Carleton student and DJ Eric Mulligan is bringing goth culture to Ottawa with events like the Red Death Masquerade Jan. 27.
“We organize events in order to try to get different people who are interested in gothic culture to meet and socialize,” Mulligan said. “We’re really looking to highlight culture from Ottawa.”
The first-year computer science student co-hosted the Red Death Masquerade, named after one of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories. The event, which was put on in collaboration with the Ottawa Goth Syndicate, drew over 50 masked guests to the Royal Canadian Legion on Kent Street.
Besides co-hosting, Mulligan performed under his pseudonym DJ Reverie. One reason he became a DJ was because no one else played music he liked at clubs, he said. He was introduced to the gothic scene in Toronto, and now he wants to bring some of those elements to Ottawa’s goth club scene.
Now, Mulligan works at raves, the Death Disco and other Ottawa Goth Syndicate events where he plays electronic body music, dark alternative and industrial music.
While he’s mostly into goth music, he said that doesn’t shut out everything else.
“Gothic music is extremely diverse,” Mulligan said. “It goes anywhere from electronic music, to punk rock,” he said citing The Birthday Massacre and Nine Inch Nails.
For Liisa Ladouceur, author of Encyclopedia Gothica, the diversity of goth culture extends beyond music as well.
She describe “Gothic” as not only a style of music, dress or literature, but as a lifestyle that celebrates the romantic side of life’s darker aspects. There’s not only diversity from place to place, but a difference in how gothic culture is expressed in different age groups.
Ladouceur read a selection of her unpublished dark spoken word poetry at the event and spoke briefly about her new book, Encyclopedia Gothica. It uses the traditional encyclopedia format, but contains terms important to the gothic subculture from “absinthe” to “zombies,” including fashion, slang terms and important figures.
Above all, Ladouceur said events like the Red Death Masquerade help cast away the misconceptions about violence and depression that overshadow goth culture.
“We’re pretty happy people and we like to have fun,” she said.
