d:konstruct

Apology accepted. In the end, I think I might have an idea that will make everyone very happy. I have to run it by Sybil tomorrow night and it should please everyone here. How would everyone feel if the Ballroom was open on a regular basis as an old school gothic club counterpart to the main CC area? In other words, we can play old school stuff/retro/etc in the Ballroom, add some couches, ambience and have that as a balance to the main CC area were you play industrial new and old/electro/ebm/noise. We could open up the other bar outside the Ballroom to free up congestion and give people in the club more space. We could feature 1-2 bands the last weekend of the month as well. If we drove more traffic through the club, we would be able to bring in better national acts and take care of them. As for the fetish thing, I don't focus Collective events as fetish events. The bikini thing was supposed to be just something for were people could cool off a bit with the summer. I want to create something in the Ballroom like the way the Lab used to be back in the day. It seems that the successful clubs that cater to this scene tend to have something for everyone. I agree that the fetish thing is overdone. However, I don't think there should be objections to girls that want to dress sexy and do their thing on the dance floor. Sexy girls on the dance floor equal guys on the dance floor, equals people get hot and tired and want to drink more which makes the establishment happy. We would need a dedicated sound system in the Ballroom though that would costs us some money. We could do a benefit show to raise money but we're talking something like $2000 unless someone can cut us a deal on a sound system. We could also do a benefit to raise money to continue to fix the CC main pa system which still needs a lot of work as well. I think the fetish scene needs a venue to cater to that sort of thing like Blondies. Now groups that want to do a dance routine is one thing, but no strippers or made in Detroit stuff. Believe me, I share your frustration with what we went through with Corktown. I've spoken to keith before about the Hellbound events but that is something that I think should be done once in a blue moon and usually entails a very high door cover charge. I would do those events in a different venue. But the Ballroom could be a gothic lounge of sorts similar to the Lab or Ascension UK. We could set up a video projector showing goth videos or weird horror movies. The Collective has tried to find our own venue to do such things but it is just too expensive with liquor license issues, insurance, legality issues, safety, etc. CC has been around forever and will continue to be the central hub in Detroit. We need to make the best of it. I will continue to focus my attention on CC only from now on as the Director of the Collective. Thank you all for your support and feedback.

You know I asked for feedback. And the reason I asked is because I want to help the scene. However, when you make comments that The Collective hinders business or that ideas like the Bikini bash are "idiotic", you are not giving feedback. You are insulting me and the people in the Collective who work very hard to set up shows and throw out some of our own money so DJ's and performers can do various things. It's this kinda of chatter that keeps people away from a scene not various themed nights. As for numbers, are you out there promoting the events that you have been part of or are you stroking your egos? Because let me tell you this gentlemen, no one is that good. We have offered you opportunities to showcase your skills and you insult us on the forum. And for your information, we have actually increased business at CC through our various themed events. I do not need to waste my time dealing with negative comments or insults. I'm asking for feedback because I want to help you out and provide entertainment in the scene. Sybil asks me what we're doing and we set it up. You are then asked to spin or perform for the central electronic/industrial/goth scene here in Detroit. You get free promotion and paid. We may not pay you much but we do what we can. And as Sean would say, Do you really promote the events or do you just tell your few friends to come when you're spinning? Guess what, there are many others out there who respect what we do and that is what I'm not seeing here. We will continue to give opportunities to those who respect what we are doing and make a positive effort to help build the scene and not decimate it with their own negative intentions and or comments. And if you want to discuss this with me in private, I will be at CC tomorrow night celebrating Kat's birthday and meeting with Sybil to make plans for this fall.

Here's the latest, we train for 4 hours around 5pm-9pm. We park in a secure garage in the building which is nice. The cost is super cheap and the training is excellent. Joel has over 25 years experience with ninjutsu, Jeet Kun Do I believe I spelled it wrong, and law enforcement training. It is a small group of serious martial artists with various skill levels. My wife and I have a lot of fun and are working on our 2nd degrees in the art. We also do weapons training and Joel is looking for people for his Detective agency. I'm joining the police academy in the spring so this is very helpful for my own personal training. If you want real quality training, check it out. Let me know if you're interested.

I will be there and you will be spanked

How would you guys feel about live bands. We are thinking maybe of having Faith and the Muse, Bella Morte, D:Konstruct, and Servitor Sanctum 7. Nocker will be spinning for sure as will Scary Guy and the the Leland DJ's. I wasn't planning on anything fetish though maybe a dance skit of sorts with some of the ladies in the Collective. Last year we had Aviva do a Belly Dancing thing which was fun. We are also checking into some other national acts. Money will be the issue with the national acts of course. We were also thinking that the cover would be if we had national acts around $7-8 but, take a breath, if you are on the DGN board and we give out a code that you would just pay the normal $5. price for entry. In any event, we want to make the Halloween party as fun as possible for all with a lot of things going on. Please keep the feedback coming for the event as we are making plans for it now. thank you

I have been informed that Leland wants the Collective to throw a big party on Oct. 30th. What do you want to see and or hear? Suggestions please. thank you

Spartans! I will be there tonight

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Ok, this conversation is creating some disturbing visualizations for me right now Sean. You do not have to wear a bikini, perhaps a speedo? Maybe, a speedo or Hot Topic thong with water moccasins, something tribal yet sexy.... As for me Sean, the world is a much safer and better place place not knowing what is underneath that which is D:Konstruct:) My wife just commented that I should wear a sumo diaper. I think I will be filing for a divorce sometime soon. Now she is talking photoshop, I am no longer amused.

Ok, this conversation is creating some disturbing visualizations for me right now Sean. You do not have to wear a bikini, perhaps a speedo? Maybe, a speedo or Hot Topic thong with water moccasins, something tribal yet sexy.... As for me Sean, the world is a much safer and better place place not knowing what is underneath that which is D:Konstruct:) My wife just commented that I should wear a sumo diaper. I think I will be filing for a divorce sometime soon. Now she is talking photoshop, I am no longer amused.

We thought since the summer has been miserably hot it would be a fun idea to have a monster bikini party. We will have some people with super soakers. Please leave your water guns at home. Our friends in Bowling Green (Frequency Mutineers) will spin in the ballroom some fun tunes. I'm working on kiddie pools but I'm not sure that's gonna happen. i'm also trying to get a slip and slide in there. Bring your own towels, flip flops, etc. If you don't want to get wet, you might wanna stay out of the Ballroom. We will also have a sexiest gothic bikini contest for those who like to show off a bit. If you wanna just be some sort of monster thats fun also. We just want to get people wet! This was Sybil's idea believe it or not. We will set tarps down in the Ballroom to isolate the water fun and to keep things from being super slippery. Come join us, it should be fun:) see the fleir

Thank you to all who came out and supported what we did yesterday. It was a nightmare from the beginning, especially for Doc. In a nutshell, the Corktown people treated all of us like we were dogs and we will never work for them again. Doc ended up shelling out something like $300 of his own money just to get the tent up. The DJ's did a great job, no, a fantastic job! The people that were there seemed into what we were doing. Our D:Konstruct set was a disaster. The sound system that was set up was not enough to handle bands. It was set up for DJ's which made our live set difficult to match up cable wise. As a result, during the 4th song, our sound went out and I basically ended our set. My apologies to anyone that came to this show to see us play but when the sound system isn't able to handle the band, well there ya go. I think many of us especially myself lashed out at Doc and blamed him for all the drama yesterday. But going home and thinking about the whole evening, it wasn't Doc's fault. It reminded me that there are people in Detroit like these guys and the DEMF people (Paxhau) who could honestly care less about our scene and the people involved. DJ's, if you get a chance, thank Doc. He took a lot of crap from a lot of people and he was just trying to promote our scene and everyone involved. It was a lesson learned from a business perspective. Some people might retort and say yes but think of the exposure. I say bollocks. We have a scene here, we have people that support the scene and participate in this scene. We don't need to focus on anything other than our own people I think. Someone said to me the other night that there are too many events in this town and not enough people. He was right about that. We, that is The Collective, will focus on CC and Resist. We will focus on you guys and try to put on better shows. What we need from you is your support as always to make our parties bigger and better. Thanks again to everyone and we will see you soon.

i am not pleased that our people are not being advertised for this event. Too much of this crap happens around here. D:Konstruct will play only because we have fans coming to see us. They actually told us that we would have to give 40% of our merchandise costs to them. I really need to sell merchandise this weekend but now we cant. Paying to play any event is not cool for the DJ's and bands. This is the last time we do something like this. I hope all of the DJ's in this scene draw good crowds because they are a group of talented people that do not get the attention they deserve. People get out there and support them, keep things going. Strength in numbers!

I will probably be there. I need to burn....

Holy crap Mike that's funny, you got the beast part right though We'll be there!

I actually own Salo if any one wants to borrow it or buy it. I have no use for it anymore. I agree with the comment above about the Nekromantik love scenes being funny. Dude, where's my car made me wanna kill someone; I walked out of the theater on that one. Freaks was awesome! Clockwork Orange was wonderful. Henry... made me chuckle. Erasurehead messed me up but I was already messed up when watching it. Love the atmosphere. Any thoughts on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me?

fun night, good people, good times.

I will do everything I can of course to keep the place legal and make sure that we don't get anyone into trouble. This will take some time to put all this together but we're working on it for everyone. Thank you all for your support of what we try to do and I'll see you soon!

Who's coming out tonight? We will be there

I have been told by many that if you make something like this happen it should be as a private social club because we wouldn't have a liquor license. I'm not worried about numbers, I'm worried about us violating a law or having the police fine us for something. In Detroit, we have enough friends and networking in the area that would bring in the people in this music scene. The scene is actually bigger than you realize. The problem these days is that many people just don't want to go out to places like CC anymore for various reasons. When I lived in Cincinnati, there was a private club of sorts called the Clubhouse. It was awesome, legendary, one of the coolest clubs I've ever seen. It's discretion added to the enjoyment of the club. With something like this Nocker, I can do more to please this local scene. At CC, I'm limited on what we can do with events. In short, if we have control of the environment, we can create something that will be pleasing to the majority here on this board and in the metro area. Over the past 10 years, I've studied this local scene, watch it grow, decline, watch groups come and go. But with the Collective, we have the resources and manpower to do something for the locals. That's all I ever wanted to do. When I first came to Detroit, the crew down at the Lab welcomed me in and helped me get through some rough times. And even though that small time frame down at the Lab in the early 2000's fell into a now sewage hole, at the time, it was a very cool place. DJ's like yourself and others have tried to put on good shows and encourage people to go out. But the venues we have in this city are disappointing to many. This building has so much potential. Keeping it private also helps us cut down on the frat types or people who are just looking for trouble. If it turns out to be a good thing, the local goth community has a new haunt were their opinions actually matter. Keeping it private also helps us with the smoking ban. It will simply be a social club for goth friendly types, a sort of Ascension UK, Lab, CC, Necto place all rolled into one. I'm tired of dealing with moody managers who steal money from local talent, tired of being raped by bars that don't really care about you or me but liquor sales. The Collective's purpose is to provide the best in entertainment for all of you. And if we can make more money doing it, we can put on bigger and better shows. I would very much like to throw a big Halloween bash and be able to pay for Cruxshadows and Faith and the Muse or other acts of that caliber. I'm asking for all of your help. We can make a lot of things happen by working together, showing support, etc. In the past year, we have added over 100 members to the Collective. We now have a Ohio chapter president who is helping us to merge the Ohio scene in with what we're doing. In this place we can do the following: hold regular parties, concerts local and national, Hellbound or other fetish related events, art exhibitions, Rocky Horror Picture show or some theatrical like events, a Haunted House for charity or to support something in our local scene, promoting local businesses like Noir Leather and Showtime, etc. If this doesn't work out, I'm looking into renting or buying a building in Detroit to do this. In other words, it's gonna happen sooner or later. But I want people's input to make it the best for as many as possible. Strength in numbers, that's what we say. Sorry so long, I'm off my soapbox now:) more feedback is appreciated

So, we have found a place to host events, a goth night, movies, etc. It is a large warehouse owned by one of our Collective people in the Hamtramik area off of 94. We of course do not have a liquor license but were thinking of having this place as a private social club of sorts. It would have to be a bring your own alcohol or we would supply some things. However, we couldn't sell booze at the club. It would be a very private club, by invite only probably. The building has great parking, you could smoke, we would have a killer sound system, lights, bathrooms, several small rooms for um... whatever, we would also have security, live entertainment, and more. It is large enough to host Hellbound or any other event that we might want to do. Because the Collective would be putting up resources and because the place needs some work done to it, we would request something like a $4. "donation" when you came to the place. We call the place "the Bunker". It's about 12,000 square feet. We could do music/video/film shoots here and even turn the place into a haunted house. The place needs some work though which we are in the process of figuring out. In any event, we were thinking of opening this up to people within the scene that we know. We were thinking maybe once a month parties at first. We could probably be ready with this by July 31st. What day should we have it on during the week? What do you think about the idea of a private club? To ensure it's privacy, we would have some rules of course so we don't get into trouble with the police and also to keep the assholes that start trouble out of the loop. But we wanted to create just a kick ass club environment for all of you. Maybe in time, we could afford the liquor license and turn it into a regular running club. What are your thoughts about this? Is it something we should set up? Feedback please and if you are interested I would need you to email me in private so as to give you a invitation. thanks for your support as always

down in Cincinnati or should I say east out in the country there was a weird video shop were my friends and I used to rent all these cult movies all the time for laughs. I agree, most of them are crap. I still get a good laugh out of many though. Cannibal Holocaust was fun, if you haven't seen the making of it, this is even more entertaining. Red neck zombies and the Brides of Countess Recula are also pretty fun. The Brides of Countess Recula is a vampire porn I stumbled across a long time ago,quite funny. In the movie, they have this goth club that reminds me of some twisted version of the Lab. They had this guy singing onstage like London After Midnight with a small keyboard while girls were dancing in front of the cheap stage screaming for him. I will have to show the film sometime at one of the clubs in the background during one of our events. It is quite funny with gothic midgets, screaming religious fanatics, and vampires that lay vampire eggs that hatch and become vampire sluts. And for those of you who remember Brian Necro; there was a guy in the movie who looks just like him. It would be fun to get people together to watch many of these movies. Making B movies or movies like some of the ones listed above must be a lot of fun!

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I think other than Salo, it's a pretty light weight list. Here are some movies that will blow your mind: August Underground's Mordum (you were warned) I have yet to see anything this hardcore messed up! This movie for a while was thought to be just a myth, banned in many countries Caligula (Malcolm Mcdowel is wonderful in this) Nekromantik I and II (all you necro lovers, this is for you) Der Todeskinter (Film Threat does it again with violence) Blood Sucking Freaks (you will never look at a game of darts the same again) Psychos in Love (a love story about a serial killer couple who hate grapes, no you don't understand how much they hate grapes, you really don't...) that's all for now:)