Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History
By Denise Benson. Foreword by Stuart Berman.

Published by Three O’Clock Press. Publication Date: July 15, 2015  

562 pages, with four sections of colour photos. 

More info and to pre-order: http://threeoclockpress.com/titles/then-and-now

The history of Toronto’s nightlife reveals its pulse.

From award-winning veteran music journalist and DJ Denise Benson comes Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History, a fascinating, intimate look at four decades of social spaces, dance clubs, and live music venues. Through interviews, research, and enthusiastic feedback from the party people who were there, Benson delves deep behind the scenes to reveal the histories of 48 influential nightlife spaces, and the story of a city that has grown alongside its sounds.

Advance Praise

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, Toronto has known how to party for a while. Then & Now tells a heretofore untold social history of Toronto, including the clubs where often-marginalized people found both community and liberation deep into the night. This book is an essential chapter of Toronto’s recent history.” ̶    Shawn Micallef, Author and Spacing Co-owner

“The early days of punk and new wave at The Edge; clubs like Voodoo and Twilight Zone where you could be normal being weird; playing Depeche Mode and New Order at Focus and Club Z; dancing to The Specials at Nuts and Bolts and Fad Gadget at Domino Klub; playing The Happy Mondays at Empire … Legendary Toronto club culture and memories brilliantly captured and stamped in time.” ̶    Scot Turner, Producer/Host CFNY 102.1, Program Director Energy 108

“Denise Benson’s Then & Now … shines a deserved light on the many young, often disenfranchised, DJs, promoters, and business owners who created scenes from nothing, providing safe and exciting spaces for alternative communities and culture to flourish. Denise gets it so right because she was there herself, is still there. Good thing, since reading her chronicles makes me want to dance!” ̶    Liisa Ladouceur, author Encyclopedia Gothica

“Denise … ambassadors all good things in the Toronto music scene. The work she’s accomplished documenting pivotal moments in club history is nothing short of amazing. She is a proven archivist and we are lucky to have someone with this level of passion in our ever-growing and evolving scene.” ̶    Nitin Kalyan aka DJ/producer Nitin, co-founder of No.19 Music

Then & Now launch party poster design by Noel Dix

Please join us in celebrating the release of Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History!

Featuring:
Denise Benson in conversation with Stuart Berman (8:30-9:30)
followed by DJs spinning through sounds, genres and decades from 10pm ’til late.

MARK ‘SHUGGY’ OLIVER

PAUL E. LOPES & MIKE TULL

JAMES ST. BASS

DJ BARBI

and DEKO-ZE

Then & Now will be for sale at a special launch price and Denise will be signing books.

***

About the launch party:

Light refreshments will be provided.
There will be a cash bar and a full dinner menu available to launch guests.

The main floor of NEST is physically accessible. We regret that there will not be ASL interpretation provided.
Please contact: publicity@threeoclockpress.com with any accessibility queries or concerns.

This is a FREE event.

The post THEN & NOW: Book July 15. Launch July 23. appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published March 26, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

In its brief lifespan, this ‘70s hotspot served as both a gay disco and punk-rock haven—before it all ended in a mysterious fire and murder.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Club David’s, 16 Phipps

Years in operation: 1975-1977

History: The allure that the Yonge and St. Joseph area once held for creatures of the night has been detailed in a number of previous Then & Now pieces, including those about early 1980s venues Voodoo and Club Z. Here, we visit a prior decade to travel a short distance south, down a once-existing strip of the St. Nicholas alleyway, to a barely-there street called Phipps.

Moving and storage company Rawlinson Cartage constructed the building at 16 Phipps in the late 1890s. A small tunnel, thought to once hold a conveyor belt, connected it to the building directly north, at 11A St. Joseph. As with a number of neighbouring structures, it was also erected by Rawlinson.

In the early 1970s, 11A St. Joseph was home to popular all-ages gay male dance club The Manatee. Nearby Yonge Street bars The Parkside Tavern and St. Charles Tavern were gay hotspots, as was intimate Isabella Street disco Mrs. Knights.

Club David’s added new possibilities to the mix when Jay Cochrane and Sandy Leblanc opened it in the spring of 1975.

Image courtesy of Wendy Peacock.

“Jay had already experienced many clubs in the U.S. and was meticulous about how he wanted things run,” recalls John Weber, the discotheque’s main DJ. “He wanted to create a safe atmosphere for everybody to enjoy.

“David’s was a step up on the décor [of the time]. It was really clean, they had sofas in there, and carpeting. You could go and actually sit on what felt like living room furniture. David’s had a billiards room too. It was the beginning of Jay’s vision of having a place where you could socialize and do more than just go and dance.”

Not licensed to sell alcohol at first, David’s opened doors to men aged 16-and-older. The club ran Friday through Sunday, with music heard until 6am on weekend nights. The crowds would soon grow far more mixed.

Photo courtesy of Wendy Peacock.

Why it was important: Although David’s was not the biggest or even busiest gay disco of its time, the club was one of the first to actually be gay-owned and so elaborately decorated.

The club was a sizable, two-level layout. Once opened, David’s heavy wooden door revealed a path that went up a few stairs, past a ticket booth, along a catwalk, and to your choice of billiards room or the main bar. In the upper part of the main room there was plenty of seating – sofas, tables and chairs, and booths alike. The floors were red carpet. Some of the walls were, in part, also covered in red carpet while others were heavily mirrored. It was, after all, the ‘70s.

St. George riding all-candidates meeting at David’s, June 1977. Photo from The Body Politic, courtesy of Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

Two winding staircases led down to the dancefloor. Most famously, the stairs also curved around the club’s star attraction: a fountain containing a larger-than-life, and, by many accounts, excessively well-endowed replica of Michelangelo’s David. There was also a stage, raised go-go platform, and a DJ booth that overlooked the dancefloor. Of course a large mirror ball reflected the pink, purple and multi-hued lights, and the sound system is said to have been quality. David’s also boasted a snack bar, pinball machines, and a high-tech coat check system, complete with revolving hangers.

Months after it opened, David’s adopted a somewhat radical door policy. While most gay and lesbian bars of the time were segregated by gender, and most social spaces were assumed to be either straight or gay, Club David’s advertised itself as open to all genders and sexualities. Some ads, in fact, promoted it as a bisexual club. A membership policy was adopted and bouncers were on hand to keep an eye out, but in general, people mixed freely and easily.

Club David’s welcome policy, courtesy of Wendy Peacock.

“When David’s became bi-gender, it attracted those people ‘on the fringe’ or ‘closet-y,’” says gay activist and senior Ken ‘Father’ Andrews, once a phototypesetter and board member of the Canadian Homophile Association of Toronto (C.H.A.T.). “A lot of women and men came out in that club.”

“One of the things I liked most about David’s was that I could see my female friends too,” says Weber, who got his start DJing the C.H.A.T. dances and was recruited to spin by David’s original soundman, Michael Roberts.

A 17-year-old Weber began to DJ at Club David’s in the summer of 1975.

John Weber in David’s DJ booth. Photo courtesy of Andrea Wood.

Given its 16-plus-door policy, David’s was a haven for queer and questioning youth.

“David’s was home-away-from-home,” states Jacky ‘Jake’ Gabay, later to be known by the stage name of Vicki Sue. “It was difficult being out at that time, especially for teenagers. David’s was a retreat, a place where you could be yourself. I remember the first time I walked in; it was like being born again, among people like me. I was 16-going-on-17 at the time, and was enthralled by it all.”

Wendy Peacock was a Mississauga teen when she began attending David’s in 1976.

“I dated a boy, named Dave Soulsby, who worked there from 1976 to 1977,” Peacock begins. “He worked at the door, and was a go-go dancer. He was called the best robot dancer in the clubs, and even had a spot on CityTV’s Boogie show, dancing with his little brother.”

The two met at David’s, on an evening when Soulsby attended door.

“I had never been to a club so I was floored by the lights, and the sound,” she explains. “I went as much as possible. Guaranteed, I was there every Friday and Saturday night for about a year.

“I met a wonderful array of people. This was my first foray into the real world from my very suburban upbringing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to meet such diverse personalities. Everybody went to this club—straight, gay, bi, tough, not so tough, drag queens, transgendered people, pretty people, not so pretty people.

“There were a lot of young lesbians at the club,” Peacock adds. “Of course, they mostly went to the Cameo or other all-women clubs, but it was a young woman at David’s—she looked just like Jodie Foster—who made me dump my boyfriend.”

It’s especially difficult to resist a Jodie Foster-lookalike’s charms when the beats are pumping.

Thanks to John Weber, and his fill-in DJ Greg Howlett, David’s was a serious disco hotspot. Both men would go on to win the Billboard Disco Forum Award for ‘Best Regional DJ’ (Howlett in 1979, Weber in 1980), but before then, each would pack the David’s dancefloor as they played anthems like Silver Convention’s “Get Up and Boogie,”

“My favourite DJ at the time was Greg Howlett,” offers Weber during a lengthy phone chat. “I really admired his music and mixing.” (Visit the Then & Now Mixcloud page for live DJ sets by Howlett.)

Weber, who also DJed at The Manatee during this same period, was both a crowd-pleaser and trendsetter. As was then de rigueur, Weber would play a couple of slow songs every hour or so, but he excelled at blending danceable pop and rock—think Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music,” and “Long Train Running”—with dancefloor soul and breaking disco anthems.

“The Supremes’ ‘I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking‘ and ‘He’s My Man‘ were huge at David’s, as were Vicki Sue Robinson, with ‘Turn the Beat Around,’ and Gloria Gaynor,” says Weber.

“Another song that was huge for us was “I Got Your Love” by a group called Stratavarious, which was formed by John Usry Jr. He worked back in the days with people like the O’Jays and the whole MFSB fold. He came to Toronto and formed the Stratavarious orchestra.

Poster courtesy of Wendy Peacock.

“Jay Cochrane allowed me to do a lot of things that a lot of other club owners would have shaken their heads at. He had vision, and allowed us to bring Stratavarious, a live disco orchestra, in to perform. That was quite something. I was also able to get Shirley & Company, who did the song “Shame, Shame, Shame,” to come and perform at David’s. Carol Williams, who was the first solo female artist signed to Salsoul Records and had done a disco version of the song “More,” also performed at David’s, and became a lifelong friend. Vicki Sue Robinson spent time at the club as a guest.”

Namesake female impersonator Vicki Sue, a.k.a. Jacky Gabay, was hired to perform at David’s by Tony Brown, who also took to the stage as Toni Brown.

“I auditioned for Tony in the summer of 1976, and performed “Blind Date” from Funny Lady,” recalls Gabay. “Little did I know that there were four other performers watching, including Michelle Ross. At the end of my audition they all applauded. Tony said to me ‘You’re not a drag queen like everyone else. You’re a performer, an actor.’ That was the best compliment I could have.”

Vicki Sue became part of the roster. Drag queens performed Friday nights at 2 a.m., with other memorable greats from the David’s days including Brown, Ross, Jackie Loren, Danny Love, Twilight, Jo-Jo, and Ronnie Holliday.

Vicki Sue, known for her sense of humour and original performances, won David’s Miss Starlight Pageant title in 1977, after performing solo sets on nights that included a Supremes tribute.

Vicki Sue. Photo courtesy of Jacky Gabay.

“People were in total awe the night that The Supremes—post Diana Ross—sat with me in the DJ booth, and watched themselves be performed by female impersonators,” describes Weber. “Tony Brown performed Diana Ross so gracefully, and had all of her movements and gestures down. That made this night an especially sweet moment because so many people loved and admired Tony.

“David’s was packed like a sardine can because word had leaked that The Supremes were going to be there. Tony asked if they would consider coming out of the DJ booth to say ‘Hi,’ and they did. People cleared a path a path from the booth, down the steps to the dancefloor, and Mary Wilson, Cindy Birdsong and Sherrie Payne took to the stage to greet everyone. It was one of those special club moments that was totally a David’s thing. Mary Wilson kept in touch with both Tony and I long after that.” (Brown, who went on to work and perform at clubs including Komrads, has since passed away.)

Peacock, a fan of David’s drag artists, recalls another favourite performer.

“There was this one queen there who I adored. His club name was Sister Rock-On, and his best stage act was an Elton John impression.  He was beautiful as a woman, but Elton just blew you away. He looked exactly like him.”

For a period—especially most of 1976—Club David’s flourished. People flocked to the disco for its music, performances, and anything-goes reputation.

“I got hooked on the place because of the diversity; it was the craziest place in the world for that,” states Larry Adolphe, who’d initially gone to David’s because his good friend Gordon Bishop worked there as a manager.

“If somebody had walked in there with a cow, I don’t think anybody would have batted an eyelash.”

Adolphe, whose own music tastes leaned to rock, started working at David’s in the summer of 1977. He bussed, bartended, made popcorn for the snack bar—whatever was needed. By this time, the crowds had dwindled yet the club was open nightly.

David’s audience had shrunk for multiple reasons—including the opening of red-hot gay afterhours dance club Stages in January 1977.

Jay Cochrane left David’s behind early that year, and opened the large Studio II complex. Located at the northeast corner of Carlton and Church (where gay club Zipperz now sits), Studio II was a gay paradise, with multiple dancefloors, private rooms, a library, restaurant, movie theatre and more.

John Weber and his music went with Cochrane.

“My loyalty was with Jay, and I wasn’t personally interested in the direction that things were going with Sandy,” explains the DJ. “I believed in Jay’s vision more, so was more than happy to go to Studio II.”

Leblanc, with new American co-owner Mark Lefkofski, set about trying to keep Club David’s afloat. He built an adjoining disco, called The Garage, at 19 St. Joseph. When it didn’t take off, Leblanc converted The Garage into a restaurant, open 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. nightly. That did well, and soon people were walking through the doorway that connected the spaces.

Advertisement in Directions magazine. Courtesy of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Archives.

David’s crowd now skewed heavily to those aged 22-and-under.

“Sandy really liked the street kids, and they liked hanging out there,” recalls Adolphe. “That was the scene at the time.”

People hung out at The Garage and danced all night in the disco, but the programming changed.

“With the opening of Studio ll, David’s lost a lot of its patrons, and the shows were changed to late afternoon on Sundays,” explains Gabay, who performed at the club as Vicki Sue until they no longer booked drag shows (He continued to perform until 1981, at clubs also including The Manatee, Carriage House, MayGay, Katrina’s, and Studio II.)

“David’s started catering to the punk crowd.”

The Ugly at David’s. Photo by Vince Carlucci.

Who else played/worked there: After the short-lived Crash ‘n’ Burn space ran its course in the summer of 1977, Club David’s became the unlikely home of Toronto’s early punk scene.

Filmmakers Tibor Takács and Stephen Zoller were the reason why.

Though he’d never set foot in David’s to dance, Takács was well aware of the club.

“David’s was sort of a big deal at the time,” he tells me in a phone call from California; “It was such a cool place – down an alleyway, with people always falling out onto the street. David’s was a very decadent, underground club that had a bit of a New York vibe to it. When David’s was in its heyday, I don’t think there was anything else like it at all in Toronto.”

He and Zoller had first approached Leblanc about shooting a scene for their first feature film, Metal Messiah, at David’s in 1976. They stayed in touch. Takács would go on to act as manager for pioneering Toronto punk bands Viletones and, to a lesser extent, Cardboard Brains.

“When we needed to find a venue for the Viletones to play in, because they were kicked out of everywhere else, we decided to go to David’s,” says Takács. “Sandy made us a good deal—we got the door and he got the bar.”

For the last four-to-six months of 1977, punk bands including Viletones, The Ugly, The Curse, B-Girls, Teenage Head, The Androids, and Cardboard Brains played at David’s once or twice a week.

The Viletones at David’s. Photo by Vince Carlucci.

“I would show up on Fridays or Saturdays to see or snap band photos,” says photographer and musician Vince Carlucci, guitarist and co-founder of Cardboard Brains.

“There was not that many bands initially – you could count all the Toronto punk bands with less than 10 fingers. Besides the Crash ‘n’ Burn, David’s was the venue for these new bands to play. There were a few gigs at The Colonial, but [it wasn’t] until 1978 and on when there was an explosion of venues and indie bands.”

Carlucci, who also documented early Toronto appearances by the likes of Patti Smith, has a soft spot for David’s to this day.

“David’s didn’t feel like a typical beer bar or club, like The Gasworks, or Yonge Station, or any of the other live music venues,” he describes; “It was kind of charming in a cheesy sort of way.”

While David’s was clearly in decline – fellow musician and photographer Don Pyle recalls that the fountain had long dried up and the club’s carpets were dirty and frayed – the club’s worn, wonky aesthetic, permanent stage, and sunken, pit-like dancefloor were perfect for the punks who played between 9pm and midnight.

“The vibe was pretty exciting, especially when bands like the Viletones played,” enthuses Carlucci. “Steven Leckie had a way of inciting kids – getting people pissed or dancing or moving. He was never much of a singer technically speaking, but had a great and sort of creepy persona onstage.

Teenage Head at David’s. Photo by Vince Carlucci.

“When Teenage Head was on, the place would typically be packed, and there was always a feeling that a riot may break out – what with all the booze and dope that was being used, and the odd mix of people. It was just not that common in ‘77.”

While the Viletones played at David’s more than any other band, Leckie recalls one especially magical night at the ‘punk palace.’

“The Poles, Teenage Head and Viletones were all on the bill,” Leckie begins. “It was like a vacuum; that was as tight as you got. I’d hear female singers later, like say in The Adverts, and think ‘Man, she doesn’t come close to Michaele Jordana.’ Teenage Head were off the map, in my opinion. They were as good as it gets. They could have been bigger than Cheap Trick.”

While footage and interviews from this show were infamously reported by punk-fearing CBC host Hana Gartner, the nascent scene at David’s was lovingly recorded by people like filmmakers Colin Brunton and Kire Paputts who shared the footage below. (Their detailed documentary about the early days of Toronto punk, The Last Pogo Jumps Again,  contains additional footage shot at David’s and is excellent.)

“David’s was an important lily pad you needed to jump onto to continue the arc of punk,” says Leckie, who sometimes DJed between bands too. “Without David’s being there, there would have been a real gap after the close of Crash ‘n’ Burn, and before the opening of The Edge. I felt absolute freedom at David’s and with Sandy. It was beautiful.”

As a venue, David’s also underscores a fact about pioneering punk scenes in Toronto and New York alike.

“The earliest days of punk had deep roots in gay spaces as safe havens or as accepting of other outsiders,” states Don Pyle, a gay man who came up in the punk scene, and came out in his later teens.

“I was only 15 when I first went to David’s and was still closeted and fearful so going there was a threat to my ‘secret,’” says Pyle, who nonetheless saw many bands at 16 Phipps (some of Pyle’s photos taken at David’s are found in his 2011 book, Trouble In the Camera Club).

Pyle points out that there were a number of “visible gays in the artier side of the punk scene—in bands like The Dishes and Drastic Measures.”

Toronto artist Bruce Eves, also co-founder of CEAC (Centre for Experimental Art and Communication), where the tiny Crash ‘n’ Burn once ran, expands on this.

“The ‘punks’ were largely art students or recent grads so the scene was, relatively speaking, fairly integrated for the time. I’d never made any secret of the fact that I’m a gay man, and had never felt threatened in any way. Some of the bands attracted a more hardcore following, but I never felt hassled.

“All this said, I would say that the punk and disco scenes were pretty segregated. Gays would go to punk concerts because the scene was hot, but not the other way around.”

The Curse at David’s. Photo by Vince Carlucci.

While most of the people I speak with say that the punk kids and disco dancers who did come together at David’s mixed comfortably (“There was this kind of respect and camaraderie betwixt the punks and the gay crowd,” says Carlucci; “Both cultures were kind of loners, rebels and rejects in a way.”), Eves’ story about one of the few times he went to David’s also speaks volumes.

“I don’t remember who was playing; it was probably the Diodes because we were friends, had collaborated on a few art projects and I was a fan,” says Eves. “During a break between sets, I was chatting up a guy I was interested in, and we kissed. This guy nearby freaked out and punched me. There was blood everywhere. I was hauled out through the restaurant, past shocked patrons with forks suspended midair. Evidently a gang of punk girls beat the shit out of the guy in revenge – my own little Altamont. I still have the scar to prove it.”

Still, the staff at David’s was just as mixed as its clientele. Leblanc also hired people from the punk scene.

“Waiter Randy Roudette was someone I came to know from just being around the scene,” offers Pyle. “He had a T-shirt that said ‘Mr. Shit’ on it the first time I recall seeing him. It was the name most people knew him by.”

Leblanc also took to booking bands. A few interviewees mention seeing Rough Trade at David’s. Disco acts still performed on occasion.

“At a certain point, Sandy started booking his own shows,” says Takács. “We were a little pissed off at him, but really, we’d run the gamut of Toronto punk groups, and he was looking for new acts. He brought in these guys from Detroit. They were a very clean-cut, new wave pop band, called The Romantics. Eventually they became kind of famous. I remember walking in and hearing “What I Like About You,” and thinking ‘Fuck, these guys are commercial. This is a hit song man.’ The first time I ever heard that song was there.”

Poster courtesy of The Last Pogo Jumps Again.

What happened to it: Club David’s burned in a fire following a New Year’s Eve punk show on December 31, 1977.

“We were one of the three unfortunate bands to have played the night the club burned down,” says Carlucci. “It was the final gig at Club David’s.” (Carlucci has written about this night in a memoir in progress, tentatively titled I Was A Cardboard Brain. He continues to take and exhibit photos, performs with the band Station Twang, and also blogs regularly.)

Cardboard Brains, along with members of Viletones and The Ugly, lost a lot of gear in the fire, which remains a mystery to this day.

“There were some rumours as to whether or not it was an insurance thing, but I was always skeptical of that because that was Sandy’s life,” says Adolphe, who worked at David’s that evening. (He now owns L&J Cycle on Davenport.)

“Sandy liked the kids, and he actually lived there—he had a loft that in the building, right above the snack bar. I think in some ways, he had more to lose.

“After it burned down, he still tried to help us out by giving Gordon and I shifts, pulling down smoke damaged drywall and cleaning the place up. Sandy had a big heart. It’s quite possible that the fire was staged, but that just didn’t seem to fit with who Sandy was.”

Takács also has his doubts.

“Something I remember very distinctly from that night is that people were throwing their cigarette butts on the wooden dancefloor. I went around stomping them out at points.”

The David’s site as it appeared in 1979.
Photos by Joan Anderson, courtesy of the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

Now splitting his time between Toronto and Los Angeles, the director of films including The Gate, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Spiders 3D recalls trying to meet with Leblanc many months after the fire.

“I remember going to Sandy’s to discuss the insurance. We knocked on the door, went back a few times, and wondered ‘What the hell? Where did Sandy disappear to?’”

Leblanc was murdered in September 1978. The Toronto Star reported that he’d been stabbed more than 100 times. No one was ever charged.

Sandy LeBlanc, as featured in Directions magazine. Courtesy of Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

“There were suspects, but no proof,” says Ken Andrews, now retired and active as a community volunteer as he nears age 79.

“A friend discovered Sandy’s body when paying a visit to his apartment. He called police, of course, and a certain then-homicide detective by the name of Julian Fantino was an investigator. My friend thought it odd that a follow-up interview never took place.”

A few years later, former David’s co-owner Mark Lefkofski, who also co-owned Detroit men’s bar Menjo’s for a period, was murdered in that city.

“It was absolutely devastating, the way that Sandy was murdered, but at the time, it was seen as possible that he’d brought the wrong person home,” recalls John Weber, who went on to DJ at clubs including Sutton Place disco Stop 33, Space disco and The Barn (he’s now retired).

“But then, when it came to Mark also being murdered, it seemed like there was something else involved there. Maybe bikers or mob money – it seems we’ll never know.”

16 Phipps remained unused for years after the fire. In the mid 1980s, it was reborn as gay dance club Le Mystique. From 1995 to 1997, it was the home of house-centric gay afterhours club, JOY while at other points in the ’90s the building hosted underground warehouse parties and raves.

The building was torn down more than five years ago. In its place stands the 20-storey condo build on the south side of Eleven Residences at 11 St. Joseph. The St. Nicholas alleyway no longer extends that far north; it has been filled in by ongoing construction of Five Condos at Yonge and St. Joseph.

Thank you to participants Bruce Eves, Don Pyle, Jacky Gabay, John Weber, Ken Andrews, Larry Adolph, Steven Leckie, Tibor Takács, Vince Carlucci, Wendy Peacock. Thanks also to Alice Lipczak, Andrée Emond, Caroline Azar, George Fichna, Helen Lenskyj and the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives, Vince Degiorgio, and to Colin Brunton and Kire Paputts, producer/directors of The Last Pogo Jumps Again, for their suggestions and sharing of resources.

The post Then & Now: Club David’s appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published March 12, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

Denise Benson revisits both the original Isabella Street location that laid down the breeding ground for Toronto’s early-‘80s alternative music and fashion scenes –also seeming to be U2’s home away from home– and the Yonge Street haunt that later served as a hangout for goths, punks and ska fans alike.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Domino Klub (1 Isabella St.), later Klub Domino (279 Yonge St.)

Years in operation: 1979-1987

History: In the late 1970s through much of the ’80s, Yonge and Isabella was an epicentre for emergent music, arts, and fashion culture. The area came alive at night, with numerous booze-cans and after-hours clubs drawing dancers to upper-level locations on Yonge and decadent discos on side streets, especially St. Joseph. Before Domino’s opened upstairs at 1 Isabella, the venue had been the Cheetah Club. Owned by Gunther Weswaldi, whose background was in the food and beverage industry, the Cheetah was short lived. It’s thought that Weswaldi and his wife Darlene opened Domino at this address in early 1979. (Weswaldi’s current whereabouts are unknown.) Advertised as a venue where people could meet for “lunch, dinner, dancing, disco,” Domino’s was a licensed restaurant and nightclub open daily. It did not launch with a distinct identity.

Image courtesy of Roy Paul.

Rock station Q107, which had gone on-air in mid-1977, promoted a number of events at Domino’s before street-savvy event producer Michael Gallow and pioneering post-punk DJ Dave Allen approached Weswaldi with the concept of entertaining downtown denizens interested in a new wave of sounds and styles.

“Dave and I had participated in the earliest days of the punk-rock explosion in town,” writes Gallow by email. “By early 1979, that energy had degenerated into teenage-male aggro. The arty/fashion element of punk was mutating into new wave, and fit well with our Yonge and Bloor crowd. Elements of the Church/Wellesley ghetto were still partying hard, and there was a blending of that uptown scene with ours.”

DJ Dave Allen. Photo by Alice Andersen, Wonderland Photography.

Gallow and Allen soon brought a fashionable mix of people to 1 Isabella.

“The first event was a post-concert party for [British band] Japan, in late November 1979, with promo and ticket giveaways on Q107,” says Gallow. “I remember David Sylvian looking like a deer caught in the proverbial fan’s headlights.”

Gallow also recalls that Weswaldi was interested in having his venue play host to new sounds and scenes, with an emphasis on dancing rather than the live acts Q107 personnel had proposed. This also made Domino’s different than live music venues like The Edge, The Colonial, El Mocambo, and Horseshoe Tavern, which all booked punk and new-wave bands, to varying degrees.

“Dave and I felt there were enough live venues around, but nowhere for the evolving new music/fashion/art scene to hang out,” says Gallow.

They were given the go-ahead.

“Gunther called the spot Domino’s. We suggested the Domino Klub—a tip of the hat to the Mudd Club in N.Y.C. That worked for him.”

Michael Gallow (left) with the Doc. Photo courtesy of Roy Paul.

Why it was important: Domino was Toronto’s original post-punk and new-wave dance club. Sets of new wave could be heard at nearby gay clubs like Stages and Club David’s; The Edge was ground zero for pioneering live music; and Nuts & Bolts, Twilight Zone, and Voodoo would all soon open doors to dancers seeking brand new sounds. But Domino was the first.

“Most of our music was post-punk and the beginnings of electro-pop,” says Gallow, who purchased much of Domino Klub’s music. “I knew we would be a hit when I looked out at a sardine-packed dance floor as Gary Numan’s ‘Cars‘ and The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette‘ boomed over the sound system. We were definitely the only spot in town for that experience.”

The original Domino had a number of things going for it, in addition to a prime location. Not only did its dining room attract a crowd looking for cheap, decent food, it also provided a quieter space for people to talk, and friendships to develop. Further down the hallway was the large main room, ideal for dancers and voyeurs alike. The sizable dancefloor—much of it stainless steel—was slightly sunken, overlooked by a long bar and a variety of seated and standing areas. Dancers tended to face a wall of smoked mirrors.

“All the better for making sure your moves were cool,” says Gallow.

The men’s bathrooms at Domino Klub. Photo by Alice Andersen, Wonderland Photography.

Domino may have smelled of smoke and beer—Black Label was the drink of choice—and had only adequate sound and lighting, but the layout allowed enough options for punks, skinheads, fashionistas, and artists of all stripes and sexualities to gather comfortably. Dave Allen’s range of edgy sounds also connected crowds.

“Dave had a tremendous enthusiasm for the music, and he was able to communicate that,” offers Gallow. “He was willing to explore the less obvious music, and had an intuitive grasp of what each segment of the audience wanted to hear. [He’d play] up-and-coming tunes early, peaked with hits for the large mixed crowd, and got more dark and experimental as the early hours of the morning arrived.” (Allen himself could not be reached for comment. Even close friends are uncertain of his whereabouts.)

Chris Sheppard in the Domino’s DJ booth. Photo: Dusty Reeves.

“The original Domino’s was ground zero for the re-birth of club culture,” says Canadian DJ/producer Chris Sheppard. His interest in new music, dancing, and meeting girls had made him an early regular at Domino Klub, and he soon got his DJing start there.

“Chris was the first person to control the DJ booth beyond Dave or myself,” confirms Gallow. “And that was only as a replacement on nights when we couldn’t.”

Sheppard, who later became Domino Klub’s main resident, was finely tuned in to the sounds of the time. Even now, he underscores the difference between the music of Domino and that heard at Nuts & Bolts, which launched as an alternative dance club in 1980.

“1 Isabella was much cooler,” proclaims Sheppard. “Punk had progressed, and Domino was an important part of the post-punk movement. Nuts & Bolts was The Cars and Elvis Costello; Domino was Fad Gadget, 4″ Be 2″, Gang of Four, Japan, and more Japan. Domino was The Associates, The Jam, Nina Hagen, Cabaret Voltaire, The Cure, Blancmange, and Joy Division; Nuts & Bolts was ‘Hey Mickey.’”

The Domino Klub charts, circa March 15, 1980. Courtesy of Roy Paul.

Regardless of the nuances that might seem subtle to some ears, all of this music was so new that nightclubs played an essential role in it being heard. Bands toured with support from club DJs, record shops, magazines, and select media outlets. In late 1970s Toronto, only upstart radio station CFNY played such music with consistency.

“Ivar Hamilton would come and listen to the tunes we were spinning, and they would show up on the CFNY playlist,” recalls Gallow. “I also have strong memories of Jeanne Beker and J.D. Roberts coming by regularly to do interviews at the club. The NewMusic on City-TV had just started, and we were a convenient spot for filming.”

Record labels and concert promoters also took note.

“Almost every band The Garys brought into town came by the Domino Klub to hang out,” states Sheppard. “I remember deep conversations with Simple Minds about where they were going musically.”

Sheppard, like many, still recalls the excitement of David Sylvian and Japan’s early visits.

“When Japan came and hung out at the club for a week or so, it was like meeting with the messiah at the time. Japan was so important to us all, as a group and for their fashion sense.”

The members of U2 also became frequent visitors.

“I have a strong memory of seeing U2 at the El Mocambo,” Gallow enthuses. “It was their first Toronto gig. Dave and I grabbed them in the dressing room, and took them to Domino’s by cab.”

“Dave Allen gets credit for being the first [Toronto] DJ to push U2,” adds Sheppard. “Off the back of their first 7-inch single, we knew U2 was going to be huge one day. So we all went down to their first gig at the El Mocambo. The place was not even half full. I remember Dave telling Bono and The Edge that they could be so much better. They were a fixture at 1 Isabella, every time they came back to town, which seemed like every other week.”

Although Domino Klub did not focus on live shows, members of many local bands were among the early core crowd, and did perform.

“Platinum Blonde was like the house band,” says Sheppard. “When they were not playing, they were hanging out. It’s where they started.”

Platinum Blonde at Domino Klub. Photo by Alice Andersen, Wonderland Photography.

“Mark Holmes, founder of Platinum Blonde, was around all the time in the early days,” agrees Gallow. “The English accent came and went, but he was very determined to be a flashy rock star. Good on him, as he achieved his goal.” (Holmes is now also co-owner of College Street venue Mod Club.)

Other homegrown talents, like The Deserters and Nash the Slash, performed. Montreal’s Men Without Hats made their Toronto debut at Domino. N.Y.C. no-wave band Bush Tetras also played there, as did Cali punks Black Flag.

Poster courtesy of Roy Paul.

“There was also a time when Marianne Faithful came up to the booth and requested her own music,” recalls Avery Tanner, a DJ who got his start playing at York University while also a Fine Arts student.

He and friends including DJ Don Cochran (later a Twilight Zone resident) and Arthur Wanner also produced downtown parties where Wanner’s extensive Beta-tape collection of music videos would be shown. In the summer of 1981, Tanner and Wanner were invited to do Wednesday video parties at Domino.

Record labels including PolyGram hopped on board, with Domino’s also hosting themed video nights featuring breaking bands like Killing Joke. The labels, along with hipper media outlets, turned to Domino not just because the club’s DJs played the newest of the new, but also because it attracted a loyal crowd of trendsetters.

“It seemed that people just lived there,” says Tanner. “They were there all week long. It really was a cultural resource centre for freaks of all ilks.”

“It was everyone your parents were afraid of and warned you about,” says early-’80s Domino Klub regular Carson Foster. “We all would read The Face each month, and adopt the fashions immediately afterwards.”

Domino was the very first club Foster went to. He was brought there by “a 15-year-old Rosedale runaway I’d let stay with me,” and kept going back for “the fashion, the music, the danger, the posing.

“Bits of new wave were starting to eradicate the Boston and Kansas frontal lobes I’d grown up with, but Domino was like an immersion tank,” says Foster, who later worked as The Rivoli’s talent booker and founded the Kickass Karaoke series. “The music was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. The common thread was that it was new, and not on any radio station I’d heard. [It was] funk, punk, rap, and rock all mixed together.”

Now a professional grip working in Canadian film, Foster then also had ties to Domino as an employee of fashion-forward Canadian designers Parachute.

Carson Foster outside Parachute. Photo courtesy of him.

“We were fortunate to hook up with the gang from the newly opened Parachute clothing store in Yorkville,” recalls Gallow. “They were from Montreal and were, without a doubt, the most experimental fashion crowd Toronto had ever seen. One sales associate, named Mitchell, would stop traffic at Yonge and Bloor when he strolled down the street. The Parachute crew really cemented our fashion status, as they needed a place to be seen streetwise, and our space and music combo was perfect for them. Things build on one another, and quickly we gained a reputation as a sympathetic spot for new British music and edgy fashion.”

Gallow, Allen, and friends had created a space where expression and originality were paramount. People of varying genders, sexualities and subcultures came together. Many in Domino’s core crowd would become active members of Toronto’s cultural vanguard.

“It was such an amazing group of talented, beautiful people,” enthuses Sheppard. “The scene then was so small that we all developed friendships that last till this day.”

Image courtesy of Roy Paul.

Sheppard mentions many by name, like lighting designer Stephen Pollard, who would go on to work with bands including Psychedelic Furs, U2, and Simple Minds; jewelry designers Ruth Weller and Richard Vermuelen; Tim Blanks, renowned fashion journalist and one-time host of Fashion File; and photographers including Alice Andersen.

“There were a lot of creative people that hung out at Domino,” agrees Andersen, a very familiar face during the club’s first two years.

“What still stands out the most [to me] is that the regulars at Domino bonded, and were like a family. Many maintained relationships outside of the club, and some lived together. I made a lot of good friends at Domino.”

Andersen mentions dozens by name, including visual artist Mike Hansen; lighting tech, Ironhead impresario, and “dancing king” Danny Regan; interior designer Caroline Robbie; special-effects artist Gerald Lukaniuk a.k.a. Score; and the late, great hair stylist John Steinberg, founder of seminal salon Rainbow Room. Many Domino regulars were hair stylists, especially with House of Lords directly across the street.

Some of Andersen’s many photos of Domino’s early devotees are featured in the photo gallery at the top of this page.

“Gunther and Darlene were very open to allowing not only bands to perform, but also to other art forms,” credits Andersen. “Fleur Govaerts and myself created a slide-show story set to music, with Domino kids dressing up as specific characters and participating in the ‘film shoot.’ It was called The Tenement, and we premiered it at Domino.”

Despite all of the cultural collaboration, there were a number of key personnel shifts. Michael Gallow left by the end of 1980, having “realized that Gunther was making all the money through our hard work, contacts, and initiative. He refused to pay anything more than a token fee for the DJ services.”

Gallow opened influential afterhours club Voodoo at 9 St. Joseph in August of 1981. (He now owns marketing company Benchmarx Data Services.) Dave Allen became Voodoo’s main DJ, and many in the Domino crowd shifted allegiances or bounced between venues. Chris Sheppard took over as resident at Domino for a period, followed by Avery Tanner, the club’s inventive full-time DJ who worked most of its last two years.

In early 1984, Domino Klub re-opened as Klub Domino at 279 Yonge St.

Image courtesy of Roy Paul.

“As I recall, the reason for the move was that Gunther’s lease had come up for renewal, and the landlord wanted too much money,” explains Tanner, who moved with the club and was closely involved in the new venue’s renovations. He installed sound and lights, built the DJ booth, and was the core resident during Domino’s first two years on Yonge.

Despite the move to a more commercial part of town—across from the Eaton Centre, no less—the club’s identity as an alternative-music hotspot remained. The new venue had only one room, but it too was up a long narrow flight of stairs. This time, a Centipede video game was found at the entry. Once in the club, patrons could choose between seating areas or a big wooden dancefloor in front of the DJ booth. As a lesson learned from the original location, mirrors were installed on both ends of the dancefloor for those who enjoyed their own reflection. Red and black were the main colours. Black Label beer still reigned supreme—it’s where I had my first one. Canadian cop drama Night Heat even filmed scenes at the new location.

Not surprisingly, most of the original Domino regulars I speak with stress that the second location was not “the real” Domino Klub.

“The second Domino’s was home to the next generation of goths, punks, and electro fans who were too young when [the first location] happened,” says Sheppard. “The only thing it had in common with the original was the name. Isabella was when everything was still so brand new.”

Sheppard did DJ at 279 Yonge in its early days, but left Domino behind later that year to develop Sundays at The Copa. His career exploded when Sheppard became the star DJ at RPM, a host on CFNY, and the main producer behind breakout dance act Love Inc. (He claims to have since earned three Ph.D.s in neuroscience, and says he continues to produce electronic music under a variety of undisclosed project names.)

“The sense that the Isabella location was the ‘real’ Domino is more to do with the cultural mecca that made that place so special,” offers Tanner. “The scene at Dundas was still a wonderful, vibrant, and creative one, but lacked the diversity and grit of Isabella.

“But I don’t feel that there was any compromise or dilution musically,” he emphasizes. “It’s impossible to explain how eclectic the times were. At one moment, I would be playing the ethereal ‘Ghosts‘ by Japan, and the next there would be the thunder of Doc Marten boots pounding the stainless steel floor to ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag.’ The Clash, Heaven 17, Cabaret Voltaire, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen, and The Stranglers were some of my personal favorites.”

DJ Larry Saint and friends in the Klub Domino DJ booth, built by Avery Tanner. Photo courtesy of Saint.

After bringing in friend Larry St. Aubin, a.k.a. DJ Larry Saint, to take over weekends and, eventually, all six nights at the club, Tanner left Klub Domino to spin at the Catwalk, Big Bop and, most famously, New York’s Webster Hall, where he was a star resident from 1992-2012. (He returned to Ontario last summer, and is now a visual artist based in Hamilton.)

Tanner speaks fondly of Domino to this day.

“Gunther Weswaldi was an older, surly man of few words, but I never once had a problem with him. He gave me complete freedom with the music. It may have seemed that Klub Domino was just a business to him and that he was not interested in the cultural movement that it pivoted upon, yet I feel that he was very proud that his baby was such a phenomenon.”

Who else played/worked there: Montreal native Ivan Palmer is synonymous with the last two years of Klub Domino. He was a fixture while Tanner and Larry Saint DJed, and had gained a reputation by spinning at Toronto venues including Zambukie on College, The Catwalk on Richmond, and The Diamond Club on Wednesdays.

Palmer had also DJed at Oz, the nightclub that had moved in to 1 Isabella post-Domino. (The address would later house gay club Komrads.) In 1985, Darlene Weswaldi hired Palmer to play at Klub Domino where he would spin a mix of rock, punk, ska, electrobeat, industrial, new wave, and more multiple nights a week.

“In my view, Klub Domino was the perfect breeding ground for creative people,” says Palmer, perhaps best known and loved for his lean towards goth music and culture, which he championed at Domino.

“Wednesdays were for the Batcavers—a mix of what we now call goth music, and the industrial that was the booming sound of that time,” offers Palmer, listing bands like Alien Sex Fiend, Specimen, Virgin Prunes, Cassandra Complex, Front 242, Sex Gang Children, and Death in June.

He bounced between venues, also including Nuts & Bolts, The Silver Crown, and Club Magic, but Palmer’s Batstrack Wednesdays at Domino were especially popular.

“We would shred garbage bags and hang them on the ceiling, and rip some cheese cloth to dress the whole club up like a cave,” details Palmer. “Many people would come in early to help for free admission. “One week night, all the members of Skinny Puppy came in and stayed the whole night. I played ‘Chew You to Bits‘ by Portion Control, a band that influenced them a lot. Nivek Ogre came up to the booth, gave me the big thumbs up and said, ‘Ivan, Portion Control. Right on!’ I was a really big Skinny Puppy fan, and played a lot of awesome obscure music that night.”

The scene at Klub Domino. Photos courtesy of Silvy Calloway.

Along with Palmer, Stephen Scott, Siobhan O’Flynn, and Philip Brown were some of the last main DJs to work the Domino booth. I danced to all of them, multiple nights a week, during Domino’s closing year—my first living in Toronto.

“I pushed the ska, reggae, and punk revival at the time, as electronica dominated the dancefloors,” says Brown, who played Thursdays and Saturdays. He cites a playlist packed with two-tone ska (The Specials, The Beat), indie and local ska and reggae (The Untouchables, Satellites), original punk (Ramones, Sex Pistols), California hybrids (Fishbone, Dead Kennedys), and more obscure sounds (The Teardrop Explodes, Captain Beefheart).

“Unlike Isabella, the Yonge Street space became more of a punk hangout,” states Brown. “It had more of an edgy, divey vibe to it than Bolts or the Dance Cave, and was not nearly as fashion- and make up–forward as spaces like Voodoo or the Iguana Lounge. Ripped jeans, t-shirts, Doc Martens, kilts and suspenders, black leather, studs, PVC, and silver skull rings were the standard fashion statements.”

Silvy Calloway in a Klub Domino washroom. Photo courtesy of her.

Most Klub Domino staff, like roller-skating waitress Silvy Calloway, and bartender Bastian Cassidy (“she was the heart and soul of the place,” says Brown) shared the aesthetic. Managers—also including Bill Delingat, who worked with Gunther Weswaldi at the original Domino’s; former Nuts & Bolts manager Art Gilewski, and finally Gary Pinter—didn’t necessarily, but they did keep the club humming as best as they could.

“279 Yonge was very low-tech, with a hanging-together-by-tape sound system,” recalls Brown. “It was clear from the lighting system, sound, and bathrooms that absolutely no more money was being spent in the place.”

Poster courtesy of Philip Brown.

What happened to it: “We were a ship that the owners had abandoned, being steered and repaired by the crew, and we had an amazing time doing it,” Brown adds.

“But, as other clubs appeared, with owners and management that saw running a club as a professional enterprise, and as staff jumped ship to better paying or more productive ventures, the last of us knew it was only a matter of time. Rather than just let a piece of Toronto music history shrivel and die, we decided to throw the end-of-an-era, giant blow-out to say thank you, and goodbye.”

Brown, who went on to play at clubs including the Dance Cave and Lizard Lounge, DJed the closing parties in March 1987. (He now works as a real-estate agent in Toronto.) Palmer and Siobhan O’Flynn joined him in closing out the club.

In the mid-’80s, Gunther Weswaldi opened the massive Spectrum Nightclub on the Danforth. Weswaldi also maintained his lease at 279 Yonge, working with people including Bill Delingat (now co-founder of Cashbox magazine; interview requests to him went unanswered) to open both La Cage Aux Folles and Top of the Square Dinner Theatre.

The address is now home to the Hard Rock Café’s Upper Level. Heavily renovated, and almost unrecognizable, the room is available for private and public bookings.

The Hard Rock Cafe upper level.

The spirit of Domino is celebrated through occasional reunion parties, organized by early devotees including Isabelle Moniz and Marika Suha (known during the Domino Klub days as Scary Mary). Palmer, who went on to play at venues such as Spectrum, Catch 22, and his own Night Gallery, now works as a mobile DJ and produces quarterly Batcave parties. Palmer has also DJed at some of the Domino reunions, and says he has plans to produce another. Those interested should keep an eye on his Facebook group, as well as the Domino Klub Alumni group.

Thank you to participants Alice Andersen of Wonderland Photography, Avery Tanner, Carson Foster, Chris Sheppard, Ivan Palmer, Michael Gallow, Phillip Brown, and to Bastian Cassidy, Crystal Watts, David Heymes, Michael Sweenie, Richard Vermuelen, Roy Paul, Ruth Weller-Malchow, Siobhan O’Flynn,and  Silvy Calloway.

The post Then & Now: Domino Klub appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published December 21, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

In this edition of Then & Now, we travel back three decades—and up 1,100 feet—to revisit the CN Tower’s beloved in-house discotheque.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Sparkles, 301 Front St. W.

Years in operation: 1979-1991

History: When the construction of Toronto’s iconic CN Tower began in February of 1973, few would have imagined it filled with strobe lights and spandex. The Canadian National Railroad’s Tower would be an impressive engineering feat, serving as both tourist attraction and a communications boon for radio and television broadcasters seeking a taller building on which to place transmitters for stronger signals.

The CN Tower opened to the public in June 26, 1976. At that time, the surrounding area was far from dense or residential. The north side of Front Street was largely parking lots, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre had not been built, nor had the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre). In fact, one accessed the Tower by walking through a pedestrian bridge—starting from where Rogers Centre is now—that crossed over sets of train tracks. There was a reflecting pool at the Tower’s base, and fields nearby.

In 1979, to coincide with the Tower’s third anniversary, one-third of the indoor observation level was developed into a discothèque. The goal was to attract diverse evening crowds to this floor, which lay below the Tower’s rotating 360 Restaurant and above the outdoor observation deck.

The nightclub was given its identity as Sparkles by Thornhill resident Judy Godsman, winner of the Toronto Star’s “Name the Disco” contest, in August 1979. There were more than 15,000 entries, with other name suggestions including Cloud Nine, Glitters, and Infinity.

Sparkles opening invite. Courtesy of Linda Keele.

Godsman and the 25 contest runners-up were invited to Sparkles’ Oct. 4 opening party. A preview article that appeared in the Star that day revealed that 500 guests would be entertained in the new $750,000 dance club by a disco fashion show. (Think flashing lights and skin-hugging jumpsuits.) Two more nights of launch parties followed.

In late-’70s Toronto, there were plenty of places to dance. The city’s more than two million residents finally had options outside of hotels, like Yorkville discos Checkers, Fingers (later known as Chimes), PWDs, Arviv’s, Mingles, and Remy’s. Yonge Street held Hotspurs, The Hippopotamus, Rooney’s, The Ports of Call’s downstairs disco, and more. Not so far away were after-hours hangouts including Le Tube and Katrina’s on St. Joseph, Stages on Yonge, and Peaches on Pears (named after its location on Pears Avenue). Said to be largest of all was Heaven, a glitzy disco in the bowels of the Hudson’s Bay Centre at Bloor and Yonge.

But Sparkles, built at 1,136 feet or 346 metres and promoted as “the highest nightclub in the world,” clearly had the height-and-view advantage. Open as a lounge by day and full-blown disco by night, it would operate every night of the week for more than a decade.

Sparkles promotional shot from a 1982 CN Tower souvenir book. Courtesy of RetrOntario.

Why it was important: “Sparkles was definitely a destination,” says Randy Charlton, a manager at the club from 1980 to 1985. “We had a lot of regulars, and it was surprisingly busy considering attending wasn’t as easy as parking your car and walking in the door. There was the hassle of walking across the pedestrian bridge to get across the railroad tracks, then coming down an escalator, then going up an escalator, getting in line to pay your [usually $5] cover, and then going up an elevator 1,100 feet.

“On a calm night, it would only take a minute to take the elevator up but, if it was windy, the computers in the Tower would automatically slow the elevators to a quarter speed. At the end of the night, if a lot of people had stayed until then, there was always a line-up at the elevators. I think it’s a testimony to Sparkles being a really good experience for the patron that so many people came back week after week and went through the whole process.”

This journey was part of the adventure. When patrons first exited the elevators and walked in to Sparkles, they literally entered a different dimension.

“Think of the room as one third of a donut,” Charlton describes. “Right in the middle of that donut is a horseshoe-shaped dancefloor and an elevated DJ booth.”

The back of the DJ booth faced out over the city while the dancefloor was directly in front of it. Red booths and stainless-steel tables were positioned alongside windows that curved around the room. And although its view may have been Sparkles’ shiniest star, the club’s lighting and effects certainly commanded attention, too. There were more than 50 strobes, loads of neon tube lights, lasers, smoke machines, and so many bells and whistles that the DJ booth was said to resemble a plane cockpit because of its high-tech lighting-control panel. Mirrors reflected it all back while people also responded to Sparkles’ booming soundsystem.

The New York Times, reporting on Sparkles’ opening in an October 10, 1979 article titled “A New High for Disco in Toronto’s Tower,” stated that the sound and light system had been installed by John Savill, employee of Bacchus International Discotheque Services of London. (Savill passed away in the 1980s.) The Times also revealed that fellow Brit and Bacchus talent Paul Cohen, “a disc jockey who is working his way around the world,” was the night’s DJ. Cohen would go on to be one of Sparkles’ longest-serving resident spinners.

The fact that CN would hire an international DJ service to supply equipment and talent wasn’t a shocker—this was still a fairly common practice in hotels and more corporate environments—but it certainly surprised the local DJ community.

“There’d been great rumours about who was going to get hired at Sparkles,” recalls songwriter and producer Vince Degiorgio, then a DJ at Le Tube and employee of Disco Sounds, one of Canada’s earliest dance-music shops.

“The fascination of seeing Sparkles for the first time was there but, since nobody we knew got the DJ job, the feeling was ‘the outsiders are coming in,’ and people weren’t sure what to make of them. The first time I went up, I was completely horrified, because there was this guy from England and his people, and they talked over everything. To a disco purist, that was utter sacrilege. We would call ‘last call,’ but that was the only time in a bar you would ever use the microphone.”

That said, Degiorgio and many other local DJs did take in Sparkle’s sights and sounds.

“In the beginning especially, it was a real club and absolutely a place to go, although I don’t know how much people were going for the music,” Degiorgio recounts. “Sparkles was an event. A lot of people would go to the CN Tower first, and then they’d go to the after-hours spots, like Le Tube or even Peaches or Chimes, which stayed open until 4 a.m.”

DJ Paul Cohen (right) with Sparkles waitress Suzanne. Photo courtesy of David Kurtz.

One thing the Bacchus-hired DJs understood above all else: They had to do more than play music. They had to entertain. Paul Cohen, Sparkles’ on-and-off anchor DJ until the mid-’80s, is said to have set quite the example.

“I remember one Halloween, Paul was made up as Dracula, and we were all dressed up like pallbearers,” recalls Charlton. “At midnight, we carried a coffin through the crowd, and then Paul sprung out of it and started DJing.”

“Paul was one of the greatest DJs and entertainers I have ever met,” says David Kurtz, a Toronto-born DJ who started at Sparkles in 1979 as Cohen’s back-up, signed a contract with Bacchus, and played at the Tower until 1981 during his first stint there.

“Paul, who was my mentor and changed my life forever when he hired me, is someone I will always respect.” (Cohen later went on to DJ in the Middle East, but left the nightlife behind when he became a Jehovah’s Witness. He now lives in the U.S.).

Another DJ who enjoyed his dual residency with Cohen—Sparkles had two DJs on most evenings, trading back and forth between the decks and lights—was fellow Brit Alan “Gibbo” Gibson. Hailing from Birmingham, where he was an established DJ by the age of 19, Gibson arrived in Toronto in 1985 as a Bacchus talent who’d lived and played briefly in Norway, Thailand, and Germany.

“When Bacchus tried to hire me, I insisted on having [a residency at] Sparkles within a year of signing with them,” Gibson recalls. “They said it was impossible as it could only be local DJs, but we worked it out.”

At the age of 22, Gibson worked six nights a week alongside Cohen. He may have only landed a six-month work visa, but Gibson’s personality was so huge he made a lasting impression.

“Alan was a great mixer, and got up to all kinds of antics,” says Charlton, who later named a son after Gibson. “When we hosted a party for [Liberal Party candidate] John Turner, who was running for Prime Minister and later won, Alan stood in the background of a photo wearing those glasses where the eyeballs come up on springs. Any time anybody was in there shooting a news story, his head would pop up around the corner. He was certainly a character.”

“I wore a wig, red suit and tails, red bow tie, red shoes, and generally tried to be the life of the party,” says Gibson of the Turner party. “I liked to chat, be funny, do dedications, make fun of people or myself. I just had to play the clown, play the pop, and please the people. Hence, the wigs, pink suits, huge glasses, juggling, moonwalking, dancing on the speakers or the bar or the tables. I’d spin on my back on the floor when there was space. I even ate fire, but the low ceiling and fire regulations soon put paid to that! I also did magic tricks at tables during early evening or on quiet nights.”

Paul Cohen (left) and Alan Gibson (centre) with friends. Photo courtesy of Gibson.

While Charlton regales me with tales of Gibson mixing bits of Monty Python into Spandau Ballet’s “True,” the DJ mentions favourite tracks of the time including Pet Shop Boys “West End Girls,” Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” Psychedelic Furs’ “Heartbeat,” and Pukka Orchestra’s “Cherry Beach Express,” which he plays to this day.

“I realized that, in a club like Sparkles, the music’s familiarity was key,” emphasizes Gibson by email. “[The patrons] were office workers on a night out, tourists looking for a good time, or girls and couples looking to hear the songs they heard on the radio.

Sparkles playlist. Courtesy of Alan Gibson.

“Sure, I could mix with the best of them, but I realized that our guests wanted to hear the three-minute pop song that they knew—not some poser DJ who could scratch, mix or whatever. I think I went against the grain compared to the rest of T.O. at that time.”

“I remember Alan as being a little bit fearless,” comments Degiorgio, who also co-ran T.O.P.A. (Toronto Programmers Association), an important 1980s DJ pool of which Sparkles’ DJs were members. “Alan was a fusionist; he was unafraid to play New Romantic stuff alongside the productions of people like Bobby Orlando. He loves to be a part of the party.”

Following Gibson’s departure in late summer 1985, Toronto native David Kurtz returned to serve as Sparkles’ lead DJ for the next two years. By then, he’d worked for Bacchus in clubs across the U.K., Norway, Switzerland, and Thailand.

David Kurtz (left) and Tony Meredith (right) with friend Kim Race at Sparkles.
Photo courtesy of Kurtz.

Kurtz had learned more about the DJ-as-entertainer role, and was most frequently paired in the Sparkles booth with “my great partner in crime, Tony Meredith a.k.a. Tony T.”

Meredith, who’d been a regular on 1970s CityTV dance program Boogie, had been hired at Sparkles after his dance group performed one night and he particularly impressed.

“I took the mic and energized the crowd,” says Meredith who then worked for years as a Sparkles hype man, lighting person, and DJ.

“Tony and I were more than just DJs,” says Kurtz. “We entertained, rapping and dancing in sync, back before most DJs even thought to do it. The music we played had rhythm and soul. We were very heavy into artists like Earth Wind and Fire, The Whispers, Kool and the Gang, and Rick James. We played mostly commercial stuff but, every now and then, we found some strange, great dance groove and played the hell out of it.”

“We had to swing it a bit to the audience that was there, but we got to take some chances too, like running Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’ over rap beats—that kind of thing,” Meredith tells me in a phone call from Oslo, where he and Kurtz now both live. “Sometimes, we could go a little bit off, but at the CN Tower you had to be versatile. You had to create magic.”

Photo courtesy of Alan Gibson.

By all accounts, Sparkles’ crowds were a mix of suburbanites, tourists and downtowners, generally dressed with great care, ready to party and pose.

“The crowd was made up of the rich and famous as well as suburban yuppies and everything in between,” describes Kurtz. “The people who were regulars came out almost every night. They loved good music and danced to anything we threw at them. Our amps would overheat on the weekends, with the excessive heat caused by way too many people on the dancefloor and around the booth.”

Meredith recalls that some in the audience especially stood out.

“There were some regulars who’d just come in and go off,” he chuckles. “There was a model named Dorset who’d come in and dance and dance. There were a number of Korean and Filipino dancers who’d really get down. Certain people just added a whole lot while others sat and watched.”

Meredith also speaks highly of DJ Julie Ley, with whom he was partnered in the booth in the early ’80s.

“We had something special going on,” says Meredith of the DJ, who got her start at Sparkles. “Julie has such a beautiful personality and that great, raspy voice on the microphone. I called her ‘Tina Turner on the wheels of steel.’ We had so much fun, and would just blow that place out.”

Ley had been spotted working the door in a club by a Juliana’s Sound Services rep, who dug her voice, presence, and clear love of music. (Juliana’s bought Bacchus in 1982, and the two international companies provided club services under both names.)

“A few lessons, and they threw me into the lion’s den,” is how Ley describes it. “There I was, at the highest nightclub in the world! I had to find my own rhythm, not only in music but also in personality. I talked a lot on the mic, with a tambourine in hand, just getting down with the sound. We had three turntables, which made it interesting to play. There was lots of scratching, and double playing on the same song.”

One of only a handful of women spinning in Toronto at time, Ley went on to DJ for 20 years, becoming a lesbian icon as she injected huge energy and hits into mainstay clubs including Togethers, Chez Moi, and The Rose.

Julie Ley (left) and Tony Meredith. Photo courtesy of Meredith.

Who else played/worked there: Numerous DJs added their playlists and personalities to Sparkles over the years, including yet another Brit, DJ Tony TG. In the early-to-mid-1980s, Sundays featured the sounds of swing and big bands, with host Paul Fisher of CHFI. Mondays were devoted to oldies, with CFTR personalities Mike Cooper and Dan Williamson alternating from week-to-week.

There were occasional concerts, ranging from the jazz of Jim Galloway and The Metro Stompers to the new wave of Michaele Jordana of The Poles, a local band who had an underground hit in the form of 1977 single “CN Tower.”

Sparkles also hosted loads of fashion shows, including one featuring the designs of Gloria Vanderbilt in 1980. But lesser-known is the fact that the disco was taken over by some cool overnight events that same year.

“These parties would go all night, from midnight on, in Sparkles and the entire indoor observation level,” explains Charlton. “They would go until daybreak; the party would end, and it would turn back into the observation level.”

On Victoria Day weekend, a group of promoters and friends associated with the clubs Stages and Dudes presented a spectacularly gay affair with Sunrise High, featuring star DJ Greg Howlett. More than 1,000 people attended.

Later in 1980, punks and new wavers got their all-night play time in the Tower at parties with names like Spaced Out and Paradise Lost. Not surprisingly, Sparkles was also a bit of a celebrity magnet.

Paradise Lost memories. Courtesy of Isabel Moniz.

“There was no place anywhere else where there was a dance club 1,100 feet in the air, overlooking a major city,” says Charlton. “Sparkles drew its fair share of celebrities. Andy Gibb appeared in a Mirvish musical at The Royal Alex, so he was frequently up there. I remember Peter Fonda being up for an event, and Peter O’Toole, too, when he was in town shooting a TV version of Pygmalion with Margot Kidder.

Spaced Out memories. Courtesy of Michael Sweenie.

Meredith, being both personable and a great cook, became friends with people he met at Sparkles—including Gibb, Tina Turner, her piano player Kenny Moore, and members of The Harlem Globetrotters—and would host stars and Sparkles’ staff alike at his Dundas and Sherbourne condo. (Today, he’s a popular chef in Oslo and owner of cross-cultural restaurant The Backyard.)

There was, of course, also dozens of managers, bartenders, waitresses, and other staff that made Sparkles run over the years. Many mention managers including Ahmad Ali, Pepi (Margaret) Perenyi, and Guy LeBlanc. Gareth Brown, who would later make his mark as a rock promoter and manager of clubs including Rock & Roll Heaven, was among Sparkles’ security staff. Charlton, who later became main manager at The Diamond Club, brought there with him Sparkles’ bar staff, including Pat Violo (co-owner of Catch 22 and now Velvet Underground) and Caroline Toth.

Another early Sparkles bartender was Victor Miller, founder of the long running Bartending School of Ontario and a familiar face for those who went to Toronto live music venues Piccadilly Tube and Blue Note. Miller still remembers logistical frustrations at Sparkles, including a constant lack of clean drink glasses and the club’s early adoption of an automated drink-dispensing system.

“The bar was computerized, and this was unique, but a real pain in the ass,” writes Miller in an email. “It did not allow us to make all the cocktails that were asked for due to poor programming by the management. It also did not allow us to monitor shots, so many would become quite drunk in a short time.

“Maybe the altitude had something to do with this fact. Many people dressed to the nines were sick in the elevator and lobby while leaving for home.”

The Tower’s elevators figure into many a story.

“I had one golden rule: before I got in the elevator to either go up or down, I went to the bathroom and peed first,” laughs Charlton. “In my five years, never once did I get stuck in an elevator, and I think I’m the only employee that didn’t.

“Also, I must say that I never got tired of looking out the windows. The view was absolutely outstanding. We were on the side of the Tower from which you could see the TD Centre and Bank of Montreal buildings, and Union Station. You could see the trace of the lake, all the way to Niagara Falls and the lights from Rochester on a clear night. Amazing.”

David Kurtz (second from right) and friends at Sparkles. Photo courtesy of Kurtz.

Similarly, David Kurtz—now a marketing manager for Norwegian publications Reis and Travel News—remains friends with many DJs he met at Sparkles, including fellow Toronto native Tony Meredith, the godfather of his children.

Sparkles got a sound and lighting overhaul in 1985, when management ended their contract with Bacchus/Juliana’s. Still, it remained busy right into the late-’80s.

DJ/producer Paul Grace, who played there for about three years following the club’s transition away from Bacchus’ DJs, shares some insights into the period.

“You’d think a place like that wouldn’t do so well, in terms of getting a solid local crowd, but they did,” he says. “I loved the space, and enjoyed working there, but I didn’t like the management. Things started to get really corporate. They’d even close the dancefloor down for certain corporate parties. You just don’t do that.”

While I was unable to locate anyone who could be specific about decisions leading to Sparkles’ closure, Toronto Star listings reveal that the venue was promoted as more of a dining room and lounge by early 1991. It closed later that year for renovations.

Flyer for the Vertigo rave designed by Terence ‘Teeloo’ Leung (original was die-cut and folded). Courtesy of Claudio Santon.

In May 1992, the space relaunched as pop, jazz and R&B lounge, Horizons. Live acts like The Hi-Lites performed weekends while DJ George Andrew played similar sounds throughout the week. Occasional special events still took place in the venue, including the legendary Vertigo rave produced by Atlantis (Don ‘Dr. Trance’ Berns, Iain McPherson, Claudio Santon, and James K) in October of 1993.

Today, the space is known as upscale bistro and private event venue Horizons Restaurant.

Thank you to participants Alan Gibson, David Kurtz, Julie Ley, Paul Grace, Randy Charlton, Tony Meredith, Victor Miller, and Vince Degiorgio. Thanks also to Barry Harris, Claudio Santon, Ed Conroy of Retrontario, Irene Knight (PR for CN Tower), Isabel Moniz, Linda Keele, Lorne Goldblum, Michael Sweenie, Timothy Hopton of Bacchus, and the Vintage Toronto community.

The post Then & Now: Sparkles appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published December 4, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

With the help of two rare DJ mixes, we revisit the early-‘80s Yonge Street club that provided Toronto’s gay community with a safe haven and showcased cutting-edge dance-music sounds, before the spectre of AIDS brought the party to a close.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Stages, 530 Yonge

Years in operation: 1977-1984

History: The northwest corner of Yonge and Breadalbane was once occupied by the Hotel Breadalbane. In 1945, the Bolter family purchased the hotel and would transform the downstairs of 530 Yonge into The Parkside Tavern. The Bolters also owned The St. Charles Tavern, at 488 Yonge. By the mid-1960s, both taverns were known to be gay bars.

At that point in history, gay nightlife in Toronto was still very much underground. It was common for the heterosexual owners of gay bars to be contemptuous of their clientele. This seems to have been the situation at The Parkside, a dingy beer hall largely frequented by a daytime crowd. The Parkside’s owners allowed police to regularly spy on patrons in the washrooms, waiting to nab men engaged in any sort of sexual acts. Arrests were made, and the practice continued throughout the 1970s, even as gay activists organized leafleting campaigns and called for boycotts of the bar.

These conflicts were characteristic of the time. During the mid-to-late-1970s, Yonge Street was the main artery of Toronto gay social life (it would shift to Church in the mid-1980s). Those looking to dance could hit a number of spots near Yonge and Wellesley, like The Manatee, The Quest, Katrina’s, Club David’s, The Maygay (later Charly’s), and Cornelius, which sat above biker bar The Gasworks. By 1977, there were even two gay-owned bars in the area: The Barn, opened by Janko Naglic at 418 Church, and small cruise bar Dudes, opened by Roger Wilkes, a founder of the York University Homophile Association, and his partner David Payne in an alley just behind The Parkside.

While there were lots of options to dance and cruise, Yonge and its surrounding streets were not necessarily safe for queer people. Not only did the police frequently harass gay hangouts (most notoriously during the 1981 bathhouse raids), gay men and lesbians were all-too-often physically attacked.

“Those were the days when, on Halloween, people would throw eggs and ink at drag queens,” says Arnie Kliger, the man who would open Stages. “It also wasn’t particularly safe for gays to walk around the side streets.”

Kliger had both safety and glamour in mind when he worked with partner Stephen Cohen to open after-hours gay disco Stages. Its location, above The Parkside, had housed numerous clubs since the late-’60s, among them The August Club, Mama Cooper’s, The Milkbar, Quasimodo, and Bimbo’s.

Influenced largely by New York gay and after-hours clubs like The Saint, Studio 54, and 12 West, Kliger and Cohen chose to open an unlicensed dance club where music, dancing, and men would be the focus. There was nothing like it in Toronto at the time.

Stages’ doors opened at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 1977. People lined up to begin the new year in this new disco that would raise the bar for late-night dancing in Toronto.

“Many of the straight-owned clubs were rundown, the owners didn’t care, and just wanted to make a buck,” recalls DJ/producer Barry Harris. “Charly’s upstairs at the St. Charles Tavern was a good example of that. The gay crowd accepted it for years as gay clubs were still somewhat taboo, but eventually stopped supporting them.

“Stages was opened by an owner who appreciated good sound, good quality everything, and took care of his customers.”

Courtesy of Andrée Emond.

Why it was important: “We wanted to offer a different late-night experience, and take the whole party to a higher, better level,” says Kliger of his venture with Cohen (who would depart a few years after the Stages’ opening to pursue his main interests in design and architecture).

Kliger was committed to creating an experience as good as—or better than—those he had at the New York and San Francisco clubs he frequented. When patrons made it through the line that ran up the stairs to Stages, they turned left, paid a small cover (generally $5-$8) and walked in to a sizable but intimate rectangular room with a large wooden dancefloor in the middle. At the far end was a long bar that sold juice, water, and oodles of Perrier. The bar was adorned with bouquets of flowers and trays of fresh fruit, while bartenders would also pull out boxes of percussive instruments—tambourines, bongos, maracas—for customers to play. On the east and west walls, overlooking the dancefloor, were two built-in bleachers that ascended almost to the ceiling. They were deep and upholstered, with huge custom cushions adding to the comfort.

“Arnie Kliger was the best bar manager Toronto ever had,” DJ/producer Paul Grace tells me. “Arnie wanted a space where he would be comfortable and happy partying—one that was safe, where there were no problems. He set up the club so people could relax.”

Photo by Terry Robson, courtesy of Arnie Kliger.

Kliger created membership cards for Stages, and hired former policeman Bob Bush, nicknamed Gloves, to keep potential troublemakers out.

“Gloves was an ex-London bobby, and he was our sole security man,” Kliger says. “He could take care of 10 guys trying to come up that stairway. In the entire time Stages was open, there was never a problem inside—no fights, nothing. I think that speaks volumes.

“We wanted people to have a safe place when they came in with their friends, all twisted and bent,” Kliger adds. “They knew that once they got off of Yonge Street and through those doors, they were secure to do whatever they wanted—party, take their shirt off, play a drum, whatever. Nobody came there for an hour; they stayed till morning. Most of our clientele carried sunglasses.”

Stages ran Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with doors generally opening at 11 p.m. and music heard until 6 a.m. or later. The 600-capacity club attracted large, loyal crowds, primarily of gay men, but also lesbians and straight folks attracted to the music and vibe.

“Stages was the only club I had ever heard of at the time that was mixed, gay and straight,” recalls Harris, an occasional customer who would later fill in as a guest DJ there. “I believe this was unusual, but was also something that made Stages very ‘chic.’”

“Fridays were definitely more straight, or mixed, but Stages was a place that was very ‘tolerant’ on any night, sort of setting up for a sensibility the Twilight Zone carried through,” recalls musician, producer and photographer Don Pyle, a Stages regular for years after his sister introduced him to the club in 1979.

“More than tolerant, Stages had a slightly decadent feel because it was night people and pretty sexual on the dancefloor, with all orientations having fun.”

Photo by Terry Robson, courtesy of Arnie Kliger.

Club people flocked to Stages for many reasons, with its stellar sound and lighting high on the list.

“The lights came from New York’s Times Square Lighting,” says Kliger. “I couldn’t afford [renowned sound designer] Richard Long, but I copied his music systems.”

“Stages was one of those magical clubs you just had to experience,” states Paul Grace. “It’s still my favourite club, and that includes [clubs in] New York. It was relatively small, but had a killer soundsystem and great lights. There were these lovely big scoop speakers for bass that you could actually crawl into. I knew guys who would, and then they’d trip on the bass all night.”

“On the dancefloor, it was like a nice, warm fuzzy blanket because you were cocooned in the lights and the music,” recalls Richard “Bambi” McNicoll, a Stages lighting tech from 1982.

“The speakers completely surrounded you. Stages was intimate and had sound that could have been in a club three times its size. The lighting was also far ahead of its time. Where most club lighting systems were pretty static and the fixtures stayed where they were, what made Stages so unique was that you could change the light show every week—and that’s what I did.”

Photo by Terry Robson, courtesy of Arnie Kliger.

McNicoll, who came to Stages after working lights at Charly’s, was shown the ropes by lighting woman Andrée Emond. A veteran of venues including Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven, Emond worked at Stages from 1980 to 1983, brought in by one of her best friends, legendary Toronto DJ Greg Howlett. Emond and McNicoll would squeeze themselves into Stages’ tiny booth, working to create energy and mood directly beside DJs including Howlett, Wally MacDonald and, later, Paul Grace.

Emond recalls taping up her fingers to work the many toggle switches on Stages’ vertical lighting board, built into the wall. The DJ booth was directly on the edge of Stages’ dancefloor, with nothing but wire fencing separating crew from crowd. Five mirror balls were clustered in the dancefloor’s centre.

“The square dancefloor had a fairly low ceiling—pin spots, spinners and strobe lights were set above and on a suspended industrial grid that covered it,” says Emond. “But it was the Christmas lights and the Kelly controller that blew me away. There were at least 1,500 hundred lights that could be changed to provide rows of basic colours.

“The crowd would scream with excitement when those blasts of bright light came perfectly timed with the music. I learned not to be afraid of the dark, and to let music flow through my hands at Stages. Greg and Wally’s music, mixes, and effects provided all of my cues.”

Photo by Terry Robson, courtesy of Arnie Kliger.

Stages, as all the people I interviewed tell me, was largely defined by its music. The crowds were deep into new sounds, and they were educated by some of the greatest dance-music pioneers this city has ever produced.

“The two DJs who played Stages for years were Greg Howlett and Wally MacDonald, both very good, with very different styles,” says Grace, who danced at Stages during the years when he himself was DJing at venues including Cornelius, the CN Tower’s Sparkles discotheque, and Yorkville’s Bellair Café.

“Wally played lots of weird shit—he liked to wake the crowd up all the time—whereas Greg was the master of the continuous mix. He’d start at 11 o’clock, slowly build the tempo up, and by 4 a.m. he’d be around 140bpm, then start to bring it down. By 5 a.m., he was down below 120 bpm, getting sleazy. It was very trippy and wonderful.”

MacDonald—who DJed during Stages’ earliest years, as did his brother Larry on occasion—was also adored for his impeccable mixing, late-night sleaze sets and devotion to underground disco.

“Wally loved to twist songs around and inside out,” says Barry Harris. “He also used a reel-to-reel tape machine to fuck with people’s heads by using the delay playback, bringing the echo in and out. In 1979, DJ mixers were just mixers; there was no delay, reverb, echo or effects at the time. It was very difficult to even find a mixer to buy, so Wally was doing a lot of really innovative and creative DJing.”

MacDonald was also a pioneering remix artist. He reworked songs like Antonio Rodriguez’s “La Bamba” and Harlow’s “Take Off” into epic extended versions. MacDonald’s masterful remix of Amanda Lear’s “Follow Me” sounds fresh to this day.

“Wally influenced me greatly during my entire DJ and remix career,” says Harris, who started DJing in 1983 at Dudes (whose address, coincidentally, is now home to pro-audio shop Saved By Technology).

“I remember one Sunday, Wally played “At Midnight” by T- Connection,” Harris continues. ”He was playing a reel-to-reel tape version that he had re-edited himself. He extended the big percussion intro and played bits and pieces of ‘I Will Survive’ intro overtop. Now, something like that sounds like no big deal, but at the time, no DJ used to remix anything like this—they simply played the records.

“Another time he played “Heroes” by Big Ben Tribe, then somehow mixed into the original David Bowie version. Brilliant! By the end, the whole crowd started applauding. I had never seen an audience applaud a DJ.”

MacDonald would bounce between clubs as a resident DJ, also playing venues like Sugars, 18 East, The Albany, and Wonder Bar.

Greg Howlett would soon become Stages’ main music man. This former resident DJ at Le Tube was known to play joyful, uplifting dance music, with a lean towards dancefloor classics and disco edits, like “Souvenirs” by Voyage and Yvonne Elliman’s “Love Pains.”

“Greg was our house DJ for at least five years,” enthuses Kliger. “Greg was the star. He had such a following, and an amazing ability to read the crowd and do it right. I trusted him 9,000 per cent.”

“I loved listening to Greg, and I try to emulate him to this day,” offers Grace. “He would play for hours, and you’d never know when one record was going into another. He was so smooth, and really worked at that. He constantly had a new set of stuff he’d play each night.”

DJ Greg Howlett. Photo courtesy of Andrée Emond.

Andrée Emond shares a favourite example of Howlett’s confidence behind the decks.

“I will never forget one evening with Greg. The crowd was particularly bored, so he turned off the turntable and stared at them. They stood there, shocked. Once the drone came to a complete stop, he played their favourite song of the day. Everyone went crazy and the rest of the night was amazing.”

Both Howlett and MacDonald were trendsetters, but took different paths as dance music began to splinter.

“The big ‘disco crash’ occurred around 1979,” Harris explains. “Dance music was fragmenting, and everyone was very confused as to where club music was going. It was the beginning of a new decade, new attitude. New wave was now cool, and disco was not. So the ‘cool’ Stages people followed the trend; my perception is they followed Wally, who really embraced the new sound as a fearless risk-taker. Greg did not follow the new sound, and would not—no way. He was going to stick to what he felt was ‘gay music.’ Greg stuck to his guns, and took a lot of shit and attitude from a lot of people.”

“Wally MacDonald was the only gay club DJ in town playing new dance music that had come out of post-punk or early electronic scenes,” confirms Pyle, author of Toronto punk–history book Trouble in the Camera Club.

“Some songs I distinctly remember being very excited to hear in a gay club were ‘Nowhere Girl’ by B-Movie, ‘I Travel’ by Simple Minds and ‘Numbers’ by Kraftwerk. ‘Numbers’ was always a very late-night track, with the breakdown at the end being used to shift the mood.”

“Stages was an amazing dance club because of the DJs, and when it came to mixing, no one was better than Wally,” enthuses Lena K, former bartender at restaurants like Le Pigale, Cornelius above Gasworks, and a regular at Stages for most of its existence, especially on the eclectic Sunday nights. “I still feel the electricity run through me when I think about Wally’s mixes.”

As the disco-vs.-new-wave battles played out on Stages’ dancefloor during the early ’80s, MacDonald was let go from the club, and then notably rehired in January of 1983.

DJ Wally MacDonald. Photo courtesy of Lorne Goldblum.

Stages had a devoted following. Like all the best nightclubs, it fostered both a feeling and a community.

“I knew what I wanted to see, and have people feel: happy, happy, happy,” says Kliger. “And they were. We had the tambourines, the fan dancers, the whole works going. I made the place and gave people somewhere to express themselves, but the crowd created it for themselves.

“I’m sure some of the drugs contributed to this”—poppers and MDA were the main substances of the day—”but there was a feeling of membership, camaraderie, friendship, love. We fed a feeling, and it worked.”

Pyle also fondly recalls the club’s festive vibe. “It was a very celebratory space. Everyone really got down. I recall men in skirts, cheerleader outfits, fan dancers. There was so much excitement and anticipation.”

Kliger tells the tale of an evening when uniforms were especially prominent: “There was a fetish party one night on Church Street, with everything: guys dressed up in police uniforms, there were bras and garter belts, transsexuals, you name it. We had very heavy theatre-type dry ice at Stages—we didn’t use the cheap smoke—and it creates a very heavy steam. We would pump that place so full of dry-ice smoke that you couldn’t see yourself, with gigantic fans that would suck the air out onto Yonge.

“This night was in January and, when I turned the fans on, some people on the street thought the building was on fire. Toronto Fire responded quickly, came running up the stairs, and I happened to be at the front door. I looked down the stairs and said to Bob, the bouncer, ‘Don’t charge them. They’ve got great outfits.’ I got pushed up against the wall with an axe by a fireman telling me to get out of the way, and then I realized my mistake. Greg, being as sharp as he was, put on the song ‘Fire in my Heart.’”

Lighting man McNicoll also recalls a strategic use of the dry ice machine.

“It wasn’t used all that much, because proper dry ice costs a lot. Back during the days of ‘It’s Raining Men,’ somebody decided to splurge. The dry ice came out over the dancefloor through dryer hoses and billowed down. As soon as it did, everybody opened umbrellas and started dancing around with them. Stages was one of those mad places where every weekend, something happened.”

Photo by Terry Robson, courtesy of Arnie Kliger.

Who else played/worked there: Paul Grace came onboard at Stages after a young Chris Sheppard had brought more new wave to Fridays and a stretch of Sundays.

“Fridays were fairly mixed, a bit trendy, and eventually became more alternative in music and everything else,” explains Kliger. “That’s where Chris came in, later. He ran the Friday switchover to alternative music and club kids in crazy outfits—’Rock Lobster’ and all that kind of stuff. I just didn’t understand it because I’m hardcore gay, but I learned.”

Kliger did understand the allure of late-night socializing, and was equally at home mingling with the owners of clubs including Le Tube and Twilight Zone, as well as TIFF (then still known as the Festival of Festivals) party planners. Stages, in fact, hosted some of the film fest’s earliest parties, with appearances from celebs like Tom Cruise, Peter O’Toole, Richard Chamberlain, and Kathleen Turner.

Tina Turner also paid the club a visit, as did longtime gay favourite Eartha Kitt.

“Eartha Kitt happened to be playing at the Royal York’s Imperial Room—it was at the time that ‘Where Is My Man?’ was big—and I did everything I could to get her up to Stages,” shares Kliger. “We sent flowers, notes, a bottle of scotch, and begged her to come up. We sent a limousine to the Royal York and, sure enough, she bit. Greg had the back-up tracks going and we had a microphone ready, even though she wasn’t engaged to perform. She loved it so much she grabbed the mic and did the song.”

Stages’ staff tended to be just as attractive as the celebs they served.

“The staff and family at Stages were incredible, along with being some of the beautiful men you ever saw,” says Emond, citing people like bartender/manager Andy Armstrong and cashier John Bannerman.

“It was a casting call,” agrees Kliger. “We wanted to have the best-looking people with their shirts off. The bartenders were more than bartenders; they were friendly, they were happy, and, in the middle of the night, if it got hot—and it would get really hot in there—we’d send them out on the dancefloor with trays of watermelon and cantaloupe, oranges, ice, popsicles and water. Clubs didn’t do that.”

Stages bartender Brent Storey, who would later be an integral staffer at gay bar Boots,  was also one of Toronto’s most avid of fan dancers.

“There were a lot of fan dancers at Stages,” says Grace. “When it was busy, they would dance around the edges and, as the night got later, and people started to leave, these guys would start taking over the dancefloor, until finally, the whole floor was full of fan players.”

The fan dancers were a key part of Stages’ core family, and certainly helped to establish the club as decidedly gay at a time when more sexually ambiguous alternative clubs, like Voodoo and Nuts & Bolts, appeared on the scene.

“There was no shortage of places to dance, but nothing could touch Stages—Stages was like finding Mecca,” says Lena K, who now works in the legal field, specializing in intellectual property law. “Although I had gone to other dance clubs, there was no other place where I felt as safe and blissfully free to just be me. I made real friends there, most of whom have been lost to AIDS, but a handful remain and are still friends over 30 years later. That club brought us together every weekend, and that’s some kind of special thing.”

Greg Howlett’s calling card. Courtesy of Andrée Emond.

What happened to it: By 1982, there was talk of GRID, a.k.a. gay-related immune deficiency, later to be known as AIDS. Many in the gay community began to die in this time of great uncertainty.

“The AIDS crisis was just beginning, and people were really afraid,” shares McNicoll, who would later work the lights at clubs including Boots and Chaps. “We were losing a lot of artists and friends, and nobody really knew what was going on, so there was a lot of fear. I think that really had a detrimental effect on club life as a whole. There was a tremendous loss.”

Both Greg Howlett (who would go on to heat dancefloors at clubs including Komrads and Chaps) and Wally MacDonald passed away from HIV-related complications in the 1990s.

“I made and lost many friends at Stages,” says Emond, who later worked the lights at both The Copa and The Diamond, and is now a web developer and teacher. “I still miss the wonderful people I met, and was honoured to play with during that special time. The memories are bittersweet.”

But Stages also closed because Kliger felt it was time.

“It started running out of steam,” he offers. “I felt that what could be done there had already been done, and I was out of themes and ideas. I wanted to take the Stages family out on a high note, so I made the decision that it was best to put a period at the end of a sentence.”

Stages held a final New Year’s Eve party on December 31, 1983 and closed in early 1984. Within weeks, Kliger was hired by the Chrysalis group to transform the former Jarvis Tavern into gay club Bar 101. (Years later, the same space would become Tazmanian Ballroom, home of the infamous Rock & Roll Fag Bar.) Kliger later managed venues including The Copa, Bemelman’s, and the Bellair Café before moving into the hotel business.

Barry Harris would follow Kliger to DJ at both Bar 101 and The Copa, before becoming a resident at Charles Khabouth’s Stilife. He later had a huge production and remix career as half of both Kon Kan and Thunderpuss. More recently, Harris has returned to his rock roots and is working on an as-yet unnamed project.

Paul Grace also became an in-demand producer/remixer, particularly as a member of Boomtang Boys. He then turned his talents to scoring for film and television, was a music consultant for the TV show Queer As Folk, and maintains a home studio.

Before all of this, Grace partnered with Brent Storey and David Strand to re-open the Stages space as Avalon in 1984. About a year later, the upstairs of 530 Yonge briefly reopened as Changes. Both it and The Parkside Tavern below closed in March of 1986 to make way for a Burger King. The building is now a Sobeys Express. [Addendum: the Sobey’s has since closed, with the location listed for retail opportunities.]

Thank you to interviewees Andrée Emond, Arnie Kliger, Barry Harris, Don Pyle, Lena K, Paul Grace, and Richard McNicoll, and to Carlos Mondesir, Eric Robertson, and James Vandervoort. Special mention to Lorne Goldblum for the DJ mixes and to the late Rick Bébout for his Promiscuous Affections documentation of gay Toronto social life.

The post Then & Now: Stages appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published November 2, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

After punk exploded in the late ’70s, this infamous Gerrard Street new-wave mecca kept the fire burning into the ’80s—even if its many famous performers were in danger of getting doused by the overflowing upstairs toilets leaking onto the stage.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Edge, 70 Gerrard St. E.

Years in operation: 1979-1981

History: On the northeast corner of Gerrard and Church sits a modest three-floor building that has had—and housed—many lives. It is said to have once been the residence of Egerton (pronounced “Edge-erton”) Ryerson, a prominent Canadian educator who, in 1852, founded the Toronto Normal School at what is now Bond and Gould streets.

Ryerson University is named after him, as was Egerton’s Restaurant and Tavern, a student hangout and folk-music club that opened at 70 Gerrard St. E. in the early 1970s. Licensed as a “listening room” and required to sell food, Egerton’s was open seven days a week, sold cheap beer, and booked live performers like Stan Rogers.

“We lived in the shadow of The Riverboat [in Yorkville] and bigger clubs that had bigger stages and dance floors, like the El Mocambo, Midwich Cuckoo Tavern, and Jarvis House,” recalls Derek Andrews, a veteran Toronto live-music programmer who got his start in the industry as a dishwasher at Egerton’s in January 1974.

Andrews would continue at the location for almost eight years, working his way up to busboy, waiter, and general manager. He shares that Egerton’s had been owned by Warren Beamish, PC candidate for the Rosedale riding in 1974’s federal election, before it was acquired by Bernie Kamin and Harvey Hudes, partners in Mosport Park, among other projects. The pair brought in a young Ron Chapman as co-owner and managing operator.

Chapman and Andrews—who together would run the Nite Life management company which represented artists including songwriter Eddie “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Schwartz, Paul Quarrington, and Ellen McIlwaine—would go on to book the likes of legendary funk drummer Bernard Purdie during Egerton’s later period.

But Chapman also had an eye on Toronto’s emerging underground. Late in 1978, he invited prescient concert promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier, together known as The Garys, to come book live music at Egerton’s.

Gary Topp (left) and Gary Cormier, as they appeared in the Toronto Star, circa 1980. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

The Garys were, by then, known for presenting live shows by eccentric singer-songwriters and cutting-edge jazz, blues, punk, and new-wave artists. Topp had programmed films—and occasional live bands, including the debut performances by both Rough Trade and Nash the Slash—at east-end movie theatre The Roxy. In 1976, Topp launched the New Yorker Theatre on Yonge (now the Panasonic), where artist David Andoff would introduce him to carpenter and fellow music head Cormier.

Partly influenced by screening Blank Generation, Amos Poe’s movie about early New York punk, Topp had decided he needed to build a stage at The New Yorker and bring in bands. Cormier and he were in sync, and joined forces to present The Ramones in September 1976, followed in ’77 by fellow New Yorkers the Dead Boys, U.K. punks The Vibrators, and locals including The Viletones and The Poles.

After rent was raised at The New Yorker, The Garys relocated to The Horseshoe Tavern where they built a stage, brought in sound and lighting, and booked bands beginning in March 1978.

“Our statement was that we were going to be Toronto’s first concert club,” says Topp.

They brought in a wide range of artists—from Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Etta James to Talking Heads, Johnny Thunders and a then unknown trio called The Police—before The Horseshoe’s owners opted to revert to a country format that December.

Enter Ron Chapman.

“Ron started coming down to The Horseshoe, and was there the night we did The Police,” recalls Cormier. “When everything kind of collapsed at The Horseshoe—when they said, ‘Take your fucking punk music and get out of here’—Ron said, ‘Come to Egerton’s.’

“Everybody thought it was a horrible idea because it was a little folk room. Although, if the truth be known, most of the shows that we did at The Horseshoe only drew 100 to 200 people. So I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll go to Egerton’s, and we’ll call it The Edge, and that’s that.’”

The Garys worked with Chapman and Andrews to quickly transform the Egerton’s space. It was painted black, the stage was moved, raised, and expanded, with sound and lighting upgrades also helping to create a proper concert space. The staircase that divided the long main room into two halves remained, as did a fireplace. Some walls were removed to increase capacity and (slightly) improve sightlines, but the venue’s wooden chairs and tables stayed put as per its dining licence. Food was served from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. The building’s second floor featured an office and washrooms with notoriously leaky toilets.

“The Edge didn’t really ‘open’ so much as enjoy a name change, with rebranding and a music-policy change,” explains Andrews. “The menu and staff were in fact the same initially. The reach was to catch the wave, so to speak, of young audiences coming out for live music.”

The venue’s official start date was December 31, 1978. Local favourites Martha and the Muffins brought in the New Year.

The Edge menu, courtesy of Gary Cormier.

Why it was important: “The two-and-a-half year life of The Edge was like a high speed train running through Toronto music culture,” says Andrews. “The club was an exploding black box inside a colonial historic building. Sometimes the vibe was chilled by free jazz, folk legends, or blues artists, but the dominant sound was a mix of crunchy post-punk and British new wave.”

By 1979, Toronto’s music and art scenes were exploding. The city had style, originality, and attitude to spare. There was as much camaraderie as competition among bands in the downtown scene, with people pushing one another to go further.

As a 200-capacity live music venue that was open every day and night of the week, The Edge played a unique role. There were not many venues in town devoted to emerging, often esoteric live bands—though punks had previously infiltrated venues like Turning Point, Crash ’n’ Burn, and the infamous Larry’s Hideaway on Carlton Street—and certainly not on such a regular basis.

“There were a lot of little places having bands, but I don’t think there were any venues like The Edge, which was bringing in major international artists alongside the locals,” says Gary Topp. “It was a concert hall in the guise of a club, and it became a hangout.

“Because it was also a restaurant, with food during the day, you could go in and watch as people soundchecked. It was also all-ages, because it was a restaurant, and we put a PA out on the patio so people could still hear sold-out shows.”

“The Edge really did feel like a new beginning,” says veteran musician and photographer Don Pyle, a regular at the club. “Punk had happened, and the venues had been appropriate for that. Now, things were becoming artier and more experimental. This seated and more comfortable venue, with food even, reflected some kind of maturing in the ‘scene.’”

Photos courtesy of Gary Topp.

At a time when there weren’t large booking agencies, like-minded concert promoters across the continent formed bonds to bring over the Brits and others.

“The Garys brought in the who’s who of emerging acts of the day—be it locals, first plays from the U.K., and of course a lot of acts from New York City, Ohio, and beyond,” says Ivar Hamilton, another Edge regular who also held sway as the Import Music Director at CFNY 102.1 FM during its most adventurous years. “They were ahead of the curve on nearly every level, and that made The Edge such an iconic venue for the short time it was in existence. They didn’t always do punk and new wave; there was a great mix of genres of music, plus poetry and film. You had to be there!”

“The Edge was our little clubhouse,” says Gary Cormier. “All we wanted to do was see these bands. There were a few things behind our thinking. It was like: ‘Take me to a place I haven’t been,’ ‘Show me something I haven’t seen,’ and ‘Let me hear something I haven’t heard before.’ Underlying that whole theme was—to the rest of the industry—something akin to ‘Come on. Is that the best you guys can do? Is that all you’ve got?’ It wasn’t necessarily a sense of one-upmanship or whatever, but clearly we were on a different path than everyone else. There was nothing that we were afraid to do, and we were not afraid to fail. We lost so much money sometimes, but we weren’t in it for the money.”

Adds Topp, “The scene was so small back then that it was actually like a club—like the Mickey Mouse Club. We were all punkateers.”

Wayne Brown of The Fits (right) and an Edge staff member stand outside the club in a “punk fashion” magazine spread. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

“It was smallish, but really electrifying,” says Steven Leckie, best known as lead singer of seminal Toronto punk band The Viletones, who performed frequently at the club. “Looking back, I think The Edge was at an absolute peak of things. I lived just up the road, at Church and Isabella, and went almost every single night. Bands that now have big-name recognition would play three or four nights out of every seven.”

“The Edge was cooler than shit,” Carole Pope tells me. “All my close friends went there. It was like being at a club in New York or London.”

As lead singer of hugely influential Toronto band Rough Trade, Pope performed all over the city and toured internationally, but The Edge remains especially close to her heart.

“I saw so many great bands there: Ultravox, The Slits, John Sex, Nico, B-52s. The Slits were all about shocking the audience. One of the chicks said, ‘I have my blood,’ sharing with us that she was on her period. Nico was all-mysterious, wrapped in her Velvet Underground aura. Ultravox was amazing; I loved everything they did.”

XTC at The Edge. Photo by Don Pyle.

Sun Ra at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

“Within the first two to three months of The Edge, we did both XTC, and Ultravox with John Foxx, which was a completely different animal than without him, and they were just incredible shows,” Cormier recalls. “Every minute that those bands were on stage in that room were captivating, with the entire audience in sync. Those nights, you could go home without a nickel in your pocket and you thought you had the world by the tail.”

Topp is equally enthusiastic. “Everybody we booked was special to at least one, if not both of us. XTC played with Barry Andrews on keyboards, before he left. Sun Ra—the real Sun Ra, when he was alive—played, with half the band in the audience because there was no room on the stage. Nico played twice. One of the times, she was wandering around in the afternoon in the attic of the house and encountered a ghost. There were lots of punky shows—999, The Viletones. Wayne/Jayne County recorded Rock ‘N’ Roll Resurrection on New Year’s Eve in 1979. But of all the international artists, John Otway played the most, like five or six times.”

“The Edge was my favourite venue [in North America], followed by Max’s Kansas City in New York,” says eccentric British singer-songwriter Otway, billed as “rock and roll’s greatest failure” in new documentary Otway: The Movie. “The Edge was the gig in North America that felt very much like a U.K. venue. From the very first show there, we went down a storm. It was brilliant. The audiences, as I remember, got bigger and bigger each time we came over. It probably cost me a fortune because I believed if we could do this all over the continent we would crack America in no time.”

John Otway at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

The Garys were notorious for booking oddball acts with cult status. Another was U.K. rockabilly outfit Crazy Cavan ‘n’ The Rhythm Rockers, the band responsible for altering Steven Leckie’s life and look.

“They were this working-class rockabilly band from Wales that managed to get around 50 teddy boys and girls to come with them on this North American jaunt,” says Leckie. “The next day, I changed my hair, I changed everything, and got really deep into U.K. rockabilly, which was way more glamorous than the American stuff.”

Poster courtesy of Gary Topp.

Surprisingly congenial for a guy once nicknamed Nazi Dog who earned a rep for cutting himself on stage and throwing himself into audiences, Leckie recalls that The Viletones in fact debuted their own stylistic and musical take on rockabilly at The Edge.

“It went over like Bob Dylan going electric,” he chuckles as we chat by phone. “It really went badly, but it gave the band a lot of longevity. Plus, it looked better and it seemed more primal. It was the sheer ego of it. I see rock ‘n’ roll as a glamour artform. For me, The Edge was really high glamour.”

The Viletones’ Steven Leckie goes rockabilly. Photo courtesy of him.

Especially glamorous, it seems, were the club’s second-floor bathrooms, mentioned by almost everyone I spoke with.

“The bathrooms were above the stage, and were often fucked up,” says Topp. “Sometimes, the toilets would flood and the water would pour down on the stage while bands were playing.

“The best time of all was one night while Jonathan Richman played there. It was a Sunday, he was solo, and the water was pouring down at the front of the stage. He had the luxury of just moving back, and I was doing lights, as I usually did. That night, with the water falling in front of Jonathan, it was kind of like the coloured lights on Niagara Falls at night.”

That said, The Garys did work hard to create a sense of glamour at the street level. Posters blanketed downtown, ads were placed, and they had good connections with a handful of Toronto music journalists. While CFNY had the most obvious and significant programming overlap with the club’s bookings, particularly during the Ivar Hamilton and David Marsden years, both CHUM-FM and Q-107 featured some adventurous programming back then as well. Q-107 host Bob Mackowycz Sr. was frequently at The Edge and played many of its visiting bands on his popular 6 O’Clock Rock Report. Gary Topp even hosted a weekly show on the Q dubbed The Edge of Morning, Sundays from 1-2 a.m., in 1980.

Poster courtesy of Don Pyle.

The Garys saw the club as a springboard for emergent local acts.

“We nurtured a lot of local groups who got signed from playing regularly at The Edge and from being promoted the same ways we would promote The Police or whoever,” says Topp.

He namechecks more than a dozen Toronto acts of the time, including The Mods, Drastic Measures, The Sharks, The Curse, Spoons, Battered Wives, The Demics, The Dishes, Johnny and the G-Rays, Blue Peter, and The B-Girls.

“The B-Girls should have been The Go-Gos or The Bangles,” says Topp. “They deserved it, but they lived in small-town Ontario—that is, Toronto—so people didn’t believe in them.”

Martha and the Muffins certainly benefitted, both from frequent bookings and by snagging Arthur Fogel as tour manager. Fogel was a young musician hired by Derek Andrews; he was first a bartender and then made night manager. He worked at The Edge for about two years, before leaving to work with the Muffins and then at Concert Productions International (CPI).

“The Edge somehow [caught] the spirit of the time,” says Fogel. “It was cutting edge yet down to earth. It was kind of like seeing great artists in your living room.”

“It was an exciting time, and The Edge was one of the best venues Rough Trade ever played at,” says Pope. “It was hip, and everyone wanted to play there. The audience was really into it and The Garys were great to work with. They were music aficionados who really got it. So many bands launched their careers there.”

“Rough Trade was one of my favourite regular bands at the club,” Andrews says. “They filled the place, and were a perfect fit for our aesthetic. I fondly remember my parents joining me on a birthday night when I had to work, and Rough Trade was playing. The band must have already had their ‘High School Confidential’ hit because my folks were impressed that they were at the club. When Carole Pope grabbed her crotch, my dad covered mom’s eyes. They liked the show, though!”

That was part of The Edge’s charm: Audiences were a mix of in-the-know Queen Street types, queer art-school kids, and people who came from all over Southern Ontario to see bands that often played nowhere else in the region.

Poster courtesy of Gary Topp.

Who else played/worked there: “Considering the level of talent that appeared consistently, The Edge was a special place to be,” says Ivar Hamilton, who’s worked in marketing and promotion at Universal Music for the past 24 years. He remembers many favourites.

“The first Canadian show by Magazine was simply fantastic! I saw Ultravox in the John Foxx era, numerous Pere Ubu appearances, The Police’s second Canadian show, Penetration, Shrapnel, many appearances by Chris Spedding and Jonathan Richman. 999 tore the roof off the place, Nash the Slash almost had a second home there, and I remember a very early Martha and the Muffins playing, too.”

Nash The Slash at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

Don Pyle—who played The Edge as part of punk band Crash Kills Five before going on to form Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet with two of the three other band members—also caught dozens and dozens of shows. He photographed many of them, with the results included in his great 2011 book Trouble In the Camera Club.

Courtesy of Don Pyle.

“It was easy to go four nights a week,” says Pyle. “Bands I recall most vividly are The Dils, partly because I had helped book the shows and was a huge fan. XTC was really memorable because they were so great at that time, and it was still somewhat rare to see bands that had come from punk scenes with keyboards. Barry Andrews was so captivating to watch. Colin Newman [of Wire] played one of his first solo shows there, with light only coming from a film projected onto his band. Psychedelic Furs performed, without an album out in North America, and were totally amazing at that time. The Cramps played a few times, and were always incredible.”

The list of artists that performed at The Edge during its less-than-three-years is simply mind-blowing. Others who should be mentioned include Mink DeVille, John Cale, Alex Chilton, Squeeze, John Hammond, Joan Jett, Nona Hendryx, Echo and the Bunnymen, Simple Minds, The Teardrop Explodes, William Burroughs, X, and The Knack. (“They had all of these sponsored Marshall amps and they couldn’t get them to work—ridiculous,” chuckles Topp.) Joy Division was scheduled to perform May 25, 1980, but cancelled their North American tour when singer Ian Curtis committed suicide one week earlier.

John Cale at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

A band that practically personified The Edge was Dick Duck & the Dorks. Singer Paul Ekness, like many of the band’s merry punksters, worked at the club and added to its family feel. John Otway would later bring them over to tour the U.K. and Scandinavia with him.

“There was a core of regulars that was relatively small, so everyone who was there often knew each other,” recalls Pyle. “Some people had been with The Garys since The New Yorker, like filmmaker Colin Brunton, who worked the door and box office, and a bouncer named Tank. The bands and the staff together created the atmosphere that was so different from most venues.“

Cook Catherine Lalande would cater The Garys’ shows through the years while bartender Chris Pegg went on to do lighting with them before forming his own company.

Derek Andrews also credits Edge staff including bookkeeper Jayne Martin, now a production manager; waitress Julia Sasso, now a leading choreographer; and Jordy Sharp, an ace busboy who would go on to buy The Brunswick House and hire Andrews to book Albert’s Hall.

“Jordy’s dad is Issy Sharp, of Four Seasons Hotels,” says Andrews. “Jordy was worth $600 million when he was clearing tables.”

“A good bunch of people worked hard, and had fun while making the club a great place to perform or to see a show,” summarizes Fogel, now CEO of Global Touring at Live Nation Entertainment. He’s organized tours for the likes of Bowie, The Police, Madonna, U2, and Lady Gaga. “The Edge holds its place as a great moment in time in the rich tradition of Toronto live music clubs.”

“The Edge years added important ingredients to the Toronto music menu,” adds Andrews. “It forever enhanced the credibility of Toronto as a music centre, and inspired thousands to believe that contemporary music culture deserved respect and attention. Gary Cormier and Gary Topp made that club a beacon, and deserve credit for the music alchemy it enjoyed.”

“It’s like I always say: When you break all the rules, everything is wrong, but it’s right,” says Cormier.

The Edge’s final flyers. Courtesy of Gary Topp.

What happened to it: Though nights at The Edge were generally busy, the momentum was hard to maintain. Daytime restaurant sales had also slowed, and related expenses were high.

“The morning and lunch business actually suffered as a result of the brisk night business,” says Andrews, who worked in the building until a few weeks after The Edge closed. “It was harder to create a pleasant atmosphere after 200 sweaty, smoking youth pounded the place.”

Andrews reveals that staff paycheques had begun to bounce in the final months of The Edge, and the club’s owners closed it abruptly.

“The building was bought by the Catholic Church, and turned into a home for troubled youth,” says Andrews, who went on to also program at The Horseshoe and Harbourfront Centre, and is now Music Curator and Artist Manager for Luminato. “We all thought that was ironic, given the previous use: troubled youth and all.”

The Edge closed on June 6, 1981 as British singer-songwriter Kevin Coyne played the last of a three-night stint, his only Canadian shows ever. The Garys had tried to book Coyne for years and, in fact, had taken a chance on The Police because guitarist Andy Summers also played with Coyne.

By that point, The Garys had already begun booking larger concert venues like The Music Hall, Palais Royale, and The Concert Hall. They continued to set the pace throughout the 1980s, also bringing bands to large clubs like The Diamond and RPM.

Cormier now teaches concert promotion at George Brown College, and programs shows for the Toronto Jazz Festival and elsewhere.

Topp also remains active—and selective—as a concert promoter. On November 12, he presents Lydia Lunch—who once performed at The Edge as part of no-wave group 8-Eyed Spy—at Wrongbar, alongside The Dave Howard Singers and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.

Ron Chapman went on to manage bands, produce films, and now runs marketing and communications company Brandworks.

Steven Leckie is at work on three books, two of them “deep memoirs,” and the other a poetry collection he expects to be available by year’s end.

70 Gerrard St. E. is now the location of Mary’s Home Emergency Shelter for women.

70 Gerrard Street East today.

Thank you to Arthur Fogel, Carole Pope, David Barnard, Derek Andrews, Don Pyle, Gary Cormier, Gary Topp, Ivar Hamilton, John Otway, and Steven Leckie.

The post Then & Now: The Edge appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.