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Blocks Recording Club

2000s, Disco, Dub, Electro, Electronic, Funk, Hip-Hop, House, Indie Rock, Live Music, New Wave, Post-punk, Reggae, Rock, Soul

Then & Now: 56 Kensington a.k.a. Club 56

December 5, 2014
56 Kensington GTO ___ 52826c4231c60-56-Kensington-exterior-by-Randreac

Outside Club 56. Photo by RANDREAC.

 

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

It was a dark, dingy death-trap. But in the early 2000s, there was no better place to party than in this Kensington basement.

BYDENISE BENSON

Club: Club 56, 56C Kensington Ave.

Years in operation: 2001-2004

History: In the early 2000s, Kensington Market was not much of a destination for dancing. Market nightlife mainly consisted of punk and reggae shows, the occasional low-key lounge or restaurant, impromptu gatherings in the park, and boozecans. Streets tended to be quiet by night and busy by day, when people flooded in to buy vegetables and second-hand clothes.

Squeezed between random storefronts and a TD bank machine, 56C Kensington was easy to miss. Its glass-door entrance was set in from the sidewalk, and was frequently covered in posters. Layers of paint hinted at the location’s past lives, including as an after-hours and, before that, a Vietnamese karaoke bar.

By 2001, a man named Laszlo or Leslye (the English translation) owned the basement bar that came to be known as Club 56. At first, his clientele consisted largely of friends, many of them fellow Hungarians and other Eastern Europeans. It was a social club of sorts.

That same year, a DJ and promoter named Mike Wallace was searching for a new spot to throw his parties. He and Rob Judges—two Scarborough-raised music lovers who’d been friends since grade four—had made names for themselves through a party called Skeme. From 1995 to ’97, the duo scoped underused spaces, bouncing from legion halls to Ethiopian restaurants, Kensington’s Lion Bar and Top o’ the Market and, most successfully, to Spadina’s Club Shanghai.

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1990s, 2000s, Classical, Country, Indie Rock, Live Music, Rock

Then & Now: Ted’s Wrecking Yard

October 21, 2014
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Constantines play Wavelength at Ted’s Wrecking Yard in August, 2001. Photo courtesy of Wavelength.

 

Article originally published August 24, 2012 by The Grid online (TheGridTO.com).

In this edition of her nightlife-history series, Denise Benson revisits the beloved College Street venue that lit the fuse for Toronto’s post-millennial indie-rock explosion.

BYDENISE BENSON

Club: Ted’s Wrecking Yard & Barcode, 549 College St.

Years in operation: 1997-2001

History: Ted Footman was no stranger to the stretch of College west of Bathurst when he set out to open second-floor venue Ted’s Wrecking Yard, with Barcode below it. Footman lived in the area, and had opened the nearby College Street Bar in the early 1990s. After splitting from his partner in that venture, Footman opened rock-bar hangout Ted’s Collision and Body Repair at 573 College in 1994. (It became known as simply Collision after Footman sold it.)

“Ted’s Collision was a bit of a shock for the neighbourhood,” Footman chuckles during a recent phone chat. “It was all supposed to be pasta and jazz, and all very quiet.”

For many of us living in the area—I rented on Brunswick, just north of College, for 17 years—Ted’s Collision was a welcome addition to the neighbourhood. What it wasn’t, despite Footman’s attempts, was a live-music venue. A 1995 City amendment to the area’s zoning by-law, ushered in by then-City Councillor Joe Pantalone, limited the size and “entertainment-type uses” of restaurants and lounges on College between Bathurst to Ossington, thus dashing Footman’s hopes of expanding Ted’s Collision to two floors.

Instead, Footman turned his attention to a two-floor spot at 549 College. Once home to a series of less-than-busy bars, the location had stood empty for some time.

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