Of all the possible spawn points available to drop into the choose-your-own-adventure bar crawl format of Project Nowhere's second annual edition, this goth summit at the Garrison felt most appropriate.
Forged out of the collapse of the Fordist industrial work landscape, goth first emerged as a more spiritually focused successor to punk, identifying the world-shattering violence of capitalism, consumerism and emboldened social and economic conservatism, courting their taboos and subverting their violence to arrive at a gloomy aesthetic that actually felt relatable — it makes sense the culture should hold currency in today's neo-feudal gig economy and re-platformed family values, permeating its own liminal plane of mutually alienated witness.
It made sense, too, when Dermabrasion had a room draped in black flocking to the stage for their opening cover of schlock anthem "Dragula," bondage rings jangling as goths pogoed at Kat McGouran and Adam Bernhardt's feet.
While Dermabrasion's cover disposed of the oil-slicked desert drawl of Zombie's track in exchange for an icy stare and industrial brutalism, then chased it with the medieval fantasy imagery of this year's Pain Behaviour, Olga split the difference.
Playing offerings from their May-released debut I Am Porn, Julia Robbins and Nic Waterman's darkwave electro-sleaze ably unpacked the parallels of sex work and the music industry. While Robbins's turns at the mic had her unloading graphic descriptions of red lit scenarios, shot though a megaphone, Waterman's American gothic hellbilly snarl on "Terrorist" could have doubled as the stream-of-consciousness CB radio transmissions of a long haul truck driver passing through a Mad Max wasteland.
By the time Los Angeles-based headliners Patriarchy took the stage, the crowd was fully primed for a dark dionysian interrogation of power dynamics and spectacle.
If their name isn't enough of a tell, Patriarchy's songs are provocative reflections of structurally gendered violence and barriers to pleasure in the world around us, filtered through singer Actually Huizenga's personal experiences, rearranged into hedonistic critiques and cut with an edgy sense of humour. The live show is full of pantomimed wrestling that's clearly choreographed, consensual and never approaching the toxic displays audiences witness when bands actually fall apart live, subverting oppressive forms to incorporate critique as much as revenge fantasy.
Appearing here as a duo consisting of singer Actually Huizenga and drummer AJ English (previous configurations have included a figure identified in the band mythology as "The Guitarist"), the duo ran a tight set with little stage banter, often seamlessly transitioning between tracks with extended harsh noise improvisations, Huizenga and English tweaking settings on pedals and drum pads.
Playing most of 2022's The Unself, the duo also incorporated "Hell Was Full" and a modified lyrical arrangement of "He Took It Out" from 2019's Asking for It into the setlist, saving their biggest spectacle for last and culminating with a choreographed performance of an unreleased track that's been floating around online under the title "Boy on a Leash."
"If you wanna put a boy on a leash, the strategy is catch and release," Huizenga repeated as she wrapped her mic cable into a fist before making her way over to abuse English with a lasso around the neck, periodically tugging as English kicked in her direction while beating a steady tattoo into a tom drum. Both performed the entire set standing, allowing English the opportunity to play into Huizenga's advances, picking up his tom and beating it while Huizenga waxed between laying blows and romantic advances, his intimidating figure diminished while still denoting the limitations of gender-flipping power dynamics as a critique.
A stick-and-carrot routine that never felt like eating your vegetables, Huizenga had everyone in the palm of her hand, laying kisses on girls in the front row and lashing the pit with spray from a water bottle between pretending to choke herself out and picking up a horned guitar for tracks like setlist staples like "Suffer" and "He Took It Out."
By the time the duo reached set staple "Don't Fuck the Drummer," it felt like a tongue-in-cheek territorial warning as much as a dom move, and when Huzienga left the stage at the end of the night, English was left subserviently carrying out the business, thanking the crowd "for experiencing Patriarchy for the first time" (a good joke) and reporting the band would meet fans at the merch table. Good boy.