJ BatBoy Slim, co-founder of the annual celebration, to get the crucial background on our Halloween in Spring…
Batboy Slim: Long story short, World Goth Day started in 2010 from an initially jokey discussion with renowned international DJ and occasional troublemaker martin oldgoth (lower case intentional) about creating a day where the worldwide goth community gets to celebrate itself and make its presence known to the rest of the world. We figured it would grow legs by itself and people would keep up the tradition, or it would just fade out, we really didn’t know.
Very quickly we both realised the idea was being taken quite seriously on a global scale, so we decided we should probably do something about centralising everything on a single information website so people could find a local WGD event, find out what it was all about and more. Thankfully John Holley stepped up and took care of running the Facebook page, because that’s a lot of work in itself too.
What have you specifically got planned for the day? Or, anything you’d recommend to the readers?
As I’ve been doing for quite a few years now, I’ve booked the day off work so I’ll be doing anything I like! But the day is often given to making last-minute website updates and answering emails from promoters regarding their own World Goth Day event. For the second year running, the online World Goth Day Festival (organised by Craig Dalrymple) will be running from Thursday to Saturday. There will be loads of Twitch streams and Youtube premieres going on from DJs and bands alike, I suggest people take a look at the website at worldgothday.com to check out the schedule because it’s very packed.
With regards to how anyone should celebrate WGD themselves, well, there’s an FAQ on the website which might help.
Why do you think it persists when so many other youth subcultures have risen and fallen? I was going to make a joke about how the undead don’t die, but that’s too obvious and I tell really bad jokes.
I honestly have no idea what makes WGD persist. Sheer stubbornness I suspect, given that the events are run by passionate individuals and groups who are excited to let me know they’ve got something for me to add to the website every year.
When Covid hit and we were all in Lockdown, plans were immediately made to run online events via Twitch, and that core idea of online events continued to go on even after we were allowed to have live face to face events again. Goth mutates and adapts to survive, so it’s probably no real surprise that WGD persists like it does, but at the same time I’m so damn happy it does.
The current count of global WGD face to face events is 111. That’s a massive amount, there were probably around 20 globally when WGD first kicked off. The events range from goth nights and gigs to picnics in the park, so there is something for everyone. Not only is WGD persisting, it’s growing.
Any closing thoughts as we celebrate goth in 2025?
This year, the Western world has changed, and not for the better.
We’re seeing a lot of animosity towards the trans community, those less fortunate or just different from the norm, more than in previous years. On the Bluesky account (I abandoned the X account for obvious reasons) I posted a message that this year, I would particularly like to see WGD events being a safe space for our trans family as well as the goth community as a whole. I guess we have to be the grown-ups now that the billionaires who run this world don’t want to be…
So the “First XVII” of Leeds Goth were unveiled to a vast crowd, delighting everyone’s dark hearts for coming out midweek. We had highlighted the people, the places and the purveyors of pitch-black music who originated from Goth City (including, of course, Goth City itself!). It was all based on nominations from the public, so as a humble panel-member it was my difficult choice to suggest ways we could whittle down to the truly deserving. I hope we did them justice, and of course – every submission gets an entry on the LeedsNomad.com website, where we’ll keep the Leeds Goth Hall of Fame preserved for digital permanence.
There was an excellent turnout by the local media, with stories now available via the BBC and BBC Radio, and the regional broadsheet where I did a student placement – the Yorkshire Evening Post – even included me in their headline collage! If you spot any other media mentions, let me know in the comments…
It was an incredible day, and I was delighted to be a part of it. Full credit to organisers Mark, the Leeds Nomad, and Elizabeth of Leeds Festival of Gothica, who worked really hard with the very helpful folk at Leeds City Museum to host this exhibition. Let’s keep the black banner flying high over Leeds!
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It’s almost time for the Halloween of Spring – yes, World Goth Day is just over a week away! With canny timing, that will also be the day the Leeds Goth Hall of Fame is launched with an exhibition at the Leeds City Museum, and I’m excited to be present as one of the panel judges.
Even now, adventurous early bats – sorry, birds – will be making the arduous journey to the North Yorkshire coast for Whitby Goth Festival, Spring 2025. Or should that be Whitby FOMO Festival? Like many more, I won’t be attending this year – for a myriad of causes including the significant cost and investment of energy. Nonetheless there is the most ambitious array of events in the town I’ve ever seen, that I definitely do want to signpost to attendees new and veteran!
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