When a whole lot of goths gather in Seattle, can you call it a festival?

How could you tell if a gothic convention came to Seattle? People wear so much black clothing here, your typical goth might just blend right in.

Still, the weekend forecast calls for gloom, as a cloud of more than 800 descends on the city for Convergence, Friday through Sunday.

Now in its sixth year, Convergence has drawn together morose types in such festive cities as New Orleans, Toronto and San Francisco. This year's activities at the sold-out event include "Gothic Jeopardy," an Elder Ball with live music, a merchant's bazaar with hand-crafted wares, an "Exhumation" (that is, a tour of underground Seattle), a fashion show, as well as a Goth Cruise Saturday aboard the Spirit of Seattle - which organizers say will be "the highlight of the weekend, instead of a hellish journey into despair."

As for Seattle's black-clothing penchant, one Convergence organizer says, "Actually, that's come up. We've used that humorously, and told people, `You're not going to stand out all that much here. People aren't going to bat that much of an eye.' "

The outward trappings of gothdom may be different from other subcultures - downbeat music, funereal dress and the morbid, disaffected attitudes that jelled in the post-punk early '80s with groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and the Sisters of Mercy. But what's the essential difference between a goth convention and, say, a Trekkie convention or a Renaissance fair?

For one, Convergence is more of a chance for a community of people who already know each other to some extent through the Internet and usenet places like alt.gothic to meet in the flesh, as opposed to total strangers gathering because of a common interest, organizers say.

Most of the gathering will be at Town Hall, the former Scientology church on Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street. Friday's Elder Ball is at The Catwalk in Pioneer Square, one of Seattle's goth crowd mainstays, along with the Vogue and The Mercury on Capitol Hill. Although this international trend peaked in the '80s, Seattle's gothic scene is reportedly stronger than a studded leather strap.

"It's grown," said Eric Cooley of Faith and Disease, a popular local band playing the Elder Ball. "I would have never imagined this when we started back in 1992 and the Seattle scene was characterized by grunge music, and there were no goth clubs. There were very few bands that appealed to people with darker artistic sensibilities."

For the record, Cooley doesn't characterize Faith and Disease - whose ethereal sound is reminiscent of The Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil - as a goth band. (Although after last spring's Columbine massacre, administrators at an Eastern college pulled the plug on a scheduled Faith and Disease performance, he says.) Consequently, labels remain a sensitive subject. F&D's crowd has plenty of goth crossover, he specifies, and what's now considered gothic music encompasses a number of different styles, such as industrial and ambient music.

Paul Alienikoff has played them all for about the past decade on his Sunday night radio show, "On the Edge," at KNHC-FM (89.5). Listeners say the show is an influential showcase - and enclave - for local and national acts that fall under the goth/industrial umbrella. Alienikoff also DJs at the Catwalk, and dryly describes that scene as "not different from a regular nightclub, but a bit more subdued."

Nationally, Seattle has one of the livelier (if that word applies) goth scenes, according to Alienikoff. And while the prospect of a goth cruise causes an initial cognitive speed bump ("I thought that was kind of odd," he admits), the audience for that type of music has grown and aged beyond the stereotypical pasty-faced, malnourished, sullen youths. At 42, Alienikoff holds down a day job at the family oil company.

"So many different people and types of people who listen to the music are not just people who dress up in a certain way," he says.

Take Brian, for instance: Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. The 29-year-old Convergence organizer and Bremerton resident asked to withhold his last name, concerned that those he works with in his military service job might single him out if they learned the following: Out of uniform, he uses a mythic-sounding nickname ("Pan"), like a lot of goths, and often wears a different kind of uniform - something black and subdued, with frilly collars and cuffs, and mascara or eyeliner. ("But nothing foppish," he adds.)

"You're dealing with a demographic that's very press-wary," Brian notes.

And that's not because the light from flashbulbs hurts their eyes. Goth subculture has always lent itself to jabs (return your copy of "The Crow," move out of your parents' house, you look like Eddie Munster, etc.). But there's a prevailing feeling within the subculture that a large karmic debt was incurred from last spring's embarrassingly clueless treatment by media grasping to make sense of the Columbine massacre - if not find a scapegoat for it. The two teen perpetrators' black trench coats and alternative music tastes were easy fodder for painfully out-of-touch journalists. Picturing Sam Donaldson or Katie Couric holding forth on the subject would depress anyone.

That was the unfortunate first exposure for many mainstream Americans to the gothic realm.

Still, last year's Convergence held in New Orleans - a town steeped in genuine eccentricity - provoked little feedback. But, Brian said, some people at Seattle's Crowne Plaza may have been wary at first about being the event's official hotel. "But people find out that we're probably some of the best customers and some of the most responsible, respectful people they're ever going to see.

"There's the specter of the whole Columbine thing on everything. That's the first thing people think about, and it gets blamed on the gothic subculture," Brian said.

Hence the sarcastic tone of the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Convergence Web site (www.thej-files.com/converge/ouija. shtml): a variation on Louis Armstrong's response when asked to explain jazz. If you gotta ask, we ain't telling you.

Q: What's the "Gothic subculture?"

A: Um . . . are you in the right place?

Or as one Mistress McCutchan puts it on her net 'zine, Morbid Outlook, "Everyone's got a dark side; mine just happens to come out more often."

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Your Goth 101 Quiz

1: Which of these is not a color commonly found in a goth wardrobe: a) black, b) yellow c) midnight black, d) flat black.

2) Which of the following is not a popular gothic band: a) Bauhaus, b) the Dead Can Dance, c) This Mortal Coil, d) Hootie and the Blowfish.

3) Least likely to make a goth's reading list: a) H.P. Lovecraft, b) Edgar Allen Poe, c) the Chicken Soup for the Soul people, d) Charles Baudelaire.

4) Which of the following is not a real nickname listed on the "Convergence" Web site: a) Luna, b) Midnyte, c) violet weary, d) Good Time Charlie.

Answers: You're kidding, right?

(OK: b, d, c, d)