Night Crawlers

Words by Carrie Stetler
Images by Akintola Hanif

QXT's, which bills itself as “New Jersey’s #1 alternative dance club,’’ looks like some forbidden dungeon at Medieval Times, where the lords wear black lipstick and the ladies dance to Joy Division.

For more than 20 years, the cavernous club has been a well-kept secret in downtown Newark, continuing to thrive long after NYC goth clubs and industrial dance halls have folded. It survives by being a kind of umbrella institution for various alternative sects: rivetheads, vampires, drag queens, aging punks, metal heads, eccentric loners, and people who just want to shake their asses to the darker side of 80s pop.

All of them can mingle at the bar or segregate themselves in two separate but smaller dance areas. There’s “The Crypt,’ which is more “goth-oriented,’’ says staff, and Area 51, where DJ's play electric body music and the dancing borders on violent. In the main dance hall, there are emo/goth hits and an occasional burlesque show. Special events include "black celebration," “covenant night,’’ “Depeche Mode Night,” and once in a while, a horrorcore show.

Krys, QXT’s promoter, has been coming here since the club opened in 1990 and Skinny Puppy’(the industrial band) was at its peak. “Twenty percent of the people have come since the beginning,’’ she says.

Stefan has been a QXT's regular almost since it opened. He sports a deathly pallor, black mohawk, and eyeliner worthy of Siouxie Sioux. Stefan avoids daylight--”because that’s when the drones come out, and I burn easy.'' But he feels at home at QXT's. “It gives me a chance to circulate and I feel like I am at one of my safe caves,’’ he says. “I do not belong amongst regular day-to-day types.’’

Krys has seen a lot of strangeness at QXT's but one scene stands out: ”There was this guy who ended up being eight feet tall because he was 6’5” and wearing platforms. He had on nothing besides a thong and a spider-body suit. He was basically naked under there, dancing around in his seven-inch platforms.’’

The club prides itself on its all-embracing attitude. “We’ll never say you have to be a certain type of person to be here,’’ says Krys. “It’s more than a club. People here care about each other.’’