The original Then & Now: Twilight Zone article was published October 5, 2011 and was second in the web series originally developed for The GridTO.com. As the Then & Now series expanded in reach, so too did the length of each story and number of participants who contributed to each. This expanded history of the Zone was written in March 2015, and was exclusively available in the Then & Now book until this time.

Trailblazing 1980s nightclub Twilight Zone brought diverse crowds and sounds to Toronto’s Entertainment District long before such a designation even existed. Those who were there lovingly explore its lasting legacy.

By: DENISE BENSON

Club: Twilight Zone, 185 Richmond Street W.

Years in operation: 1980 – 1989

History: Long before the Entertainment District was awash in condos, clubs, and restaurants—back when the area was still largely non-residential and known as the garment district—four brothers opened a venue that ultimately influenced the neighbourhood’s development.

Tony, Albert, David, and Michael Assoon forever altered Toronto’s dance club nightscape with their Twilight Zone, but that venue’s reach was rooted in earlier efforts. The Assoon family moved from New York to Toronto in the 1970s. During their high school years in Scarborough, the music-savvy siblings produced events in school spaces.

“That was back in the day, when Soul Train was on, and we wanted to have something that was more in our culture,” describes Tony Assoon. “We decided to have the first soul party ever in Toronto. It was funk music, a little bit of disco, and so forth. That’s how we started.”

Assoon says they produced a few successful parties, and the idea spread to other high schools before the brothers all graduated. Tony moved back to New York during the height of the disco days.

“I was a club hound,” he laughs during our lengthy conversation. “I went to all kinds of places, like the Commodore Hotel, Night Owl, The Great Gatsby, Paradise Garage, The Loft, and Milky Way.

“One of the clubs that I hung out at a lot, that really influenced me, was called Melons. It was on the top floor of a loft and was a roller skating rink in the daytime. A legendary DJ called Tee Scott played there. Later, Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles also played.”

Assoon brought his knowledge and love of New York clubs, style, and music with him when his parents requested that he return to Toronto. He mentions checking our ’70s disco hotspots like Heavens, Checkers, and Mrs. Nights, but landing a job at the Yonge and Bloor Le Chateau clothing store, conveniently located next to a modeling agency, connected him with a different crowd.

“We all loved fashion,” says Tony. “At that time, the whole new wave look was in so we’d dress freaky.”

The Assoons began to do parties at places like The Ports, on Yonge near Summerhill, and in a building on Sherbourne.

“They were great promoters,” says friend Charmaine Gooden of the brothers. She first met them at The Ports, then spent lots of time listening to music with the Assoons and other friends, and attended their early events.

“They started renting rec rooms in apartment buildings to have parties. These were well attended by a diverse, mixed-up crowd—older, younger, money, and fashion. Part of the fun was dressing up. [People came] from Forest Hill, Regent Park, the suburbs, and Scar- borough, so it was varied.”

Through the apartment parties, the Assoons built a solid following and set out to find larger, more secluded spaces.

“We first experimented at 666 King West in September of 1979,” recalls Albert Assoon. “We had to move from there quickly because dust started pouring out of the ceiling from the vibration of the bass. We went on the prowl and eventually wound up at 185 Richmond West. We sought these locations because they were in areas where we wouldn’t get noise complaints or disturb residents.”

“It was desolate,” says Tony of the Richmond and Simcoe area where the Assoons, along with close friends Bromely Vassell and Luis Collaco, launched the Twilight Zone in January of 1980. “It was just industry and factory buildings. Everyone thought we were kind of crazy for moving there, and into a warehouse, but I was used to seeing things like that in New York, so it didn’t seem to be a big deal.”

Soon, crowds would come from far and wide to attend this magical late-night place where the mix of people was as eclectic as the music they were treated to.

David Assoon at the Zone entry. Photo by Theodora Kali.

Why it was important: Twilight Zone was an unlicensed after-hours club where the Assoons could let their imaginations run free. The 8,000-square-foot space held more than 1,000 people. It was a rectangular room with a huge wooden dance floor, juice bar, unisex washrooms, and a side lounge for chilling. Tall dark pillars lined the main space.

“You went up three flights of narrow, rickety wooden stairs to the ticket booth and then into a massive room, which was all black,” describes Gooden. “Everything was black. Period. I remember painting a woman morphing into a stiletto on the wall in the lounge area; the whole space was a kind of canvas for creatives. Those guys would let you try out your ideas.”

Twilight Zone was a hub for creative people and colliding influences. Where most other dance clubs tended to be known for a particular sound, the Zone embraced the electrifying collage that was the 1980s. Local and international DJs played disco, funk, punk, electro, hip-hop, new wave, house, and more over the years. There was very little division between sounds that emerged from distinctly different undergrounds.

“You could be playing house and drop in a new wave song; people were right into it,” reminds Tony Assoon. “It almost all started during the same era.”

Twilight Zone regulars dancing. Still from Back to the Zone, courtesy of Colm Hogan.

At Twilight Zone, it could all be heard through a stunning soundsystem. From the club’s start, sound was important. A system rented from Sunshine Sound kicked things off nicely, but it was in the Zone’s second year that a state-of-the-art soundsystem designed by New York’s Richard Long was installed.

“I was used to hearing a certain kind of sound in New York,” explains Tony Assoon of the impetus. “The thing that couldn’t be reproduced was a certain kind of bass. I took my brothers to Paradise Garage, and my brother Michael partied with me a lot at Melons. I told them, ‘Remember that soundsystem? I know the guy and want to put the same system in here.’ They told me to get a price; I think it was about $100,000 U.S. It was a lot of money. At first my brothers said, ‘No, it’s too much,’ but I insisted. We had to close the club for two weeks, and it took a lot of work. We had to spray and insulate the club, and then they got all the speakers and put everything in.

“When we re-opened, it was slow. All the guys looked at me, like, ‘You and your big ideas.’ I said, ‘Give it some time.’ The first group of people came in, heard the system, and didn’t know what to think. The next week, the crowd doubled because everyone started buzzing about the sound. After that, it was all history. People couldn’t believe what they were hearing.”

“When they put in the Richard Long system, the Zone changed forever,” states DJ Dave Campbell, a Zone regular from the time he was a teen. “The bass could regulate your heartbeat, and because the floor was wood, you couldn’t help but dance.

“You could hear the sound from University and Richmond,” Campbell adds. “People would ask, ‘Where is Twilight located?’ I would tell them, ‘Head west of University on Richmond, look for the amber flashing light, and listen.’”

“The sound was like a dream,” agrees Gooden. “Once you’ve listened to music on those amazing speakers, no one can fool you.”

Sound designer Richard Long (left) with associate Roger Goodman. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

At its core, Twilight Zone was about the music played through that bumping system by its adventurous resident DJs. Weekend nights were divergent yet complementary.

Don Cochrane held down Fridays for most of the Zone’s existence. He first attended the club just weeks after it had opened. Cochrane and a large group of friends “outnumbered the people there” but enjoyed the funky grooves of DJ Albert Assoon. Cochrane and Assoon talked tunes.

“We agreed to meet mid-week for him to hear my UK dance sounds,” says Scottish-born Cochrane. “He and his brothers listened. I got an immediate offer to play the following Friday.”

UK Dance Floor ran Fridays from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. or later, with Cochrane blending new wave and other dancefloor-friendly sounds then-bubbling in the UK with funk, Chicago house, Italo house, German industrial, world beat, and “wild cards.”

Cochrane’s playlist of anthems included the likes of Endgames “First Last for Everything,” Kate Bush “Running Up That Hill,” Bobby Konders “House Rhythms,” Blondie “Rapture,” Bohannan “Let’s Start the Dance,” Jimmy Bo Horne “Spank,” Rocker’s Revenge “Walking on Sunshine,” A Guy Called Gerald “Voodoo Ray,” Liquid Liquid “Cavern,” and “anything James Brown, George Clinton, or Funkadelic.”

He also, of course, featured a hefty dose of UK acts like The Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode, Talk Talk, Human League, and Bronski Beat, but broke ground when he played them.

“They were ‘retail’ hits, but we had them first—by months, sometimes even a year—as I had them imported,” Cochrane emphasizes. “I did the same for the German industrial dance bands such as Nitzer Ebb. CFNY would come to the booth and monitor my playlist. I got a great kick out of breaking new records—and even sounds.”

“Fridays were the big alternative dance night,” confirms Albert Assoon. “UK Dance Floor featured the new wave you would hear on CFNY, however you heard it first at Twilight Zone. Don was pretty ahead of the music trends abroad and delivered on the dance floor. He would also come party on Saturdays and pick songs he’d then incorporate, giving Fridays more edge than anywhere!

“On Saturdays, the combination of myself and brother Tony was also pretty awesome,” Albert states. “Tony, who had returned to NYC as a teen, came back and would school us all on underground disco. He knew his music and screaming divas very well, and mesmerized the dancefloor with a cappellas on top of stuff. I observed Tony and Don, and came up with my own style, playing mostly funk, freestyle, a bit of new wave, and more.”

Tony mentions a few of his Saturday Zone classics, including D-Train “You’re the One For Me,” First Choice featuring Rochelle Fleming “Let No Man Put Asunder,” and Fonda Rae “Touch Me,” but also makes clear that reggae, early hip-hop, and all sorts of sounds were in the mix.

“We loved playing it all,” Tony emphasizes. “Human League, Thompson Twins, and all the other English groups you could think of were a given. You weren’t a DJ unless you played all of those.”

“I loved it when Albert or Tony would rush up to the booth on Fridays and say, ‘What the fuck is that?’” says Cochrane of the musical interplay. “I would do the same on Saturdays. It was such a mutually beneficial environment that manifested a unique global sound on both nights.

“The Assoons were bold, true to their vision, honest, and pioneers,” he praises. “They were a tight family, and a family who embraced me. Also, [Tony and Albert were] two brilliant DJs.”

Thanks to the Assoons’ vision, the Zone is fondly remembered as Toronto’s first home of garage and house, especially as the music’s bricklayers became imported guests.

David Morales (L) and Tony Assoon in the Zone DJ booth. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

David Morales (L) and Dave Del Du Valle a.k.a. David Delvalle. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

“Twilight Zone started off the tradition of bringing international DJs on Saturdays, beginning with DJ Kenny Carpenter, David Morales, Frankie Knuckles, Dave ‘Madness’ Du Valle—all from NYC—and Jay Armstrong from Ministry in the UK,” says Albert. “All the DJs offered a different sound and melted the crowd.”

These connections were largely fostered as Tony Assoon bounced back to New York often to buy music, go to clubs, and hear DJs.

“I was always the type of guy that if I heard a DJ and they sounded good, I’d say, ‘Hey, how would you like to play?’ In those days, DJs were hungry. They would jump to come to Canada.”

Kenny Carpenter was one of the first booked, followed by DJ/producer Johnny Dynell of NYC clubs like Danceteria, The Roxy, and Save the Robots. Dynell suggested the Assoons book a then-up-and-comer named David Morales, which led to repeat visits by the Def Mix master. Morales and Du Valle were frequent guests, sometimes even spinning together, as was Frankie Knuckles. Detroit’s Derrick May and Alton Miller often made the drive to party at the Zone, and both played on occasion.

“Derrick May played a couple of times, but he was a little too advanced,” recalls Tony. “Derrick was playing and making techno long before people knew what techno was.”

Without a doubt, the music heard at Twilight Zone influenced a generation of Toronto house DJs and producers, not to mention a whole host of warehouse party promoters. People like Aki Abe, Dino & Terry, Mitch Winthrop, Yogi Patel, and Nick Holder were regulars.

“Nick lived by the DJ booth,” says Tony of Holder, one of Toronto’s global house ambassadors. “The Zone was a big influence on him because he saw David Morales, Frankie Knuckles, and so on. I think he played a couple of times. Dave Campbell also got put on every now and then.”

Campbell may have DJed at the Zone in the club’s later years, but it took some doing for him and a group of high school friends to pass through its doors. Saturday nights were so busy that staff was selective.

“We were turned away the first few times we attempted to get into the club,” Campbell shares. “We didn’t quite meet the standards of Saturday’s cool, fashion-conscious clientele, so we decided to go on a Friday, as they weren’t as strict at the door. At the time, I was into new wave music and loved CFNY. Some of the music played on Fridays would cross over to Saturdays, like Yazoo, Fad Gadget, Yello, and other tracks, along with the pre-house anthems. We got to know some of the staff, like Bromely at the door, and were finally able to get in on a Saturday.”

Flash-forward a few years, and Campbell had moved downtown, begun to DJ, and was invited to fill in for Tony on occasion.

“The first Saturday night I played, I was very nervous, but it turned out to be one of the most amazing nights of my DJing career. It was surreal playing on that system. It had three turntables, a pitchable cassette player, and a reel-to-reel. When Frankie Knuckles played, he used the reel player to blend in his own special mixes of stuff he produced, like his mix of Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody.’ David Morales used it to play his mix of Whitney Houston’s ‘Love Will Save The Day.’ Dave Du Valle seamlessly worked all three decks at once. He was amazing.

“But what made the Zone so amazing to me, besides the music, was the eclectic mix of people, with white, black, gay, and straight all partying in one space,” says Campbell. “It was like nothing I had experienced before, including the unisex bathroom.”

Twilight Zone was the place to be, with large, diverse, and creative crowds dancing ’til dawn week after week.

Gooden, who attended regularly for most of the club’s nine-year history (“Always from after 2 a.m. ’til close”), encapsulates the experience. “It was the kind of place that was so overwhelming, a kind of free style, with people dancing all over the place. It gave waspy, stuffy, uptight Torontonians a release valve where people could just be bohemian and extravagant.

“The Zone was a mix of black, white, Asian, old, young, hipster, fashion-trendy, new wavers, break dancers, young punks, skinheads, and Scarborough secretaries in their outfits. You had the Scarborough blacks, Charles and Church Street gays, Queen West alternatives, and people from Whitby to Etobicoke. Those years at the Twilight Zone were like a cauldron with all the people who got mashed together.”

“It was a weird era when everyone got along,” comments Tony. “All the people who listened to house music started showing up on the new wave nights, so you’d see somebody in a suit dancing next to somebody with a Mohawk or somebody who was a skinhead. Half of those kids didn’t even know why they were wearing Nazi flags in the back. They’d be dancing with everybody; if they were that prejudiced, they wouldn’t have been there, dancing beside somebody black or somebody Jewish or gay. Everything was more for fashion than it was for a reason.”

“It was unique and without aggro,” agrees Cochrane; “They came for the music.” This was also true on Pariah Wednesdays, which ran in the early through mid-’80s.

“Wednesdays were more underground,” describes Tony; “Pariah catered to the more punk kind of crowd.”

Pariah had its roots in the downtown arts and music scene. Toronto club veteran Lynn McNeil had launched the night with DJ Siobhan O’Flynn at Club Kongos (later Club Focus) on Hagerman Street. The two met when O’Flynn DJed in The Rivoli’s back room for L Squared, an influential event promoted by The Katherine with DJs Richard Vermeulen and Pam Barnes. (“To my knowledge, Pam was the first woman DJ in Toronto, and I was the second,” says O’Flynn.)

After about a year at Kongos, Pariah moved to Wednesdays at Twilight Zone, with O’Flynn joined by DJ Stephen Scott.

“Coming out of Hagerman, the music at Pariah was a mix of punk, disco, old funk, and the start of the early ’80s Brit scene,” she describes. “We played The Fall, Wire, early Stone Roses, and American punk and post punk, like Television.

“Pariah would have been the first place I played Sisters of Mercy ‘Gimme Shelter.’ I still re- member that song on that soundsystem was damn impressive. It was just so immersive to experience vinyl records played on such a stupendous soundsystem. You just felt it. Being able to listen to PIL, Joy Division, and the big orchestral Sisters of Mercy sound in a room with perfectly EQ’d sound was incredible.”

Hundreds came out between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. each Wednesday. “You had to be pretty committed,” comments O’Flynn; “You weren’t holding down a job that you had to be at at nine in the morning. Pariah started with a very strong foot in the emerging counter-culture punk scene. There was also a whole group of underage alternative school kids. The club scene or bar scene was just starting to take off, so we’d get that after-hours crowd, and Goths.

“Broadly, it was hungry alternative music fans, which is why people were so open to really diverse genres of music. I know that a lot of people came to the club specifically to be introduced to new music. Both Stephen and I were avid consumers of tracking what was new, reading NME [New Musical Express], and buying imports.”

In addition, O’Flynn redecorated Twilight Zone’s interior every few months (“I’d source out non-flammable materials that you could have in environments where people were behaving chaotically”), and booked in local indie bands of the time, like Change of Heart and Groovy Religion.

“There really weren’t that many places you could go out and hear the music we featured,” recalls O’Flynn. “For the Assoons to let us have our night in their club was always kind of amazing.”

Twilight Zone interior. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

Who else played/worked there: “I love that for a lot of high school kids, the Zone was their first memory of a club,” says Tony. “We’d open up early for them, and then close. They’d want to stay, but we had to say, ‘No, you’re not 16.’ We were all-ages, but you had to be 16 to stay after hours.”

One night that stands out for its early-evening crowds was when the Assoons brought New York’s Dynamic Breakdancers in for a show.

“That was around the time that Herbie Hancock came out with ‘Rockit’,” Tony recollects. “We packed that club from six in the evening until 1 a.m.. They did maybe four shows. People just kept coming; they wanted to see what this breakdancing was all about.”

Further proving the brothers had their fingers on the pulse of multiple musical movements, the Zone also featured performances by artists as diverse as D-Train, Divine, Sharon Redd, Joycelyn Brown, Jermaine Stewart, Prince Charles, Anne Clark, The Spoons, and The System.

“One year, we had an anniversary party without any acts booked,” adds Tony. “I happened to see Eartha Kitt crossing the street and called out, ‘Eartha Kitt?’ She said, ‘That’s me.’ I said, ‘I would love for you to come and sing. We have no act tonight. Tell me what you want, and we’ll work something out.’ Her response was, ‘I want two things: a cold bottle of champagne and a champagne glass.’ She came on stage, sang ‘Where Is My Man,’ and had so much class. Amazing.”

Fashion Show at Twilight Zone. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

Albert recalls a visit by a certain New York hip-hop trio. “We had the Beastie Boys in. They went on a rampage and graffitied the club. We had just sanded the area and it wasn’t painted, so we decided to leave it as part of the decor.”

O’Flynn also remembers that eve, and laughs as she shares an anecdote. “It was probably 1982 and the Beastie Boys were at the club. They wanted to spin, and I said no. I kicked them out of the DJ booth. To this day, I can’t believe I did that.” (Post Pariah, she went on to play plenty of speaks and clubs, including Domino, Dance Cave, RPM, Nuts & Bolts, the Bovine, Phoenix, and Left Bank. O’Flynn is now a professor and consultant who teaches digital media at the University of Toronto.)

A variety of other DJs spent time in Twilight Zone’s DJ booth over the years.

“The Zone’s music was unique,” summarizes DJ and radio producer Scot Turner, who went by Skot during his eight years as a programmer and host at pioneering alternative radio station CFNY 102.1FM. He went to the Zone often enough to appreciate its musical mix, and to support it with on-air mentions.

“Their reputation was for house music, but also for their openness to alternative, which they were not afraid to embrace and showcase. Anyone with a love of dance music and vibe was welcome.”

Turner, in fact, DJed a Thursday night called Swoon for a short stretch. “The music format was intentionally non-bass and beat, with lots of jangly guitar. It was art rock and pop—The Smiths, Cure, REM, Violent Femmes, Prefab Sprout, Lloyd Cole, and the like.“

Skot / Scot Turner at Twilight Zone. Photo courtesy of him.

Turner also DJed at venues like Club Z, Club Focus, Empire Dancebar, RPM, and Joker over the years, and would go on to help launch Energy 108 (“The first true all-dance music station in North America”). He appreciated Twilight Zone for many reasons.

“It was bare bones, but the soundsystem was first rate. It was what proper club sound should be: very loud, without hurting your ears, and with bass that you feel in your chest. It was not licensed, so the music came first. Without the distractions of alcohol and ‘picking up,’ it attracted a more purist music crowd. (Turner is now Brand Director for two Kitchener radio stations and contributes to The Spirit Of Radio web page at Edge.ca.)

There were also attempts made to have a dedicated gay Sunday, with DJs such as Barry Harris, Paul Grace, and Stages’ resident Greg Howlett. Tony admits it never took off, and the reason he provides is a reminder of the division that existed even in more tolerant and mixed spaces.

“When AIDS happened, that made a huge difference in who would go where. People started thinking in stereotypes, and stuff like, ‘If I touch somebody gay, I’m going to get AIDS.’ People could be very discriminatory. Meanwhile, I was still going to gay bars, trying to book DJs. I went to a gay club—The Roxy—to book Frankie Knuckles. I had so many friends who were gay that I didn’t pay that kind of stuff attention. I really wanted that crowd to be part of my crowd. Nobody enjoys music more than a gay crowd; those were the guys who brought satisfaction to my turntables.”

While the Sundays never came together, there’s no question that communities did on other nights at the Zone. Throughout the club’s history, artists, performers, and the fashion-forward were a part of its core crowd. Actors and hockey players were also in the mix.

“Patrick Cox, the designer, came there a lot,” says Tony. “So did Wayne Gretzky, Mario Van Peebles, and Grandmaster Flash.”

“At The Twilight Zone, you had Kenneth Cole, Suzanne Boyd, Michael Griffiths, the Soho designers, Dean and Dan of Dsquared, and other local artists who were regulars,” adds Albert. “Many greats met up and fully expressed themselves with their look and attitudes!”

The highly fashionable Charmaine Gooden also mentions many fellow regulars. “Donna Boyd was a presence; when she danced, it was like there was a spotlight on her. She held her body, singing, acting, and living out the song. She was just so glamorous and had a smouldering personality. We gave some of our favourite regulars nicknames: There was Richard ‘National Ballet,’ Suzie Horton was ‘Jacket and Panty Hose,’ Tony and Basil Young were like the Nicholas Brothers. Ronald Holmes, who worked the bar, was from New York and a one-man dance squad. People gathered around him to learn his particular style.

“Some people never went to church, but they were at the Zone every Sunday morning,” elucidates Gooden. “For some, it was a spiritual experience. The music on Saturday was also very based in gospel.”

Fashion Show at Twilight Zone. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

Zone regulars at a costume party. Photo courtesy of Albert Assoon.

The aforementioned Tony Young, later known as MuchMusic host Master T, was frequently found on the dance floor, as was Michele Geister, who co-founded and produced MuchMusic’s RapCity program. Photographer Michael Chambers was another regular, as was Tom Davis, who later booked the Cameron House and now owns The Stockyards restaurant. Others mentioned by interviewees include Lyndon Hector; Norbert Ricafort; Ford Medina; Marla Rotenberg; makeup artist Danny Morrow; clothing designer Ian Hylton; Raymond Perkins, who ran The Dub Club at the time and went on to work as Director of Culture at Roots; and Aaron Serruya, who produced his first party at Twilight Zone and is now co-owner of both Yogen Früz and Red Nightclub. Darryl Fine, now co-owner of the Bovine, was a regular who sometimes tended bar.

There were a lot of dedicated staffers. Some include original Zone investors Luis Collaco and Bromley Vassell, who went on to do lights and door, respectively. Gerald Ash and Lino Santos were core bussers for years, while Chris Arthur worked the door and more. Dave Campbell also mentions host Ted Aman, and Lisa McCleary, who worked in the Night Gallery, below Twilight Zone.

“We took over space on the ground floor and opened a café called Night Gallery in 1984,” explains Albert. “We offered a free buffet with the $10 admission, and it was generous. I swear some people came just to eat.”

The Assoons’ father was the main Night Gallery chef. Sometimes there was music in that space as well.

“Twilight Zone was my first official club gig,” says Derek Perkins, who took over Fridays after Don Cochrane left to pursue his career at Ogilvy One in 1987 (Cochrane shares that he went on to launch the Air Miles program and now works in the airline industry).

Perkins “started playing alt and classic rock downstairs in the Night Gallery. At that time, there was no alt format on any nights upstairs. Within two to three weeks, the room reached capacity and the Assoons gave me Friday night in the Zone.”

Other DJs who played occasional Fridays included Larry St. Aubin (aka Larry Saint), Ivan Palmer, Michael X, Avery Tanner, and James Stewart, but Perkins was the main resident. Fridays became known as The Darkside. Perkins also came to play on Wednesdays.

“Prior to working there, I was a huge fan of Pariah and of DJ Siobhan,” he credits. “She was a huge influence on the style I later adopted, mixing classic rock and funk with alternative.”

He namedrops personal anthems by the likes of Patti Smith, Aerosmith, Love and Rockets, Felt, and The Demics, but he also “included artists such as Boney M, Blondie, Man Parrish, Grandmaster Flash, George Kranz, and other beat-centric stuff so some of the dance crowd would stay. They mixed in pretty well with the freakier late-nighters.”

Perkins also shares a vivid, sensorial memory.

“There was a smell like no other place I’ve ever encountered. The best I can figure is that it was a mix of French Formula hairspray, cologne, perfume, hashish, coco puffs, coconut fog fluid, stale booze, and bathroom odour. It was an oddly intoxicating smell.”

He was the last alt DJ to play at the Zone and was there until the club’s demise.

“The crowds would go up and down as more competition came to the area, but there were almost always enough people to make it viable,” says Perkins, who went on to play clubs including Nuts & Bolts, Freak Show, Empire, The Copa, Whiskey Saigon, Klub Max, and Zoo Bar. (He then ran creative departments for multiple radio stations, and now markets luxury real estate.)

What happened to it: “Near the end of the Zone’s run, the crowd had become younger,” says Dave Campbell. “It seemed that the sanctuary had changed. There was no more Celestial Choir ‘Stand On The Word’ or Lonnie Liston Smith ‘Expansions’ played as the Sunday morning sunlight came through the window. We had lost our church.” (Campbell went on to play a range of clubs, including The Copa, The Diamond, and Roxy Blu. He now runs his own DJing service, is the Friday resident at The Citizen on King West, and plays parties including What It Is! and Twilight Zone reunions.)

The Zone’s crowds may have shifted in its final years, but they still filled the club. The venue closed in early 1989 because the Assoons’ lease had expired and the building’s owner sold the property. It became a parking lot.

“We would have bought the building,” says Albert; “However, despite our successes, the banks would never finance us with anything—except the one time my father put up his house for us to buy Twilight Zone’s soundsystem. We had to sign a waiver where our unborn children would have to pay if we defaulted. That loan was paid on time and in full, but they would not agree with our vision.”

Twilight Zone came to a close soon after a February party that featured David Morales. People still speak of the club—and the communities it brought together—with deep appreciation.

“The Zone was like a club in the real sense; everybody felt they were part of the club,” says Gooden. “When you saw an ex-Zoner elsewhere, you had a connection. To this day, Zoners are still a sub culture.” (She is now a magazine editor and Professor in the School of Fashion at both Ryerson University and Seneca College.)

The Assoons—also the visionaries who, in 1984, thought to open Fresh Restaurant and Nightclub at 132 Queens Quay E., which was ousted a year later to make way for RPM (The Guvernment later held the address)—went on to open Gotham City Bar and Grill at 81 Bloor St. E. in 1990. Rent was too high for them to make a long term go of it.

Albert and Michael Assoon went on to be deeply involved in late ’90s house haven The Living Room, while Tony moved back to NYC, where he continues to enjoy clubs and music, and works for New York Life. Albert, Michael, and David Assoon now own versatile event space Remix Lounge at 1305 Dundas West.

After more than 20 years of existence as a parking lot, the ground where Twilight Zone once stood has been swallowed into the 199 Richmond West address of the Studio on Richmond condo build. Filmmaker Colm Hogan is at work on Back 2 The Zone, a detailed documentary about the club and its widespread influence.

Thank you to participants: Albert Assoon, Charmaine E. Gooden, Dave Campbell, Derek Perkins, Don Cochrane, Scot Turner, Siobhan O’Flynn, and Tony Assoon, as well as to Colm Hogan, Darryl Fine, and Theodora Kali.

The post Then & Now: TWILIGHT ZONE (extended mix) appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

The original Then & Now: Roxy Blu article was published September 21, 2011 by The GridTO.com. That story launched Then & Now: Toronto Nightlife History, originally envisioned as a series of brief articles devoted to defunct but influential Toronto music venues. As Then & Now’s popularity and reach expanded, it became increasingly important to include more voices in each story. As a result, the earliest stories for The Grid were entirely rewritten for Then & Now in book format. This expanded history of Roxy Blu was written in March 2015, and was exclusively available in the Then & Now book until this time.

Roxy Blu was home to the soulful side of Toronto’s dance-music underground, and with its four rooms, welcoming atmosphere, and loyal community of followers, Roxy fostered and supported a culture where parties and promoters could create without compromise.

By: DENISE BENSON

Club: Roxy Blu, 12 Brant

Years in operation: 1998 – 2005

History: Although it would come to be known as a community-minded hotbed for soulful house and other underground sounds, Roxy Blu was decidedly different than any other club projects owner Amar Singh had ever touched.

In the early to mid-’90s, he and Bill Kourbetis worked together as B&A, promoting events at ritzy, popular nightclubs like Stilife, Skorpio, Orchid, and Exit II Eden. They parted as co- promoters when Singh opened a club called Bauhaus at 31 Mercer. Known for its see-and- be-seen Martini Mondays, well-dressed crowds, and sleek design, Bauhaus was successful, but Singh walked away six months after opening.

“I just wasn’t there mentally,” he says; “I knew I wanted to be in the industry, but I had to make some changes. I sold my shares for pennies on the dollar.”

Singh took another approach for his next venue.

“I didn’t want to do what I did with Bauhaus, which was spend so much on renovations. The clubs that I used to go to, that I really, really loved, were not the club I created in Bauhaus. The club I created was the kind I used to promote—the Orchids and so on, all pretty and nice. To this day, the clubs I loved going to the most were Tazmanian Ballroom—anything Johnny K really; he was my mentor—and of course Twilight Zone, as well as Le Tube. Those are the places, along with some spots in New York, that really inspired me in my next venture, which became Roxy Blu.”

Singh stumbled upon the 10,000-square-foot building at 12 Brant while out on his bicycle. He’d been looking in the area of King west of Spadina, as it was off the beaten path and rents were cheaper. At the time, the building’s lower level housed Bodega Manila, a Filipino restaurant run by the owner’s wife, while the upstairs acted as storage for the rattan furniture the couple imported.

Singh spoke casually with the owner while touring the space. He didn’t see potential for a nightclub at first.

“Then I tripped on the carpet, and noticed that under it was a beautiful hardwood floor.”

Upon learning the entire main level had hardwood, Singh asked more questions. He also discovered the building was licensed throughout, a huge boon in a city where new liquor permits can be difficult to come by. Multiple conversations and many months later, Singh had the go-ahead to rent the building and then, eventually, the silent partner and small business loan that enabled him to do so.

He relied on the help of friends to get Roxy Blu off the ground. Jennifer Pratt designed its logo and rooms.

“When I invited Jennifer to design the club, I told her, ‘We’re looking at $10,000 to get the space going.’ She said, ‘Amar, you can’t paint this place for $10,000. It’s going to cost more than that!’ I said, ‘You don’t understand; it’s $10,000 for paint and furniture.’”

Budget dictated that Roxy was adorned with discount paint, thrift store furniture, and strategically placed bits of fabric, but its comfy décor and related warm vibe would become a draw. The club opened in September, 1998.

Roxy entrance. Photo courtesy of Denis Scher-McDowall.

Why it was important: “A friend once said to me that the reason Roxy Blu became such a success was that it was built with love,” shares Singh. “That’s true. Even on opening day, a tonne of my friends painted and helped clean because I had no money.”

Singh also hired a number of friends, including Denis Scher-McDowall, who worked as a Roxy bartender before becoming manager. She recalls that the club’s dark, unassuming entrance and less-than-obvious location lent a warehouse feel.

“Roxy Blu was a huge, two-storey building that had a sort of warehouse look to the outside, but once you stepped inside, it was an eclectic mix of your grandma’s living room with the coolest vibe you could imagine,” Scher-McDowall describes.

“When you first came in, there was the lounge on the right, which had three plush semi- private rooms, lots of fabric, lamps, a DJ booth, small bar, and a drummer. It was more of an area to chill out and listen to some great music. The main room had two bars, a DJ booth, lots of space in the middle for dancing, and seating around the perimeter.”

“We opened it up one room at a time,” explains Singh. “Then people who came early didn’t feel consumed by the big space. Even if there were only a few people in that room, it was nice and warm.”

The main room had low ceilings, a long main bar, and plenty of ambiance.

“The ceiling height might have been 12 feet, with attached pin spots and oscillating lights that were really dynamic in the way they washed the walls and dancefloor,” recalls Winston Thompson, Roxy’s Saturday night resident DJ for the club’s entire history. “It had a phenomenal wood floor and a beefy JBL sound system. The system, coupled with ceiling height, décor, floor, and the warm feel of vinyl records, made for incredible acoustics.

“If you wanted to dance and sweat, you were in the main room; if you wanted to chill and conversate, you could slip into the lounge, aka the Parlour.”

Crowd at a 52inc. jam. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

To those who had frequented the many speaks and warehouse parties devoted to house music in late ’80s through early ’90s Toronto, Roxy Blu’s natural character was obvious. Singh didn’t initially see it this way.

“The problem was that up until that point, all I really knew was the European crowd—big on drinking, but they loved to go to pretty places,” says Singh. “I was comfortable in those places, and also comfortable in underground spots, and was convinced that everyone was like me in this way. I thought my Euro crowd would like Roxy, but I didn’t really have ties to the underground crowd.

“Opening night was packed, but those people never came back. Three or four months in, I was pulling my hair out thinking it was going to be a disaster. Then a guy named Justin [Martin, of alienInFlux] came to me and said he wanted to book in an act called Kruder & Dorfmeister. I didn’t know them at all. I wasn’t into the music. I’m a rock and roll guy.”

Martin brought Kruder & Dorfmeister on a Friday early in 1999. It was a packed, incredible event—the kind of night where those of us in the room knew we were at something special.

“That event opened up the floodgates,” states Singh. “Everyone then came to me saying, ‘Let’s do a Friday.’ If it wasn’t for Justin, I don’t think that would have happened.”

Soon after, promoters including Hot Stepper and the Movement DJ collective started producing monthlies. Roxy Blu became the place to go, for different crowds, on both weekend nights.

“The rotation of parties on Fridays was the real deal, with Movement, Garage 416, 52inc., milk, Solid Garage, and more,” says DJ Paul E. Lopes, who played at most of these events, as well as Hot Stepper’s Bump N’ Hustle, over the years. “You didn’t have to know what the party was about or who was hosting or spinning—it was guaranteed to be good.

“Roxy Blu really was the ideal space for us. All the regular promoters were on the soulful end of club music, so it attracted a more casual, music-loving, dancing crowd. The sound system was great, both for ‘club’ records and the old disco, soul, and jazz that got spun a lot there too. The hardwood floor attracted the best dancers, and they helped give the room a great vibe.”

A Hot Stepper party goes off downstairs. Photo courtesy of Hot Stepper Productions.

Also appealing was the fact that Roxy had four rooms, including two on the lower level, called Foundation until renamed Surface. Within the club’s first year, each room had its own DJ booth and sound system, which could also be linked as one. Some nights there were separate parties on each floor, while on other occasions promoters booked DJs in each room.

This story is as much about the core events held at Roxy Blu as it is about the club itself.

Movement was one of the first parties to fill all four rooms on a monthly basis. The five men of Movement—Aki Abe, Jason Palma, John Kong, Nav Sangha (aka deejay Nav), and Simon Warwick (aka A Man Called Warwick)—had an enormous impact on Toronto’s underground music scene after they came together in 1998.

“We were tired of being marginalized to lounges or chill-out rooms,” explains Sangha of the impetus to join forces. “We all knew that people were playing the soul, funk, Latin, Brazilian, and jazz records we were into to much larger crowds in dance clubs around the world, and wanted to make that happen in Toronto. We’d all tried to achieve this on our own, but it took the five of us to gain that critical mass.”

“As DJs, we had quite dissimilar backgrounds,” adds Abe. “My first love was house music; I grew up playing the warehouse scene from ’89 to ’94. I was also Eugene’s first employee at Play De Record in 1991, when I was 19, and that’s where I met John and Jason, as they were regulars. I can’t think of anyone as obsessive about music as they were. Nav and Simon were pretty infamous in the collector’s scene; Nav was the skateboarding free jazz guy, and Simon just had records no one had ever heard of.”

Prior to Movement, Palma also worked at Play de Record and hosted radio show Higher Ground, Kong played in lounges and bars around the city, and Warwick and Nav did a funk, jazz, and Latin club night together called Tempo. Sangha also worked at two record shops, Driftwood Music and Rotate This. All five were devoted diggers.

Two of Movement’s five co-founders: Aki Abe (L) and John Kong (R). Photo courtesy of Abe.

“We all were DJs, but first and foremost we were passionate vinyl collectors, competing to find albums we’d never heard before,” emphasizes Abe. “It was a healthy competition, which evidently translated into a good party.”

They made this discovery after combining their networks and different skill sets to launch Movement in the back room of The Rivoli in late 1998.

“By the third monthly party, we had a line-up as long as Ikea on Sunday afternoons,” states Abe. “We moved it to Roxy Blu as a Friday monthly, which gave us a capacity of 1,400, and we maximized every sweaty inch of that space, not according to fire code.

“Roxy was everything you didn’t want in a nightclub, so it was perfect for us. Old wood floors were covered by Simon’s talcum powder, which originally was to help his knees when he got down on the dancefloor. Simon is a great dancer. Sixteen booming bass bins, which people would sometimes dance on, were scattered in the middle of the floor. We also had the best doorman in the city, Dan Toner, who resolved any issues with a huge smile.”

Walking into Movement was like entering another dimension. You never knew what you might hear, who you could end up dancing with, or what you might see. It wasn’t utopia, but it came damn close at times.

“Movement was about dance music, but not in the conventional four-on-the-floor nightclub sense,” describes Sangha. “It included the evolution of all forms of dance music, from folkloric African, Latin, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, and Indian music to jazz, blues, reggae, soul, rock, funk, disco, drum and bass, hip-hop, techno, and house. Basically, anything rhythmic could potentially work, yet there was always an underlying vibe that made a track a Movement record. It was really organic.

“We all took a lot of chances with the programming. The crowd made the anthems; they were really hungry for new music.”

The crowd’s appetite was fed not only by the Movement collective, but also by the DJs they booked. Roxy Blu’s capacity allowed them the budget to bring in collectors from other countries, including DJs and producers such as Gilles Peterson, Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive, Rainer Trüby, Snowboy, Russ Dewbury, Manu Boubli, and Nicola Conte.

“One Movement, the airline lost Gilles Peterson’s records and he ended up playing John’s without missing a beat,” shares Abe. “Gilles was happy enough to come back several times.

“Another memorable night was when Keb Darge came; we didn’t understand why he wanted a bucket in the DJ booth. Later, we saw him relieving himself while playing his thousand dollar singles since most of them are only three minutes long.

“Most of these guys were master selectors; they never cared about mixing techniques, but the night always flowed seamlessly,” Abe adds. “It was a treat to have other collectors spin their best. Believe me, we were the first ones trainspotting by the turntable.”

D4C crew at Movement. Photo by Robert M. Ben.

Roxy’s rooms also allowed Movement to book local and global DJs who played house, tech, and other electronic sounds that the core crew rarely touched. Abe mentions Nick Holder, DJ Stuart, Theo Parrish, Frankie Valentine, Faze Action, and Idjut Boys. Anything went, to some degree.

“We each had our own distinctive sound when it came to classic and old school records, but we would often fight over who would play the hot, new breaking tracks at a party,” says Sangha. “Except for Warwick; he always did his own thing. Given the opportunity, he would come behind the decks at peak time and drop something insane, like the string section introduction to a ’70s Indian soundtrack or a wildly obscure West African highlife record. He seriously did not give a fuck. I’m pretty certain he still doesn’t, which is what makes him so amazing and unique as a DJ.

“We really pushed each other to excel and break boundaries. I think that’s what helped to create a lot of the magic of Movement. We were all complete and utter record maniacs, and the music played truly reflected that.”

To illustrate, I ask Abe which songs he especially associates with each of his Movement DJ partners.

“John Kong: Lemuria’s ‘Hunk of Heaven’; Jason Palma: Roberto Roena’s ‘Que Se Sepa’; Nav: Buari’s ‘Advice From Father’; Simon Warwick: Charly Antolini’s ‘Atomic Drums’; and for myself: Alice Babs’ ‘Been To Canaan.’

“There was no YouTube, eBay, or cameras on phones at the time, so it was very difficult to track down most of these records,” reminds Abe, who has made it his living to find and sell vintage vinyl since opening Cosmos Records in early ’98.

“I don’t want to overreach, but the times at Roxy Blu were unequivocally spectacular, and quite unique in Toronto. We were able to showcase an array of music, generally played only in underground venues, to a mass audience. It’s a dream come true for most DJs, and we did it all on vinyl!”

Movement was a monthly fixture in Roxy’s calendar for most of the venue’s lifespan. Another Friday was devoted to Garage 416, produced by brothers Pedro and Carlos Mondesir of Hot Stepper Productions.

Pedro had started Garage 416 in September of 1998 with the goal of uniting a splintered soulful house scene. The party quickly outgrew its original 300-capacity home of Granite Lounge on Richmond West, as well as other venues including Bauhaus. The first Garage 416 at Roxy took place in June 1999 and featured the Toronto debut of New York deep-house DJ/producer Joe Claussell of Body & Soul.

“It took months to convince Joe’s team to have him play the party,” recalls Pedro. “That gig allowed us to further grow Garage 416 and to establish ourselves at Roxy for other events.”

This included Tony Humphries’ return to Toronto in September 2000 for the Garage 416 two-year anniversary.

“Like Claussell, it took a lot of convincing for Tony to accept my invitation, but for different reasons,” says Pedro. “The rumour was that Tony had ‘written-off’ Toronto. When I asked why, he said he felt that the city did not appreciate his style of DJing. After numerous calls and providing him with a list of DJs who had headlined Garage 416, I convinced him. The event attracted 1,500 people and was the largest Garage 416 at Roxy Blu.”

Between 1999 and 2003, Garage 416 also hosted more than 45 Toronto DJs—including Peter & Tyrone, Nick Holder, Ray Prasad, Mitch Winthrop, Kevin Williams, and Jason Palma—alongside resident crew Blueprint (Jason Klaps, Alan Lo, and Mike K). Pedro also DJed, as Moreno, from 2001.

DJ Spen (L) and Jerome Sydenham (R) at Garage 416. Photo courtesy of Hot Stepper Productions.

Garage 416’s impressive array of international house headliners included the first Toronto appearances by Norman Jay, Danny Krivit, Timmy Regisford, DJ Spen, Mateo & Matos, Jerome Sydenham, E-Man, Lady Alma, Kaskade, Ame, Dennis Ferrer, and others.

“Dennis had never played outside of New York before, and I was hesitant to book him initially,” admits Pedro. “I only booked DJs with true DJ skills to headline and never cared to book someone simply because they were a popular producer.

“I was a huge fan of Dennis’ music but had never heard him DJ. However, Jerome Sydenham, who had played Garage 416 several times, highly recommended him. The risk paid off; Dennis rocked the night [in September 2001], and I booked him to play again in May.”

Carlos points to François K’s first appearance at Garage 416, in June 2001, as another stand out.

“The power went out in the middle of his set. We had to call Amar’s father to come and fix it, that’s how DIY Roxy was. He did, and the night continued. People didn’t leave!”

Roxy Blu was a bastion of garage and house at a time when Toronto’s rave scene had exploded, and most clubs devoted to dance music either featured big room, harder-edged sounds or commercial hits. There was some audience crossover with clubs like Industry and The Living Room, but Roxy promoters consistently took us to the deep end.

Amar Singh (L), Junior Palmer and friends at Roxy. Photo courtesy of Denis Scher-McDowall.

Junior Palmer had launched his PhatBlackPussyKat parties as a Saturday after-hours at 488 Yonge in 1998. With core resident DJs Joe Rizla, Kaje, and Trini, the party ran for four months before moving to Foundation, below Roxy Blu.

“PhatBlackPussyKat was created to introduce more people to the deep, soulful sound of house music, which was what I grew up listening to at the Twilight Zone,” says Palmer.

“The thing that attracted me to Roxy at first was that it felt like you were in someone’s living room. I believe the vibe was so amazing there because everyone felt like they were at a house party with family and friends. No one cared about what someone was wearing. There was no posing or attitude.”

Palmer presented parties on both floors of Roxy over time. He booked a lot of local and North American talents, with one of his standouts being a night in January 2004 when he brought Byron Stingily and Frankie Feliciano in alongside Peter & Tyrone, Nick Holder, Angel & Cullen, and John Kumahara.

Byron Stingily presented by PhatBlackPussyKat. Photo by GarageHouseMusic.com, courtesy of Junior Palmer.

Frankie Feliciano (L), Junior Palmer, Barbara Tucker at PBPK. Photo by GarageHouseMusic.com, courtesy of Junior Palmer.

“The energy in the room was electric. There was a line-up down the laneway at 10 p.m., before the doors were even open.”

The Groove Institute DJs—Yogi, Mark, and Anand—played often, including at PhatBlack- PussyKat. As United Soul, the trio also produced and promoted the Solid Garage monthly on Fridays, spinning gospel-infused classics like Kenny Bobien’s “I Shall Not Be Moved,” Donna Allen’s “He Is The Joy,” and Jasper St. Company’s “Till I found U.”

No matter who was in on a Friday, Roxy-goers were guaranteed an eclectic mix of music and people. Promoters worked together to develop the schedule, and often there was collaboration.

The women behind College Street café and bar 52 inc., Kate Cassidy and Amy Katz, presented many unique events at Roxy, including a sold-out co-presentation of spoken word artist Ursula Rucker and massive fundraising parties dubbed Shake:Body, which featured close to 30 Toronto DJs and performers. 52 inc. also went all-out for their epic DJ Battles.

Ursula Rucker (L), Karen Augustine, Jemeni, and Shafiq presented by 52inc. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

“Doing those Battles was the stand out for me,” says Paul E. Lopes, who acted as referee. “The 52 inc. ladies rented crazy movie props for the night, including a huge trophy and life-sized side of beef. We wore boxing gloves and ref shirts, and everyone got a whistle and towel at the door. The energy was off the chart!”

Lopes also DJed at a number of events produced by milk. The crew, anchored by promoter Izzy Shqueir and resident DJs Felix and Gani, developed dozens of parties at Roxy between 1999 and 2003. Inventive guests like Howie B. and Bobbito were imported to play alongside locals including Movement’s Jason Palma, reggae selector Chris Harper, house producer Abacus, and Mod Club duo Bobbi Guy and Mark Holmes. Musicians such as sitar player Yoshi and soul-jazz star Ivana Santilli were part of milk.’s creative mix, as were visual artists including Eddie Figueroa and Andres Correa.

At Roxy, milk. also began to collaborate with promoters RNB, then the duo of Richard Brooks and Natalie Brown. RNB produced elaborate events that stood out, both because their promotion was exceptionally well designed, and they blurred the boundaries between deep house and atmospheric tech. Brooks DJed alongside fellow locals like Ali Black, Kenny Glasgow, Joe Rizla, Trini, and Abacus, and presented DJ/producers not frequently found on Toronto lineups at the time, including Kerri Chandler, Ron Trent, Glenn Underground, Rasoul, Mark Grant, and Alton Miller.

“Roxy was disconnected from the club scene, and catered to a deep and soulful vibe that was it at the time,” enthuses DJ/producer Brooks. “Fridays brought out a unique crowd, with many recognizable and friendly faces. The Friday parties had a lot of overlap.”

“The Friday night crews all attended each other’s events,” says Carlos Mondesir. “That’s how interesting it was; even though you’d done your gigs there, you still went back to the same space because other people were doing compelling things. The competition to impress with novel themes or great talent was very strong. We also knew that the market we were creating there brought in acts that were not viable in most cities in North America.”

Roxy Blu provided a home base, and an ideally sized space, for Toronto’s underground music communities to thrive.

“Interestingly,” comments Carlos, “I don’t think any of the major parties there actually started in Roxy Blu, so the ideas and people were already bubbling, but they were certainly amplified beyond everyone’s expectations in that space.

“Because of the frequency of different events, the certainty of a good turnout, and with at least three DJ stations, the promoters had the opportunity to book more local DJs. The various parties created a big momentum; a couple hundred people would show up not having any idea of who was playing, but they knew what kind of vibe to expect and that they would likely hear artists you couldn’t find in any other club in town. Or in most other towns, actually.”

Clockwise from bottom: Gilles Peterson, Rob Gallagher, Paul E Lopes presented by Hot Stepper Productions. Photo courtesy of Hot Stepper.

That large pool of Roxy regulars allowed promoters and DJs to take chances. It was like a positive feedback loop that resulted in a broad, loose knit community that was passionate about music and dancing. The starting point was the club itself.

“As soon as you walked in, you could feel that it was different from other clubs, more earthy, more genuinely about a type of music that drew you in and made you lose yourself,” recalls Scher-McDowall. “It was like a huge love-in, and everyone was welcomed and accepted.”

“The mix of people that came to Roxy was special,” agrees Junior Palmer; “It was a breed that all wanted the same thing—to hear great music, be around great people, and be free of judgement related to race, sex, style, or background. Everyone knew each other; it was like a family.”

“The crowd was mixed in every way, cool but unpretentious,” adds Mondesir. “We take for granted many things in Toronto, and one of them is diversity. Many clubs and parties don’t reflect it; ours definitely do, and Roxy definitely did. I always maintain that the crowd is as big a draw as anything else, and the flow of people, because of Roxy’s layout, added adventure.”

Adventure also came in the form of the people themselves.

Shaun Lowcock got involved in Roxy Blu before it opened, after meeting Singh in a course. A former currency trader, Lowcock had both business and bar experience. He helped connect Singh with investors, and worked as a Roxy manager from 1998 to 2003. Lowcock could not only fix almost anything on the fly, he was also smoothly social. He even met his wife on a Friday night.

“Working Fridays was a joy ’cause I got to meet and groove to my favorite DJs,” says Lowcock. “People were there for the music, and they were a great crowd considering there were up to two thousand some nights!”

Lowcock rattles off a long and incredibly varied list of faces familiar to him from Roxy nights. He mentions regulars who were in music, film, fashion, food, and design, including Nelly Furtado, John Hurt, Cheryl Gushue, Leslie Ng, Byron Dill, Corinne Lee, Johanna Black, and Jason Priestly, who sometimes arrived with Roots Canada co-founder Michael Budman.

“One time Michael showed up with Robbie Robertson. We found a quiet corner and shared a joint—perks of the job! NHL players Eric Lindros and Mats Sundin came a few times. The Hell’s Angels also showed up a few times and were some of the nicest people. [Porn star and producer] Jill Kelly was there one night. I had a great time chatting with her.”

Singh now realizes that the massive mix of humanity at Roxy was as it should be.

“Any business has its own personality, and if you get in the way of that personality, you’ll fail. The personality of the club dictated who the clientele was going to be. In the end, we got a nice hybrid; Fridays were the hardcore ‘Let’s dance’ people, while Saturdays ended up being a crowd that was somewhere in the middle of the Euro and the underground.”

Hot Stepper’s Carlos Mondesir with Stacey McKenzie. Photo courtesy of Hot Stepper Productions.

Who else played/worked there: “Saturday nights were totally different than Fridays, as the crowd was not the downtown underground scene, but people definitely knew their music or wanted stuff that was not being played on radio,” describes resident DJ Winston Thompson, who had also played at clubs ranging from Bauhaus to the early incarnation of Guvernment.

Thompson includes songs like Armand Van Helden’s “You Don’t Even Know Me,” Celeda’s “Be Yourself,” Jon Cutler’s “It’s Yours,” and “Fly Life” by Basement Jaxx as among his anthems of the time.

Saturday resident DJ Winston Thompson at Roxy. Photo courtesy of him.

“If people were at Roxy on a Saturday, they did not want cookie cutter Euro music. We were able to play great after-hours sounding tracks, but in prime time, with a splash of bigger songs. Tracks like Junior Vasquez’ “X,” which always made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when played on that sound system, were mixed with some of the bigger songs, like Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time.’

“Roxy took the pretention out of clubbing,” Thompson highlights. “At a lot of other clubs on Saturdays, the mainstream night, doormen would look you up and down to see whether you fit the image of their clientele. We offered a venue that was not pretentious in décor or attitude. We did not believe that you had to fit a certain mold; if you believed in having a great time with people no matter what colour or profession, and liked good music and good vibes, there was something for you on a Roxy Saturday.”

That ‘something’ also included the music of fellow Saturday night residents Gadjet, Mike Tull, and Tony Lanz, who played the Parlour and other rooms. Live drummers and percussionists – like iDrum’s Davidson, Vince Vega, and tireless promoter Chico Pacheco – added to the rhythms and vibe.

DJ Mike Tull in action at Roxy. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

Mike Tull DJed countless parties on Fridays as well, including Bump N’ Hustle alongside fellow resident Lopes. The release party for Paul E.’s beautiful Whatnaut: House mix CD on Virgin Music was at a Bump N’ Hustle in 2002, with legendary soul singer Gwen McCrae as guest. BNH brought some star power, hosting the likes of United Future Organization, Wunmi and Rich Medina, and Gilles Peterson with Rob Gallagher, aka Earl Zinger.

Hot Stepper also brought the beats to Roxy, from the funky abstracts of Ninja Tune’s DJ Food to partnering with REMG Entertainment on a hip-hop series called Doin’ It. Together, they brought in talents like The Roots’ Questlove, Jay Dee (aka J Dilla), Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and Maseo from De La Soul.

Junior Palmer later collaborated with REMG on a few events, including a night in February 2005 with Kenny Dope of Masters At Work on one floor and Questlove on the other.

PBPK and REMG collaborative productions. Poster courtesy of Junior Palmer.

“One was among the greatest house music producers ever, and the other in one of the greatest hip-hop bands ever,” Palmer emphasizes. “Two different crowds and two different sounds came together for the love of music. It was a great night, and a beautiful thing to see.”

The list of promoters and DJs who came together inside Roxy’s four rooms is longer than I could detail. Toronto’s healthy underground overflowed at the time. Community radio DJs, record shop staffers, independent label owners, and ’net radio talents alike packed Roxy’s DJ booths and dancefloors. Names like Alvaro G, Kevin Jazzy J, Jason Barham, Gene King, Ray Prasad, Dirty Dale, Marc de Breyne, Peace Harvest, Soulshack, Peter Bosco of GarageHouseMusic.com, Hubert K. of Beats.to, and my own appeared on numerous Roxy flyers. Blackmarket Records produced a number of events, including an impressive double bill in 2004 with DJ Gregory and Larry Heard.

“If you were looking for trance and techno, you were at the wrong place,” summarizes prolific producer Nick Holder, who played Roxy a lot considering his tour schedule had him in Europe more often than home.

“Roxy had a very soulful vibe, unlike a lot of other clubs at the time. The atmosphere was not like your typical nightclub; the crowds were mostly regulars who knew what the nights were all about, and the sound was pleasing to the ears. It was also a club that never had any dress code, and no asshole bouncers worked the door.”

Lineup for Shake:Body 2, presented by 52inc. Flyer courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

Yosh Hsuen led Roxy’s security team. Hsuen was consistently calm, cool and charming while Roxy’s door team was atypically friendly, whether greeting patrons, handling problematic situations, or handing out bottles of water at night’s end.

“The security team really understood what I was trying to create and the importance of making sure everyone had a good time,” Singh credits. “If my staff, especially my doormen, were your stereotypical goons, there’s no way we would have gotten the crowd we did. I let the pros take care of the music, and I took care of the service.”

“From the start, Amar had a vision of a nightclub that was service and hospitality driven,” confirms Scher-McDowall. “He wanted each drink served in seven seconds or less. He wanted the management and staff to form a line at the end of each night to say goodnight. There were so many wonderful staff members, and they all had their own special talents that contributed to the success of Roxy Blu.”

“I have to say that Roxy had the best management, door, and bartending staff that I have ever worked with,” commends Thompson. “There was very little turnover in staff, and I truly believe that was our backbone.”

“The staff was amazing!” Lowcock praises. “Franco was my best bartender, hands down. People would come just to be with him; we built the horseshoe shaped bar for Franco. Kelly Sommerville was perhaps the most energetic, vivacious bartender we had. She always had people dancing at her bar.”

Lowcock also gives props to bartenders including Caterina Salvatori, Karen Zeifman, Jimmy Vlachos, Kate Zenna (“A solid bartender and great actress too!”), and a barback named Colin (“He’s probably a computer genius coder now!”).

“Amar was sometimes tough to deal with,” allows Lowcock; “He’s a perfectionist, but he pushed people to be great, and it worked.

“In its heyday, Roxy was the place to be. We constantly had line-ups, though we were located in a part of Toronto, west of Spadina, that people had said would never catch on. Roxy Blu was a pioneer in the industry.” (Lowcock left in early 2003 to work at the Drake Hotel during its pre-launch and first year. He now lives with his family in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a transportation logistics specialist.)

The area Roxy was located in did, in fact, catch on. Within a few years of its opening, restaurants and bars dotted the neighbourhood. Today it’s teeming with entertainment options, but the environment is notably different than one of Roxy Blu’s trademark traits.

“Roxy fused music and people of different worlds together, and they had a great time,” says Thompson. “In clubland, that is not easy to do at all.

“In my opinion, that kind of magic—where all the right people come together for the right reasons and the stars line up—comes along once in a lifetime. I was truly blessed to be a part of it.” (Thompson later partnered with Junior Palmer to open Toika Lounge, though neither is involved now. Thompson still DJs on occasion, and proudly notes that he has “Two beautiful daughters, both with an ear for music that I strongly encourage.”)

Roxy staff Yosh Hsuen (L), Shaun Lowcock, Denis Scher-McDowell. Photo courtesy of Scher-McDowell.

What happened to it: Singh sold Roxy Blu in 2003, partly influenced by feelings post-9/11.

“I thought the world was going to hell in a hand basket,” he says. “Numbers on Saturdays had also dropped, and I was at a point in my life where I wanted to get married and have a child. I was involved in nightclubs for so long that I’d had enough.”

A trio of lawyers purchased Roxy, with promoters including Hot Stepper departing soon after.

“I don’t know the reason Roxy ultimately closed but believe it was because the passion was gone, and other clubs and restaurants in the area became more successful,” says Scher- McDowall, who left at the end of 2003 and went on to manage both Panorama Lounge and Sassafraz. She continues to work in hospitality.

Movement’s Aki Abe was among five partners who opened a nightclub named Una Mas up the street from Roxy Blu in 1999. With a capacity of four hundred, Una Mas focused largely on local DJs who played funk, disco, hip-hop, house, and related grooves. It provided another solid option for Toronto’s underground, as did College Street venue Revival, which opened in 2002.

The Movement crew left Roxy Blu for Supermarket in Kensington Market in early 2005. John Kong remains there for Do Right! Saturdays, named after the Do Right! Music label he founded in 2002. Movement split in 2007, but all members remain active in music. Aki Abe continues to run Cosmos Records; Simon Warwick is a painter who produces Turning Point parties devoted to rare tropical recordings; Jason Palma DJs, continues to host Higher Ground, and is a co-owner of Play de Record; and Nav Sangha is an entrepreneur who opened popular Parkdale nightclub Wrongbar in 2007, was co-owner of The Great Hall, now owns the Turnstyle Solutions company, and more.

Solid Garage, Boogie Inc., and Junior Palmer are among the names active at Roxy Blu until it closed in July 2005.

“Like every venue, Roxy had an expiry date,” says Palmer, who still produces PhatBlackPussyKat events and co-promotes the Do You Love House? series with United Soul. “People get tired of going to the same place every weekend. The area also started to change, and people from Richmond Street started coming to King Street to party. The bottle service craze started to creep into clubs, and things became more about what you wore and drank, and less about the music and sense of community.”

12 Brant briefly became 8 Restolounge and 8 Below. Today, it houses Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse, opened initially by Amar Singh and restaurateur Peter Tsebelis, Singh’s original partner in Bauhaus. Singh remains a minor shareholder in Jacobs & Co., and is now a network marketer, husband, and father to a young daughter.

“Some people started to wish for a comparable alternative space near the end of Roxy, but I always knew that they would look back with longing for a space like that in the future,” comments Carlos Mondesir, who continues to produce Bump N’ Hustle monthly at The Rivoli, as well as parties including Break For LOVE!, the occasional Garage 416 (with Pedro), and Hot Stepper Sundays on Cube’s patio in summer months.

“Nothing has taken Roxy Blu’s place. I think it’s a mistake to ever assume that a club will necessarily work in a different time and place, with different people and expectations. Roxy was right for its time.”

Thank you to participants Aki Abe, Amar Singh, Carlos Mondesir, Denis Scher-McDowall, Junior Palmer, Nav Sangha, Nick Holder, Paul E. Lopes, Pedro Mondesir, Richard Brooks, Shaun Lowcock and Winston Thompson, as well as to Izzy Shqueir, John Kong, Kate Cassidy, Robert Ben, and United Soul.

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

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.

After almost two decades of hosting the world’s biggest DJs, alongside some of Toronto’s finest, Canada’s largest nightclub recently closed doors to make way for condo development on the waterfront. With the participation of some of The Guv’s key players, Then & Now delves deep to tell the exhaustive story of a club that mirrors – and contributed greatly to – electronic music’s evolution. Rave on.

By: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Guvernment complex, 132 Queens Quay East

Years in operation: 1996 – 2015

History: Charles Khabouth has been mentioned throughout the Then & Now series as his influence in Toronto nightlife is widely felt. Khabouth’s earliest nightclubs, Club Z on St. Joseph and Stilife on Richmond, were pioneering in very different ways. Early in 1996, he began work on a wildly ambitious project, one so successful that it would both cement Toronto’s reputation as an international clubbing destination, and anchor Khabouth’s ever-expanding business empire. But things could have turned out very differently.

In the mid ‘90s, the stretch of our waterfront near Queens Quay and Jarvis was still fairly isolated and industrial. A stone’s throw from Lake Shore Boulevard, it held factories, parking lots and stretches of open space. Condos did not dominate the landscape.

The 60,000 square foot space at 132 Queens Quay East had housed large clubs in its recent past. From 1984 to late 1985, it had been home to the Assoon brothers’ innovative Fresh Restaurant and Nightclub. For the next decade, it was the location of popular club RPM and its sister concert space, the Warehouse.

When Khabouth took over the building on January 1, 1996 he couldn’t have known that he had almost eight months of renovating ahead. But he did know that he had to compete with Toronto’s then-booming, highly concentrated Entertainment District.

“I thought, ‘How am I going to compete with 50 nightclubs side-by-side downtown?’ Khabouth tells me during an expansive interview. “Kids would go to the one area and bop around all night long. I realized I had to do a multi-room venue or I had no hope in hell. That’s why I created five venues under one roof, plus the Warehouse, which really was a warehouse.” Though the Warehouse was already well established as a concert venue, Khabouth mainly attributes this to its size (Toronto has a dearth of such venues with a capacity of two to three thousand).

“There was nothing there,” he exclaims of the space; “There were not even any bars built. Instead, there were boxes that they used to stand up and roll out, with Pepsi-Cola beer fridges. There was no running water. There were columns in the Warehouse; I spent millions of dollars just removing five columns. I rebuilt the stage. An insane amount of money went into there.”

Khabouth’s pockets were not as deep in early ‘96 so he had to spend wisely. He hired Yabu Pushelberg, who had designed Stilife’s stunning interior, and asked them to work on a tight budget. As a nod to Stilife, there was a section of ceiling-to-floor chains installed in what would become the Guv’s main room, but little else was similar.

“They didn’t go all out, in terms of spending money, because they understood the situation,” says Khabouth of the designers. “So the aesthetics were cool, but there was no marble, no granite, no silver leaf ceilings. What we did was build some beds with fun fur, some furniture with bubble gum, purple, lime green and orange vinyl. We made the room sexy, but more of a fun space.”

The Guvernment in 1996. Photo courtesy of a Then & Now reader.

The Guvernment complex opened in summer 1996, with the main room and Acid Lounge off of it, Orange Room, The Drink, and a rooftop patio. This section of the building was licensed for a total of 1600 (over time, and with multiple renovations, capacity would more than triple).

People entered through a curved area, turning around a bend before walking directly onto the dancefloor. Where RPM’s emphasis had fallen on its huge bar in the middle of the room and stage along the east wall, which had a dancefloor sectioned off of it by railings, the Guv’s main room was all about the dancefloor. Bars surrounded it.

Most impressive of all was The Guvernment’s sound and lighting.

“I had the sound system custom made [by New York’s Steve Dash of Phazon]. All of the boxes, the mixing board, everything was custom made for us. We had the identical sound system until the end.

“I had hydraulic trusses – nobody had hydraulics back then – that went up and down, with moving lights. I also got a massive laser; at the time, it was the largest laser in Canada. I wanted the sound and the lighting to wow people. I spent a lot of my money there so that when you went in, you felt ‘Whoa!’”

More than 12 million people would come to be wowed at the Guv over time, but crowds did not flock there from the start. It took a while for people to even know it existed.

“My biggest issue was that by the time I opened, I was in a lot of debt,” Khabouth admits. “That thing was like the ocean; it was never-ending. You’d rip one wall out, and it would be rotted so we’d have to rip out the floor and the ceiling. And then there would be plumbing that had rotted, and electrical issues. It was layer after layer. By the time I opened, I was completely out of money to do promotion and marketing. There was no social media back then, remember.

“We opened in the middle of summer, when The Docks [now Sound Academy] had just opened, and they had this beautiful patio on the water. Cars would stop and ask us how to get to The Docks; they didn’t know we were open or have a clue who we were. It took about three or four months of hanging on to that massive building before we were up-and-running. When you’re supposed to have a few thousand people and you have three hundred, it’s scary.”

Guvernment main room interior in 1996, from a Boost & Titan Productions promo flyer.

Guvernment main room interior in 1996, from a Boost & Titan Productions promo flyer.

Why it was important: There are myriad reasons why The Guvernment (eventually to become known simply as ‘Guvernment’) was a significant venue in Toronto and beyond. Some were evident from its start, including Khabouth’s commitment to dance and electronic music.

Khabouth hired Albert Assoon, formerly of Fresh and Twilight Zone, as Guvernment’s first musical director. Early DJs included names familiar from Stilife, like Joe Marella and JC Sunshine. Still, it was a slow build.

A Saturday night appearance by Danny Tenaglia helped change that. Sound engineer Steve Dash, also co-owner of influential New York club Sound Factory, where Tenaglia played, suggested that Guvernment book him.

“I was like ‘Who the hell is Danny?’” chuckles Khabouth. “He was very much gay focused at that time; the straight market hadn’t caught on to him yet. What happened that night was really weird.

“By that time, we were attracting maybe a thousand people weekly. Then we also had a thousand or 1500 boys show up. When Danny went on, all the shirts came off. I had some people leave, asking ‘Is this a gay club? Is this a straight club?’ It was a funny, but good experience. Danny was so able to drive the sound system – he used it to its fullest and honestly, it was hair-raising.”

As luck would have it, Khabouth had also hired a new resident DJ to launch Spin Saturdays the following week.

Mark Oliver was already well established in Toronto, having played countless warehouse parties, and clubs ranging from the gritty and groovy (Cameron House, Tazmanian Ballroom) to larger and more polished (Klub Max, Go-Go). By 1996 though, Oliver was at the centre of our rave scene, having emerged from the dark rooms of 23 Hop (318 Richmond) to play massive productions.

“I was headlining pretty much every rave in town at the time, and was playing at Buzz, which is now Comfort Zone,” says Oliver. “Charles knew he had to go big with Guvernment, and questioned me. He knew I played the raves, and was probably concerned about all the things he’d been reading about that scene. He also wanted to make sure I would be able to play some of the more commercial sounding club tracks. I assured him that I’d played Klub Max before, and that I always play the room. I don’t like to cheese out all the way, but I do understand the usefulness of a good remix.

“I think Charles was still a bit nervous, but we set a date, which was in September of 1996. Danny Tenaglia had played the week before. From that Saturday until the end, it was packed every week.”

“From the first night Mark was there, I thought ‘Wow. This guy gets it,’” credits Khabouth. “Playing a big room is difficult. The sound has to be big, and the programming is totally different. Mark has an incredible talent. He never misses, never.”

Oliver had a deep appreciation of Guvernment’s sound system. “As a DJ, you want the best sound possible, and it was a dream come true,” he enthuses. “I knew with Albert there that it was going to be something special, based on his pedigree with Twilight Zone. The sound itself was pristine. The monitors matched perfectly to the dancefloor, so whatever you heard up in the booth was what people heard below. The DJ booth was still in the spot where it was at RPM, so it was pretty high up from the dancefloor, and quite removed, which suited me perfectly.”

Guv’s original DJ booth. Photo taken December 31, 1996 by a Then & Now reader.

Though there were occasional live PAs, with performances by vocalists including Gwen McCrae and Octahvia, Oliver played Guvernment’s main room “Every Saturday, from beginning to end, for the first five years.

“It was basically a rave, but there was a dress code,” Oliver describes; “So instead of wearing fun fur, everyone wore shirts that looked like they’d just bought them to get in the club. Then they tried to get them off as soon as they could. Any time there was a shirtless dude, three bouncers would make him put his shirt back on, at least back then.”

Ravers, in fact, were a big part of what kept The Guvernment complex afloat early on. Khabouth rented the rooms to rave production companies, which met everyone’s needs at the time. This helped a scene under scrutiny continue to grow, and paid some bills while word of the Guv spread.

“Basically, the City had jumped all over the rave promoters, and essentially sent the raves indoors,” recalls Jamil Kamal, who started working security at the Guvernment in 1996, and became Khabouth’s right-hand-man in all things risk management.

“The raves were forced into club venues, and Charles had the biggest one.”

Promoters like Better Days, Destiny, Hullabaloo, Kind, Renegades and Syrous took full advantage of the club’s potential. Some people grumbled about the move from warehouses, roller rinks and borrowed spaces to legal venues, but there were advantages.

“I wasn’t against the legal venues as they had proper plumbing, exits, alcohol for sale, and proper security,” says Marcus Visionary, local DJ, producer and drum ‘n’ bass ambassador. “Some people hated the legal events, but many of us embraced them because they were safe, and they were at less risk of being shut down.

“I loved playing inside the Warehouse as it felt like an underground venue, but much more secure. One of my favourite Syrous events was held there – the five-year anniversary [in 1998] with True Playaz, featuring Hype, Pascal, Fats and GQ.”

Syrous ‘Hyped,’ 5-Year Anniversary Party, 1998. Video by Rick Toxic. 

“Our Syrous five-year was one of the first raves where the entire complex, and all the rooms in it, was filled,” recalls Rob Lisi, a Syrous co-founder.

That same year, Lisi and fellow rave entrepreneurs Steve and Wayne Mealing (a.k.a. DJs Stretch & Hooker), Aaron Micks, and Tyler Cho formed Lifeforce Industries, an umbrella organization under which their Syrous, Renegades and Dose brands lived. Between 1996 and 2001, they produced about 10 parties at the Guv and Warehouse (Warehouse became KoolHaus in 1999, following renovations).

“I liked the fact that KoolHaus was an empty shell, and you could create whatever you wanted with it,” says Lisi. “You could have parties there every week, and make them look totally different. The main room on the other hand was already operating as a nightclub. The design and décor were impressive, and the sound system and DJ booth were second to none at that time.

“For the more established promoters, the Guvernment complex was the only game in town. Until we started producing events with 10 to 15 thousand people, and growing into venues like CNE and The International Centre, there weren’t a lot of large, legal venue options in the city. The Guverment’s location meant it was far enough from residential neighbourhoods that you wouldn’t get 20 sound complaints in a night. The capacity of the whole complex was also attractive to promoters because you could accommodate 5000 people, with the potential to program different genres of music in each room.”

The multiple rooms and distinct experiences they offered was always one of the venue’s biggest draws. Khabouth understood how to maximize these differences to create a unique whole.

“I had worked security at clubs like Joker and Big Bop, both of which had multiple floors and DJs, but it was always the same demographic moving from floor to floor,” describes Kamal. “What I really appreciated about Guvernment in its beginning was that you had this incredible complex that catered to completely different crowds.

“Other than the Acid Lounge, every room had its own DJ booth, entry, washrooms, coat check and identity. It wasn’t just ‘The hip-hop room of the Guvernment.’ People would say ‘I’m here for the Orange Room.’ There were people who went to The Drink for years, and never ventured elsewhere. They drove in from the suburbs, went up to The Drink in their dress pants and shirt, and never went downstairs.”

The Orange Room. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

The Drink was Guvernment’s VIP space. In the RPM days, the room had been where people went to play pool and gaze out at the lake. Khabouth boarded up the windows, courted light controversy by putting in fish tanks for tables and lining one wall with a shelf of dildos, and hired smart, attractive people to decide who got in.

Zark Fatah, now partner in Capture Group, was one of those people. He had worked at RPM as a go-go dancer, got hired as an early Guvernment bartender, and promoted various rooms at the club before heading to Miami for a stretch. When he came back in 1999, Fatah worked door at The Drink.

“My thing was bringing in the more fashion forward, mature demographic,” Fatah says. “To get in to The Drink was not easy; you had to look a certain part, and cover charge was higher. The Drink was that next level of clubbing.” “

The Drink catered to the suit-and-tie, cigar-smoking crowd,” summarizes Oliver. “The Leafs used to come after their games. Mats Sundin used to hang out there. It was the hot spot. Although you could walk back and forth, that crowd stuck to The Drink and the ravers stuck to the main room.”

Friday nights at The Guvernment also attracted a variety of people to the different rooms. The crowd was largely gay for well over a year, with DJs including Cory Activate, James St. Bass and Matt C playing alongside out-of-town guests. Guv was known to be very gay friendly, with Boy’s Life events, Prism parties, and other special events in the overall programming mix.

DJ Clymaxxx at Global Fridays, 1999. Photo courtesy of him.

Early in 1998, Global Fridays launched as a new weekly. DJ Clymaxxx, known for his signature three-turntable sets (the xxx represents three turntables) and for packing The Joker nightclub for two years’ of Fridays, became a Guv main room resident. DJs Kid C, Dave Campbell and Baby Yu (now official tour DJ for Young Jeezy) joined him, while G-Money played in The Drink, Toney Williams MCed, and people like Neil Forester (now owner of the Substance Group) hosted.

“We called it ‘Global Fridays’ because we wanted to cater to everyone,” explains DJ Clymaxxx. “It was Latin upstairs in The Drink, classic tracks in the Acid Lounge, and a different music format in each room. The main room was straight urban, with R&B, hip-hop, dancehall, and even some soca.

“Urban music was starting to blow up in the mainstream again, but back then you could only really listen to R&B and hip-hop at much smaller venues. A lot of club owners worried about touching an urban night, but then, Charles was never typical. He took a chance on bringing the format into the main room for a weekly. In the process, he captured a massive audience that wanted to experience an urban party in a world-class club environment.”

From 1998 to 2004, Global Fridays packed the Guv, with a range of big-name guests, like Funkmaster Flex, Cipha Sounds, DJ Clue, and DJ Who Kid adding to the vibes. Clymaxxx got crowds pumping to the sounds of anthems like Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones Pt. II;” M.O.P. featuring Busta Rhymes’ “Ante Up”;” Notorious B.I.G. “One More Chance;” Jay-Z “I Just Wanna Love U,” and 112’s “Only You.”

“The Friday night crowd was extremely passionate about music,” says the DJ. “Thousands would jump up and down, chanting lyrics in unison, and go absolutely nuts. I could literally feel the room shake. That’s another thing that was so different about Charles: where other club owners would tell me to calm it down because the crowd was getting too fired up, he relished the crowd reaction. He would routinely walk into the DJ booth during prime time, inspect the absolute pandemonium going on below, then tell me to kick it up a notch and make it crazier.”

DJ Clymaxxx (left) with Charles Khabouth in 1999. Photo courtesy of DJ Clymaxxx.

“The Guvernment was a spectacle every night, and Charles made it that way,” confirms Kamal. “It was a testament to his vision. People will ask ‘Can you learn what Charles does?’ Operationally, sure, but you can’t learn what he’s created. There’s no book that can teach you that. He can look at a room and turn it into something special.”

Khabouth’s genuine love of dance music fed into that vision. The success of many full-facility raves only added to his belief that electronic music should figure prominently in the Guv’s programming.

“I saw where the music was going, and where the kids were going,” says Khabouth. ”The music was great. My biggest thing in life is that I like to do what I enjoy, and I loved this.

“I used to have a baseball cap I’d keep in the back, and when I put it on, the staff would know I was going to dance. I’d go in the middle of the floor, and dance. I wasn’t thinking ‘How much money did I make tonight?’ I was thinking ‘This is awesome!’ Of course I want to make money, but I was driven by the music, the energy, the kids that got all dressed up to come out, the costumes. It was an era when people came out and had an incredible time.”

In some ways, it’s both impressive and amazing that a venue the size of Guvernment remained committed to an electronic music format on Saturdays for its entire history. There was a period in the very early 2000s when Toronto’s rave scene fractured, the audience for the music shrunk, and the parties moved into more intimate club settings. Guvernment also had to compete for crowds and talent with newer clubs like System Soundbar and Turbo. The guaranteed big room draws weren’t as plentiful then as they would become less than 10 years later, as EDM became all the rage in America.

“It was risky [to focus on electronic music] then, in every way,” says Khabouth. “We had cops harass us; the music wasn’t very commercial, radio wasn’t playing it. Even though we did big numbers sometimes, it was still very much an underground scene. We took a lot of chances.”

DJ Mark Oliver at Guvernment circa 2007. Photo by André M Photography.

Spin Saturdays remained popular, with Mark Oliver at the musical helm. His vantage point allowed him to see a lot more than the crowds; Oliver also observed as touring DJs came to expect the spotlight.

“The first five years, it was just me playing all night, and then we started bringing in more guests, especially after Industry closed,” Oliver recalls. “I remember that some of the guests, instead of having the gooseneck lamps pointed down at the turntables to see the record grooves, they turned them up towards themselves and put them on full blast. They wanted everyone to see them. It soon became evident that a lot of these DJs wanted to be down on the stage, so [in 2007] the room was renovated significantly.

“The original stage, along the east wall, became bottle service – that whole thing was coming into play so they needed to create booths and tables – and the stage itself was moved right into the middle. The DJ booth was put on hydraulics so you could lower it right down. That way the superstar DJs could be front and centre, and when there were concerts, the booth could be lowered underneath the stage.”

Early guests included a number of British DJs, like Carl Cox and Paul Oakenfold, who had played huge Toronto raves as well as at Industry nightclub, but weren’t yet household names across North America. Guvernment was impressive to them.

Paul Oakenfold in Guvernment DJ booth circa 2004. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

“For the first few years that guests were coming in, guys like Sasha and John Digweed would say ‘This is the best club in the world.’ It had that reputation,” says Oliver.

“A lot of times, they would tour through the States and play Toronto before going back to Europe. This was before the EDM explosion so they were playing all kinds of weird venues in the U.S., like country bars and stuff. Then they’d come in to Guvernment and be blown away. Some were shocked, like ‘This is better than Ibiza!’”

Oliver missed less than 10 Saturdays during Spin’s long run (“Firstly, I have four kids so I wasn’t going to travel all that much. Also, touring DJs would say to me ‘Why would you go anywhere else?’”). His perspective as an 18-year resident at the largest club in Canada meant he was not only witness to trends in big room club music, but also to changes in DJ styles and skills.

“We started off with Danny Tenaglia, Junior Vasquez, David Morales, and guys who’d been spinning for years,” explains Oliver. “They were true DJs. Then it seemed that anyone who put out a track was a DJ, and many just weren’t. They were producers, and they’d come in and try to DJ, but it would fall apart. A lot of the crowd became less discerning.”

Over time, and with a lot of EDM producers’ reliance on concert-like production values to enhance the impact of their massive beats and dramatic bass drops, crowds also came to expect a show rather than a steady flow of sound through the night.

“For a lot of the younger crowd, it can be more about ‘What’s this DJ going to do visually to turn me on?’ rather than sonically,” offers Oliver. “Some people would look at me and say I was boring because I wasn’t raising my hands and striking poses. But I’m actually working, putting a set together on the fly. Guys like John Digweed, it’s the same thing. His head is down most of the time, focused on what he’s doing. Others would come in with sets all pre-programmed on Traktor or Serato; they were all about the interaction with the crowd. It seems to be split these days; half the crowd is into that while the other half is deeper into the music. I just stuck to my guns and played what I play.”

Digweed DJing Guv main room at Labour of Love in 2005. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Steve Aoki with Bloody Beetroots. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Afrojack at Labour of Love 2010. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

No matter where one stands in relation to this divide, or your personal tastes in electronic music, there simply is no denying that both Guvernment and INK Entertainment, the company Khabouth founded as an umbrella organization for his multitude of clubs and lifestyle projects, book the biggest name in the biz. Avicii, Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, Tiësto, David Guetta, Hardwell, Steve Angello, Above and Beyond, Deadmau5, and so many more of today’s top tier touring DJs have played the Guv, many of them multiple times, including early in their careers.

“People say it’s because we throw a lot of money at talent,” says Khabouth of INK’s access to agents and bookings. “I think we pay less than most people do. We’ve been there since day one, and there’s a certain commitment from the managers, the DJs – that ‘Hey, these guys were booking us when we were 500 bucks.’

“If another player comes to town tomorrow, who doesn’t have the relationships, but they had a hundred million dollars, they couldn’t book the same talent. Why? Because we have those relationships, those partnerships, friendships, and understandings. With us, they know the production will be quality, and that we’re going to fill the room. Then you’re building somebody’s name and career.”

INK and the Guvernment have also remained leaders in the electronic music industry through sheer size and volume, with ownership of club venues past and present including This Is London, Cube, Uniun, and Dragonfly in Niagara Falls, not to mention festivals such as VELD. Khabouth also gives credit to INK’s Music Director, Talal Farisi.

“Talal has been with us for 13 or 14 years, and he definitely has his finger on the pulse. He’s 24-7. He’s got a good ear for finding talent, finding who is up-and-coming, and for building incredible DJ lineups.”

In turn, people such as Zark Fatah, who now co-owns clubs such as Maison Mercer, credits Khabouth. “Guvernment put Toronto on the map globally,” Fatah states. “What Charles did was provide an amazing platform for some of the best DJs in the world to come and play our city. In North America, we are one of the few cities that sees the talent that we get.”

There is no question that the Guvernment’s bookings are a big part of what earned the club its international reputation as a place to play, for DJs and clubbers alike. Guvernment regularly ranked well in DJ Mag’s annual Top 100 Clubs lists, reaching as high as #8 in 2008. The club’s design, constant refreshing, and Khabouth’s well-established attention to details also played a big part.

Chroma (formerly the Orange Room). Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

“I’ve traveled to Ibiza and all the big club destinations around the world, and I still find Guvernment to be impressive,” says Fatah, also an avid photographer and prone to observing minutiae himself. “It was unique, with so many offerings. Design and details were always very important to Charles, and he definitely had the creative vision to push the envelope, and do what he thought would be cool.

“He didn’t have to brand five different rooms, but he did. And then he would renovate and reinterpret each room every few years. A lot of club owners get complacent, and don’t change anything until it gets to be necessary. Charles has always been very progressive in his thinking.”

“I would simply describe the space as world class,” agrees DJ Clymaxxx. “There really was nothing comparable in the city. I’ll always remember the look of awe on people’s faces when they walked into the main room for the first time. I saw that reaction a lot over the years; it was the same reaction I had. Because of Charles’ continued reinvestment in the venue, the club always felt fresh.

“There was a certain ‘it factor’ about Guv – something that just made it feel totally different from any other club in the country,” adds Clymaxxx. “If you ever found yourself in the middle of a packed dancefloor there at 2:30am, blinded by the lights, and with the speakers pounding, you probably know what I’m talking about.”

Who else played there: Although this article largely focuses on the Guv as a significant home for DJs and electronic music culture, it must be said that the complex hosted bands, productions, and music of all types.

Hundreds of artists played on the Guvernment stage, such as Daft Punk, Brand New Heavies, Macy Gray, Jungle Brothers and Le Tigre. The Warehouse and KoolHaus were host to thousands, with a tiny list including David Bowie, Prince, INXS, Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Coldplay, Chemical Brothers, The Knife, Portishead, Prodigy, Underworld, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Kings of Leon, Chromeo, My Bloody Valentine, Broken Social Scene, Foo Fighters, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Roots, and Lykke Li.

Lykke Li at KoolHaus. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

KoolHaus also got a workout during the Guv’s many full-facility long weekend events, like Labour of Love and Decadence. The room continued to be of importance for junglists as Theory events often spilled over into the space.

Theory was a drum ‘n’ bass series that ran from 2002 to 2009. Launched by former Guvernment talent booker Jose Rodriguez, Theory was co-produced and anchored by Toronto DJs Tasc and Marcus Visionary, with Mr. Brown, Clancy Silver, Frankie Gunns, and others later coming on as co-residents. The full spectrum of dnb and jungle was represented through Theory’s seriously stacked lineups.

“At one point, Theory was the largest dnb company in the country,” says Visionary. “We booked most of the big names over the years. We had Fabio on the rooftop, Andy C and Shy FX in The Drink, Mampi Swift in the Gallery, and several massive raves in KoolHaus and the Guv main room. We also had Die and Krust play a back-to-back set in The Drink, which was very memorable. The Drink was a long, not-so-big venue that would get rammed, and the energy was always so incredible! I also can’t count how many times we had Hype, Calibre and Fabio inside the Orange Room.

“The Guv complex most definitely played a massive role in the development of dnb,” adds Visionary, who continues to DJ and produce prolifically, tours Europe regularly, and now broadcasts twice monthly on British radio station Kool London.

Marcus Visionary (left) with ShyFX at Theory. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Theory in KoolHaus. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass.

DJ Hype in KoolHaus. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Over the years, Theory also presented dnb giants like Grooverider, LTJ Bukem, Photek, Kenny Ken, Suv, Bryan Gee, TeeBee, Calyx, Zinc, and the Digital Soundboy crew. Jungle and drum ‘n’ bass was also well represented throughout the Guvernment’s history by Destiny’s Projek: series, Soul In Motion’s many events, and shows produced by the likes of Toronto Jungle, Sonorous, and On Point.

As mentioned earlier, Guvernment was also a favoured venue for large gay productions.

Prism party (2012). Photo by Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko.

“Revival, the closing party for Pride Weekend, was always the best gay event there,” enthuses Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko, who worked at the Guv for more than 10 years, first doing décor and then as a lighting technician.

“The late DJ Peter Rauhofer did Revival year-after-year for the thousands of men who filled the dancefloor. I will always remember the sunlight flooding in when the patio doors opened at 6am. The party never ended before 9am!”

Korittko mentions a number of other DJs he loved to work alongside, including Ferry Corsten, Paul van Dyk, Gareth Emery, Simon Patterson, Ashley Wallbridge, and Markus Schulz.

Markus Schulz at Guvernment in 2009. Video by Kotsy. See more Kotsy videos from The Guv here.

“The Guvernment set the standards for nightclubs in Toronto,” says Korittko. “No one could compete with the size of the place or the talent that was booked. International DJs called it their Canadian home, and produced tracks named after the venue, and its intersecting streets.”

That said, Toronto talent was also at the Guv’s core. Early on, when each room had its own distinct sound, DJs like George William, James K., Gio, and Dave White were residents. Dave Campbell, Iron Mike, Greg Gow, DJ Aristotle, and others bounced between rooms over the years. Countless local DJs, myself included, played at varying stages of our careers. The Guvernment was a place many aimed to play, and where some built reputations.

DJ/producer Sydney Blu falls into both camps. Known for her love of house and high energy behind the decks, Blu had played clubs like 5ive, Element, It, Mad Bar, Comfort Zone, and System Soundbar before she landed a residency at the Guvernment complex.

Blu started playing at Guvernment in 2002, when she proved herself to be up for long sets and tricky set-ups. Her first Guv gig was playing for the more than 10,000 people who walked by her during the seven-plus hours she mixed vinyl outside the club, as part of that year’s Labour of Love event.

“Charles called, and asked me to come play for the lineup in the parking lot,” Blu recalls. “They put a DJ booth with turntables outside, and I played for every single person who walked into the club.”

By 2005, Blu had played a variety of Guvernment events, as well as at other INK-owned venues. She had a successful Saturday weekly at Film Lounge when she was asked to be a Guv resident at Gallery, a new room set to open.

“I knew Addy, Deko-ze and Nathan Barato were coming, and thought it would be amazing for us all to be residents of the same party,” recalls Blu. “The first night Gallery was unveiled was Halloween 2005, with Steve Lawler. The walls were red velvet, with a giant gazelle head hung over the DJ booth. That gazelle was the Gallery’s signature mascot.”

Sydney Blu in the Gallery. Photo by Sasha Niveole, courtesy of Sydney Blu.

Original flyer for Gallery. Courtesy of Sydney Blu.

Deko-ze in Gallery, 2008. Photo by André M Photography.

From 2005 to 2008, Gallery was a major draw on Saturdays for clubbers into house and techno. Along with Blu and the core crew, Toronto DJs including Simon Jain, Carlo Lio, Evan G, JayForce, Joee Cons , Ovi M, and Tim Patrick tore the room up. Activate was a core promoter of the room, helping to bring in touring DJs such as Donald Glaude, Anthony Attalla, Heidi, Jesse Rose, Paco Osuna, and others.

“It was a dark, hard, afterhours sound,” says Blu of Gallery Saturdays. She lists Mark Knight’s “The Reason;” DJ Chus’ “That Feeling;” DJ Exacta’s “Flippin;” Noir’s “My MTV,” and her own “Give it Up for Me” on Mau5trap as personal anthems of the time and space.

“The crowd was hardcore, I’m not gonna lie. Bottle service did not work in that room; those people had one goal, and that was to dance like no one’s watching! The room’s energy was really electric. The DJ booth was completely level with the crowd so everyone was equal, and everyone was there to unite, and go nuts to the music.”

Similarly, local duo Manzone & Strong established themselves through a tough, tight techno and house hybrid sound that made Guvernment crowds go mad. Joe Manzone and Fab Strong started as residents in The Drink in 2002, played the infamous Skybar sunrise sets, alongside DJs including Dubfire, Benny Benassi and Steve Lawler, and ruled the Gallery on Saturdays during the late 2000s. In 2010, the versatile duo became main room co-residents, with Mark Oliver.

“We have opened up for almost every big name international DJ, and we’ve played a different set every time,” write the duo of their collective approach to mixing. “Nothing is ever pre-programmed or planned. We are very good at reading crowds, and adapt quickly as the energy and vibe changes. Ultimately, it’s always house music.”

Joe Manzone and Fab Strong with Mark Oliver in 2002 and 2015. Courtesy of Manzone & Strong.

Manzone & Strong (middle) with Deep Dish. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Manzone & Strong appear at a variety of INK venues, but the Guv was especially close to their hearts, partly because of the talent booked. I asked them to talk favourites.

“Danny Tenaglia has always been an inspiration to us, both as a DJ and a talented producer. Known for his legendary marathon sets and quirky stage antics, he’s one of the very few who will bring a smile to your face while you dance to his beats. Deep Dish are giants. It’s amazing to watch them fuse different genres together while adding their own twists into the mix. John Digweed is another legend, and one of the nicest guys in the business. He’s a true gentleman and one of the smoothest mixers you’ll ever hear. His sets are always so advanced.”

One of the things about Guvernment was that you never knew who might show up. Prince was spotted many times. Harrison Ford took in a KoolHaus concert. Numerous Raptors’ players were said to be regulars.

“I used to love playing Skybar, on the rooftop,” says Oliver; “We did fashion events on Thursdays, with full-on fashion shows and a proper runway. One night I was playing, and Jamiroquai got up on the runway and started moonwalking in these gold Adidas trainers. It was completely unexpected.

“Another night, Mick Jagger had his 60^th birthday in Tanja, next to the Orange Room. The Stones were all there with their families. A lot of them came up into the DJ booth to hang out, and get up to some mischief.”

“Guvernment was always the highest standard of club in Toronto,” says Blu, who left the city for Miami in 2010 and now lives and works in Los Angeles. “Guvernment was an unstoppable force; there was nothing like it, and people knew about it all over the world.”

On the Skybar patio, circa 2007. Photo by André M Photography.

Who else worked there: No matter how high its production values or unique its rooms, Guvernment wouldn’t have been as successful without its teams of workers.

“I think it had a lot to do with the people Charles chose to work with,” says DJ Clymaxxx, now a star on-air mix show DJ at Toronto’s KiSS 92.5. “From management to staff, from DJs to promoters, Charles was able to identify people who shared his passion – and then let them do their job. That’s a great quality of successful leaders.”

“Charles knows what he’s doing, and has high standards,” confirms Oliver. “He attracts the best people in their fields. When you look at other clubs around town, most of the more experienced staff worked for him at some point.”

Case in point is Fatah and his Capture Group partner Ralf Madi. While Fatah worked The Drink in the late ‘90s, Madi promoted the Orange Room, main room and later produced the iDream events. The two met at Guvernment 16 years ago, and now own venues including Everleigh, Blowfish, and Maison Mercer together.

Chris Schroer and his now-husband Steve Ireson also worked together at Guvernment. Ireson – a nightclub veteran integral to venues including OZ, Go-Go, Industry and 5ive – promoted Boy’s Life and other parties at Guvernment while Schroer started as a busboy in 1998, and was later hired by Khabouth as a Creative Manager.

“It was my job to make sure the tech staff knew what was going on, that the go-go dancers were on time, that the DJs were feeling it, and the sponsors were happy,” says Schroer, who developed marketing ideas as well as concepts for décor and installations.

Former Guv Creative Manager Chris Schroer (right) with Frankie Knuckles. Photo courtesy of Schroer.

Guv lighting tech Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko (right) with his partner Jason Nardari.

Schroer, along with Jenn Woodcock, Alex Korittko and his then-new boyfriend Jason Nardari, came up with fresh thematic décor each Saturday for years. Guvernment’s longtime Technical Director Tom Doyle, early video artist Theo Buchinskas, and dance coordinator Pilar Cote also played integral roles in bringing Schroer’s installation ideas to life.

“Sometimes we would drape the entire KoolHaus in giant tank parachutes or white sheer curtains, and transform the whole space,” Schroer recalls. “We’d also come up with complete custom lighting rigs just for one night.

“Some of my favourite themes include the seven-year anniversary party when we chose ‘super hero.’ In KoolHaus, Tom installed a massive wall of par cans on stage. I worked with a comic book illustrator to create giant comic book panels about the Guvernment. Go-go dancers danced in front of video screens that projected videos of them, creating a feedback loop. In the main room, we installed a giant post-apocalyptic junk yard set, with about 20 used TVs embedded in pieces of twisted metal, with giant pipes steaming out fog. Capoeira dancers with big mohawks battled it out on stage, and Sofonda Cox did her impression of Storm from X-men. Deep Dish said it was their favourite installation at the time.

“Once we hung 300 candles from the ceiling of KoolHaus for a show with Frankie Knuckles and David Morales. Another time, I created a DJ booth out of scaffolding in the ceiling of the KoolHaus entrance that Sydney Blu played in. It was a little rickety, and Syd had to climb scaffolding in her heels, but she was a champ about it. Once, for a gay event sponsored by Benson & Hedges, we created a gold ski chalet themed stage set. I got our male go-go dancers to stage a fake porn shoot throughout the set, which was projected onto screens.”

Comic installation from Guvernment 7-year. Photo courtesy of Chris Schroer.

Schroer now co-owns Dundas West restaurant The Hogtown Cure with Ireson. Pilar Cote lives in Detroit where she DJs and makes music.

Both General Manager Peter Johns and Tech Director Doyle worked at Guvernment for its entire history, and at RPM before it. Doyle, who’s been in the biz for more than 30 years, having done lights and production for a variety of bands and worked at clubs also including The Diamond and Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven, has an observation about Khabouth.

“The most shocking thing about Charles, compared to RPM’s management, was how much money he spent,” says Doyle. “The Guvernment’s lighting was very high end and quite advanced, compared to other venues, But I noticed over time that it didn’t matter how much lighting you have; if the music is not good, lights look like crap. Lighting enhances the music, and it should always be that way.”

Lighting techs working in a large club have a unique vantage point. While they’re matching lights, lasers and more to the music, they’re also paid to observe how crowds respond to the experience.

“Doing lighting at the Guv over the years, I have lived the evolution of EDM,” states Korittko, who echoes a point made earlier by Oliver. “Back when I started, it was all about the music and the experience. It was never about who was spinning, it was what they were spinning.

“In the last six years of EDM, clubs have had to change. To me, social media changed the purpose of clubs; they became [more like] concerts, with stage-focused lights, DJs placed front and centre, and huge video walls. It’s amazing to have been involved during this transformation and evolution of the scene. I will always remember and wish it was like when I started, but do embrace the change and future of lighting.”

Guvernment Technical Director Tom Doyle (left) with DJ Aristotle. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Guvernment Audio Tech Tim Cromey (left) with photographer Shaya Golbabaei. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass.

Both Korittko and Doyle also make mention of Audio Tech Tim Cromey.

“Tim was Mark Oliver’s personal DJ tech,” credits Doyle. “Tim set up all the DJ rigs for artists over the last eight years. He worked his ass off.”

As for Khabouth, he is quick to praise Jamil Kamal and his security team.

“Handling thousands of people who’ve been partying and drinking, and partying again can be a nightmare. For me, music was my number one focal, but security was right up there. Jamil has played a huge role. He’s shaped and secured a big part of what we do.”

Kamal is very aware of security’s heightened significance at a venue the size of Guvernment, and of the public’s mixed sentiments.

“Security is a hard job that’s not very appreciated,” Kamal acknowledges. “There were a lot of people who were very critical, especially of our search policy.

“We always had a lot of people, and wanted to get them in quickly and safely. The searching became a problem when people got more sophisticated in how they hid their drugs, which was also the time when GHB exploded in Toronto. The girls were taught to go behind the waistband of pants, and shake the legs if people were wearing baggy jeans, and to go into the bras. People complained because it became a much more invasive search, but we did it for people’s safety, not because the staff was ignorant or getting off on it.”

Now Director of Risk Management for all of INK’s properties, festivals and events, Kamal started at Guvernment very close to its beginning, and is quick to mention other door staff who worked at the club for most of its history, including Roy, Omar, Young-Ho (who opened his own martial arts training studio), and security manager James Hwang.

INK’s Director of Risk Management Jamil Kamal (left) with Charles Khabouth (centre) and longtime security staffer Roy (right). Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass.

“Most of the staff was there for quite some time – we figured an average of eight years – so it was very family like,” says Khabouth. “There were 250 to 300 people working every weekend. The Guvernment and KoolHaus employed 275 people. The last night we were there, we had 46 people doing coat check. There were 83 security staff. We had 42 bars. It was an army.”

Many of the people interviewed mentioned family-like connections. For some, the Guv literally led to family.

“I met my wife there when she was working cash part-time,” says Kamal. “Now we have three children. One son learned to ride his bike in KoolHaus.”

“Guvernment has been part of so many people’s lives for so long,” says Oliver. “There are people who went there pretty much every week for a decade or more. People have met, and then later gotten engaged there. Whole generations grew up at the Guvernment.”

“The Guvernment nightclub had people who went every week like it was church,” emphasizes Syndey Blu, who has toured the globe since leaving Toronto, and now has numerous projects on the go, including her debut artist album to be released on Dutch label Black Hole Recordings this spring. She returned to play twice at Guvernment in the last year, including a jammed Gallery reunion in January.

“I have lived all over North America now, and I still have never seen a venue as big, or with as many rooms, as Guvernment. It was an adult mega complex, a playground with the best music this city has heard.”

At Labour of Love, 2009. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

What happened to it: Unlike many nightclubs, Guvernment did not close due to lack of business. When it was made public almost a year ago that the 2.8-acre piece of property the complex sat on had been sold to a developer, there was shock. The club was packed every weekend, its influence still widely felt.

“The Guvernment set the bar in terms of sound, lighting and design in Canada,” states Rob Lisi, who went on to co-own Turbo nightclub, and created Benson & Hedges Goldclub series, which toured top international DJs across the country. After seven years spent working in Switzerland, he recently returned to Toronto to join INK Entertainment as Director of Marketing.

“Guvernment was the largest indoor nightclub, and the most successful nightclub in Canada, bar none. Guvernment was a must-play venue for the biggest DJs in the industry, while also giving local acts a stage to play on. It played a major role in supporting electronic music, and never changed direction on Saturday nights. It just evolved with the music, which is pretty remarkable. Many may scrutinize, but few can accomplish what the Guvernment was able to achieve.”

Unfortunately, Charles Khabouth was unable to buy the property. He did manage to get a year’s extension on his lease. INK went all out in booking many months of special events and top draws. The club’s closing weeks included names like Deep Dish, Danny Tenaglia, DVBBS, and Zeds Dead. The final weekend (January 23 to 25) featured Armin van Buuren, Knife Party, and Deadmau5 in the Guv’s main room, along with Manzone & Strong and Mark Oliver (KoolHaus closed out January 31 with a pre-Carnival performance by soca act Kes the Band).

Oliver, deservedly, got to play the final set inside Guvernment on January 25^th, partly due to the insistence of Joel Zimmerman a.k.a. Deadmau5.

“I remember the first time he came to the club; he wasn’t Deadmau5, he was Joel, and was keen,” says an appreciative Oliver. “He still is. Joel has a lot of respect for Guvernment, and for me.

“Closing night felt like a dream, mainly due to the amount of love and emotion in the club.“

Deadmau5 on closing night. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

Mark Oliver with his new gold-plated decks on closing night. Photo by Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

That night, before the Deadmau5 set began, Zimmerman and members of the Toronto Rave Community presented Oliver with gifts purchased as the result of a crowdfunding campaign: a framed gold record and pair of limited edition, gold-plated Technics 1200 turntables.

Oliver played on the decks that very night (“They won’t be sitting in a trophy case. I’ll be playing on them forever.”), as he rounded out the eve with an all-vinyl set, which kicked off with classic crowd favourites including “Give Me Love” by Alcatraz, and the Tim Deluxe mash of Layo and Bushwacka’s “Love Story,” featuring Julie McKnight’s poignant vocals from “Finally.”

“At 7am, the place was still packed,” describes Oliver; “It didn’t look like a single person had left the entire night.”

Oliver rounded out the final set with “A percussive techno version of “The End” by The Doors,” and a white label 12-inch that incorporates the melody from “Con te Partirò” by Andrea Bocelli. First though, Oliver’s son Declan sang the operatic pop song, translating to ‘time to say goodbye,’ a cappella.

“There were about 1700 people in the room when Mark’s son started to sing,” recalls Khabouth. “The room went fucking silent. 1700 clubbers silent at 7:15am. People were taken by it. They wanted to be there until the end. That was really touching.”

Khabouth then brought things to a close, playing the 15-minute Patrick Cowley mix of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

Closing night video by Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko.

“Closing night was one of the most emotional days of my life,” says lighting tech Korittko; “It was like losing a family member. It was the first time I went down to the floor and danced in the middle with people who were customers, and had became close friends over the years. Toronto, North America and even the world have lost one of our best venues.”

Demolition of the Guvernment complex began in February, with much of the building now reduced to rubble. In its place will eventually stand a massive new waterfront development, with a mix of condos and office towers.

Demolition of the Guvernment complex, February 2015. Photo by Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko.

Demolition of KoolHaus in progress. Photo by Kurtis Hooper.

(Kurtis Hooper has documented the tear down and demolition in detail. Visit here for more photos.)

Oliver has accepted the change, and puts the events in perspective.

“It’s nice to have had a beginning and an end, much like the sets we weave,” says the DJ. “It’s like the rave scene; I saw it grow from a very small number of people to 15,000, and now VELD [INK’s signature electronic music festival] has 60,000-plus people. To have been there from ground zero is quite special.

“I think it came full circle,” Oliver observes; “We were at the peak of the rave days when The Guvernment opened. Now, the rave scene has evolved, and there’s a whole new generation.”

The question becomes: where will this new generation now go to soak up electronic sounds in Toronto? There’s no single answer, of course, as there are many shades of electronic dance music. Deeper takes on house and tech have steadily risen from the underground to influence pop music (think Disclosure, Keisza) and EDM (David Guetta and Steve Aoki are now also producing deep house) alike, but there are new sounds and trends emerging constantly.

The range of venues we have in Toronto reflects this. Soulful spots like Revival and the Assoon brothers’ Remix lean toward house music’s warehouse roots. Clubs like CODA, Ryze, and, to some degree, Maison Mercer are homes for the underground and emergent, particularly on the house, tech and techno fronts. Spaces including Wrongbar, The Hoxton, and Mod Club are important, but more eclectic and event driven.

These venues, and others, may see some spillover as the more musically adventurous among Guvernment’s regulars venture to new spots. But in the end, Khabouth is most likely to maintain his audiences through the booking of established electronic music DJs at a variety of INK Events and INK-owned clubs, including Uniun, Cube, and Product. INK also partnered with Live Nation to co-present both the Digital Dreams (June 27) and VELD (August 1-2) festivals this year.

There’s no doubt about it – big beats are big business, and INK has top billing.

Tune! (2007). Photo by André M Photography.

“To be honest, nobody can take the talent that Charles has been booking because Talal and INK have such a lock on so many of the best DJs in the world,” says Fatah. “I don’t think another venue is gong to be able to steal their thunder. It will just be a temporary break.”

(For those keeping track of Toronto clubs-turned-condos, Fatah also revealed that the building Maison Mercer is in has been to sold to a developer, and will eventually open as a condo hotel. Maison’s lease is up in March 2016, though Fatah does expect an extension.)

Khabouth, who is set to open his own Bisha Hotel and Residencies where Klub Max once stood, is a notoriously restless businessman so it comes as no surprise that he has some other big plans.

INK now owns Polson Pier venues including Sound Academy (formerly The Docks), Cabana and Solarium. They will close on April 1^st for extensive renovations. Before the year is out, a brand new event space will emerge there, complete with new name.

“I want to give the city a state of the art, next level of both clubbing and concert venue,” says Khabouth. “I’m focusing on design, comfort, making sure we have better air quality, the smell in the bathrooms not being there, stupid little things.

“The sound is going to be awesome. We’re doing the best we can so that from anywhere in the room, you can see the DJ or band. We’re raising the floor in the back of the space. We’re looking at where people enter, and where they go. There are bathrooms in every corner. I’m looking at everything, including service. I want people to walk out saying ‘That was a great experience.’”

I’m told we can expect great innovation, both inside the club and out. Hint: you’ll be able to take in city views all year ‘round.

Khabouth has also spoken broadly of a massive club he hopes to open before the decade is out. Though this plan appears far from firm at the moment, it calls to mind something Mark Oliver said.

“There are so many great DJs coming into town, and huge demand for club music in Toronto. In the short term, smaller clubs should thrive as there will be 3,000 people out there that aren’t going to Guvernment. I think there will also be a huge club – even bigger than Guvernment. A lot of DJs who used to play Guvernment regularly outgrew it. Look at Armin Van Buuren, Avicii or Deadmau5 – they’ve had to go and play stadiums. I think a club that could hold 10,000 people could be busy every week.”

Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: there will always be new generations of clubbers looking for places to call their own.

Thank you to participants Alex ‘Billy’ Korittko, Charles Khabouth, Chris Schoer, DJ Clymaxxx, Jamil Kamal, Manzone & Strong, Marcus Visionary, Mark Oliver, Sydney Blu, Rob Lisi, Tom Doyle, Zark Fatah, as well as to André M Photography, Elaine Quan, Kotsy, Kurtis Hooper, and Tobias Wang of VisualBass Photography.

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

Article originally published April 29, 2014 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

In the mid-1980s, the Queen-and-Bathurst area was a wasteland—until this multi-floor/multi-genre dance-club rocked the corner to life, and shifted the future course of Toronto nightlife in the process.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Big Bop, 651 Queen St. W.

Years in operation: 1986-1996

History: The heritage building on the southeast corner of Queen West and Bathurst has long been a prominent marker in Toronto’s collective consciousness. Originally known as The Occidental Building, it was built in 1876 for the Toronto Masons, and was the work of Toronto-born architect E. J. Lennox who also designed Old City Hall, Casa Loma, and more than 70 other buildings in this city.

The south-east corner of Queen and Bathurst, circa 1928.

In 1948, the upper part of 651 Queen St. W. was demolished and the address opened as the Holiday Tavern. The Holiday was a dinner club, complete with stage shows, including jazz and R&B bands. Later, the Tavern would become known as a beer hall and strip club. An attempt to revive it as a live-music venue was made in the ’80s, with bands like The Shuffle Demons holding down residencies.

It was also during this period, specifically in 1984, that the largely white building underwent a neon, new-wave makeover by Toronto artist Bart Schoales, who was commissioned to create both interior and exterior murals.

The Holiday Tavern gets Bopped. Photos by Ira S. Cohen.

The ultimate credit/blame for this paint job has widely been bestowed upon the Ballinger brothers, four farm-boys-turned-club-impresarios who arrived in Toronto after achieving great success in Cambridge, Ontario. There, they had converted an old pizzeria into the highly successful Ballingers Danceteria and Videotheque. But the Ballingers–Stephen, Lon, Douglas and Peter—did not turn their attention to 651 Queen St. W. until 1986.

“We had sold Ballingers in Cambridge in 1984 for $1.5 million, after purchasing it five years earlier for $200,000,” Lon Ballinger divulges by email.

“We bought an old building at 666 King West, on the northeast corner at Bathurst, and had just finished recreating it as a fashion-display building when Douglas told us he noticed the old Holiday Tavern, which had just been redone by some other guys, had closed. This was February of 1986.

“At that time, we needed to make money, so we rented the Holiday for $9,000 a month, and spent the next four months getting it into shape. We opened the Big Bop on June 26 of 1986. I was then 35, Steve was 36, and Douglas was 28. Peter, the fourth brother, was more of a small, quiet partner.”

It was a much different time at the corner of Queen and Bathurst. While it may be difficult to believe today, there was very little nightlife on Queen west of Spadina. Bathurst marked the gateway toward a deeply impoverished Parkdale. It was not a likely location for a large nightclub to gain mass appeal.

“It was, in a sense, the dividing line between civilized world and a kind of insanity,” says Boris Khaimovich, a doorman who had worked security at clubs in New York as well as at The Copa.

“There was also Galaxy Donuts across the street from us. There was the worst Mr. Sub on the corner, an old cigar store near it, and Mr. Pong’s was down the street. It was simplicity at its best and worst.”

“We wanted to do a club that embraced the area,” offers Lon Ballinger. “It was tough, full of winos and drug addicts. Being young and mischievous, we thought to ourselves, ‘Let’s make this area like Disneyland for adults,’ so we sold the Bop as the four-storey funhouse in the part of the city that never sleeps.”

Very quickly, the multi-tiered Big Bop drew capacity crowds, with line-ups around the block and down to Richmond. The Ballingers had their calling card.

Bop promo image courtesy of Joey Santaguida.

Why it was important: At the time of its opening, the Big Bop was one of very few clubs in Toronto that could hold 1,000 or more people.

“As far as mass appeal, mainstream clubs went, there were only five or six at the time,” Khaimovich recalls. “The competition was The Copa, RPM, The Diamond, and then there was the upscale Berlin at Yonge and Eglinton.”

The Bop distinguished itself through a number of key factors, including multiple floors, wonky layout and décor, and a range of music not then heard under one roof. The Ballingers were pioneers of the large, multi-level dance club in Toronto.

“We came up with the idea of using all the floors from our growing up in the sticks of Ontario farm country, where our Mom and Dad had moved their brood from the city of Toronto so we could grow up knowing nature and how to work hard,” says Lon Ballinger. “Parties during our teen years involved going to big old country farmhouses where we flirted with cute girls and smoked pot while moving from room to room.

“The Big Bop was [planned as] a dance club for everyone who loved pretty kids, great music, and lots of well-priced booze. It was built to offer a complete interactive party that was to take up every room in the building with either dancing or visual effects—from the basement coat check area with strobe lights flashing off and on within the paint-splattered room that freaked everyone out, to the to the black lights and neon waterfalls [painted by Floria Sigismondi] on the third floor.”

Big Bop promo goods, Photo courtesy of Joey Santaguida.

There was nothing subtle about the Big Bop. Pink lights shone brightly on the army-green walls of the first floor, also adorned by painted murals of the Jetsons and various oddities. A long bar lined the room, which boasted a black-and-white checkerboard floor and a DJ booth placed above two small stage areas where crowds could strut their stuff.

“The Big Bop was big, bold, colourful, and audacious,” summarizes Avery Tanner, the man who would be mostly strongly associated with that DJ booth. “It rank of beer and scotch, and the walls were puke-green. The sound was adequate and the lights meagre, but the vibe was palpable.

“When you walked into the building, even during the day, it was like entering the whale. She seemed to have a life of her own. The dark winding staircases and the tangle of little tiny lounges on the third floor made it like the maze of Minos. It would be so packed that it could take you a half hour to move from floor to floor.”

Adds former Bop security man Krafty Brown, “You could wander from the brightly lit main floor into the flat black and day-glo stairwell, up a set of stairs and come out in this large black room with a wall of TVs to your left, behind the bar. If you went up the other stairs, you would have the option of a third floor, with more day-glo, and a tiny room with a fountain that was attached to a larger room with no music, but couches to chill in.”

Brown, a musician, DJ, sound tech and security man, has worked in clubs since the early 1970s, when he started as a busboy at the Colonial Tavern. He later played in the house band at The Cheetah club (formerly Mrs. Knights), and “worked as everything, but a waitress—the job I really wanted” at Yonge Street hard rock club The Gasworks. Brown still worked there when he landed the security job at Big Bop in summer of 1986.

“When Doug Ballinger hired me, he took me to every little space on every floor, even to the unfinished part of the basement, which he left open to the public with no or very little light,” recalls Brown. “It was a doorman’s nightmare, but he told me if I found people in there to ‘just make sure they are having a good time.’”

“The mentality that the Ballingers had toward their patrons was simplicity at its best,” confirms Khaimovich. “‘Get ’em in, get ’em drunk, get ’em to dance.’ It felt very much like a frat-house party. The décor resembled that as well, including a bunch of broken chairs and couches, with springs sticking out of them. There was a kitchen that served pizza. It was a party. It was boys and girls and booze and music.

“Once I said to Doug, ‘You know, we’ve got these two doors at the front. We should open them both up for traffic flow,’ and he said, ‘No Boris, no. You want to have the kids rubbing up against each other as they’re squeezing into the door.’ That’s the simplicity. If a customer complained, it was met with ‘Have a beer.’”

Crowd at the Big Bop. Photo courtesy of Joe Santaguida.

The Ballinger brothers couldn’t have cared less about courting the cool kids. Their priority was to create fun without pretense.

“We came from no money, had no education, and no one ever lent too much help or good advice,” says Lon Ballinger. “We always felt confident in our imaginations, our work ethics, our sense of playfulness, and our fun-loving attitudes. We knew instinctively that people just wanted fun and fantasy, and we gave them what they wanted.

“We boarded up the windows, and the doors offered no signage. That approach caused so much good controversy, just like the way we were the first club to ever open only 20 hours a week. We knew from the experience we had picked up at Ballingers that the best way to make money and keep costs low was to concentrate the hours, so we opened from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. [last call at the time], four nights a week.

“We recognized that Wednesdays could have a low cost and college-crowd vibe, so we called this night Depression Wednesday, and charged $2.50 admission and $2.50 for drinks. It was a huge hit. Thursdays were Ladies Night, with free admission and free drinks till midnight for the girls. Friday and Saturday were just off the hook. All the local kids gravitated to our madhouse of fun.

“Within six months, we were making $60,000 per week and it was costing us $15,000. We had line-ups to get in that were two city blocks long. Needless to say, we thought we were pretty special.”

Those lineups had a great deal to do the Bop’s wildly varied mix of music, divided by floors. Without a doubt, the club’s star was resident Deejay Avery Tanner, who rocked the first floor Wednesdays through Saturdays.

Tanner had DJed his way through university, promoted events, and worked at both incarnations of Domino Klub. He’d even installed sound and built the DJ booth at Domino’s Yonge and Dundas location. After he quit there, Tanner thought he was through with DJing.

“Then I heard that the new owners of the Holiday Tavern were looking for a ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll DJ,” Tanner tells me. “I had been a record collector before a DJ, had all of the music and always loved the classics. It felt like a natural fit. I put together a mixed tape and went in to introduce myself.”

He was hired in April of 1986 to help install the Big Bop’s sound and lighting, and then set its scene musically for most of the club’s years.

“It was the Ballingers’ idea to do a multi-level club with rock ’n’ roll on one floor and dance music on another,” says Tanner. “Their plan was to play ’50s and ’60s rock on the first floor. I told them I was concerned that it would be a sort of ‘house of oldies’ cliché, and thought it should appeal to youth and have an edge. That’s why we played Memphis soul like Booker T, psychedelic rock like The Zombies, blues like Muddy Waters, odd stuff like Mungo Jerry, and groovy stuff like David Essex. Of course, there was also plenty of Doors and Stones to keep it rocking.

“It soon became clear that we needed to play the ’70s—Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Blondie, and funk and disco, too. It was a musical history tour every night. Over time, even early ’80s stuff like Billy Idol and The Cult became nostalgic enough to enter our vocabulary, but when the grunge thing hit, it was time to pull out the stops. We had come of age, and we played everything. That’s just the way it was.”

The Bop’s second floor featured dance music—disco, new wave and early house. It was daring to feature such a range under one roof on a nightly basis.

“It was unheard of,” asserts Tanner. “Clubs either played one music or another, and there was no mixing of styles or crowds until we opened. In fact, no one played rock at all. After the Big Bop’s success, clubs all over downtown started playing rock ’n’ roll.”

“We knew we had a superstar on our hands with Deejay Avery Tanner,” says Lon Ballinger. “He grabbed his collection of ’50s and ’60s music, cut out a big DJ booth, and became the heart and soul of the Big Bop.

“Avery told me once, ‘You guys may have built the Big Bop, but I am the Big Bop.’ He was right. The girls came from near and far to see this mad little man DJing, drinking, and playing air guitars. He was bigger than any rock star could dream of.”

An entertainer as much as he was a DJ, Tanner was known to leap about to songs while singing along and playing toy instruments. The crowd danced directly below.

“My booth was a cut out in the wall, like a puppet theatre, and we put on a good show if I do say so myself,” says Tanner. “I would climb out onto the window ledge, and the girls would stroke my hair like I was Adonis. It was as close to being a rock star as you can get without actually being a rock star.”

Tanner had a comrade and “right-hand-man” in this revelry: lighting operator Joe Santaguida.

Joe Santaguida (left) and Avery Tanner in the DJ booth. Photo courtesy of Tanner.

Santaguida, who’d grown up at Queen and Bathurst and keenly watched the transition of the Holiday Tavern to the Big Bop, became a regular at the club soon after it opened. In 1988, Tanner invited him to do lights. They became a duo act.

“Avery and I had a routine for every song, to entertain the people,” says Santaguida. “We were not just DJs; we were showmen, and the crowd knew us as a team. People came to the booth to dance and party with us; our job was to take requests, hang out, dance, and drink! It was absolutely amazing to look out and watch the crowds rocking along with us.”

Those crowds were heavily skewed to college and university students, but with a healthy mix of neighbourhood locals, Queen Street artists and musicians, and others who packed the place.

“All the hockey players used to come right after their games, and hold court in the back,” says Lon Ballinger. “Wendel Clark, Lanny McDonald, Steve Thomas, and many others got ogled and probably much more.

“There was a lot of sex and romance in the air, and this too is what made the Big Bop so special. You might very well meet the girl or boy of your dreams; my cousin met his wife there, as did my brother Douglas. We had so many beautiful girls and handsome young men there, wanting to meet each other, and all of this music and attractiveness. It changed the rundown old neighbourhood for the better. We were very proud of the Big Bop, and how when you entered through the only door that ever opened to the public, we were all equal, one people under the spell of the music and love.”

Nadya Swyrydenko and Gregory Hewitt behind his first-floor bar. Photo courtesy of Hewitt.

Who else played/worked there: The Big Bop’s success soon paved the way for other Ballinger clubs in the city, including Boom Boom Room, Rockit, Go-Go, and The World. There was a heavy overlap of staff between Ballinger venues, most obviously so with DJs.

James Vandervoort a.k.a. James St. Bass first made his name as resident DJ of Boys Nite Out at the Boom. He recalls filling in for DJ Debbie Rottman, then the Bop’s main second-floor resident, many times during 1989.

“Debbie was a classic-alternative DJ, but she knew her dance-music history,” says Vandervoort. “She was a very experienced DJ who coached me to beat-mix New Order, Depeche Mode, and Pet Shop Boys’ records. I learned so much from her; she was my first DJ mentor, and first to support my ambitions and make me try harder to spin better. ”

Vandervoort also associates the likes of The Cure, Violent Femmes, Tones on Tail, and Erasure with Big Bop’s second floor, and highlights a song both he and Rottman played: New Order’s “Fine Time” (Silk mix). (Vandervoort went on to become a resident DJ at clubs including Go-Go and Limelight, and hosted CIUT’s pioneering HardDrive dance music show. Rottman is deceased.)

Other DJs heard over the years on the Bop’s second floor include adventurous early resident Cam Gavin, and dance-music dons including Jason “Deko”Steele, Kevin Williams, and Mark Micallef, who also organized a DJ record pool. On the first floor, Mr. Pete was a regular fill-in for Tanner, lighting man Joe Santaguida later became a resident DJ, and Trevois Mais a.k.a. DJ Tex rounded out the roster.

Originally, the third-floor lounge did not have music, but after a bar was built and busboy Gregory Hewitt was promoted to tend it, he provided the tunes.

“I bought a portable CD player, brought in an old stereo, and started playing my own music,” recalls Hewitt. “I played a lot of Kraftwerk and a ton of disco.  It was a slow start up there, but I eventually had a bunch of amazing regulars.”

Hired by the Big Bop’s first general manager, Michael Ibrahim (now owner of Club Abstract in Kitchener), Hewitt also went on to bartend on the Bop’s busy main floor, and was among an early wave of Bop staffers comprising artists, musicians, and other performers.

“I don’t know what it was with the staff of that time, but we were a very, very tight family,” he describes. “It was a large collection of downtown music and arts people, most involved in numerous projects outside the Bop.”

Big Bop staff Shawn (right), Michael Ibrahim, Kerry McInerney. Photo courtesy of Gregory Hewitt.

Hewitt points to examples including Floria Sigismondi, who worked one of the Bop’s beer bars before becoming a renowned video- and filmmaker. Teresa Roncon was an early waitress, and left the Bop to appear as a host on CityTV and then MuchMusic. Actress, model, and visual artist Bridget Griggs bartended along with the likes of Hobie Post, Kerry McInerney, Linda Parent, John Tench, Cheryl Butson, Cristy-Jane Byrom, Jenn Chycoski, Nadya Swyrydenko, and Julian Finkel.

“Julian had the best long hair in the club, maybe even in the city, but that wasn’t his draw,” says Hewitt of the one-time bartender who now owns Kensington Market boutique Model Citizen. “He was one of those people that women and men were just drawn to. His personality and presence was magnetic. Miles Roberts was another bartender and fantastic human being, not to mention a brilliant singer, dancer, artist and bloody hilarious. [Roberts now lives in Vancouver.]

“Lola a.k.a. Carmel Debreuil was also a bartender. Even though she wasn’t there for long, she left an impression. She was known to stand up and straddle the beer bin to dance to her fave songs. She also wore a lot of bustiers and bras when she worked, and sometimes we would use make-up and draw fake areolas to draw more guys to her tub for beer sales. That still makes me laugh.”

As for Hewitt himself, he left the Bop after being fired suddenly.

“The Ballingers believed I was stealing,” he reveals. “I was kind of devastated as I’d given my everything to that job, and why would I steal—I was making heaps of tips. I would often forget to pick up my paycheque for weeks at a time.”

Hewitt immediately landed a bartending job at rival club RPM, and turned down the Bop when he was offered his job back just days later. He also worked at The Phoenix before moving on to work in television. Hewitt is now a social-media consultant with TheGregoryProject and blogger at GET Out! Canada.

Other Big Bop staff of note includes barback Bruce McCallum, later a familiar face at both Sneaky Dee’s and The Horseshoe; musician and animator Crawford “Crocky” Teasdale, then a lighting man; and doorman Anthony Reffosco, who later worked as general manager at Go-Go before opening his own Power nightclub.

Big Bop T-shirt. Photo courtesy of Joey Santaguida.

Ian Michael Shaw was a well-experienced bar man by the time he was recruited from a managerial role at Yonge Street’s Hard Rock Café to act as the Bop’s general manager. He came on board late in the club’s history, in 1993, when the Ballingers had already moved to New York to run Webster Hall (more on this shortly).

“[I was hired] when the Ballingers had divested themselves of everything in Toronto except the Boom and the Bop,” says Shaw. “They sent a promoter named Martin X up from New York to breathe some new life into the joint, and he recruited me.”

Though the Ballingers were no longer onsite, one major factor did not change.

“I used to tell my staff that we sold sex, and everything else was just dressing,” states Shaw. “Sex. That’s what people came for, to let the hair down, party and maybe meet Mr./Ms. Right or Right Now.

“We got people all hot and bothered and sent them home together. Often, they couldn’t wait to get home, and got nasty with the staff on the spot. There was sex behind the bar, in the DJ booth—the DJ booth was like a fucking porn set, ridiculous—in the office, the coat check, the VIP, even on the freakin’ fire escape. It was like a working in Led Zeppelin’s hotel room.”

Krafty Brown, who worked at three additional Ballinger clubs before DJing at Limelight, tells a simple story that corroborates the above.

“My son was conceived at a Big Bop Christmas party. He is a 24-year-old working DJ/tech in Toronto.” (Brown himself now resides in Ottawa where he DJs, produces, and plays music.)

Not only did the Ballingers change the corner of Queen and Bathurst with their Big Bop, they changed people’s lives.

“I think we put a lot of fun and clean play into that area,” offers Lon Ballinger. “As the years went by, it gentrified.”

Outside the Bop. Photo courtesy of Joe Santaguida.

What happened to it: The Big Bop began to suffer after the brothers Ballinger moved to New York in 1992, where they operated Webster Hall.

“When I found Webster Hall, I told my brothers that the Big Bop was heading to NYC,” says Lon Ballinger. “We took a lot of our Canadian experiences with us, and all the little tricks we had used to lure people into our Toronto clubs worked so easily in NYC. Avery joined us when we opened, and he helped us rock NYC to the rafters as well.”

From October 1992 to July 1993, Tanner flew between cities to spin. Joe Santaguida DJed at the Bop when Tanner was not there, and became the full-time first-floor resident after Tanner re-located.

Santaguida’s blend of classic rock, soul and R&B kept the crowds coming for quite some time, but by 1993 only weekends were regularly packed. Pool tables were added to the club, Wednesdays were closed, and Thursdays were re-formatted.

“We opened a new night called Rock 175, where all floors went rock,” says Shaw, before adding that “Avery was the heart and soul of the Bop. Joey and Tex did a good job of following his act, but the Bop never had the heat it did when Avery was there.” (Shaw later bartended at Bemelmen’s, and now works in remote expedition travel.)

The Bop’s slowdown had at least as much to do with a major shift in Toronto’s club scene, as the multi-floor format the Ballingers had pioneered was put in play at many clubs located in the then-burgeoning Entertainment District.

People flocked to newer venues like Joker, Whiskey Saigon, and Limelight, which was managed by Boris Khaimovich. (He later was a partner in System Soundbar, and now works the door at Rock ‘n’ Horse Saloon in addition to operating his Maple Crescent Farm.)

Joe Santaguida during his DJ days at the Bop. Photo courtesy of him.

In 1994, the Big Bop began its decline in earnest.

“The Ballingers had moved on, and were neglecting the Bop,” says Santaguida, who quit in late 1993, but continues to speak fondly of the club. “Their focus and resources were 100 per cent on Webster Hall, and they just let the Bop run its course. I remember going back in 1994 to check out the club a couple of times, and it had changed dramatically. All of it—the music, people, and pace had slowed down.” (Santaguida is now a stay-at-home dad, raising two kids with his wife, who he met at the Bop more than 20 years ago.)

The Big Bop went into receivership in 1994, and sputtered its way through the next year-and-a-half to two years. Though he would not confirm the exact closing date, Lon Ballinger did offer some details.

“My brothers and I suffered a complete financial meltdown. We lost everything we owned in the real-estate collapse that took place in 1989 in Canada. We were builders as well as fine club operators. We lost 10 buildings; one of them was the Big Bop. This was a very painful time for us.

“I thank the people of Toronto for the great times we had, and for always supporting our clubs. I have so many good memories of Toronto.”

The Ballinger brothers, along with their 10 sons, now run multiple venues in New York, including multi-room lounge and live-music venue Slake and The City Beer Hall in Albany.

After more than 40 years of entertaining, Lon Ballinger says, “We want to put on our tombstones, ‘They made ‘em dance.’”

“The Ballingers are remarkable people, and a fascinating story,” says Tanner, a resident DJ at Webster Hall until his return to Toronto in 2012.

I ask him the secret of his success in working with the notoriously hot-blooded brothers for 25 years.

“Patience, and a cast iron liver.”

The history of the Big Bop does not end there, however. In part two of this story, we’ll examine its rebirth in the late-’90s as a live music venue.

Thank you to participants Avery Tanner, Boris Khaimovich, Gregory Hewitt, Ian Michael Shaw, James Vandervoort, Joe Santaguida, Krafty Brown, and Lon Ballinger, as well as to Ira S. Cohen and Sue Waller.

The post Then & Now: The Big Bop, part 1 appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published September 17, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

One of the largest and longest-lasting gay dance clubs in Toronto, this Sherbourne Street super-club went through a number of evolutions as it spurred the local mainstreaming of gay culture during the ’80s and ’90s.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Boots/Boots Warehouse, 592 Sherbourne St.

Years in operation: 1981-2000

History: The story of Boots, one of Toronto’s best-known and longest-lasting gay dance clubs, begins in 1980 at the Waldorf Astoria apartment building. The basement of what was once a hotel at 80 Charles St. E. was rented to a group of men; their first incarnation of Boots proved popular enough that there were noise complaints. The lease was not renewed.

The original Boots on Charles Street. Photo by Joan Anderson,
courtesy of the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

By late summer of 1981, Boots re-opened in another lower-level location, this time at 592 Sherbourne St., site of the historic Selby Hotel. Once a grand mansion, the building was constructed in the late-1800s, and was home for more than 20 years to members of the wealthy Gooderham family. In 1910, a large addition built on the rear of the mansion opened as Branksome Hall, a private school for girls.

The Selby. Photo via Upper Jarvis Neighbourhood Association.

The mansion became a hotel in 1915. Ernest Hemingway and his wife took up temporary residence there during the 1920s while the writer worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. The address is also said to have housed a brothel, and a popular licensed establishment in the 1950s named the Skyway Lounge. By the 1970s, it was in decline—however, Boots’ best-known co-owners, Rick Stenhouse and Jerry Levy, were not deterred by the Selby’s rundown state.

“Rick and Jerry were part of a group of businessmen that had individual interests in a number of enterprises,” explains Brent Storey, a Boots regular-turned-staffer who soaked up a great deal of the Selby’s history from stories told to him by two long-serving bartenders and the building’s handyman of four decades.

“Jerry was best known for the Club Toronto [bathhouse], while Rick also owned Crispins and Buddys [later the Bijou] at Gerrard and Church [as well as the Bourbon Street jazz club and dinner theatre at 180 Queen St. W.]. Boots was really Rick’s place.”

Ads for establishments owned by Rick Stenhouse, circa early-1980s. Image courtesy of Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

The Selby’s rear sub-level was large, and divided into multiple areas, some of which had already operated as taverns and other social spots. This allowed the owners to open a lounge space, dubbed Bud’s, alongside Boots.

“Bud’s was in what had been a men’s draft hall, named after one of the original bartenders,” says Storey. “Boots had the ‘Ladies Lounge,’ which is where a huge bar was installed, with booths along the windows. The remainder of the addition’s basement was a warren of rooms that were used as coat check, pool rooms, and small washrooms.”

Bob Harrison Drue, known simply as “Bob Harrison” during his DJ days, recalls that Boots, like many gay bars of the time, was initially a “stand-and-stare cruise bar for men.” (Women were not welcome until years later.) A jukebox provided the music, both on Charles Street and initially at the Selby location, where Drue would soon assume the role of Boots’ resident DJ.

“Boots had limited seating,” recalls Drue. “I loved the crushed red-velvet semi-circle booths in front of the long bar and windows that looked out onto Selby Street. There were stand-up tables, and beer barrel tables throughout. It was a relatively dark cruise bar. There was a wall behind the long bar and, on the other side of it, they installed a dancefloor near the back—it was put in as an after-thought, and it was small.

“Bud’s had pub-like seating, and was usually not as busy as the Boots side,” says Drue. “Later, a DJ booth was added, and TVs with videos run by Peter Frost.”

Capacity at Boots and Buds in the early years is thought to be in the range of a few hundred people. This would increase greatly over the years as both sides were renovated, expanded, and developed for a variety of uses and identities.

Boots and Bud’s ad courtesy of Bob Harrison Drue.

Why it was important: Boots opened at a time when gay bars were reasonably plentiful, largely based on or near Yonge Street, but there was not yet a centralized Gay Village. That would come in the mid-to-late-1980s, as businesses like Second Cup—with its infamous steps—and Woody’s became anchoring social spots near Church and Wellesley.

Boots and Bud’s also opened a mere half-year after the February 1981 police raids on four gay bathhouses that resulted in over 300 arrests. Large related protests helped spark a strong gay-and-lesbian rights movement in this city and beyond.

Boots—along with bars like Katrina’s, Cornelius, The Barn and, soon after, Chaps—would serve as important gathering places and signifiers of change.

“Toronto was vibrant compared to now,” says Storey of the years that followed the bathhouse raids. “Those were the days when we actually had a ‘community,’ and the bars were our means to connect. For years before, bars that were going under would ‘go gay’ for the final months, but gay bars were becoming more respectable, cleaner, and nicer. We were winning the battle for our rights. We were proud.”

Boots reflected this growth with its own development.

Bob Harrison Drue, circa 1982. Photo courtesy of him.

Drue, who’d begun DJing in Vancouver while a UBC student during the mid-1970s, helped usher in change at Boots. From late 1981 to September 1983, he played there Monday through Saturday.

“The DJ booth was very primitive,” he recalls. “The turntables weren’t meant for DJ use, the mixer was a poor quality Citronic, there was one amp, and the speakers were in beer barrels on a small dancefloor. There was no disco lighting except for a mirror ball.

“Unfortunately, unlike Montreal and Vancouver, gay bars in Toronto—other than Stages—didn’t spend money on sound and lights. It took a lot of convincing to have Boots add disco lighting and better equipment. I had to buy my own 1200s [turntables], and eventually bought my own mixer. The needles skipped when people got down on the dancefloor, and this wasn’t corrected until Boots was renovated years later. The initial lights installed at Boots were done by a friend—RIP Robert Love—and consisted of air-ductwork tubes outfitted with coloured lights, a mirror ball and two strobe lights. Convincing Boots to pay a lighting person was a victory, as it was unheard of in gay bars in Toronto before that, except at Stages and Charly’s [disco atop the St. Charles Tavern].”

These were humble beginnings for a bar that would become a gay Toronto institution.

Drue—soon joined in the booth by lighting man Richard McNicoll, later of Stages—was adventurous in his musical tastes. He played a mix of disco, R&B, new wave, and Salsoul recordings.

“Unlike after-hours, drug-oriented dance clubs where folks will dance to anything, I never found it particularly easy to play for a drinking crowd—unless you were a DJ who played one established hit after another, which I definitely didn’t,” emphasizes Drue. “I constantly played new music, and was never ashamed if a new song cleared the dancefloor. After all, folks were still drinking, and I knew they would start again on the next one.

He mentions favourites from the era, including Voyage’s “Follow The Brightest Star” and “Let’s Get Started,” and The Flying Lizards’ “Money.” One song’s release especially stands out.

“Peter Frost was in NYC, and came back with two promo copies of The Weather Girls’ ‘It’s Raining Men’ in 1982. I played the damn thing for 45 minutes straight; we couldn’t get enough of it!”

Boots’ Top 100 Chart for 1982. Courtesy of Bob Harrison Drue.

Boots’ location—slightly off the beaten path at Sherbourne, just south of Bloor—did not limit its popularity.

“That had little affect,” says Drue. “Walking home was a bit scary—some of us walked with canes or baseball bats just in case. It was a scary time, but Boots was social and an escape.

“It quickly became the bar to be at—we were busy all the time, with line-ups. Its success had a profound effect on the few other gay bars, and changed the landscape of gay Toronto in those days. Charly’s suffered as a result, as did others.”

Initially known as a leather bar, Boots soon grew to attract a range of men of varying ages.

“There were certainly jocks, and uniforms were quite popular; Boots hosted some of the hottest men around—sexy, sweaty men dancing shirtless,” describes Casey McNeill, who began going there in the early 1980s, while still underage. Boots was his first gay bar, and would later become his place of employment.

“Boots had a sense of community as everybody used to go there at some point, and it was really a regular hangout for many, but it definitely was a butch crowd,” says McNeill. “It was easy to meet new people there—for whatever reason!”

Posters courtesy of Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

Boots boasted no shortage of heat.

“When the bar had the right mix of folks who wanted to party at any and all costs, which was frequent, it was a lot of fun—until they got too wild and started jumping on the dancefloor, making the needles skip,” Drue recounts. “The A/C couldn’t keep up with the packed houses, so it did get quite steamy at times, and, even though I hated it, when the whistles started blowing, the level of energy always increased. There were a lot of fun, hot, and sweaty nights that I recall fondly.”

Frequently packed, with line-ups outside, Boots went through its first major expansion in 1982. That July, management announced increased capacity, four dancefloors, and a new “dining lounge.”

But the club’s many mirrors didn’t reflect a capacity crowd for long; in October 1983, Chaps launched on Isabella just east of Yonge. Former Boots’ general manager Ward Hagar opened it with Alek Korn (later a co-owner of Woody’s) and along with them went key Boots’ staff, including McNicoll and other lighting men, head bartender Michael Moran, and Drue.

“I took my lighting people, records, and my turntables when I left,” says the DJ, who went on to work at indie Canadian dance label SPG Music, where he put together several compilations. (Drue now works in television, licensing original productions for Canada.)

“Once Chaps opened, Boots was a ghost town… until many years later.”

DJ Alberto Zara helped turn things around when he became resident at Boots late in 1986, and remained until 1994. Well known in the community for his years spent spinning at clubs including Dudes, The Barn, and Solteros, Zara began with an experience remarkably similar to Drue’s.

“When I took over at Boots, they had one mirrorball and one pinspot on the dancefloor, and still a false ceiling with tiles. I had to bring my own turntables in. There was nothing there.”

He describes dealings with Rick Stenhouse and his then-new “silent partners who weren’t involved in the club or in the gay community.” (Stenhouse, who is believed to have moved to Vancouver, could not be located for comment.)

“To many people, Rick was a very, very difficult person,” Zara says. “He was very much a businessman; he had a vision for the hotel and the whole club. I worked for him for eight years, and we had our ups and downs, but I could work very well with him. A lot of the stuff I wanted to do to help transform Boots, he supported.

Boots’ DJ Alberto Zara (left) with owner Rick Stenhouse. Photo courtesy of Zara.

“I’m very handy, and I wanted to make that place beautiful,” adds Zara, who lived across the street from the bar at the time. “I rewired the whole place, and had them put televisions everywhere.”

Zara also brought in friend Shawn Riker, who he’d met at Solteros.

“Shawn is a big part of making Boots happen the way it did. He’s a genius when it comes to sound and lighting. We changed the room, getting rid of the false ceiling, peeling off the plaster from the walls, built an amazing DJ booth—with fridge and telephone—and many more things that made Boots the place to be.”

Riker, along with DJs Rafael Meli and Barry Harris, also filled in for Zara on occasion, but the resident DJ played at Boots four-to-five nights each week for eight years, spinning disco, radio hits, remixes, and more underground sounds purchased at Starsound Records.

“In those days, there was one main DJ for each club, and that was part of a club’s identity,” Zara recalls.

“I played a lot of disco—Sylvester, Divine, ‘Pink Cadillac,’ the classics—and people used to go nuts. Slowly, I moved to play some house, as it was the new sound. I snuck it in, and then came the techno and Euro stuff.

“I think those were the best eight years of my entire life, and I’m 61 now. People would scream so loudly at the beginning of a mix; it’s something that I feel to this day. When I would pull a record out of its sleeve, it would instantly get soaked—the energy, the heat, the condensation would hit the record immediately. I loved it, and I had an amazing following, as did Boots. My DJing always was a mix of what the people wanted and what I liked to play.”

Zara also mentions performances by the likes of Eria “Savin’ Myself” Fachin, and special events ranging from thematic parties to the popular “Friends Helping Friends” fundraisers, which supported children living with HIV and AIDs through Sick Kids Hospital.

He also emphasizes that Boots’ substantial patio, occupying the south side of the building, gave the club an edge over competitors like Chaps, The Barn, Colby’s and Komrads.

“We had a huge patio, Boots’ main room with another room adjacent, plus Bud’s and the patio upstairs. At times, there were up to 2,700 people coming through in a night. Boots made a lot of money,” Zara says.

“We had a primarily older, more established crowd. There were a lot of beautiful, beautiful people—men in tank tops, so many muscles. Chaps took the trendy, younger crowd. In those days, each crowd had their own place.”

Casey McNeill behind the bar at Boots. Photo courtesy of him.

McNeill, who began as a busboy at Boots in 1989, and would go on to become a head bartender and co-manager over the next 11 years, agrees that the late-1980s through very early 1990s was another peak period for the club.

“Everybody was going there, the tunes were hot, and there was a real sense of freedom—especially since we were really making headway with gay rights then.”

Zara left Boots in 1994, after the crowds again departed en masse. (He continued to DJ, and now shares mixes on his popular YouTube channel.) He tells me that a $2 cover charge added in 1993 was a definite turn-off for revellers accustomed to free partying.

This small cover—along with many interviewee mentions of noise complaints from Hotel Selby customers—helps illustrate the relationship between Boots and the hotel business at large.

“I’m not sure when Rick Stenhouse became sole owner, but his dream was a boutique gay hotel,” says Storey. “However, the hotel was in poor condition, and he recognized the bar was his cash cow. He invested in renovating Boots’ many small rooms into larger spaces, and installed two large washrooms and the unusually large patio, which increased the capacity.”

Boots’ late-1980s renovations also included removing a wall that separated the main long bar from its closest dancefloor, and adding a café, called the Purple Cactus. It never took off.

In the early 1990s, Stenhouse reportedly spent more than $500,000 to repair the Selby. The mansion’s damaged rooftop was replaced with slate, a grandiose front desk was built, and wrought-iron fencing in front of the building was reconstructed to match the original.

“Rick had made substantial improvements to the hotel but, in order to finance the major renovations, he had taken second and third mortgages on it, totalling $5 million,” shares Storey.

“Unfortunately, the real-estate crash of the late-’80s had reduced the property value to around $3 million. An astute businessman, Rick focused on the bars to generate maximum profit.”

Boots staff, including Casey McNeill (in denim shirt) and Brent Storey (in white tank top). Photo courtesy of Storey.

Storey—one of Toronto’s best known fan dancers, who had practiced in the mirrors of Boots and danced there for years—became a big part of the club’s next chapter when he started working there “by accident, on Pride Day 1993.”

“My lover had passed away three weeks’ prior so, not knowing what to do with myself, I went back to Boots because it always felt comfortable,” Storey recounts.

Friend Barry Harris—with whom Storey had worked at clubs including The Copa, 101 Jarvis, and Chaps—was DJing that night and invited Storey to play with Boots’ new lights.

“I jumped at the chance, and blissfully stayed till the last song. I ended up there every Saturday, and many Fridays, for months—my reward being beer.”

Soon officially hired as Boots’ lighting man, Storey also did event décor, assisted in promotions and, significantly, helped develop and build the club’s next iteration.

The new-and-improved Boots Warehouse dancefloor. Photo courtesy of Brent Storey.

The reincarnation: By 1994, things weren’t looking good for Boots.

“When I first was asked to go back to Boots, it was like a giant bowling alley—it was dead,” recalls Greg Matchett, the club’s general manager from 1985-1988.

Upon his return in ’94, Matchett started by hiring new resident DJ Alain Plamondon, fresh from his stint at the popular Bar 1.

“When I walked in, attendance at Boots was down,” agrees Plamondon. “Greg hired me to cater to an older crowd, but there wasn’t an older crowd to spin for. I went in my own direction, and played for the existent, younger, crowd. Within months, the crowd grew.”

This trend continued as Matchett and Storey spearheaded Boots and Bud’s most radical transformation yet: into Boots Warehouse, Toronto’s largest gay dance club of the time, and the Kurbash, an unabashed sleaze bar, complete with a maze, gargoyle glory holes, and a shower.

Kurbash was developed first. Out went Bud’s drag shows and karaoke, in came metal and rougher edges.

“The drag queens left, and the leather-and-denim crowd came back,” says Storey. “The word-of-mouth buzz was enough to fill the place, and Boots also experienced an increase in numbers as men would use ‘Going to Boots’ as an excuse to head to the Kurbash’s infamous maze. Once the Kurbash was established, and the money increased, Rick decided to take the next step, and finally remove the cumbersome main bar in Boots. I designed the new space and built most of it, plus revamped the logo and the name.”

The removal of the massive, long bar in favour of small satellite bars doubled the main room’s dancefloor space. Boots Warehouse was industrial and modern.

“The room had a purple floor, metallic silver walls, and a corrugated steel ceiling,” Storey says. “Lighting was hung from a TV-tower truss, and a system of receptacles allowed me to rework the show. We upgraded the sound to a kick-ass digital system. In spite of the 10-foot ceiling, I was able to fire off pyrotechnics over the crowd!”

“The layout was also spectacular,” McNeill reminisces. “It had something that is ultimately important in gay bars—flow. People like to be able to walk around a lot and hang out in different areas. Boots provided this very well.”

“Within a year, we became the place to go again with a younger crowd,” recalls Plamondon. “The Kurbash brought in an older crowd. Together, they attracted everyone.”

Says Matchett, “I went after the post-AIDS crowd: men around 35, like myself, who were so guilt-ridden because we were healthy—the lucky ones—and most of our friends had died.

“We catered to a demographic that needed to release the AIDS cloud hanging over them. To me, they were and are the generation of gay men that has defined our strengths and gave dignity to our community.”

Theme nights were developed, disco was again celebrated, and artists, including house vocalist Byron Stingily, were booked to perform.

“I remember The Weather Girls being a great deal of fun, energetic, and working the crowd,” says McNeill.

“The Weather Girls were a hoot,” agrees Matchett. “When I booked Thelma Houston in for a night, she had not performed in a while, and was very nervous. After a lot of vodka, she got onstage and blew the crowd away. She was and is a diva.”

Sealing the deal was Plamondon’s ability to mix energetic, crowd-pleasing sets of “everything popular in commercial dance, house, Euro, and tribal,” as he puts it.

“Boots wasn’t afraid to be a gay bar and we played ‘gay dance music,’” summarizes Storey. “Alain was always enthused, critical of himself, and eager to perform well, which he did. He was always concerned about people having a good time.”

By 1995, Boots Warehouse frequently attracted crowds of 2,000 people, which helped fund a stunning renovation of the club’s huge patio.

“Now with 12 bars open on weekends, sales reached $2.5 million that year,” enthuses Storey. “We were packed every weekend!”

Poster for Circuit Wednesdays, courtesy of Scott Cairns.

Who else worked/played there: Matchett says that Boots’ core staff included approximately 25 people at any given time, with some bartenders and staff dating back to the pre-Boots’ days, as jobs were unionized through the Hotel Selby.

Many interviewees make mention of long=time head bartender Brent Savoy, while Alberto Zara also points to barkeeps including Scott Middleton, Rick Pereira, Jimmy Carmichael, John Boutilier, and Virginia. (“The only woman who worked at Boots at the time; she was very popular.”) Drag queen Amanda Roberts was adored, both for her on-stage performances and skills as a shooter girl.

Managers were key, with original GM Ward Hagar followed by men including Matchett, Robert Rochon, Doug Laufman, and the creative David Heymes, who’d also worked at clubs including Nuts & Bolts, The Copa, and Lizard Lounge.

In addition to Richard McNicoll and Brent Storey, regulars like Brian Wheatley, David Beaulieu, and Pascal Pennella lit up Boots’ dancefloors while DJs Krys Shepherd and Bob Currer played in the club’s early years. [Addendum: Following the original publication of this piece, Bob Currer responded to say that he had DJed five nights weekly at Boots from 1985 to 1987, and to dispute that the club was "a ghost town" during this time. His full statement can be found in the comments thread below.]

Alberto Zara and Boots also helped inspire DJ/producer Barry Harris to return to the booth. Harris had known Zara since the days when they’d both DJed at Dudes cruise bar, with Harris going on to play clubs including 101 Jarvis, The Copa, and Stilife before he formed pop-dance project Kon Kan in 1988, and had a massive pop hit in the form of “I Beg Your Pardon.”

Kon Kan was slowing by the time Harris visited Zara at Boots, and was asked to fill-in on occasion.

“I fell back into DJing after taking three years off; it was like riding a bike,” exclaims Harris, who played many a weekend night at Boots, between 1992-94.

“For fun, I did a Kon Kan track show of ‘Sinful Wishes’ in my underwear, along with a big muscular body builder and three nuns in drag. I guess that was the last ‘show’ Kon Kan ever did.”

Harris tells me he felt a little stifled by the Electric Circus and Energy 108 pop leanings of Boots’ crowds, but also enjoyed playing many tracks of the time, like “Swamp Thing” by The Grid, and Lectroluv’s “Dream Drums.”

“I still love this track! It really turned me on to the ‘new house’ scene,” says Harris, who observes that by 1994, “house—real house—was finally becoming huge in the gay scene.”

Harris points to the rise of gay Toronto DJs like Scott Cairns and Mark Falco, both of whom played at Boots Warehouse for brief periods. (Cairns’ Circuit Wednesdays ran during the warm months of 1996 and, despite the event name, featured underground house.)

Circuit promo courtesy of Scott Cairns.

“It was like another whole new generation was moving into the gay dance-club scene again—something I’d already seen happen when the 1980s generation took over from the ’70s disco generation,” Harris adds. “But Boots was still a part of the ‘old’ generation. I could get away with only a bit of the mainstream vocal pop house that was coming out, like Juliet Roberts’ ‘I Want You‘ and Crystal Waters’ ‘100% Pure Love.’

Frustrated, he left in the fall of 1994 to develop a house night on Wednesdays at The Barn before moving to Los Angeles in 1998, and soon hitting it big with Thunderpuss remixes of Amber, Whitney Houston and others. (More recently, Harris has returned to his alt-rock roots as he fronts the band Sick Seconds. He also continues to DJ and produce dancefloor remixes.)

I also DJed at Boots for a few years in the mid-’90s, first as a resident of the Betty Page Society Fetish Night; presented by Northbound Leather, this bi-weekly affair ran for many years at Boots, and is at the root of the fetish events they continue to produce. Then, I became the host of Crush, a series that raised funds for queer community groups for much of 1996.

Despite all the success of Boots Warehouse and the Kurbash, however, all was not well behind the scenes. Stenhouse took Hotel Selby and the Boots Warehouse complex into receivership in fall of 1995, prompting Matchett and others to leave.

“I found out that Rick was going to let Boots go into receivership a few days before Pride ’95,” Storey reveals. “It was a crushing blow to learn the news, and I was one of only a very few he told. We were going strong at that point, and I was excited about the Pride décor, free barbecue, pyrotechnics, and Boots’ parade float. Having to hold this secret that weekend was a burden; to do it cheerfully was an effort.

“Rick continued to operate the place for a couple years after the banks took over. A few managers who weren’t familiar with the bar or club scene were hired, before the eventual sale.”

Still, weekends at Boots remained hugely popular. One manager appointed by the receivership company had even suggested a Sunday retro night, which proved to be a big hit.

“When that night began, we weren’t too sure how it would go,” admits its resident DJ, Alain Plamondon. “The third week fell on a Labour Day weekend holiday Sunday, and I will never forget that night. We were packed! For nearly two hours solid during peak time, people on the dancefloor cheered for every mix I did. After that, Retro Sundays were a success.”

Boots Warehouse and the Kurbash were now packed all three nights of the weekend.

The final iteration of the Boots bar, circa 1997. Photo courtesy of Brent Storey.

What happened to it: In late 1997, the building was purchased by husband and wife Nazir and Anish Akbarali, who initially developed Hotel Selby into a Howard Johnson.

“Nazir and Anish were in the hotel business, but kept Boots running for a few years because it generated money,” says Plamondon. “Anish had a brother named Ralph who became a manager, and was loved by the staff.”

The Akbaralis’ daughters also worked coat check at Boots Warehouse, but all was not harmonious.

“Anish did not believe in nudity of any kind,” says Plamondon. “The Kurbash had to go! The porn on the TVs had to go! Any nudity—even if it was on a safe-sex poster—had to go! This infuriated many, and we lost part of the crowd. We were still quite busy, but the crowds slowly dwindled.”

“The Akbaralis always claimed ‘not to have a problem’ with homosexuality, but never intended to keep the bar long anyway,” adds Storey. “It was a cash cow to generate money to put into the hotel’s renovations. They always put the hotel first, and allowed the bar to deteriorate. It was a battle to keep it going as long as we did.

“Before Pride 2000, there were problems with the sound, lighting, and bar equipment, so [friend and then manager] Roger Bonnell and I had a planning meeting with the owners. They announced that no repairs would be done, there was to be no money spent, and that they were planning a $10 Friday and $20 Saturday cover charge. They explained that any ill will generated didn’t matter as they were closing Boots soon after.

“After sleeping on it, I called Roger, and we quickly agreed we didn’t want to be part of it, and quit. The owner seemed quite pleased he could start building hotel rooms in the bar space sooner.” (In an Xtra! article dated June 28, 2000, Anish Akbarali cited sound complaints as reason for closing the club.)

Others on staff, including Plamondon and Casey McNeill, also made it clear that they would not work the weekend of Pride 2000.

“It was our way of slapping them in the face by not allowing them the immense profits of one last Pride,” says McNeill. “Plus, we all got Pride off! It was a little bittersweet for the staff.”

Boots Warehouse closed with a hastily produced, but well-attended party on June 18, 2000.

Storey decorated with his personal collection of staff t-shirts and other Boots memorabilia, many of which were taken by patrons for souvenirs. Some people also smashed toilets in protest.

“On that last night, people were in shock when they walked in, and the word went around,” explains Plamondon, who closed the club with Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

“After DJing in the gay scene for 26 years, I can honestly say that Boots Warehouse was my all-time favourite club to play at,” he says. (Plamondon continues to DJ, including at Woody’s, The Vic, and Zipperz/Cellblock, where his Retro Sunday tradition lives on.)

“Boots was an original, and has never been duplicated; I don’t think it ever will,” says McNeill. “What always comes to mind are the positive feel, and the energy of the place. People celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, Pride, Halloween, anything. Everybody has a few good stories about their times at Boots.” (McNeill later worked in hospitality, and as an HR coordinator at an entertainment company before returning to school this year to study business.)

Storey, who went on to do lighting and décor at Fly nightclub for six years, maintains an interest in the development at 592 Sherbourne St., but his heart belongs to Boots.

“I lost my connection to the building as soon as the entrance to Boots was bricked in, but I still remember the fun people had there, and I’m proud of what we achieved in giving them the best we could.”

592 Sherbourne currently operates as The Clarion Hotel & Suites Selby.

592 Sherbourne currently operates as The Clarion Hotel & Suites Selby. The building, which was granted official heritage status in 1989, is likely to be relocated closer to Sherbourne as part of The Selby Condos, a 49-storey development project now in pre-construction stage.

Thank you to participants Alain Plamondon, Alberto Zara, Barry Harris, Bob Harrison Drue, Brent Storey, Casey McNeill, and Gregg Matchett, as well as to Scott Cairns, the late Rick Bébout for his Promiscuous Affections diaries, and the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives.

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

Article originally published May 23, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

A special two-part edition of Denise Benson’s nightlife-history series begins with a trip back to the Yorkville venue that brought fine dining and club culture together—before going down in a hail of bullets.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Boa Café, 25 Bellair

Years in operation: 1989-1998

History: This is a tale of two interconnected yet vastly different Toronto venues, each influential in its own way. For this article, I will be focussing on the first, Boa Café; the story of its second incarnation, Boa Redux, will be told in the next edition of Then & Now.

At the story’s centre lies Rony Hitti.

“I grew up in a family of restaurateurs and hoteliers, and was supposed to be the banker in the family,” says Hitti, who would instead become owner-operator of both Boas.

Hitti dutifully studied business finance and politics at York University, but also DJed steadily during the 1980s. He played a variety of Midtown-area clubs, and started his own DJ company, dubbed Earthquake in reference to the powerful Sensurround sound system created for the 1974 film of the same name.

“It used to shake movie theatres, and I bought one. I did pretty much all of the dances at York with that system.”

Banking didn’t work out for Hitti at the time, nor did dishwashing at his father’s restaurant. Instead, he studied culinary arts in Switzerland for a year. Upon returning, Hitti brainstormed a business plan with Charles Khabouth; the two Lebanese-Canadians had become friends as Hitti spent much time at Khabouth’s trendsetting Stilife nightclub.

“Charles and I were really close. We hung out, and traveled together. On a trip to Montreal, we went to a place called Lola’s Paradise. Lola’s was fine dining with that really cool Montreal vibe. We thought Toronto could use something like it. “Back then, last call was 1 a.m. and, inevitably at that time, everybody was looking for something to do. The only places to go were in Chinatown, for bad Chinese food, or Bemelmans on Bloor. We realized that the city needed a funky late-night dining spot that catered to a Stilife-like crowd.”

Initially 50/50 partners, the men envisioned a chic, but relaxed social spot that would serve quality food and drinks from noon until late night, five days a week. They looked to Yorkville for the location, and found 25 Bellair, formerly a daytime coffee shop. Five steps down from the sidewalk, but with a sizable window looking out at street level, the location was one long, narrow room that Hitti and Khabouth would greatly re-design.

“Yorkville was very much ’80s yuppie central,” Hitti recounts. “We wanted to bring Queen Street cool to Yorkville glam.”

Boa Café opened in October of 1989. There was nothing understated about it.

From the October, 28, 1989 edition of the Toronto Star.

Why it was important: Although Boa Café only seated 40, it had “the instant distinction of being the trendiest place in Toronto,” wrote the Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume in an appreciative review dated October 28, 1989.

Boa became one of this city’s most coveted social spots thanks to a confluence of key elements and people. It certainly was an eye-popping location, whether one chose to hang out by day—magazines, chess, and backgammon were all on offer—or night.

“There was nothing like Boa in the city at that time,” says early staffer Marcos Durian, then also a production assistant in both film and still photography. “It was a small space with incredible design that drew the masses from early afternoon to the break of dawn. Boa may have been in Yorkville, but it was so un-Yorkville.”

The aesthetic of Boa’s 1,200 square feet was largely imagined by Rony’s cousins Gregory and Alexander Gatserelia, together known as Gatserelia Design. Artist Kenny Baird, who had created installations and core elements for many clubs in the U.S. and Canada (including Khabouth’s Stilife), contributed Boa’s signature mosaic tiling, which covered much of the space.

“This was the ’80s, when it was the more detail the better,” chuckles Hitti. “Every single inch of it was designed, including the washrooms. The look of it was very whimsical; Gregory’s description was ‘It’s Antoni Gaudi meets Cocteau.’”

A bar ran the length of Boa’s room, with benches by the entrance and rows of tables filling the floor space.

Boa Café layout.

“Boa packed a heavy visual punch,” says Durian. “It was dark and intimate, with warm lighting fixtures, specially treated sinuous metal, and a copper-bar top. An intricate, colourful, serpentine mosaic stretched across the floor and south wall from the front door to the restrooms in the back. A curved sheet-metal sculpture hung from the ceiling. The walls were a sponged dark brown with one gold-leaf wall that curved, like the contours of a snake behind the bar. Hence ‘Boa,’ as in the snake.”

But it wasn’t just Boa’s aesthetic details that attracted patrons; it was also the energy, talents, and youth of the Café’s early staff. Most were already friends, or became connected as patrons of Boa. Durian hung out before being hired as a waiter and bartender because his pal Thomas Koonings worked there in the same role. Both became super tight with Mark Bacci, a teenager who grew to become a star chef at Boa Café after Hitti showed him the ropes.

“Mark could not break an egg at the outset, but had an incredible palate,” says Hitti.

“I learned to cook from Rony in the early days,” agrees Bacci. “I was a natural at it, but he showed me a lot.”

Also central was Bassam “Sam” Nicolas, who had worked for Hitti’s parents for a decade prior to becoming Rony’s “right-hand man” and general manager at Boa. Hitti gives credit as well to “all-star waitresses” Rebecca Shafrir and Sacha Grierson, both of whom became part of the Boa team while still in university.

“Mostly, we didn’t feel like we were working,” says Shafrir by email, echoing a common sentiment. “It was rather like we were having fun in our own very edgy salon.”

All of these people personified Boa Café during its first year, a year that Hitti actually describes as “very difficult, business-wise” for himself and partner Khabouth.

“We lost our shirts, and Charles was starting to experience problems at Stilife because of Oceans [the club’s adjoined restaurant],” states Hitti. “The relationship went sour between the two of us, and we decided to go our separate ways.

“That’s when Boa became my baby. I made the food more dining, and less café-ish. I also decided to bring in some of the sound equipment from my house for the music, place a DJ behind the bar, and turn it into more of a party venue. It worked.”

No matter the hour, if Boa was open, so was its kitchen. Many describe the Café’s food in loving detail. (“There were chicken sandwiches with aioli to die for, the best tomato spaghetti by Mark Bacci, and a yellow plum tomato salad that no other fine dining restaurant could better,” writes Shafrir.)

“It was a small, eclectic menu with French, Italian, and Middle Eastern influences,” says Durian. “Mark Bacci was a one-man show, with two hot plates and a convection oven. I don’t know how we serviced all those people with the small work space and tools at our disposal.”

So too grew Boa’s focus on music. It had been integral from day one, as Hitti and DJs from Stilife provided funky mixtapes of soul, rare groove, deep disco, and early house, but the Café became more synonymous with its sounds after Hitti placed his turntables behind Boa’s bar.

“Boa was the first bar/restaurant in Toronto to incorporate a DJ at all times,” he claims.

At first, all of Boa’s staff took turns behind the decks, with Stilife DJs including Chris Klaodatos stepping in to play occasional late-night parties for which the tables and chairs would be pushed aside. Boa also hosted art exhibits, film-festival parties, fashion shows, and other events. The late night crowds began to swell.

“Boa was like the cool people’s secret,” recalls Shafrir, who left after her first summer to continue studies. (She is now a Trade Commissioner for the Government of Canada, working in Tel Aviv.)

“It was small, and from the street no one could guess it was the place to be,” she adds. “Yorkville was flashy and fake; Boa was the real deal. It had a crowd of regulars who kept it alive. It was a rather underground, artsy vibe.”

“Boa blew up at night, into this after-hours scene,” describes Bacci. “Everyone from the industry found themself at Boa. It was like this underground hub of what was cool in the city. It wasn’t a boozecan; people actually came to hang out, eat, and drink. Every top chef went, along with restaurant owners and workers. We would throw parties once a month that became an insane night, spilling out onto the streets of Bellair. Cops never bothered us—because they were customers, and because the food was so good that it just wasn’t that kind of place.

“Because of Boa, and the fact that everyone came there, a 17-year-old [like myself at the time] got reservations at top restaurants in the city on a last-minute call, or just by walking in.”

Kenny Baird’s signature mosaic tiling, as featured in the Oct. 1991 edition of Interior Design magazine.

Occasional parties gave rise to DJs on Boa’s decks Thursdays through Saturdays, when the Café would be open as late as 5 or 6 a.m. Boa became the late-night hangout for a huge range of people.

“It all happened very organically,” says Hitti. “We didn’t decide to become a boozecan; we were open late, serving food, and once in a while we’d have friends come in. They would get their ‘cold tea,’ and slowly but surely, the circle of friends became bigger and bigger. We basically became the hangout for everyone from politicians to crown attorneys, senior cops, very wealthy people, and at the same time even some of the biggest drug dealers in the city. The cross-section was amazing.”

“Boa was a kind of enigma where it wasn’t a club, a full-blown restaurant or a bar, yet it managed to be all these things and more in one night,” describes Durian. “Boa had a myriad of identities, which changed by the hour and by the clientele. You couldn’t cast half the people that came in.

“It was a melting pot, a mash up from every aspect and genre of nightlife in the city, especially on the weekends. You had the Stilife crowd, the Go-Go mob, everyone that worked at the clubs, bars, and restaurants. You had city brass, weekend warriors, pro athletes, hip-hop artists, the gays, the fashionistas, actors, producers, those looking for fame, and those just looking for a good time. You had nobodies, freaks and geeks, the rich and the not rich of all races. There was no end to the diversity that walked through that door.”

Durian, who left Boa in 1992 to study film in London and then New York (he’s now a Los Angeles-based director and cinematographer), mentions visits from the likes of Ben Kingsley, Lennox Lewis, Kid ‘n Play, and members of both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Blue Jays.

“When the Blue Jays won the World Series [in 1992, 1993], we were the place they came to celebrate,” confirms Hitti. “Boa was one of, if not the only place, you could find Galen Weston sitting adjacent to [later murdered] mob enforcer Eddie ‘Hurricane’ Melo, sitting next to a bevy a models, next to Queen Street types, next to other socialites and low lives all in perfect harmony. We operated on a face-and-attitude door policy: We either knew you, or you were cool enough to get in. It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about being famous.” (Interior photos of Boa Cafe are rare; as Hitti admits, ”We didn’t allow cameras in there, for obvious reasons.”)

A young Susur Lee is reported to have been a Boa regular, as were owners of restaurants including Rodneyʼs Oyster House, Splendido, and Centro. A new generation of club and restaurant promoters and owners (or owners-to-be) also hung out, including the Assoon brothers (Twilight Zone), Edney Hendrickson (Octopus Lounge), and Leslie Ng and Byron Dill (Kubo DX and more).

Dill, in fact, was such a regular at Boa, he later joined the staff as a bartender and event promoter.

“Byron brought that very Queen Streetish crowd vibe,” Hitti admits. “He and his friends helped make Boa Café what it was in a lot of ways.”

Bacci, in turn, credits Hitti with connecting scenes and communities.

“Yorkville was dud central at the time, [full of] dated places,” says Bacci. “It was like what Rony did in its own strange way harkened back to the Yorkville of the 1960s, like when Joso’s was just a place to drink. Boa somehow became the centre of the universe for the downtown scene. You felt like you were a part of something [that was] almost before its time for the city.”

Like friends Durian and Thomas Koonings, Bacci left Boa in the early ’90s. He moved on to cook at restaurants including Left Bank and 80 Scollard, before re-locating to New York for film school. He’s made his way as a U.S.-based actor, writer, and director ever since, maintaining ties to both Boa and Toronto. And though he and his family split time between L.A. and Hawaii, Bacci co-owns a number of Toronto restaurants, including the Lil Baci locations. (Durian has served as Director of Photography on all of Bacci’s films.)

Food remained very much a focus at Boa long after Bacci’s departure, but its DJs and late-night dancing continued to grow in popularity. After DJ Chris Klaodatos left as resident, Energy 108’s DJ Fran stepped in as Boa’s main weekend spinner from 1993 to 1996, with DJ Radamés Nieves blending Latin and Afro beats on Thursdays and occasional Fridays.

For a six-month-period of Saturdays in 1996, Fran was also joined by Hedley Jones a.k.a. Deadly Hedley, a CFNY and Klub Max alumni who, by then, also worked for Energy 108. Fran and Hedley’s popular live-to-air from Boa Café ended abruptly when Fran was found dead one Sunday morning, after he’d left the party. (Jones is now based in Los Angeles where he works as a photographer.)

“In a way, a bit of the spirit of Boa went out with Fran,” says Hitti. “It was a very close-knit group.”

The Boa bar, as featured in the Oct. 1991 edition of Interior Design magazine. Image courtesy of INK Entertainment.

What happened to it: By 1996, Boa Café was so busy that a second room was added, doubling the venue’s square footage and creating a designated dancefloor. Many hundreds of people would come through on weekends, packed in “like sardines,” according to Hitti.

“If one person danced, everybody danced. People would dance on tables and chairs, they’d dance on the bar, there were people having sex. It was absolute debauchery.”

That said, Boa didn’t receive a lot of police attention.

“I would get raided twice a year, and the charges would disappear,” shares Hitti. “Everybody thought that I was paying off half the city. I never paid anyone a single dime, but I kept good relations with everybody, and I guess people thought, ‘Why not? The place doesn’t have any problems.’ There was no overt drug dealing, everybody was having fun, and it was a discreet venue in Yorkville. It kind of took on a life of its own.”

But Hitti acknowledges, “It got to the point where the place was so busy that eventually this was its downfall.

“Literally, people would get off a plane at 1 a.m., ask where they could get a drink, and taxi drivers would bring them down. People would show up at the door, and many would be told they could not come in. We had just one doorman, Larry Trump; he could handle all those crowds by himself.

“One night in 1996, Larry told some guys they could not come in. I was called over, and said the same. One of them looked at me and said, ‘I’ll come back and spray the place.’ He went to his car in the parking lot, pulled out a machine gun, and shot seven bullets through the window. We had two of those incidents, and that’s largely what motivated me not to renew the lease in the end. Both times when it happened, the place was packed and bullets literally flew over everybody’s heads. Nobody got hurt. Twice lucky, we weren’t going to risk a third time.”

By 1998, when Hitti’s lease at 25 Bellair came up for renewal, he also owned businesses including Brasserie Zola (“a very bourgeois French restaurant”), Winston’s (“probably the highest-rated fine-dining restaurant in the city [at the time]”), and Turkish Bath, the member’s-only nightclub beneath it.

“My name was associated with being a chef, and owner of fine dining establishments,” Hitti concludes. “The last thing I wanted was my name in the newspaper associated with a shooting.” The lower level of 25 Bellair is now home to Vaticano Restaurant.

The story of Boa continues in the next edition of Then & Now, when I revisit the club’s resurrection in the early 2000s as after-hours dance club Boa Redux on Spadina.

Thank-you to Boa Café participants Mark Bacci, Marcos Durian, Rebecca Shafrir, and Rony Hitti, as well as to Hedley Jones and Thomas Koonings.

The post Then & Now: Boa Café 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 February 12, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

The Ballinger brothers – owners of clubs including the Big Bop and Boom Boom Room – were not known for creating sophisticated spots. That changed with the chic, tri-level super-club that brought long line-ups to the Entertainment District in the early 1990s.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Go-Go, 250 Richmond St. W.

Years in operation: 1990-1993

History: Though based in Toronto for less than a decade, the brothers Ballinger made a long-lasting impression. The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Farmers” from Dundalk were entrepreneurs who’d originally opened a variety of venues in Cambridge, Ontario in the late 1970s.

In 1986, Lon, Stephen, Doug, and Peter Ballinger opened the multi-leveled Big Bop club at Queen and Bathurst. The wildly popular hangout would anchor the southeast corner for over two decades, and was the cornerstone of the club empire the Ballingers would build. Their Boom Boom Room, opened at Queen and Palmerston in 1988, was much smaller in size, but was trendsetting with its mix of rock, alternative, house, and queer nights. With a few years’ experience in T.O. and a staff that was willing and able to bounce between venues, the Ballingers soon set their sites on 250 Richmond St. W. for an ambitious new venture.

Richmond and Duncan was not yet an obvious choice of location. After-hours club Twilight Zone had closed just the year before, and Charles Khabouth’s Stilife, located directly across the street, was showing signs of slowing. Beyond these venues, and after-hours rave destination 23 Hop, which would soon open at 318 Richmond St. W., the area was still largely deserted at night.

But with Doug Ballinger at the wheel, the brothers would develop a 14,000 square foot, tri-level warehouse building into one of the most innovative and influential clubs Toronto would experience in the 1990s.

“I had never met anyone as driven and excited about anything as Doug,” says DJ Mark Oliver, who was convinced by Ballinger to leave his residency at Stilife in order to spin five nights per week at Go-Go.

Ballinger custom-designed one floor—what would become known as The White Room—with Oliver’s forward-thinking dance music in mind. Above that would be the large Theatre Room, with a lounge to be built on the first floor, and a rooftop patio—among the city’s first at a nightclub—complete with water fountains and a barbeque hut. This was to be a very different experience from earlier Ballinger creations.

Go-Go manager Steve McMinn with Kim Ackroyd Oka on the rooftop patio. Photo courtesy of Ackroyd Oka.

“The previous Ballinger ventures had been built according to his older brothers’ specs and tastes, but now it was Doug’s chance to shine,” recalls Oliver.

“The Ballingers were all amazingly intelligent in their own unique ways,” says Boris Khaimovich, a Toronto nightclub veteran who worked at both the Boom and the Bop before becoming involved with the construction of Go-Go, where he would head security and, later, manage.

“They were a brilliant team,” describes Khaimovich. “Doug would conceptualize everything, Lon would find a way to finance it, and Steve would build it. [Writer’s note: Peter wasn’t as actively involved.] They were creative, and they were true club owners, with all of the eccentricities involved.”

Go-Go opened to a capacity crowd on July 13, 1990, with the photography of Floria Sigismondi on display.

Go-Go Member card. Courtesy of Jeremy Markoe.

Why it was important: Go-Go took the Ballingers’ tried-and-true multi-floor format to new heights. It was, at the time, their most ambitious and upscale club project, and its success influenced not only numerous future nightclub builds in Toronto, it also cemented the approach that the brothers themselves would later apply to their New York mega-club, Webster Hall.

“The Ballingers took a building and they made a different club on every floor, which hadn’t been seen here before, except at their Big Bop,” says the straight-shooting Khaimovich during a lengthy phone discussion.

“The Bop was a cash cow; it was like there was a money press in the basement, and they just kept printing it. The Boom was the Ballingers’ first attempt at getting into a smaller, more niche market club. Go-Go was a New York style club in downtown Toronto.”

Khaimovich had himself worked at a number of New York clubs, as well as at Toronto’s renowned Yorkville spot The Copa, during the late 1980s and was impressed by Go-Go.

“There was nothing like it here before. Up to that point, you had RPM, The Copa, The Diamond, and Big Bop as the only big-venue clubs in the city. RPM was in its decline, The Copa was allowed to get rundown, The Diamond did a lot more live music, and the Bop was basically college students getting shitfaced.

“Go-Go was the first club downtown that could easily hold a thousand people, and it was stunning. The lighting was spectacular—we had intelligent lighting—and the sound was solid. The staff was dressed up; they weren’t just wearing black T-shirts. Bodies were being shown, the male bartenders were dressed up, and doormen had to wear a suit and tie.”

Much of Go-Go’s success can be attributed to the club’s stark contrasts, including the aesthetic and feel of each different room. The first-floor lounge was intimate and warm, complete with a large wooden bar and windows looking out onto the street. The spacious second-floor White Room was bold and bright. It was entirely white—the walls, bars, DJ booth, bathrooms, statues, speakers, even the staff’s clothing.

The White Room. Photo courtesy of Kim Ackroyd Oka.

“The White Room was a huge departure from any club of its time,” recalls Oliver, the room’s sole resident for a full year. “Everything was white. Back then, most DJ booths were stuck in a corner of the club. Doug, however, wanted me to be the focal point, so he had the semicircular DJ booth raised eight feet from the floor, and placed in the middle of the east wall.”

From his booth, Oliver would blend rare groove, disco, house, and early techno tracks. He recalls playing loads of early Strictly Rhythm singles, especially Logic’s “The Warning.” Other Oliver anthems heard in the otherworldly room included “Sweat” by Jay Williams, Nightmares on Wax’ “Dextrous,” Sweet Exorcist’s “Testone,” and another early Warp Records’ smash, “Tricky Disco.”

“That room had an ethereal feel to it,” Oliver recalls. ”Not only from it being entirely white, but also from the religious statues affixed to the bars. I could never tell my mum that I swore the Virgin Mary one had real eyes, and was staring at me from across the room all night. Perhaps playing five nights a week in there was a little too much for my sanity.”

One floor up was the Theatre Room, Go-Go’s largest space. During renovations, structural beams had been pulled out of the building and replaced, in order to raise this room’s already high ceiling by an additional six feet. The Theatre Room was painted a rich, dark burgundy, had faux columns on the walls, huge mirrors and multiple bars.

“Where the White Room was meant to be housey, cool and slick, the Theatre Room was meant to be heavy and pounding,” describes Khaimovich.

DJ James ‘St. Bass’ Vandervoort with bartender Michael Quintas. Photo courtesy of Cheryl Butson.

“The sound was amazing in there,” says James Vandervoort a.k.a. DJ James St. Bass, the Theatre Room’s main resident for Go-Go’s entire history. “There were two massive Electrovoice bass bins, which could knock all the bottles off of the bar. And did!”

Vandervoort, who’d gotten his start as a DJ at the Boom Boom Room, developed his skills and reputation spinning four-to-five nights a week in the raised corner booth at Go-Go. Like Oliver, Vandervoort had his ears tuned to the underground but, as St. Bass, he was also appreciated for his ability to entertain any audience. His crates contained loads of crossover faves, ranging from the likes of Prince, Deee-Lite, and RuPaul to MK’s “Burning,” Ce Ce Peniston’s “Finally,” 2 In A Room’s “Wiggle It,” and numerous Steve “Silk” Hurley remixes.

“I rarely took my eyes off the floor,” says Vandervoort of his approach. “I watched the crowd, to try and make ‘em scream! Your perfect mix and rare tunes don’t mean squat if no one is partying on the dancefloor.”

“I love James St. Bass,” enthuses Khaimovich. “To me, he’s one of the greatest DJs ever. He could make dead men dance because he had a desire to make people dance. There was no ego in James. When you had a combination of Mark on one floor and James on the other on a Saturday night, well you can’t beat that. It was beautiful.”

Initially open Thursdays through Sundays—Wednesday night’s infamous Go-Go Men would open that fall—Go-Go took a few weeks to build a steady clientele, and then caught fire. The Ballingers were also ahead of the curve in programming nights that would appeal to vastly different crowds, and it paid off. While weekends held more mainstream appeal and Thursdays were house-heavy, Wednesdays and Sundays would underscore Go-Go’s broad reach.

“One of my favourite nights was Fast Lane Sundays, with great rock in the Theatre Room, and house in the White Room,” recalls Steve Ireson, a longtime contributor to Toronto nightlife who started working for the Ballingers in 1991.

Flyer courtesy of Steve Ireson.

“I used to drive in from Hamilton every Sunday, before I started working at Go-Go. It was great for me, especially because my ‘straight’ boyfriend at the time was more of a rocker, and I loved both. Surprisingly, the two crowds mixed just fine.”

On Sundays, DJ Vania and host/co-promoter Kevin “KC” Carlisle rocked the Theatre Room. They were also the team behind Boom Boom Room’s wildly successful Sgt. Rocks Wednesdays, and brought the concept to Go-Go.

James St. Bass, K.C., and Vania in a Sgt. Rocks promo photo shot at Go-Go. Image courtesy of James Vandervoort.

“Working Sunday nights with Vania spinning was the place to be for me,” says Cheryl Butson, a Go-Go bartender for its full run. “Vania and lighting guy Jimmy Lynch did a great job of taking a big club room and giving it a real dark, underground feel.”

Like Ireson, Butson appreciated Go-Go’s versatility, and the variety of people there on Sundays.

“On one floor there would be house music, with people dancing and dressed to the nines, while on the next floor it was heavy rock, long hair, and leather jackets—with a total mix on the rooftop.”

The single-monikered Vania tells me he’s “remarkably hazy” about his many months of spinning at Go-Go, but especially enjoyed DJing in the more intimate setting of the lounge.

“Honestly,” says Vania, “I had my eye on New York, and wanted to get out of Toronto.” (He would relocate to N.Y.C. to work for the Ballingers late in 1991.)

Vandervoort, who brought the house to Go-Go’s White Room on Sundays, was also the anchor resident at the club’s other signature night: Go-Go Men on Wednesdays. He played in the Theatre Room while Oliver, who’d been a resident at Tazmanian Ballroom’s popular Rock & Roll Fag Bar in the late ’80s, DJed on the second floor.

Poster image courtesy of James ‘St. Bass’ Vandervoort.

Go-Go Men built on the success that St. Bass and host/promoter Steven Wong had had with Boys Night Out on Thursdays at the Boom, and would become Toronto’s biggest gay weekly. While Wednesdays took a few weeks to build, they would soon attract crowds of 600-1,000 party boys, fashionistas, warehouse heads, and women each week.

“The thing that gave Go-Go Men that extra boost was that Halloween fell on a Wednesday our first year, and everybody came out for that, in full costume,” recalls social butterfly Wong, then a costume designer and co-promoter of warehouse parties.

“It was very over the top,” he says. “People didn’t dress up in monster outfits or whatever. The thing to do was to emulate the supermodels and what was going on in fashion. If you were going out in drag, you were going out as Linda Evangelista wearing Chanel couture or something. At that point, vogueing and supermodels were very popular, and everyone wanted to be glamorous. Go-Go was very glamorous.”

Promo image courtesy of LAEddy

With visits from fashion-magazine editors, designers including Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors, and gay celebs including Elton John and Rupert Everett, Go-Go Men ran for more than two full years.

“Friends who worked in stores on Bloor Street told me that people would come in and buy special outfits just for their Wednesday nights,” says Wong, now half of womenswear label Greta Constantine. “They’d go in looking like a million dollars, only to get totally trashed.”

“I think Go-Go Men is where I developed my liking for tequila,” shares Ireson who, as a manager, had special duties required of him.

“I would have to help the hot shooter boys into their tequila-belt harnesses. I also have some fond memories of hot-tub parties on the rooftop patio. Go-Go Men was an absolute blast, with line-ups down the street.”

Go-Go, in fact, became notorious for long line-ups, then largely unheard of in the area.

“Go-Go was the first club to bring really big crowds,” states Khaimovich. “On weekends, we had lines all the way around to the CHUM building’s entranceway at Queen and John. Long-weekend Sundays were absolutely insane. We would open up at 8 p.m., and by then, a line-up five-or-six people deep ran to John.”

Hot dog vendors certainly took note.

“That was before all the licensing came in for their carts,” Khaimovich says. “We used to have hot-dog wars outside the club; they used to pull knives on each other, fighting for spots. We’d collect rent money off the hot dog guys for the club—they were making money off of our crowds. I was the head doorman, and worked with a very good-looking farmboy, named Owen Young, at the front door. One night, a hot dog guy didn’t want to pay the club so we took his cart, and put it in the middle of Richmond Street.”

Go-Go Bartenders Cheryl Butson (left) and Allan with cigarette girl Bastian. Photo courtesy of Butson.

Soon, with nightclubs like Klub Max opening around the corner, on Peter, Richmond was busy with traffic.

“Within two to three years, there were many clubs in the area, like Limelight and later Joker,” says Vandervoort. “But after Stilife, Go-Go was the place that anchored what would become the ‘club district.’ Even during the time we were open at Go-Go, I felt like I was living a lyric from Nina Hagen’s “New York New York”—“The newest club is opening up, the newest club is opening up…” Everyone wanted to try and repeat the success from the moment Go-Go opened, it seemed.”

Very few large, mainstream clubs would be such a hotbed for house, techno, and emerging sounds from the electronic underground. Vandervoort—by then also playing 23 Hop, warehouse parties and hosting his Harddrive mix show on CIUT—worked to “remain as cutting edge as possible for a mainstream club.

“I could drop Mike Dunn’s ‘Magic Feet,’ The Underground Solution’s ‘Luv Dancin’‘ or rave-y tunes like Psychotropic’s ‘Hypnosis‘ because I had seen people go nuts for them at underground parties.”

Oliver offers another window onto this exhilarating time in Toronto club history.

“A crew from Windsor showed up at Go-Go one night and handed me a stack of test presses from a brand new label called Plus 8. These early Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva productions caused quite a stir. A revolution was bubbling under the surface in The White Room, about to explode two blocks away at 318 Richmond.”

Fired suddenly one late summer night in 1991 by “a well-lubricated” Lon Ballinger for not having Ballinger’s specific request on hand to play long after the club had closed (“he demanded I play a Stradivarius waltz.”), Oliver would take his record crates to 318 Richmond and help create local history.

“Leaving Go-Go was probably the most pivotal moment of my career,” says the DJ, now long synonymous with The Guvernment’s Saturday nights. “The following week, Wesley Thuro asked me to take over 23 Hop on Saturdays and, within a few short weeks, Toronto’s rave scene was truly born there.”

“Mark Oliver is one of the greatest DJs that this city has ever produced,” says Khaimovich. “Mark could see the future, and had an edge.”

Go-Go bartenders Michel Quintas, Cheryl Butson (centre), Kerry Mcinerney. Photo courtesy of Butson.

Who else played/worked there: After Oliver re-located, a then-unknown DJ, Kevin Williams, was hired to play Wednesdays through Saturdays in the White Room. It was his first club residency, and he came heavy with the house and hip-hop.

“Thursdays were my favourite,” says Williams. “They started off as a throwaway night—empty, especially in the White Room. Since I didn’t have anyone to play to, I would go through a stack of new house tracks, most of which I’d purchased that same evening from Play De Record.

“I met Abel Sylla—every house DJ’s fave dancer—and Kenny Glasgow, and they hung out. They helped spread the word, and in a period of four-to-five weeks, we emptied RPM’s disco nights, and brought everyone to the White Room. Not a single flyer was handed out.”

Many other bricklayers of Toronto’s house music community—like Nick Holder, Dino & Terry, Matt C, Peter, Tyrone & Shams, and Eric Ling—were soon seen at Go-Go on Thursdays.

“They brought me into the underground house scene,” credits Williams. “Prior to this, I had no idea you could go somewhere after 2 a.m.

“Go-Go Thursdays also brought a lot of different ethnicities together,” he points out. “The crowd was definitely a new urban mix of young club-heads-to-be.”

At a time when management at many large nightclubs would fully discourage DJs from playing hip-hop, Williams deftly mixed it into his sets.

“One busy Thursday, Steve Ireson came up to the booth during a hip-hop set,” Williams recalls. “Everyone was jumping up and down like kids in a bouncy castle. Black Sheep had already skipped twice, so I started the track over from the top. Steve asked me calmly, ‘Everything okay?’ and then asked matter-of-factly, ‘Hey, do you think you can tone it down just a bit?’ This was odd because he was very liberal, and never asked me to cut the hip-hop, so I wondered why. He said, ‘Well, I was just downstairs, and I can see the ceiling buckling up and down.’”

DJ Mark Falco was also a key resident later into Go-Go’s history. Having played at popular gay clubs like Komrads and Bar One, Falco was initially hired to work lights in the Theatre Room, complementing the sounds of St. Bass at Go-Go Men. Soon after, Falco would DJ in the White Room on Wednesdays, and eventually played his then-signature tunes, like Aly-us’ “Follow Me,” Kym Sims’ “Too Blind To See It,” and Liberty City’s “Some Lovin’” several nights a week until the club’s close.

Go-Go dancer. Photo courtesy of Kim Ackroyd Oka.

“Standout Go-Go memories include Stephen Wong and Rommel doing runway in knockoff Mugler motorcycle corsets, and other White Room happenings,” says Falco, a sought-after DJ to this day. “I always loved that room on men’s night for the breakout bus-stop lines, and for the fierce vogue/runway action that would happen late at night.”

Vandervoort adds some cherished moments of his own, experienced at Go-Go primarily on Sundays.

“I met a lot of heroes, like Juan Atkins and Larry Heard a.k.a. Mr. Fingers, who was in on a Sunday night with Robert Owens. Roger S came and danced to my set!  And I had a great chat with Neil Tennant from Pet Shop Boys, who had a private party in the White Room one night after their concert. He came up to the booth and we chatted between mixes for half an hour. At one point, I said, ‘I think I have one of your favourite records here in my disco crate,’ and pulled out Nuance’s ‘Love Ride.’ He howled, and said, ‘You know, we based our whole first album on that track.’ You can’t ever forget what it’s like to have those kinds of heroes in your DJ booth.”

Go-Go busboys Jeremy Markoe and Dave Baker. Photo courtesy of Cheryl Butson.

But it was not all fun ‘n’ games for Go-Go DJs and staff. Working for the Ballingers could be challenging, by many accounts.

“So much of Go-Go was up and down—the stairs, the crowds, the fun, the not-fun,” admits Vandervoort. “Never for me before or since has a club so perfectly fit the cliché of ‘It was the best and worst of times.’ I knew I was fortunate to work so much but, also, if you worked there, you knew how many people came and went, and under what strange circumstances.”

“The Ballingers were notorious for firing their managers,” confirms Ireson. “I alone was fired three times—and hired back twice.”

“For all their faults, when they were sober, the Ballingers actually treated their staff spectacularly,” offers Khaimovich. “When they were drunk, they were erratic. If they kissed your forehead, you’d either get a raise or get fired. I was fired three times by them—twice hired back, the first time with a big raise.”

Go-Go bar staff Ian Bullen and Drew Rowsome. Photo courtesy of Cristy-Jane Byrom.

As evidence, many Go-Go staffers also worked at other Ballinger clubs, including original managers Mike Ibrahim, Anthony Rofosco, and Steve McMinn. Bartenders including Butson, Cristy Byrom, and Drew Rowsome also worked other Ballinger clubs, as did bar-backs Jeremy Markoe, Barry Gerreau, and “Super Dave” Baker. (Markoe even followed the Ballingers to New York, where he now resides.)

Many other members of the Go-Go staff became familiar faces on this city’s nightscape. Bartenders Daniel and Michel Quintas would later partner with Khaimovich to open Insomnia on Bloor, while Rosemary Martin and Holly Batson later worked at The Guvernment, and door man James Benecke opened both the Kat Club and Apothecary Music Bar.

Bartender Holly Batson at Go-Go. Photo courtesy of Cristy-Jane Byrom.

Most interviewed for this story mention that the Go-Go team was tight.

“Some of my fondest memories of Go-Go are of how we, as a staff, would go out all together after closing up,” recalls Ireson. “We’d show up at boozecans or warehouse parties as a crew.”

After Ireson was fired the final time, he went on to manage at clubs including Factory and OZ, where both Williams and Vandervoort would DJ, as well as 5ive and CiRCA. Go-Go alumni was hired at each venue. Ireson is now co-owner (with husband Chris Schroer) of deli-café The Hogtown Cure.

Vandervoort summarizes a statement expressed by many interviewees, albeit from a DJ’s perspective.

“I loved the first two years at Go-Go and had some of my best and most cherished nights there. It was also DJ boot camp—a total woodshed workout. I was very burned out and ready for a change when the end came, and I never worked exclusively in one club or for one owner ever again. It was definitely a case of all my eggs in one basket, and, trust me, they cracked!”

Despite requests, Lon Ballinger declined to comment for this story.

Steve Ireson (left) and Boris Khaimovich (right) with busboy David Baker.
Photo courtesy of Cheryl Butson.

What happened to it: “Go-Go was like a comet,” says Khaimovich of the club’s trajectory. “It came out of nowhere, was shining so bright that you would get blinded, and it died really fast.

“Go-Go started crashing within two years. We’d been doing such high numbers that I think everybody had seen it, done it, and moved on to something else. By that point, other spots had opened up.” (Khaimovich himself would go on to manage Limelight and now resides in Northumberland County where he indulges his love of horses.)

“Also, after about a year-and-a-half or so, the Ballingers started spending a lot more time in New York, on building Webster Hall. Their focus changed, and honestly, Webster Hall sucked the money. You could practically see suitcases leaving Go-Go and going to Webster Hall.”

Go-Go ad from 1992, courtesy of Cheryl Butson.

Attempts to revive Go-Go included painting the White Room and renaming it The Black Angel Room. The Ballingers’ attention was greatly divided. Not only had they purchased New York club The Ritz in 1990, and begun the massive undertaking of re-opening it as Webster Hall, they’d also bought The Courthouse on Adelaide East, and Mississauga all-ages club Superstars, which they opened as The World in June of 1992.

“The Ballingers were very aggressively building an empire, and I think they got spread too thin,” says Vandervoort, now a DJ who plays selective gigs, including the Black Crack Funk Attack monthly, and works by day in student support services at a city college.

“To their credit, they got what they wanted with Webster Hall,” concludes Vandervoort. “To my mind, that venture was built and financed off a lot of people’s blood, sweat, and tears at Go-Go and the Bop.”

Vania, who DJed at Webster Hall for its first six years, returned home in 1998, and now spins at venues including the Bovine Sex Club on Fridays.

“After seven years in New York with the Ballingers, it became a little wearing. But the last time I was there, they were getting keys to the city, and Webster Hall had been designated a historic landmark. Americans love a success story.”

Go-Go closed quietly in the summer of 1993. 250 Richmond St. W. soon re-opened as Whiskey Saigon where Go-Go veteran DJs including Oliver, Williams, Falco, and Vania all played. Joe Nightclub followed. The building now houses the head office of Bell Media’s Radio operations, including the studios of CHUM-FM and Flow 93.5.

250 Richmond Street W. in early 2013.

Thank you to participants Boris Khaimovich, Cheryl Butson, James Vandervoort, Kevin Williams, Mark Falco, Mark Oliver, Steve Ireson, Stephen Wong, and Vania, as well as Cristy-Jane Byrom, Jeremy Markoe, Kim Oka Ackroyd, and LAEddy.

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

Article originally published January 14, 2013 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

In the 1980s, Toronto’s lesbian scene was underground—quite literally, as it was often relegated to out-of-sight basement venues. Here, Denise Benson revisits the club that changed all that.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Chez Moi, 30 Hayden

Years in operation: 1984-1989

History: Though it may be difficult for younger dykes socializing in today’s Toronto to imagine, it wasn’t so long ago that queer women in this city had few options for meeting, dancing, and creating community.

From the late 1970s into the ’80s, there were occasional “Women’s Dances” (rarely was there a trendy title to be found) at venues including The Masonic Temple, The Party Centre, and The 519 Community Centre, as well as union halls, church basements and, well, basements in general. Lesbian bars were often dark, small, and far from central, although some—like The Blue Jay, Kit Kat Club, Deco’s, Fly By Night, Cameo, and The Warehouse—are still talked about lovingly in some lesbian circles. There were also mixed queer venues, like The Carriage House on Jarvis, The Quest on Yonge, and Katrina’s on St. Joseph, where gay women were very welcome.

By the time Chez Moi opened in 1984, there was a dearth of social spots for lesbians, despite the explosion of gay men’s bars on Yonge, Church, and surrounding streets. In fact, The Chez itself wasn’t even a dedicated spot for women when it first opened.

Located a block south of Bloor and about halfway between Yonge and Church, Chez Moi was owned by the Korenowsky family. It opened as Korenowsky’s in 1942, and, for decades, operated as a tavern serving food and drinks alongside live music. Over the years, Korenowsky’s was frequented by jazz fans, postal workers, students and business crowds alike.

“My recollection is that Chez Moi was not a gay bar until the owner, Mr. Korenowsky, passed away,” recalls Rose Amato, a Chez customer who would later become close with the Korenowskys, and managed the bar for eight months. “When Mr. K was alive, they ran it as a straight jazz bar and tavern. It became gay once their son Russell started to manage it.”

Russell Korenowsky Sr. passed away in September of 1983. The venue would open as Chez Moi late in 1984.

While it’s said the ghost of Russell Korenowsky Sr. remained in the building—Amato tells me she and others would still smell his cigars in the office—it’s also understood that Mr. K would not have approved of his family running a gay establishment. Most of the people I spoke with mention that Russell Jr.—a.k.a. Rusty, a gay man himself—convinced his mother Lynn to give the gay crowd a go.

Dancefloor at the Chez. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

Bonnie Meyer—a rock and R&B musician who performed with a variety of projects during The Chez’ history, including in its pre-gay days of 1984—credits Sharon Flannigan for stoking the concept of a new women’s hangout. Flannigan, who passed away from cancer early last year, was well-known in the community for having organized lesbian events, including at her east-end Saturday dancehall, dubbed Flannigan’s.

“Sharon went to Mrs. Korenowsky when it was still a straight bar, back when they did businessmen’s luncheons and then served drinks and burgers and all that through the rest of the day,” recalls Meyer. “It wasn’t that busy, so they were likely losing money.

“Sharon said, ‘If you give this bar to me over the next three weekends, I’ll pack the place.’ They said, ‘Go ahead,’ and she did exactly that. She got out her phone book and called everybody.”

“Russell did try to appeal to the gay male dance crowd, but it didn’t take,” adds longtime Chez DJ Elaine Doy. “They then hired a friend of mine, Linda Sharpe, to court the lesbian crowd, and it took off!”

Open daily, Chez Moi was always somewhat fluid. It was a sizable space, with a great outdoor patio and a daytime menu that attracted mixed lunchtime and post-work crowds. Patrons appeared more obviously gay as night fell.

“It was kind of weird,” relates DJ Julie Ley (pronounced “Lee”), who came to play Wednesdays through Sundays at The Chez in 1985, after years of entertaining at The CN Tower’s Sparkles disco, followed by a brief stint at cozy lesbian bar Togethers. “All kinds of people would go for a beer after work. By a certain point, the straight people would leave, the gay people would come in, and we’d rock the room.”

Elaine Doy on the decks at Chez Moi. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

Why it was important: “Back in those days, lesbian clubs were low-budget, discreet, out-of-the-way holes in the ground,” says Doy, a mobile DJ who played weddings and special events until landing a gig at Chez Moi during its transition. “They always gave you the feeling that you were sneaking around doing something wrong! That’s one of the reasons why The Chez was so exciting: Even though it was tucked away on a side street, it was at Yonge and Bloor—a respectable neighbourhood. It was a legitimate bar, and on the ground floor yet.

“While other bars were offering us Thursdays or Sundays just to make a buck on a slow night, we could go to The Chez anytime. It brought us out as a community—we had arrived!”

Though far from fancy, hi-tech, or huge by today’s club standards, The Chez held hundreds of people between its main floor and lower level, which was initially open only for pool, but later renovated to accommodate the club’s growing line-ups. It was a nightclub with a tavern feel, its rectangular main room filled with lots of dark, heavy wood, including the long, prominent bar and the chairs and tables in The Chez’ raised seating area. The elevated DJ booth was off to the room’s left corner, with a wooden dancefloor in front. Massive mirrors were everywhere, as were ledges for beverages.

“The Chez had a pub feel to it, but included an awesome-sized dancefloor, excellent sound and lights, and a good booth,” says Doy, who DJed at the club until August 1985, and returned in the spring of 1989 until The Chez’ close. “You could see the entire club from that booth.”

“I thought it was an incredible space,” agrees Ley. “I think Chez Moi was our first real, big gay women’s nightclub. It was only after The Chez that people started opening bigger clubs, and trying to do better. That’s where places like The Rose [547 Parliament, later operated as Pope Joan] came in. The Chez really made a name for women’s bars because they were the grand beginning.”

In addition to the tiny Togethers (upstairs on Church) and The Chez, lesbians going out in mid-’80s-Toronto also had the intimate Felines on Richmond, which catered to a professional crowd, and Cameo, on Eastern. True to form, Cameo was in a basement, in an industrial area, and, according to Doy, featured décor that included Christmas lights and a ceiling covered in tinfoil. Cameo lost a lot of its crowd to Chez Moi.

Still, the Cameo was often a hot spot, particularly when mobile disc-jockey Rosie Demitro became resident on weekends. Soon, she was approached by a Chez manager named Clayton (surname unknown), and began spinning there on Sundays—all in addition to her day job as a courier with Purolator.

The entertaining, personable Demitro was an immediate hit with Chez Moi crowds, and was convinced to bring her mixing and microphone skills to Hayden Street Fridays through Sundays. At the time, two DJs worked The Chez booth; Julie Ley was soon hired, and paired with friend Demitro.

“After a couple of months of that, I told Clayton I wanted to bartend to make more money,” Demitro offers during a phone chat. “He decided to try putting a woman behind the bar, and, oh my gosh, did I ever make good money!

“I was out at 18, and was 31 when I worked there, so I knew about lesbianism. I had wisdom, let’s put it that way,” she laughs. “I listened a lot.”

Consistently, Chez Moi DJs were entertainers, crowd pleasers, and part of the Chez community.

“I was always a show DJ,” says Ley. ”I loved to play my tambourine, sing along, and get the whistle out.”

Ley was also infamous for her on-the-fly collabs with saxophonist Carrie Chesnutt. The well-known Toronto musician gigged with a variety of jazz and R&B bands all over the city. She performed early on at Chez Moi with her group Chesnutt and Graham, and often joined The Silverleaf Jazz Band during their Sunday-afternoon shows. Following these gigs, Chesnutt jammed upstairs with Ley.

“Carrie and I would have such a laugh,” Ley recalls. “I’d spin specific tracks, and then she’d walk into the room playing her sax, I would play my tambourine and rap, and the crowd would go wild for it.

“We were a little off the wall, and people loved it. We’d do something we called ‘The Peanut Butter Song.’ I started doing this rap about peanut butter that had to do with smooth or extra smooth. The next thing I knew, I started to get different jars of peanut butter placed all along my DJ booth. It was a naughty song, let’s put it that way.”

Dallas Noftall with friend and fellow Chez DJ Allan White. Photo courtesy of Noftall.

Equally vivacious was DJ Dallas Noftall. She arrived in Toronto from Newfoundland in July of 1986, and could soon be found on The Chez dancefloor “every night.” Noftall knew most Chez customers by name before she was asked to give DJing a go in the spring of 1987. She had become good friends with manager Russell Korenowsky Jr. through her then-girlfriend, Linda Hajekerou, also a music enthusiast.

“Rusty asked me to DJ downstairs, in the Stardust Lounge—it was called ‘the dungeon’ by staff and regulars—which was where people went as a holding area for the inside line-up,” Noftall begins.

“I had never DJed before, and was terrified. I started on a Friday night, while a gal named Gilda DJed upstairs, and it went well. Then, on the Saturday, she fell out of the booth and broke her arm, so management insisted that I head up to the main bar and get the tables spinning. The rest is history.”

Initially, Noftall was a resident alongside Chez mainstay Ley. Later, she’d spin five or more nights weekly, with overlapping residents including Doy, Mark Bandura, and “mentor and friend” Allan White.

“We were all pretty close, and all came to party there on our nights off,” shares Noftall. “We had our own styles and niches, so people knew which night to come to get their particular type of fix. I played disco, funk, house, and some slow stuff.”

Noftall’s list of her favourite Chez Moi classics includes Prince’s “Erotic City,” Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional,” Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” Company B’s “Fascinated,” and Nice & Wild’s “Diamond Girl,” along with the likes of Divine, New Order, and Erasure.

Doy mentions songs including Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” Phyllis Nelson’s “Move Closer,” and “my signature last song, ‘Over the Rainbow‘ by Sam Harris.”

Ley, who cites Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” and Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” as two faves of the time, appreciates the free rein DJs were given at Chez Moi.

“I was never programmed or told what to play. I could enjoy myself and make people happy. It was a place where politics stopped at the door, and people could come in to relax and party. The Chez was a really accepting place. We had a lot of freedom there.”

DJs Dallas Noftall and Julie Ley. Photo courtesy of Noftall.

Chez Moi was hugely popular in its day. On weekends, there would often be line-ups all the way to Church Street. It was the first lesbian bar I ever went to, in late 1986, and I still remember exactly how it felt to line up alone outside, have my name put on a list to be called out when there was enough space to be invited upstairs, and then to walk into a room filled with women and heat. Some women danced shirtless while others cruised so openly my budding-newbie-dyke mind was blown.

“The women were absolutely on the prowl,” chuckles Demitro. “They were looking for girls, let me tell you. If you were sexy, you’d be picked up, like, bam!”

Weeknights were a lot more laid back while Sundays were the favourite among regulars, especially in summer when baseball season was in full swing. People packed the patio, came out in droves for the afternoons of live music, and supported fundraisers for causes ranging from The Chez Moi baseball team to cancer survivors and AIDS awareness. The Chez was a community hub where anything could happen.

Chez Moi dancefloor. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

“I remember a crazy talent night we did over a period of two months,” says DJ Mark Bandura. “Anyone could come in and perform anything. It was hilarious, and it packed the joint. I vividly recall a woman with a beaver puppet singing—very strange.”

Sarnia native Bandura DJed at The Chez from roughly 1985 to 1987, while a student. He’d spin on both floors, bouncing between pop hits, dance remixes, and select alternative cuts. To this day, I’m grateful to him for playing my requests for Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Depeche Mode, and lots of music I couldn’t hear in other lesbian bars. (I began to produce my own queer club nights in 1987.)

Bandura’s presence also helped make clear that The Chez was an inclusive club.

“I started there because one of my best friends from Sarnia was a lesbian, and we wanted a place to hang out together,” he writes. “The crowd was mostly lesbian but, as it got busier, it became a place where lesbians and their gay male friends were comfortable together. There haven’t been many clubs like that.”

The welcoming vibe was fairly widespread. Rose Amato—who coached The Chez Moi ball team for years, and was convinced by Mrs. K to act as club manager—illustrates the point.

“I think once the old-timers—who were coming during the week, and to watch jazz on Sundays—realized that the gay people didn’t care if they were there or not, it became more and more comfortable. It was like, ‘You accept us, we accept you. You don’t judge us, then you won’t receive judgment.’”

Chesnutt, who lived two blocks away and could frequently be found at The Chez, also recalls that the clientele was “a little of everything. I remember a businessman-looking guy I talked to one day. He had a rhinestone necklace that I complimented him on. He then took it off, gave it to me, and proudly confessed he was wearing pink leotards under his suit. Then he showed me. Cute!”

“I’m in my 50s now,” adds Amato. “And I’d have to say that The Chez was definitely one of the best bars ever for women. It opened its doors to everyone and, unless you were a problem, like a drunk who created havoc or someone who hit on women when they didn’t want to be hit on, you were never asked to leave.”

That said, in the mid-to-late 1980s, homophobia was still rampant. “Sexual orientation” may have been added to the Ontario Human Rights Code as a prohibited ground for discrimination in 1986, but our issues were rarely discussed in mainstream media, and a large percentage of people still felt they had to live closeted lives. Welcoming or not, The Chez was beside an alleyway, and had a few parking lots nearby. It wasn’t uncommon for fights to be sparked outside by passersby uttering homophobic slurs.

“I remember a few things that made me say to Mrs. K that one of these nights I might not walk out of there alive,” admits Amato. “There was a night I cut off a straight gentleman who was drunk. He proceeded to go out and get in his Camaro, and he drove through our front doors, almost taking out our door person. That was scary.

“One Sunday, we had someone come in who said he had a gun and that he wanted ‘all the queers gone’ because it was a jazz bar and queers didn’t belong there. We got him out fast. One other night, a woman smashed a bottle on the dancefloor and went after someone. But in all the time I went or worked there, I only remember those incidents.”

Police harassment remained an issue as well. Following the bathhouse raids of 1981, Toronto’s gay and lesbian community remained rightfully wary of police presence in our bars.

DJ Elaine Doy. Photo courtesy of her.

Elaine Doy recalls a Saturday night experience at The Chez in 1985.

“The dancefloor was packed, and I was in the booth. A cop had lost his badge in a scuffle outside. He came in asking for it, and was directed to the DJ booth. I told him nothing had been turned in, but he decided to come into the booth and do an illegal search. So I resisted, with my knee in his groin, and was arrested right there, in the booth. The music stopped, I was led out, handcuffed, through the still-crowded dancefloor, amid jeers and boos.

“When my day in court came, I was flabbergasted at how many Chez patrons showed up to offer their support. It was a packed house. That’s what I loved about The Chez: Everybody stuck together. As it turned out, the case was thrown out of court and the officer in question was demoted.”

Many I speak with describe the Chez regulars as family. The largely working-class crowd was close-knit, but not close-minded.

“The Chez was unique in that the crowd was eclectic—and no cliques!” Doy exclaims. “Everybody got along. Sure, there were the odd drunken arguments but, for the most part, everybody was there to party.”

“The Chez was like Cheers, but gay and dancey and huge,” describes Dallas Noftall. “There were people from all walks of life, all income levels, and all facets of the LGBT community. The Chez was easy, fun and unpretentious. It demonstrated that we can all not only co-exist, but we can thrive when we enter into a place where the focus is not on shoes or hair or the car you drive, but instead the heart and soul of communities worldwide: music and camaraderie.”

Bartenders Joe, Rose, and Danny. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

Who else played/worked there: Live music has long played a key role in lesbian circles. The Chez’s Sunday afternoons were especially hopping during the years when the duo dubbed Thunder & Lightning (a.k.a. Bonnie Meyer and Carrie Chesnutt) performed.

“Bonnie had a standing Sunday afternoon gig, and was like a god to those gals in there,” says Chesnutt, who played sax to Meyer’s guitar and vocals, and continues to perform at an impressive range of venues.

“Those women were dedicated, amazing fans. I remember that they always brought presents, especially for Bonnie—she was like the reincarnation of Elvis. We got up to a lot of shenanigans back then.”

“Sunday afternoons there were the greatest,” exclaims Meyer, enthused enough at the memories to call me while on vacation in Hawaii.

A musician who’d played professionally for 14 years before she met Chesnutt in 1986, Meyer regales with tales of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll—or at least of limo rides, champagne and cocaine. (Hey, it was the ’80s.)

Now a retired counselor, healer, and hypnotherapist, the Vancouver-based Meyer continues to make and produce music, and remains appreciative of Chesnutt’s considerable chops.

“Carrie was so talented and provocative, and such an entertainer. The crowds would watch our every move. There was a lot of love, and a lot of energy.”

At The Chez, music lovers could also play spot-the-queer-celebrity. People like Carole Pope, Lorraine Segato, and even k.d. lang were known to hang out on occasion.

Demitro thinks back to a busy night in 1985 to spill the beans on lang, who’d already received national attention with 1984 album A Truly Western Experience.

“It was a big step up to the DJ booth—if you wore tight pants, you were gonna rip them, trust me,” begins Demitro as she describes putting on an extended 12-inch for a bathroom break.

“But when I came back, there was this woman in the booth, on the microphone. I got in there, took the mic from her and said, ‘Who do you think you are?’ She said, ‘Don’t you know? I’m k.d. lang.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. Get out!’ No one was allowed in that DJ booth or we would get in trouble from Mrs. K, so I didn’t care who she was.”

Manager Linda Hajekorou (left). Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

It was the Chez Moi managers who had to enforce Mrs. Korenowsky’s rules. Son Russell filled that role until he was too sick to do so. (He passed away from HIV/AIDS-related illness in January, 1993.) Linda Hajekerou, a.k.a. Linda Who, acted as manager for a brief bit after him. (She passed away from cancer two years ago.) Other managers included Stephen Sweeten, thought to have moved to Vancouver; Rose Amato, interviewed here; and Sergio Apolloni, a popular community ambassador and activist.

Sergio Appolonio (left) with Jeff. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

“Sergio brought The Chez to life with drag performers, AIDS awareness events, and shows and games,” says Noftall. “He knew his stuff for PR, and never hid from a camera or the role of organizer. He was there until we closed our doors.” (Apolloni passed away from AIDS in 1991.)

There were, of course, also many Chez bartenders, bussers, service and security staff who captured customers’ hearts.

Demitro speaks of working with a favourite gay bartender, named Joe, for years while an older gent named Johnny often worked afternoons.

“We all loved Johnny, even though he was a bit cantankerous sometimes,” says Amato. “Johnny came with The Chez, from when it was straight. Johnny was the boss, and he told you so.”

A few folks also mention bartender Karen Ramsay, who went on to work at The Rose Café, as did DJs Ley, Bandura and, later, Noftall.

The Rose, which would go on to reign as Toronto’s longest-lasting lesbian bar for a decade-plus, pulled from The Chez, but generally drew a different crowd, and wasn’t as welcoming to gay men.

“Chez Moi was seen as a friendly place where people had fun,” summarizes Demitro. “I didn’t really like going to The Rose Café. There, if you didn’t have a nice car or a house, you were going to be over in a corner. The atmosphere was more materialistic. At The Chez, whether you worked as a cashier or a dentist; it wasn’t all about separate cliques. It was way more down-to-earth.”

“I just loved The Chez,” adds Amato, who’s been employed at Worker’s Health & Safety since 1990. “I think what I miss the most is that it was an easy bar to be in. The friendships and the camaraderie—you knew you could go there on a bad day, and there would always be a friend.”

Looking toward the main bar. Photo courtesy of Dallas Noftall.

What happened to it: Chez Moi closed suddenly in early fall of 1989.

“There had been rumours that it was going to close for six months,” recalls Demitro. “Then, one night, Dallas called me in hysterics, saying, ‘The Chez doors are locked.’” (Demitro and Noftall were girlfriends for five years.)

Though she didn’t see it coming, Elaine Doy, who stopped DJing in 1992 and now enjoys life as a painter and drummer, was the DJ on Chez Moi’s final night.

“When I went up to the office to get paid [that evening], it was strongly suggested that I get my records out,” says Doy. “I was so used to clubs opening and closing without notice that I assumed they were going to close. I got my records, and took a memento—one of those round, silver discs for seven-inch singles. I have it to this day!”

30 Hayden Street today.

Noftall, who went on to DJ at a slew of lesbian and gay clubs, is now a real-estate agent. She confirms that 30 Hayden was sold to developers, and that the property officially changed hands December 14, 1989. Part of it was incorporated into the Bloor-Yonge subway station. Today, the address is home to high-rise condo building Tiffany Terrace.

Noftall helps keep the vibe alive as she produces and DJs at more than 20 events annually, including Chez Moi reunions.

Thank you to participants Bonnie Meyer, Carrie Chesnutt, Elaine Doy, Julie Ley, Mark Bandura, Rose Amato, Rosie Demitro, and to Dallas Noftall who also helped a great deal by connecting me with others.

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