No Blue Jeans, No Nice Sweaters, No Big Bop Rejects is a community engaged multi-disciplinary performance and intervention project focusing on Toronto’s Queen Street West commercial district’s significant Goth scene. The work was exhibited as part of Out of Site, an independent project of the Queen St. West BIA, curated by Earl Miller as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013.
In 2013 Hell’s Belles, one of the last remaining vestiges of Queen West’s once vibrant Goth scene and accompanying, alternative retail sector shuttered to make way for a hamburger joint. The closure, as noted by the Toronto Star, marks what some see as “the final nail in the coffin for alternative fashion on Queen St. W.” It also marks the end to a visibly Goth commercial presence on Queen West.
Drawing on Queen West’s rich history as a major retail and commercial area for alternative music culture, in this case specifically Goth and Industrial music, “No Blue Jeans, No Nice Sweaters, No Big Bop Rejects”, seeks to render visible and audible- through a performance of Goth/Industrial music — the look and sound of this now disappeared subcultural presence that included night clubs such as Sanctuary, Savage Garden and retail spaces such as Siren and The House of Ill Repute all of which were located on, or near, Queen West and many of which were frequented by the artist in his youth on annual shopping trips from his hometown of Windsor, Ontario.
Growing up in Windsor, Ontario Andrew Lochhead had a passionate interest in Goth music and fashion eventually becoming a popular DJ at local Goth club nights in the late 1990s and early 00s.
“Visiting Toronto, specifically Queen West’s shops and clubs, the latter often illegally, represented a massively important aspect of my formative years. The experience of Toronto at this particular time offered me both solace and comfort as a Goth teen growing up in a small city. This was the nascent era of E-commerce, so these once or twice yearly trips to places such as Siren were a small town Goths opportunity to check out the latest fashions, buy new records and CDs and other products not readily available back in Windsor.Though my musical interests and fashion sense have since changed, I remember these trips fondly and hope through this work to acknowledge the importance of Queen West’s Goth community both to Toronto’s subcultural history and to my own personal growth. The work serves as to not only commemorate and celebrate Toronto’s Goth subculture but also functions as a meditation on the changing nature of Queen West itself.“
The title of the work refers to a large poster that once informed patrons of Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar of the club’s strict Goth dress code.
In addition to a DJ performance and Midnight Goth Dance Flash Mob organized by the artist, Goth heritage sites along Queen West were marked by a QR coded plaque, where viewers could read about the site and through their QR Reader enabled smartphone, watch video oral histories featuring local Goths, Goth Business Owners, DJs & even local Goth historians.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THE PROJECT IN NOW MAGAZINE
