The Black Market Comes to NH

Goths Happily Descend On Our City

A Treat Me Delicately patch I picked up for Little Bean at Manchester’s first ever goth/metal black market

I’m talking to Janelle, the organizer of Manchester’s first goth/metal black market and she’s enthusiastically telling me about representation, and I totally get it.

I’m surrounded, literally, by hundreds of not just music fans, but participants in an underground culture that celebrates the darkness. We’re in an old veteran’s post and there’s maybe 30 or 40 vendors. Everyone is wearing black - except me, of course, because I’m an old dad - and there’s tons of kids as well.

Little Bean had spiked a fever that morning and was crushed that she couldn’t be here. I’m taking pictures for her. Janelle assures me that the success of this market means there will be more.

This is like a normal New England craft fair market, only instead of homemade pot holders, there’s taxidermy ducks with vampire fangs.

Anyway, I get it because I like this crowd and culture. I didn’t fully immerse myself in high school in the dress and look (though I used to own an amazing Swedish Army Overcoat) but I listened to the music and appreciated the vibe.

“Gatherings like this take place all the time around Boston,” Janelle is saying, “but we have nothing up here. I wanted to bring this to Manchester because obviously there’s a community here.”

Black Market founder and organizer, Janelle, is also the owner of Lustshrooms

There’s literally everything here that Little bean would like; stickers of goth cats, butterfly picture boxes, candles with weird scents, temp tattoo (and lots or real tattoos) pins and patches, and the list goes on.

I stop at one booth called Ghostship Art and the proprietor lets me pick out a free pin to give to Little Bean. I select a demon kitty creature with wild teeth and claws. I snap a quick pick of Linsey, a tattoo artist and the owner of Rabbit Reflections. And at a place called Evol-Eye, I pick up something that the owner called a Treat Me Delicately patch. I buy it for Little bean, but when I get home, my wife scoops it up!

Janelle herself owns Lustshroom, a goth footwear company. She says that obviously based on how crowded it is, that all the city’s freaks and weirdos, the punks and goths, the metal heads and well, dads of metal heads, need something like this.

Tattoo artist Linsey from Rabbit Reflections

After, I grab a sausage sandwich at the food truck parked right outside the door and am waved across the street by the old dude in the pick up truck doing crosswalk duty, and I think to myself, how far this has come. I feel better for her. Having a daughter that goes against the pop music tide can be challenging. But Little Bean appears to be sticking to it, so we’re on the Black Market mailing list and eager to come back.

Maybe I’ll let Little Bean paint my nails black. Either way, looks like it’s time to reintroduce her to The Cure. Keep the horns in the air folks, we rock on.

Sean of Ghostship Art poses with some of his work