by Neil W. McCabe

Under a near full moon, the muggy air weighed down on Union Square like euthanasian pillow.

In twos and threes and fours, black-clad figures filed down the stairs into the Toast Lounge for the regular Saturday Curses Goth night.

Outside, the only sound is the clicks of the bats’ sonar bouncing in the alleys walls. Inside, the walls pulse with industrial and Goth mixes.

The Curses night was created by promoter Cusraque, who instantly impresses with his wide black musketeer hat and boots, open shirt and black eye patch.

Cusraque said he grew up in New Hampshire and has gone by the name since he invented it for himself at age 12.

For 11 years, he ran the Hell Goth night at Central Square’s Man Ray, which started for him as a vision he had as he was working as a chain mail jewelry vendor, he said.

It struck him as he made his rounds both to customers and to different music and dance venues that there had to be a way to bring together the Goth and Fetish communities, Cusraque said. At the time at Man Ray, Friday was Goth night and Saturday was Fetish night. “I envisioned a night with the two communities getting together by combining the one thing they shared: decadence.”

When he parted ways with Man Ray management this spring, Cusraque said he looked inside the windows of Toast one afternoon, and thought it was just the front bar, thus too small.

“Then a friend of mine, who comes here on Thursdays, told me that it opened up into three rooms in the back,” he said.

Now he said he is convinced Toast was the right choice. “I love it how the place turns into a house party, especially the back smoking area, which is like hanging out on a back porch.”

The first Curses Goth night was July 10, and since then Cusraque said he has tried to mix it up. “One night, we had Barney, the purple dinosaur, show up on the dance floor at Midnight. Another Midnight, we had a astronaut, you know, silly stuff.”

Cusraque has produced other spectacles over the last 11 years, he said. He once had actors portraying Elvis and Jesus making out. He called it: The King and the King of Kings. Another time, he had a Michael Jackson impersonator lip-synch “The Way You Make Me Feel,” while he fondled young boys.

Rather than a promoter, Cusraque said he sees himself as a comedy writer. If the future he hopes to put on more elaborate dance floor performances. They one he is developing now starts with a clown dancing. Then, a drunken mime comes up to the side and drinks out of an invisible bottle. Suddenly, the mime rushes the clown and breaks the invisible bottle over his head and continues to beat the clown into a coma.

The mime stopped by a policewoman in a fetish costume, who handcuffs and takes the mime away leaving the clown. Finally, a fetish nurse revives the clown with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he said.

In addition to spectacles, Cusraque said he creates theme nights. The theme Aug. 21 was “Countess Erzebet Bathory and the Death of the Blood Countess.” Seeking eternal youth, Countess Erzabet was reputed to have ordered 600 virgins executed, so she could bath in their blood. Patrons who arrived in 1640s period costume paid a half-price cover charge.

Cusraque said the Goth movement is an off-shoot of early 1980s punk. Goth music became different with bands like The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

The Goth culture has influences mainly form England, but there is a strong industrial influence from Germany, he said. Like everything else, there is a component from New York City.

Goth fashion, in the beginning, was very Victorian, but now it is so diverse that it ranging from very sophisticated and latex to gutter Goth, which he said is ripped jeans and tee shirts.
Now Goth is more than music and fashion, he said. “It’s a scene where you can live. It is very literate and has a special way of seeing things.

“We have a gallows humor and a silly nihilism,” he said.

Cusraque said he relies on his network that he has built up over the years, like the disc jockey, DJAddamBombb.

“I met Cusraque when I was making chain mail jewelry, accessories and couture for boutiques, like Hubba-Hubba and Gypsy Moon,” DJAddambombb said.

“One day, I was in Hubba-Hubba’s and the owner, Suzie, said, ‘You should meet Cusraque,” he said.
“That night, I met him and we hit it right off. Things–for the both of us—were going in the same direction,” he said.

“In fact, I ended up giving him a ride home that night,” he said.

Kaitilyn Joyce said she started working with Cusraque two years ago. At Toast, she works the door and during the week she distributes flyers in Somerville, Cambridge and on Newbury Street.

Working with Cusraque was not a culture shock, Joyce said. “I always Goth on the inside. I was into the music first, but the black came naturally.”

Luca Zianzi, a Venezuelan engineering student at Boston University, said he found his way from Man Ray over to Toast.

He said Goth was the perfect fit, since he started wearing only black when he was 14.

Cusraque said he is happy with his new home. “I love Somerville. I just wish the club was able to compete on a level playing field. Venues in Cambridge can stay open until 2 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.”

The clock is approaching Midnight. Cusraque has visited the different rooms, and chatted at the tables, so he free to go out to the back smoking area.

Zianzi is all ready out there with his friend, Lia Namikawa. Cusraque greets them and fires up an all-natural brown Nat Sherman cigarette with a honey-flavored filter. One by one, it gets crowded. The gang’s all here.

Tonight, there are no spectacles or surprises on the dance floor. As the bats soar and glide overhead, they gather around Cusraque as he tells them about time he had to convince Canadian border guards to let him take boxes of Goth jewelry into the country for a convention in Montreal.