One of the inspiring new DJs in the San Francisco Deathrock scene is Rick A. Mortis who I first heard of because of his highly stylish online comic - "The Undead Adventures of Formaldihyde Fix" - (thank you DJ Xian). Pleasantly charming and exuding enthusiasm; I asked Rick to give us the low down on his endeavors and the current state of the scene in San Francisco. ~Blu
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I started doing "The Undead Adventures of Formaldihyde Fix" as a way of making people aware of the Deathrock scene (as opposed to just the Punk, and Goth scenes).  Since I've been getting heavily into Deathrock for the past five years, and thought it was such a fun, cool, and care free scene to be involved with, that I felt more people should know about it.  Thus was born the comic (The Undead Adventures...).  Initial response to the first issue was phenomenal...  however as I started work on the second issue, my attention diverted towards another matter..."The current state of the SF club scene" (and the comic has been on hiatus since). 

At that time all I heard when I would go to clubs was "Synthpop", "EBM", and an occasional old played out "Goth-Rock" track.  Then along came "House of Voodoo", where I found a club based on "Deathrock" I was ecstatic and I went the first night I heard about it.  It was in a little Bar ("Annie's" the best damn bar in SF), and the DJ's would get maybe 20 people in a night. 

After we moved to a huge venue (Big Heart City) I slowly got more involved with the club, doing Security, Door, and Setup.  Then in June 2001, the owner and head DJ (Mike Voodoo) gave me my first shot at DJing... and slowly over the past year I've seen a gradual increase in Deathrock/Old-School/Batcave stuff being spun in other clubs.  I've had people request the most obscure Deathrock related stuff, and then be amazed when we actually have their request.

However the nicest thing about "House of Voodoo" is that there is a second floor where all the Electronic/Industrial/EBM/Synthpop stuff gets spun.. away from the main floor.  Which is great because we pull in a lot of different sub-types of Goths and Punks (as well as a few normal folks).  The day one of the upstairs DJs requested "The Misfits" from me, was when I knew that there was a great cross exposure (of the different scenes) going on at Voodoo.

Also in SF we have a number of other clubs that are promoting "Deathrock" (not as directly as HOV, but they do spin DR none the less)..  Among them are "Dark Sparkle", "A Carnivale" (where I also DJ), "She Said", "Smoke and Mirrors" (owned by Perki a fellow HOV DJ), "Aint Dead Yet",, etc.  Bear in mind that these clubs play a lot of other types of music as well.  I am currently planning a new club with a fellow DJ friend of mine that will focus on old and new Deathrock, as well as Deathrock related genres (Punk, Post-Punk, Goth-Rock, Dark New Wave, etc.) In a nice creepy atmosphere (no Disco Balls, or distracting lights.. just ambient lighting and lots of dry ice) .

Personally I feel that within the past three years Deathrock has had a huge revival... which seems to be driven mostly by Deathrock.com, and Release the Bats in L.A.  Germany and Brazil I have noticed have a thriving DR scene as well.  Another contributor to this recent surge of new interest in DR is due to many of the new Punk bands, promoting old school DR bands. I think that it's a wonderful turn of events, and I really don't see "Deathrock" ever becoming assimilated by the media (unlike Goth and Punk) because Deathrock does not take itself seriously, and would be really hard to sell to the masses of angsty young kids out there.

DJs:
Voodoo: Goth-Rock, Deathrock, Goth-Metal, Industrial-Metal, Dark Rock
Perki: Goth-Pop and and random strangeness.
Rick A. Mortis: Deathrock, Goth-Rock, Post-Punk, Punk, Old Industrial, Dark New Wave, etc. 

Rick A. Mortis is @:
http://www.gothpunk.com/formaldihyde/DJ.html
rickamortis@gothpunk.com

The Undead Adventures of Formaldihyde Fix
http://www.GothPunk.com/formaldihyde/

The Deathrock SF group Rick moderates
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deathrockSF/

Yahoo Deathrock Club: Old School Goth, Deathrock, Horrorpunk
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/deathrock

Yahoo Darker 80's: 80's Post-Punk, Goth, New Wave, Synthpop, EBM, etc
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/darker80s

Deathrock Message Board
http://www.deathrock.com/board/main.html

2/01/02