The scene isn’t big. I know only a handful of gothic bands and there seems to be a certain group of people behind most of them; same people play in several band projects. There is a number of goths, but it’s pretty hard to separate them from metal fans in the streets; metal is perhaps the most popular sub-culture among youth and – of course – we have our “mansonites”. Finnish people are melancholic by nature and some might say that finnish tango music definitely is gothic – from this point of view, Finland is The Land of Goth! :)

Tampere is the gothic capital – most of the bands and clubs are concentrated in there. In Helsinki, where I’m located, the goths are less organised, but it’s very hard to compare the number of goths. Helsinki is the biggest city, with around half a million people, so there is room for all kind of underground activity. I know that there’s some kind of scene in Jyväskylä, too.

Afterhours and Schatten clubs are held around bi-monthly in Tampere at Autumn, Winter and Spring. Summers are pretty quiet, maybe because of many rock-festivals that are very popular. In Helsinki we’ve a club every now and then, name has changed through ages from Ghostrain to Damnation to Yökerho(Nightclub) to Invasion. (Not sure what clubs are up and running in Jyväskylä)

At the time of winter solstice, the sun doesn’t rise at all in the northern part of the land – that’s something everyone should experience!

At the time of winter solstice, the sun doesn’t rise at all in the northern part of the land – that’s something everyone should experience! There’s a very good gothic store in Helsinki called Morticia. I believe that most people buy their clothes from Morticia or second hand. Of course those gifted with sewing skills make clothes by themselves. I enjoy wearing simple black, tight clothes (and velvet suit) that are easy to find anywhere.

Finding music isn’t a problem. Most of the biggest record stores have their alternative sector and there’s a few stores that are focused to gothic, electronic and metal stuff, but it’s pretty hard to find for example Projekt’s records – and records of American bands in general. We’ve also a couple of good mailorder companies: Cyberware Productions and Darklands, that is run by the singer of Two Witches, Jyrki Virtanen. Cyberware and Darklands are both also labels.

The oldest, best known and perhaps most respected Finnish gothic band is Two Witches from Tampere. TW has been playing gothrock for 13 years. Other bands worth mentioning here are Shade Factory (industrial/rock), The Shadow Dance (goth/pop), As Divine Grace (goth/metal/atmosphere), Kinetic (synthpop) and retired This Empty Flow (ethereal/pop). There’re many internationally succesful metal/rock bands that aren’t really gothic in most goths’ opinions, but still are sharing a lot with the genre: 69 Eyes, Nightwish and HIM to name few, HIM being the most succesful with record breaking chart positions in Europe (first in Germany and Austria) and over 600,000 sold records.