The scene outside of The Regent in downtown Los Angeles on a recent Saturday night, is wild. The venue, which holds a thousand people, is sold out and the gaggle of goths waiting to get inside is antsy, swaying to the Joy Division bleeding through the doors.
Alexia Roditis, whose face is made up ala Souxie and the Banshees, — white face paint, bold, black paint around the eyes, and black lipstick — can't wait to get inside.
"I've been looking forward to this event for months," they told NPR, fluffing up their ratted-out bleached blonde hair. "I'm like, Oh my God. I get to dance to like my two favorite styles of music? That's crazy."
It's Gothicumbia night; a mostly monthly dance party combining goth and cumbia music. Cumbia is a genre of Latin American dance music that first became popular in Colombia in the 1960s. It combines guitars, synthesizers and African-based percussion. The night is a chance for LA's Latino goths - or darks - to turn out in their best outfits and sweat the night away.
Gothicumbia is the witchy brainchild of a Latino-American creative collective called Los Goths Co., whose founders keep their identities anonymous, both for the sake of maintaining an air of mystery, and so that no one person can be singled out. "United by music, laughter, and expression, we host unforgettable experiences and craft unique products that reflect who we are as a community," they told NPR in a statement. "We celebrate our dual identity with those who find joy in the blend of tradition and darkness."
The mashup is clearly resonating with Latino partygoers. Hundreds of first generation kids who grew up listening to Bauhaus in their bedrooms, and Los Angeles Azules at family birthdays, are flocking to the dance nights. The collective's recent Gothicumbia nights in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Riverside drew crowds between 700 to 1,000 people a night.
"I just think there's a real, almost craving for people like us to connect all of these different parts of us," Tina Estrella, who's known on social media as Hauntina, told NPR.
Estrella is a first generation Mexican American. She said that about five years ago, she began to feel a pull toward her Mexican culture. "I think you kind of get so assimilated to the 'American life'," she said using airquotes, "that you disconnect with your roots without even realizing it."
Then she found darkwave and goth music in Spanish. And now that she's found a place where all of those things come together, she said, she feels like she finally found her people. Estrella is so committed to the party that on this night, she drove more than 50 miles from her home in the Inland Empire to mingle with hundreds of other black-clad dancers.
"You get that nostalgia of like, This is the music I grew up on, you know?" So it's really fun to have that good balance of like the dark wave subculture. But you're also listening to the songs that you would listen to in your dad's car," Estrella said.
Rey Garcia told NPR that Gothicumbia is for goths with a sense of humor. "You think of goths and you think of serious people, dressed in black, all depressed. But we wanna party, too!" he said laughing.
Garcia has become internet famous as Goth Tio or Goth Uncle in English. That's largely due to Los Goths Co., which often feature videos of him on their Instagram and TikTok accounts. As a result, both his look and his darkwave dance moves have become inextricably linked with Gothicumbia.
"I've been into a bunch of different scenes," he said, "but being a goth has changed my life." Now, clubbers stop Garcia with his vaquero (cowboy) look for selfies. When he's out of his makeup, which he says takes three hours to apply, he's difficult to spot. But Garcia is easily recognizable when he's done up with his signature black and white face paint, goatee, black tejana, and cowboy boots.
"I always try to look sharp when I come here because everyone puts so much effort into their looks. But actually a lot of the credit goes to my father, because I basically raid my father's closet," Garcia said, spinning in a circle.
The mononymous Jose, a former fashion design student who goes by HoeSaysDistress on Instagram, prefers a couture look. On this night, he's wearing a black batwing cape that he made specifically for Gothicumbia. "It's great to dance in," he explained.
"So many of us were the weirdo kids in the family, who would get made fun of by our relatives. But here, we're all the same and it's like a big happy family," he said, echoing a sentiment expressed by dozens of dancing goths at the venue.
Out on the dance floor, the Los Goths Co. crew have decorated the stark space with black balloons. The team throws black and white beach balls that bounce overhead all night long. And they toss out multicolored light sticks for people to wave around. Which they do. Gleefully.
Up on stage, flanking the sprawling DJ set up, there are two 12-foot tall skeletons — the kind you get at Home Depot around Halloween. Adding to the spectacle, is a guy on stilts, dressed as a robot. He's got a tank of CO2 gas rolling beside him, which emits plumes of smoke as he cumbias his way through the crowds. (A Los Goths Co. founder said it has become all the rage at today's quinceañeras.)
Gary "Ganas" Garay and Alexandra Lippman have a sonidero cumbia record label together, called Discos Rolas. Garay says the mix of musical genres makes perfect sense to him. Having grown up throughout Southern California in the 1980s and 90s, Garay said he's witnessed first hand how Latino teens have embraced alternative rock, new wave, punk, post-punk and goth subcultures for decades. Radio stations like LA's KROQ-FM and San Diego's 91-X served as a conduit for Gen X and Millennial first generation Latinos, he explained.
"Back in the day, in the raver days, you'd go to a party and there would be rock en espanol room or the tribal house room," he said. "The difference is that the youth right now are bringing those things together. In the same room."
From a musical perspective, he added, there is considerable overlap between cumbia and goth music.
"One thing that unites both of those in a really interesting way, the synthesizer. A lot of [cumbia and darkwave and new wave music] share the same synthesizers and those sounds … and that, for me, is where the beauty lies," Garay said.
Lippman, who is also an anthropology professor at Pomona College in Claremont, noted another commonality. While goth music originated in Britain more than 40 years ago, it quickly became a global genre.
"Goth and cumbia, which comes from Colombia, are music that have roots in specific places, but both of them are such transnational musics that have spread throughout the world and taken on different characteristics in different places and have their own histories," she said.
Los Goths Co. wants to keep spreading the music. The collective is looking to expand Gothicumbia to cities outside of California. Next month, they'll be bringing the vibe to Texas.
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