![\"Sage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510229_133_.webp\")
Sage works the door at Elysium, Austin\u2019s oldest goth club. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tSage works the door at Elysium, Austin\u2019s oldest goth club. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n
Deep into the night, heat from the 100-degree day radiates off the sidewalk outside of Elysium, Austin\u2019s oldest goth bar.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll celebrate 25 years this year. By 10 p.m. on the Sunday I went, dancers covered the floor.<\/p>\n
Not all were in the traditional goth get-up planted in our cultural consciousness by Hollywood. Some wore sundresses, battle jackets, muscle shirts and jorts.<\/p>\n
Many music genres grew up in Texas \u2014 conjunto, honky-tonk, Texas blues, among others. In recent decades, goth joined the party. Alongside them, the subculture has grown to support several independent businesses and spaces.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510229_757_.webp\")
The dance floor at Elysium on Aug. 8. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n
Goth is far from new in Texas. Goth clubs like Numbers<\/a> in Houston have been around for 47 years.<\/p>\n Its secret to immortality? Its flexibility.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a running joke in the subculture that in order to truly be goth, you have to deny that you are goth,\u201d said John Wickham, owner of Elysium.<\/p>\n Wickham has been active in the Texas scene since the \u201980s.<\/p>\n \u201cBauhaus, The Cure, Siouxsie Sioux, all those bands said \u2018no, no, we\u2019re not goth!\u2019 Which basically means they\u2019re goth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Darkwave, alternative, post-punk \u2014 one of the challenges of documenting \u201cgoth\u201d is that it goes by so many other names. While many, like John, embrace the label, others I spoke with rejected it.<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s in a name?<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, goth is about the music,\u201d said Cassandra Davis, owner of Secret Oktober<\/a>, a clothing store in Austin that caters to goth and alternative lifestyles. She also runs a webpage<\/a> collecting goth-related events in the area, and runs a dance party called Dark Ritual Goth Night.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the number one thing,\u201d Davis said. \u201cSome people come at it from literature, some people come at it through movies, and some from just the fashion or just the makeup. But, to me, it is 100% the music. That\u2019s where it all began.\u201d<\/p>\n Historically, goth traces its roots back to a cluster of British post-punk bands \u2014 The Cure, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Joy Division \u2014 and the club culture that surrounded the British post-punk scene.<\/p>\n The label is generally attributed to Steve Abbott, frontman of UK Decay, who called their music \u201cpunk gothique.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the style and themes associated with the genre come from either punk culture or niche media \u2014 think German Impressionist films, Gothic literature and mid-century television, like The Vampira Show and The Addams Family. Universal Monsters, Anne Rice\u2019s novels and B-movies have also influenced the culture.<\/p>\n The music and culture quickly spread. Wickham told me of his experience during the \u201980s club scene in Houston.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to have these things called teen clubs, where if you were 13, you could go to a club, and they didn\u2019t have alcohol or anything, but they had dancing and lights and music,\u201d said Wickham. \u201cWe went from that to graduating to going to Numbers and some of the clubs like that.\u201d<\/p>\n He told me Numbers originated as a gay bar, then became a goth bar. Its first live band was the goth essential, Siouxsie and the Banshees.<\/p>\n \u201cThe clubbing scene that I grew up in in my teenage years, [it was] just really people who felt free expressing themselves, and the whole darker aesthetic, some of the music,\u201d said Wickham.<\/p>\n Goths haven\u2019t been rocking the same four tracks for this long, though.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have the traditional goths, which are into Bauhaus and the first wave,\u201d said Sebastian Gnolfo, owner of Bloody Rose Boutique<\/a>, another store in Austin which sells goth and alternative goods. He also runs The Darker Side of Austin<\/a> webpage, organizes events for the community and is a musician in his own right.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s expanded to mall goth, and to cyber goth,\u201d said Gnolfo. \u201cSo you have people listening to metal and pop music, and they\u2019re all goth. You have goths who listen to ABBA.\u201d<\/p>\n Wickham told me many of the modern bands, as per tradition, will reject the goth label in favor of terms like darkwave.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the reason the bands don\u2019t want to be called \u2018goth\u2019 is because they want to be perceived as new,\u201d Wickham said. \u201cAnd so \u2018darkwave\u2019 allows them to be something new, whereas \u2018goth\u2019 tends to be something from the past.\u201c<\/p>\n Along the walls of Elysium hangs a gallery of goth and alternative artists who visited the venue.<\/p>\n Some of the faces included KMFDM, Suicide Commando, Death in June, Covenant, Frontline Assembly, Voltaire, Douglas McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb, Psychic TV, Gary Newman and Shannon Funchess of Light Asylum.<\/p>\n \u201cAmazing, amazing woman,\u201d Wickham said of Funchess. \u201cI highly suggest her stuff, it\u2019s very new.\u201d<\/p>\n There were a myriad of Texas bands as well. Among them were Evil Mothers (San Antonio), Mentallo and the Fixer (Austin), Curse Mackey (Austin), Twin Tribes (Brownsville), NITE (Dallas), Urban Heat (Houston), Rosegarden Funeral Party (Dallas), The Nimbus (Austin) and Mutant (Austin).<\/p>\n Wickham mentioned one of Nimbus\u2019 merch shirts on the back says \u201cRECOVERING GOTH.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAgain, you have to deny being goth to actually be goth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Over the past 50 years, certain fashion styles grew up around the music subculture.<\/p>\n With punk deep within their DNA, much of goth fashion still relies on DIY and custom pieces. Those stores that do cater specifically to the culture are generally independent, like Secret Oktober and Bloody Rose Boutique.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though there are certain styles, you don\u2019t want to look like a clone and just look like you went online to TEMU and bought the goth collection,\u201d said Davis. \u201cYou want to … put your own stuff in there.\u201d<\/p>\n Her store has racks of sewing supplies, studs and buckets of patches.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very fashionable to wear lots and lots and lots of patches,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n When asked what it\u2019s like to be goth in a state that regularly hits the 100s, I was generally met with laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no such thing as being cool and dressing goth,\u201d said Davis. \u201cYou just suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t dress for the weather,\u201d said Gnolfo. \u201cI dress to make myself feel good. And for a lot of goths it\u2019s the same.\u201d<\/p>\n He did recommend a parasol to keep yourself shaded.<\/p>\n Despite the heat, people have kept coming back to this subculture for almost half a century.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there definitely is a resurgence in the goth subculture,\u201d Wickham said. \u201cMore people are interested in it now, probably more than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of this is thanks to its growing popularity online, in addition to a nostalgic resurgence of 2010s \u201cvampire mania.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephanie Tsonetokoy, known professionally as Bunny Voodoo, is an artist and runs Blood Over Texas<\/a>, which organizes horror events throughout Central Texas.<\/p>\n Bunny Voodoo does not identify with the goth label.<\/p>\n \u201cI would lean to horror, mostly because that\u2019s more what I do,\u201d she said. \u201cMy art is horror\/goth. So, somewhere in that realm. We need a new name for horror goths.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the community, Bunny Voodoo said that while the online side of the culture can be helpful, in-person events will always be the glue that keeps goths and goth-adjacent folks together.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to have a sense of community where you\u2019re accepted and not judged,\u201d said Bunny Voodoo.<\/p>\n Many of the goths I spoke with said the next generation (known in the community as \u201cbaby bats\u201d) has taken up the mantle.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really cool and vibrant here, how diverse the scene is,\u201d said Gnolfo. \u201cEven here at the store, I\u2019ve got customers who are in their 50s and 60s coming in with their teenage and tween and younger kids, shopping together. It\u2019s like whole goth families. I\u2019ve even had goth grandmothers with their goth moms and the goth kids come in.\u201d<\/p>\n The scene is showing no signs of slowing down. Texas-native goth and darkwave bands are drawing new audiences and many of the historic goth clubs and bars are celebrating milestone anniversaries.<\/p>\n To Wickham, this makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that goth is a way of looking at all of the darkness in the world and all of the uncertainty and things like that and finding the beauty in it,\u201d Wickham said, \u201cno matter how much it might initially appear unappealing or scary or spooky.\u201d<\/p>\n If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here<\/a>. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org<\/a> and KUT.org<\/a>. Thanks for donating today.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t![\"Zarl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510230_334_.webp\")
Zarl was just one of several attendees to a Depeche Mode vs. The Cure night at Elysium. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n![\"Elysium](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510230_614_.webp\")
Elysium is celebrating 25 years, marking it as the oldest goth club in Austin. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n![\"Masquerade](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510230_367_.webp\")
Masquerade masks on display at Elysium. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786510231_51_.webp\")
The dance floor at Elysium. (Charlie Sharpe | Texas Standard)<\/p>\n