of Goths, you’re in a distinct minority. For almost 30 years, legions of kids have been dyeing their hair black, wearing black often anachronistic clothes, putting on heavy makeup and listening to doom-and-gloom music.
Although most sources tell me there aren’t as many of them as there once were, it’s hard to find a high school in Europe, North America, or Australia that doesn’t have at least a few.
Canada, and Toronto in particular, seems to have a disproportionate number. It started, I’m told by a number of sources (including Goths themselves, music journalists, police, mental health professionals and others), with a group of kids who hung out on Toronto’s Queen Street West in the middle 1980s. Trends tend to hit Canada later than they do in Europe and the United States, and aficionados of what was then called “new music”—punk, new wave, new romantic and just about anything other than what’s now called “classic rock”—were few in number, not very popular in the mainstream community, and they tended to seek each other out. Before long, they began meeting informally on Queen Street—primarily between University and Spadina. The location offered lots of foot traffic for panhandling (some of them were homeless and many more jobless) and many bars with live music and cheap draft beer. Because passersby often referred to them as “freaks,” the Queen Street kids took the name as a badge of honor.
As more and more teens became fans of alternative music—thanks in a large part to Queen Street’s own live music venues and the MuchMusic music TV network, whose storefront headquarters had been located at Queen and John since 1984—the Freaks grew in number and splintered into various sets. By 1987, the Goths, with their vampire-like fashions, were frequenting their own hangouts and eventually had their own bars and nightclubs.
The movement peaked after a dance club called Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar opened in September 1992. Fashionably, it was located on Queen Street across from a Centre for Addiction and Mental Health facility. The club imposed a strict “Goth dress only” entry requirement. It was consistently very popular and drew many from the Toronto Goth scene, including those too young to get into clubs farther east on Queen, on the other side of Bathurst. Demand for a place to “be” became so strong among teenagers that the club also opened for underage Goths twice a week. The money lost on liquor sales was more than recouped by gate receipts, once a cover charge was installed.
But the Goth scene began to decline in numbers in the mid-1990s. Some cite unfavorable media coverage, while others say that Goth culture was co-opted by more mainstream acts like Marilyn Manson. Still others say that these days, Goths spend more time on the Internet than they do at nightclubs. As other bars in the Queen West area began offering “Goth nights,” Sanctuary closed its doors.
In a move that infuriated the area’s Goths, Sanctuary’s owners sold out to the giant Starbucks coffee shop chain in 2000. When the coffee bar opened a few months later, the owners held an opening night gala in which they invited customers to “come dressed in your best Goth attire” to try some free coffee drinks.
But a significant vestige of the Goth district remains around Queen and Bathurst. It now consists of three dedicated dance clubs (ironically, two of them—Savage Garden and Velvet Underground—share names with decidedly non-Goth bands), some boutiques and a few dozen kids dressed in black hanging around outside them all.
In an effort to better understand Goth, vampires and the forces that molded Tim Ferriman and people like him, I visited them all, interviewed people on the street and online and even opened up a few history books.
The original Goths were a tribe of people who emerged from the east to attack the Roman Empire circa 263 A.D. What they did before that and where they came from are a
Although most sources tell me there aren’t as many of them as there once were, it’s hard to find a high school in Europe, North America, or Australia that doesn’t have at least a few.
Canada, and Toronto in particular, seems to have a disproportionate number. It started, I’m told by a number of sources (including Goths themselves, music journalists, police, mental health professionals and others), with a group of kids who hung out on Toronto’s Queen Street West in the middle 1980s. Trends tend to hit Canada later than they do in Europe and the United States, and aficionados of what was then called “new music”—punk, new wave, new romantic and just about anything other than what’s now called “classic rock”—were few in number, not very popular in the mainstream community, and they tended to seek each other out. Before long, they began meeting informally on Queen Street—primarily between University and Spadina. The location offered lots of foot traffic for panhandling (some of them were homeless and many more jobless) and many bars with live music and cheap draft beer. Because passersby often referred to them as “freaks,” the Queen Street kids took the name as a badge of honor.
As more and more teens became fans of alternative music—thanks in a large part to Queen Street’s own live music venues and the MuchMusic music TV network, whose storefront headquarters had been located at Queen and John since 1984—the Freaks grew in number and splintered into various sets. By 1987, the Goths, with their vampire-like fashions, were frequenting their own hangouts and eventually had their own bars and nightclubs.
The movement peaked after a dance club called Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar opened in September 1992. Fashionably, it was located on Queen Street across from a Centre for Addiction and Mental Health facility. The club imposed a strict “Goth dress only” entry requirement. It was consistently very popular and drew many from the Toronto Goth scene, including those too young to get into clubs farther east on Queen, on the other side of Bathurst. Demand for a place to “be” became so strong among teenagers that the club also opened for underage Goths twice a week. The money lost on liquor sales was more than recouped by gate receipts, once a cover charge was installed.
But the Goth scene began to decline in numbers in the mid-1990s. Some cite unfavorable media coverage, while others say that Goth culture was co-opted by more mainstream acts like Marilyn Manson. Still others say that these days, Goths spend more time on the Internet than they do at nightclubs. As other bars in the Queen West area began offering “Goth nights,” Sanctuary closed its doors.
In a move that infuriated the area’s Goths, Sanctuary’s owners sold out to the giant Starbucks coffee shop chain in 2000. When the coffee bar opened a few months later, the owners held an opening night gala in which they invited customers to “come dressed in your best Goth attire” to try some free coffee drinks.
But a significant vestige of the Goth district remains around Queen and Bathurst. It now consists of three dedicated dance clubs (ironically, two of them—Savage Garden and Velvet Underground—share names with decidedly non-Goth bands), some boutiques and a few dozen kids dressed in black hanging around outside them all.
In an effort to better understand Goth, vampires and the forces that molded Tim Ferriman and people like him, I visited them all, interviewed people on the street and online and even opened up a few history books.
The original Goths were a tribe of people who emerged from the east to attack the Roman Empire circa 263 A.D. What they did before that and where they came from are a
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