COMMUNITY
Farmageddon Macabre takes center stage in Maricopa BY ELIAS WEISS
M
Two worlds A cluster of skull-shaped cherries peeked over Angela Manzer’s pinstriped collar. She draws the eye in that Maricopa café — what with her miniature coffins for earrings and leather pants tighter than a Gibson Les Paul string. Lips painted as black as her coffee took a sip as Manzer peered through cat-eyed frames. If the goths of Maricopa were to choose a leader, she would surely be their countess. “When I was a kid, I got picked on for being goth,” Manzer recalled. “I remember getting spit on for wearing my mom’s black trench coat to school. People treated me like I was trying to kill somebody.” Goth subculture has gained traction among younger Maricopans like Manzer’s 12-year-old daughter, Emily, who laments she’s not allowed to wear her spider-webbed high heels to class at Leading Edge Academy. Manzer, 43, is a self-styled “old-school goth girl from the ‘90s.” Think Marilyn Manson,
Korn and Nine Inch Nails. The community considers her an elder goth, “but I guess I earned that title,” she said. The lifestyle she embraced at the age of 16 wasn't exactly in vogue back then. The same held true when she traded San Francisco for Maricopa in 2010, when the rural community had little appetite for the alternative. “We’re toeing the line between two worlds,” she said. Crave the Dead But in the years and months since the coronavirus pandemic, Manzer, who dons the mantle of an optometrist when she’s not studying the dark arts, noticed a turning tide amid eye exams at a Maricopa practice. “Working at Nationwide Vision, I was seeing a lot more people who looked like me coming in to get their eyes done,” she said. And then during industrial rock concerts at the Rebel Lounge and Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, increasingly, she met others from Maricopa. So, she launched Crave the Dead in April this year — a “dark entertainment” outfit offering goth trivia, goth aerobics (haven’t you ever exercised in the dark?) and on Sept. 23, the first-ever, all-out goth festival in Maricopa. “I’ve gotten tired of the sports bars and the country music,” Manzer said. “I’m seeing more and more people like me in Maricopa, and I want to give something back to them.” “Dieonysis” (pun very much intended) was a pivotal moment for the city’s burgeoning goth community. Veiled merchants purveyed their occult trinkets to the sound of death metal and the hum of a tattoo gun. “There has never been anything in this town that is remotely for us,” Manzer said. “There still isn’t — except for this damn show.” Manzer has been active in the community for as long as she’s lived here. She's the woman behind other Maricopa businesses, like A Leg Up Tutoring and Angela's Cakes & Things.
ARICOPA, ONCE A BASTION OF barley fields and pecan groves, has traded in its cowboy hats for a darker, edgier ensemble. Forget
the tractors belching plumes of smoke like storybook dragons — this desert city has a new cast of characters: skulls, spikes, pentagrams and goat-headed deities. Amid a surge in population, an enigmatic subculture has emerged in this sun-drenched city where darkness seems paradoxically misplaced. In a world of sunseekers, these denizens of the macabre prefer to toy with life's morbid underbelly. They’re not your typical Phoenix urbanites, preoccupied with cosmopolitan pursuits. Among their ranks are newcomers and others who have long lingered in the shadows. When they united for a maiden public display in Maricopa last month, it was a watershed moment — proving we are truly living in gothic times.
The lifestyle Angela Manzer embraced at the age of 16 wasn't exactly in vogue back then. The same held true when she traded San Francisco for Maricopa in 2010, when the rural community had little appetite for the goth lifestyle
Nick Sanchez, tattoo artist and owner of Redemption Tattoo, has created many tattoos for Maricopa's growing goth community.
InMaricopa.com | October 2023
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October 2023 | InMaricopa.com
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