24/09/2025
Needs to be said, f**k off out the scene. You don’t represent the people that need the most support!
Your grandfathers died fighting what you have become!
This has been brewing for a long time, but I haven't had time.
Earlier this year, I DJed at a festival called Dark Force Fest. It's the largest North American goth fest. This year sold out with ~3000 attendees. I had never gone to this festival because every year it had s**tty, problematic artists. That outweighed my desire to see the bands I like, especially when I could see the bands I like at home or at other festivals. I almost went in 2024 when friends were in town and our kids could hang out at another music festival, but alas, real life made that impossible. Fast forward to the end of 2024. I got an email saying my DJ application was accepted. I hadn't planned on going to the festival this year, as our friends weren't going and Funker Vogt was playing. The band literally hired a n**i, hid it, and then attacked the libs for not being tolerant when they were outed. Their label (Out of Line) dropped them immediately. The backlash was fierce for a hot moment.
I had to weigh 2 options.
1. Decline the invitation because Funker Vogt was on the bill along with some other not-ok bands.
2. Choose to play and use that as a platform to protest.
It was not an easy decision, but I chose the latter option. for the following reasons.
1. I could go there to play OTHER music that is better than a lot of the garbage people request to perform en masse every year when the "who do you want to see thread" pops up.
2. I could go protest with music, especially if I was playing between bands and happened to be playing before or after Funker Vogt.
As it turned out, I was gifted with the sets before and after Funker Vogt. I also played the Friday industrial dance party. I just had fun playing whatever I wanted for that event.
For Sunday between bands though... That was many hours over many days carefully selecting a large pool of songs and artists who are anti-n**i/fascist/conservative/etc. Timing wasn't on my side before Funker Vogt because of delays, so I only got to play like 30 seconds of Crystal Geometry's Agent Orange (chorus "f**k Trump"). I made them walk off to Suzi Sabotage's chorus, "n**i goths, f**k off."
During my sets, I constantly had people taking photos of my laptop screen because they had no idea what I was playing, and they were loving it. That was the whole point. Play protest music. Remind people that our scene is about protest. Educate people on other music that they don't know about so maybe they'll want to listen to f**king people who hate us music a lot less.
I totally meant to write something like this months ago, but didn't have time. If you want to see what I played at the fest and read the full post about it, along with all the receipts and an example of a band who did it right (I'm looking at you, Amduscia), it's all there. I would never post s**t about people without having the receipts to back myself up.
https://www.facebook.com/djarcanus/posts/pfbid02yFXGa3HsF572gVn82GSYK22ncEdWcWnCjnVqBXJstsG8F6kHGZJ9kjJDUu7fBNt6l
Since then, someone who runs a label approached me and said a band on their label is stoked that Funker Vogt wants to remix one of their tracks. When presented with Funker Vogt being problematic, the person replied that they thought the band apologized. They didn't. There appears to be a mandela effect where people think the band apologized. They released their non-apology statements that are contained in my post above. Go read for yourself. If the links ever go down, I screencapped them to be preserved forever. Speaking of forever, if the band apologized, that too would be all over the place. Anyway, the band in question threw it back like the onus was on someone else to find the apology. Sorry dude. Nope.
Recently, Dark Force Fest completed their 2026 lineup. It includes Hate Dept. If you even remember this underwhelming rock-industrial band from the 90s, Steven Seibold has gone down the alt-right rabbit hole in recent years, according to people who know him. All I know is that when Brian Graupner (The Gothsicles, Gasoline Invertebrate, etc.) got cancelled for being a transphobe, platforming right-wing idiots on his YouTube channel, and blowing up his own life, he went into butt-hurt mode. Brian released a new Gasoline Invertabrate album that finally showed his true colors. The album included tracks produced by Ted Phelps (trans-phobe from Imperative Reaction) and Steven Seibold (Hate Dept). There's no way anyone producing tracks named "You Gutless F***s Did Me Dirty," "I'm Not Alt-Right or a Neo-Nazi or Whatever, You Fu***ng As****es," and "Leftism Is Bad" isn't on board with what he thinks. See the image in the comments so you don't have to go to the bandcamp page to give him a hit.
Why am I mentioning the people who helped produce this hilariously dumpster fire album? After Hate Dept was announced for Dark Force Fest, Brian was announced as a live member performing next year. There's been a massive s**tstorm on the Dark Force Fest group in the Hate Dept announcement. Steven Seibold just posted to the group with a nothing burger. No matter which way this all ends, it's going to be bad for the festivals. If the event allows the full band to play, a lot of people in the community are going to be hurt. If they don't, you can bet there'll be some free speech bulls**t attack from the right against the festival. I don't envy them, but this is a self-inflicted problem. Why is the festival promoting and allowing bands who hate us to play year after year? I won't go through the list of who f**king sucks from previous years. It's not hard to pick them out if you're politically aware in the scene.
I'm going to include a very important performance and PSA from Kinetik 5 in 2012. It's awful how this is still f**king relevant TODAY! You only need to add the appropriate people who should not be allowed to infiltrate our scene. Props to Ad·ver·sary and Antigen Shift.
https://vimeo.com/42322595
This is my bottom line, same as the image:
Tolerance cannot be absolute.
The goth community is full of q***r and ostracized people. We cannot tell them that they are welcome and safe, then in the same breath, tell them that they must tolerate those who hate them just like everywhere else in society.
If we are truly here to protect the marginalized, we must draw a line as bright as a thousand suns.
Say NO to n**is, fascists, predators, anti-LGBTQIA2S+ people, etc.
That includes both performers and patrons. They aren't really your friends if they hate those you love.
[Edit: My apologies for including Reza/Inertia in the post. I made a poor assumption that needed correction. I spoke with him about it being on the Gasoline Invertebrate release. He mix and mastered untitled songs. Once he found out about Brian's values, he cut him out.]
[Edit 2: Hate Dept has been removed from the DFF lineup. Let's see what their official response is regarding the situation and who's chosen to replace them.
[Edit 3: Ted Phelps was not in the lineup, just Brian Graupner. Too many people said Ted was and I should've double-checked. Also fixed Steven's last name to be Seibold and not Siebold.]
