Today we’d like to introduce you to Dom Price
Hi Dom, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Dom Price, I also go by the stage name Mod Eschar and also DJ Eschar. I am a Non-Binary, dark alternative Musician, VJ and event organizer in Atlanta GA. I’m also a massive Minecraft and Sci-Fi geek having grown up watching Star Trek religiously and playing with Legos for most of my childhood.
As far as my coming out story… there’s not a lot to it. I came out as trans/non-binary in 2022 after spending most of my adult life essentially trying to cosplay as a guy. You know that Steve Buscemi meme with the skateboard where he says “How do you do fellow kids?”… that was what it felt like trying to be masculine. “How do you do fellow Males? Are we male-ing today?”… I never understood male stuff… it never felt natural to me. It always felt forced, so I stopped trying and just embraced my more androgynous and feminine sides and never looked back. The political climate is stressful… having your existence politicized puts you into a constant state of fight-or-flight… and for the record, I lean more towards fight.
I am obsessed with 80s and early 90s aesthetic. If you miss me in public… look for the hair. I usually wear a massively teased up side pony with hair sticks, and look like some kind of anachronistic goth-Madonna Frankenstein with a multitude of bangles, chokers, and hair accessories and a lot of eye makeup.
Needless to say, being a queer creator has it’s own set of challenges. Fortunately as some have called it, Atlanta is a “big gay city”, so I don’t have a lot of horror stories about discrimination and harassment. I have found the dark alternative community here is not only supportive, but also packed with a lot of LGBTQ+ folks, so I never have to look far to find my people. Given the political challenges facing trans individuals in this country, I think it’s important for us to be visible, loud, supportive, and defiant.
I suppose for the purposes of this story, I’ll focus mostly on my professional journey. That’s what I’m most known for around here.
I moved to Atlanta in 2013 from Pensacola, FL. I got started in the dark alternative scene back in 2003 when I would attend local events in Pensacola at this tiny coffee shop called the Daily Grind. A real hole in the wall, DIY place. Paint peeling off the exposed brick walls. They has lounges and game rooms upstairs and did shows in a converted library downstairs that was the size of a bedroom. Mostly local punk or metal acts. Hurricane Ivan destroyed that place in 2004, and they subsequently moved to an old miniature golf place. I worked there maintaining their show schedule and website. At the time I was heavily into the Emo stuff but soon was introduced to goth and industrial by a friend. Namely bands like Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly. That place soon closed as well, and I spent most of my time attending shows at The Handlebar and Sluggos. Both arguably legendary places for the region.
I formed my project Finite Automata in 2006 and my roommate at the time joined in as my keyboardist. We started playing local dives and coffee shops. We didn’t really gain much traction until we were signed to a now defunct indie industrial label in 2010. I’d say my Atlanta connection started around this time. I went to Dragon Con almost yearly back then, and started to make inroads in ATL since my musical ambitions weren’t really going anywhere in Pensacola.
Around 2011 I became a resident DJ for a local goth monthly in Pensacola that had started up to fill a vacuum. I lasted about 3 months there before I found out that the people who ran the event had less than savory political opinions (to put it mildly, lol) and they were subsequently replaced by the venue by another goth/industrial event called The Black Syndicate. I was asked to be resident DJ for that event and I accepted.
Around 2012 I started dating someone local to Atlanta, and when I began to have issues finding roommates in Pensacola, she offered me a place up here to get on my feet. It was obviously more complicated that that, but I don’t want to get into too many details. Needless to say, I saw it as my sign to take the leap and move. I packed everything I owned into my car on multiple trips and officially moved here in 2013.
It took me about 6 months to get my footing here, but I started DJing with a couple of local crews. My project, Finite Automata reformed around this time as well with a new, more local, lineup. I mostly played one off gigs with the band, and did one off DJ gigs until 2016 when things began to take off in earnest.
At the time I noticed a lot of more mid-level and smaller dark alternative tours were skipping over Atlanta. From 2009-2013 Atlanta had The Shelter, and a lot of these acts would play there. The Shelter sadly closed a few months after I moved here, creating a void…. At the time a few of the goth scene’s events had moved to a place called Famous Club in Toco Hills. My friend, Anthony, who ran the music video nights there helped me get what would come to be called “Sedition” started there. The name was a hold over from a concert series I used to do with Black Syndicate in Pensacola. I chose that name because I wanted to “buck the trend” of what I saw as only scene A-listers coming through town and only playing the bigger spots like Masquerade. Our first show was in April 2016 and headlined by Stoneburner with local support from Die Sektor, Zy_Gote and of course, Finite Automata.
Sedition was held at Club Famous through 2016 and moved to Drunken Unicorn off Ponce from 2017-2020. Since 2022 we have been doing our events at Star Bar in Little 5, and a handful of events at 529 in EAV, and Boggs in West End. Over the years we have hosted the likes of PIG (Former members of KMFDM), God Module, Ego Likeness, Covenant, Grendel, and many many more. I believe we just did our 45th show in Nov 2024. One of the core missions of Sedition to this day is the attachment of local talent to events whenever possible. There is so much untapped local talent in Atlanta. Naturally while this was going on I was engaged with other music related activities as well. Finite Automata did several tours around this time. Three with God Module (2016, 2017, 2019), one with Dismantled in 2016. We also did a couple of shows with 3Teeth. I was also in regular DJ rotation at local goth dance events such as Ascension (Masquerade), Ritual (Heretic), Hush (Marys) as well as various popups.
When the Pandemic hit, I naturally was forced to take a hiatus from show promotions and DJing and switched, like a lot of us at the time, to DJing on Twitch. I started a weekly stream that carries on to this day called The Super Kawaii Music Video Happy Hour, and it was here that I discovered that I had a passion for VJing. I also started up two other streams: Eastern Bloc (Soviet and YugoPop) and Garbage Disposal (a mashup and guilty pleasures night). For both of these I used the title SPUTNIK! I’ve always had a fascination with the Soviet space program, so I figured it was a good name to use. This lockdown isolation of sorts also forced me to come to grips with my gender identity and status as an LGBTQ+ person. Prior to the pandemic I spent a lot of time at local pubs like the now defunct Highlander (RIP) and used the crowd noise and beer to drown out my own inner voices. Now that I was deprived of that, I was forced to address the elephant in the room… I officially came out in spring of 2022 and did another east coast/midwest tour with Finite Automata co-headlined with friends; unitcode:machine. This was a new challenge entering the wider goth community as an out and visible queer person. Generally the scene was accepting, but I did experience harassment from some non-goth folks on the tour outside of the safe spaces in the venues.
When 2023 rolled around, I wanted to take “SPUTNIK” as it were and turn it into an actual Music Video night. Anthony, the local VJ I had mentioned before who was a staple of the Atlanta alternative community with his events at Amsterdam Cafe in Midtown, had moved to Tampa during the Pandemic. I wanted to step into the vacuum left by him and give Atlanta back it’s alternative music video nights. At first I did them at a place called 37 Main in Avondale. My friends at the local 80s dance night, Destination Unknown helped get me the spot as they were holding their events there at the time. The move of SPUTNIK! to Boggs in West End came after the Avondale location wasn’t working out. It was hard to get people to come out to that location, and the guys at Rippin Productions seemed excited to work with me in getting SPUTNIK! a new home.
That’s more or less where I am today. SPUTNIK! is held monthly at Boggs Social and Supply in West End. A portion of the door goes to various different causes such as helping Ukrainian and Palestinian refugees and towards advocacy groups fighting anti-LGBT laws. Sedition is mostly held at Star Bar in Little 5. I still perform with Finite Automata, our most recent show was with PIG in November, I have on occasion done some Goth Karaoke events there as well and would like to pick those up again at some point. I still rotate around at Ascension and Ritual as well, spinning there from time to time. You can also find me from time to time downtown at Club De Vampiros. The goth and industrial community here is pretty tight knit and most of the promoters work with or around each other so that there’s not a lot of toe stepping. It’s a joy to be part of such a supportive community. I’ll be making appearances some other events in the near future. I’m in regular attendance at most of the events around town as well, so I’m usually out and about, naturally, with a stack of flyers in my back pocket because as any DJ, musician, and event organizer knows, you gotta get out there and hustle. Social Media is terrible at getting the word out unless you pay to play… I’ve found that on-the-street, old-school, in person engagement is the best way to build hype and get the word out.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Finding venues is probably the biggest challenge I have faced, Nationwide, venues continue to close faster than they open. It took me almost a year to find a place for SPUTNIK, and even then I had to move less than 6 months later over to Boggs. Navigating the market as an openly trans person in this political climate is also a challenge, although thankfully I do not encounter much in the way of roadblocks here when it comes to that. However, I am always on the lookout for the “other shoe” to drop so to speak; because I have had a few instances over the years where a person I thought was on the level lets their mask slip and turns out to be a raging transphobe, or a bigot, or a sleezeball, or not completely upfront. I try to better vet people I work with now.
The stress can also be a bit overwhelming as well, there was a period where I was considering throwing in the towel on hosting live events at Sedition simply because factors such as immigration laws, venue overbooking, and rising costs have made it difficult to break even or even get a show off the ground; especially when bringing over acts from Europe.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My musical project Finite Automata which I have been a part of for almost 20 years. We’ve done several tours over the years around the country and have several releases under our belt. We do a blend of industrial rock and electro-industrial and get compared to classic industrial bands like Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly. I sometimes jokingly call us a “a gayer Skinny Puppy” because everyone currently in the group is LGBTQ. We write about social justice, war, inequality and anti-fascism. We recently did a cover song for a Die Warzau tribute album, the proceeds of which will benefit transgender causes. We’ve done several tours over the years as well. Four east coast/midwest and one west coast tour.
Locally I also run several events. Sedition; a dark alternative live music series where we host bands within the goth/industrial and larger alternative scene. That’s held at Star Bar in little 5 points. We have hosted many awesome bands over the years including Covenant and PIG, and love to include local talent on shows such as Teardux and Riot Age. We currently don’t have anything coming up, but we always have stuff in the works and bookers hitting us up. So there will definitely be new events on the horizon.
I do a monthly alternative music video dance night at Boggs Social and Supply in West End called SPUTNIK! I do a mix of Goth, Industrial, 80s, 90s Alternative and more. A potion of the door goes to various causes such as LGBTQ advocacy organizations. I have a passion for VJing and finding hidden music video gems; and also spin music vids on my twitch channel every week. I occasionally bring my fiancé, who is also a talented VJ, in on SPUTNIK and my twitch shows.
Any big plans?
With Finite Automata we plan to write and release more music. Being a queer industrial band, we certainly have a lot these days to write about. We’ve got SPUTNIK! booked out several months ahead usually, so keep an eye out for the next one. As far as Sedition goes, we have some potential events in the pipe. My fiancé is also looking to start some things up as well which I will be helping her with. We will both be attending Dark Force Fest this year, with myself appearing on the Rainbows in the Dark queer creators panel. We also look forward to our yearly pilgrimage to Chicago for Cold Waves festival, as well as our upcoming wedding later this year.
Pricing:
- SPUTNIK! : $10 at the door
- SEDITION : $10-25, varies by event
Contact Info:
- Website: https://seditionatlanta.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mod.eschar
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modescharofficial
- Twitch: https://twitch.tv/djeschar
