Article originally published September 12. 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

We revisit the crown jewel of late-‘80s Toronto nightlife, where everyone from house enthusiasts to members of Pink Floyd felt right at home.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Diamond Club, 410 Sherbourne St.

Years in operation: 1984-1991

History: While Torontonians have known 410 Sherbourne as a dance club and concert venue for almost three decades, the building was once home to music and theatrics of a different sort. Starting in the 1950s, the German-Canadian Club Harmonie offered everything from community gatherings to oom-pah bands to ballroom dancing at the address.

In the early 1980s, New Yorker Pat Kenny entered the picture. At the time, Kenny owned or co-owned three Manhattan clubs: Greenwich Village rock spots The Bitter End and Kenny’s Castaways (now run by his son), and larger dance club and concert venue The Cat Club.

“Pat was called ‘The Bard of Bleeker Street’ because he was a larger-than-life character, and extremely well known in New York,” says Toronto club and music-industry veteran Randy Charlton, who worked for Kenny. “He helped break the careers of a lot of struggling young artists in the 1960s into the ’70s, like Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Mark Knopfler before Dire Straits was well known.”

Though based in New York, Kenny took an interest in Toronto. Friends involved in The Village Gate nightclub and dinner theatre wanted to open an offshoot location here; Kenny opened it at 410 Sherbourne, with Club Harmonie still holding court in a small space within the building. After a few unsuccessful productions, the dinner theatre folded, and Kenny rented the entire building to open a nightclub.

The Diamond would open by early summer of 1984, with Randy Charlton as general manager and director of entertainment. Kenny had approached Charlton while the latter managed Sparkles disco, at the top of the CN Tower. Kenny wanted to hire Sparkles’ weekend resident DJ, Paul Cohen, to spin Thursdays at The Diamond, and invited Charlton to come see what was being developed.

“Within a week, I had left Sparkles and started over there,” Charlton says.

The Diamond’s entryway.

Conceived as a sister spot to the Cat Club, The Diamond initially ran Thursdays through Saturdays.

“Essentially, when we opened, we were a dance club,” explains Charlton during an extended phone interview. “There were occasional concerts, but that wasn’t our main focus during the first year or so.”

Charlton, Kenny, and their team of staff developed a theatrical, versatile venue with impressive sound and lighting. The Diamond’s large stage, which ran along much of the west wall, soon featured uninhibited audiences dancing to top DJs or bands who could be seen from almost anywhere in the club. A balcony ran overhead, with chairs and tables below it, while a sizable DJ booth and small VIP area were also raised well above the crowd. Food was served in a restaurant located at the back of the club, in a room that became known as The Grapevine.

Given that the area was largely residential, sound complaints were an issue early on.

“Jack Layton was the riding’s councillor at the time and I think that, in the first six months, I spent more time with him than I did running the club,” laughs Charlton. “Eventually, we worked things out, got some support in the neighbourhood, and managed to win Jack over. He went from fighting against us to wanting on the guest list to see bands.”

Randy Charlton with former Diamond manager Sharron Robert. Photo courtesy of Charlton.

Why it was important: “The Diamond became the most famous club in the country,” says Jason “Deko” Steele, a DJ/producer who became synonymous with the club’s success as its main weekend resident.

“Management made sure we had a brilliant staff, and the booking agents brought in the very best. We were constantly in the news and on MuchMusic, which was the formidable force at the time. Then there were the weekends; there was always a huge lineup, often all the way up to Wellesley, as the club was usually at capacity by 10 p.m.”

Hired a few months after The Diamond opened, Steele was a pioneering presence who’d started as a teenage disco DJ in the late 1970s, playing at Montreal’s popular Club 1234 during its original incarnation.

“I was visiting from Montreal, and everyone was talking about this ‘amazing’ new club, The Diamond,” says Steele of his introduction to the hotspot. “In those days, if you were from Montreal, it was laughable that Toronto could have a ‘real’ dance club so we went to check it out. Seriously, the second I walked into the main room, I thought, ‘I have to and will work here.’ I was stupefied by the straight-out-of-New York ghetto chic, and enigmatic ambience that the room exuded. The layout, the sound system, the lights, and DJ booth were all so intoxicating.”

“The Diamond was a unique experience at the time,” agrees lighting pro Andrée Emond, a Diamond staffer during its first two years who went on to work at The Copa, Stages, and other clubs. “It had great, high ceilings over the dancefloor and the lighting was very theatrical.

“In the early days, Pat Kenny made sure the club created an experience for patrons. Themes were used; one year was Paris in the 1920s. I still recall the complete installation of a working fire escape as part of a Chicago or New York back-alley theme. A dance troupe even entertained the crowd at peak time on weekend nights.

“Jason ‘Wheels of Steel’ was the DJ I worked most with,” adds Emond, now a web developer and teacher. “His style was upbeat and perfect for the place on the weekend. Rawle James also played many nights, and his musical style was much funkier and melodic. I also recall DJs Marva Jackson and Ivan Palmer. It was wonderful to do lights and spend time with each of them.”

“Andrée was ace,” offers Jackson, unprompted, in an email. ”She set the mood with lights brilliantly.”

Marva Jackson during her Diamond days. Photo courtesy of her.

A popular CKLN radio host and DJ, Jackson played a variety of nights and events early on at The Diamond. She drew in the downtown hipsters with her blend of northern soul, dance music, and rock, even hosting a short-lived indie rock Wednesday night called Rainbow’s End.

“I loved The Diamond, which was the largest venue I’d played,” says the artist-supporting media-marketing consultant now known as Marva Jackson Lord. “I loved the different kinds of audiences the club had, with their eclectic programming. I could play whatever I wanted. My main goal was to introduce new music to the mix, and still keep people dancing.”

Though widely varied in their approaches, The Diamond’s core resident DJs were inventive and diverse. They had to be, as they peered down from the booth at audiences of downtowners and suburbanites who ranged in race, sexual orientation, and musical preferences. The Diamond DJs played all night long—or opened and closed for live performers—and so needed strong programming skills as they moved between sounds.

“At the time, we played everything from rock to house, hip-hop, R&B, alternative and anything in between,” explains Rawle James, a Toronto dance-music record-store veteran and DJ/producer who started at The Diamond as Jason Steele’s backup.

James recalls a list of his Diamond favourites, with artists ranging from New Order, Depeche Mode, and Psychedelic Furs to Heavy D, De La Soul, Tone Loc, and Ten City.

“My favourite songs were always the ones that drove the crowd into a singing, raging frenzy,” shares Steele, citing ABC, Tears for Fears, The Romantics, Prince, Madonna, Divine, Pet Shop Boys, Mary Jane Girls, Bronski Beat, and Soul II Soul, among others.

“For the entire ’80s, the crowds were rife with a newfound sense of excitement and freedom,” says Steele, also a groundbreaking house-music DJ. “It was the first time in ages that people had the chance to commit to more than one style of music, let alone have lots of variety in the dance tunes that were being played in clubs. The dancefloor was more eager for variety than anytime ever before.”

Famous not only for his skills and selections, Steele served it all up with attitude and a very vocal mic presence.

“At any given moment, if I felt there was energy lacking, I’d put my finger on the record, stop it and scream those famous words: ‘I can’t heeeeeeear you!’”

While The Diamond began largely as a dance club, it became increasingly recognized as a top concert spot. With a legal capacity of 1,200, it was a sizable venue that could feel cozy, especially with its stage placement.

“We had the stage along the [west] side because we felt that made it more intimate,” explains Charlton, the club’s main booker. “People almost formed a semi-circle around the stage, and everybody was really close to the artists.”

This proved popular with bands and promoters alike, and The Diamond helped catapult many Queen Street and Canadian bands to new heights. Cowboy Junkies did a two-month residency in The Grapevine and then moved to The Diamond’s main stage before conquering Massey Hall and the world. Martha and the Muffins, Parachute Club, Images In Vogue, Pursuit of Happiness, Jane Siberry, The Jeff Healey Band, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Blue Peter, and countless other locals all performed, as did Alanis Morissette, k.d. lang, and other now-huge names from across the nation.

“I think of the days of paying The Tragically Hip a hundred dollars and a case of beer to drive from Kingston to open a show,” chuckles Charlton. “Then they got to the point where they would headline shows, and each time they did better. Obviously, they outgrew the venue, but I think they probably played three or four more times as a ‘thank you’ for the role we played in getting them to that place before they fully moved on.”

Charlton also booked Blue Rodeo very early in the band’s career, including as openers for two sold-out Kris Kristofferson concerts in 1986. Kristofferson arrived in time to see them.

“Kris loved their set,” says Charlton. “When he went on that night, he said, ‘It’s an absolute pleasure to be sharing the stage with Blue Rodeo tonight. They’re the most righteous band I’ve seen since Buddy Holly & The Crickets.’”

A big fan of roots, rock, country and blues, Charlton also co-managed artists including Jeff Healey Band and Rita Chiarelli, and was one of the first people to bring Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle to Canada.

His vision helped establish The Diamond as a more prominent concert venue than the club’s similarly sized main competitors, The Copa and RPM. The Diamond’s reputation even spread to one very prominent musician.

“In 1987, David Bowie specifically chose The Diamond to do a live mid-day broadcast on MuchMusic as a teaser for his Glass Spider tour,” recalls Charlton, who packed the club with Bowie fans as well as invited media. “The show aired nationwide, and was picked up by television stations around the world. Bowie performed that night at The Ex, and then came back to The Diamond and had a private party.”

The late 1980s also saw Pink Floyd perform at The Diamond after a three-night stint at Exhibition Place. Band members David Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason hung out at the club often during the three months that Pink Floyd rehearsed at a Pearson Airport hangar in preparation for a world tour. Their performance for a packed Diamond—under the alias of The Fishermen—paid off a substantial bar tab.

Another night, Supertramp followed a show at Maple Leaf Gardens with a set at The Diamond. (They performed 90 minutes of R&B covers.) Celebrity sightings and unannounced performances were commonplace.

“The status of the venue had all the major labels dropping by with their celebs,” recalls Steele. “Hot hit stars, like Talk Talk, Apollonia 6, and E.G. Daily, would frequently show up and do an impromptu performance. Jermaine Stewart blew up the joint with “‘We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.’”

Steele is full of such stories, also mentioning an afternoon spent “getting stupid with the insane members of Sigue Sigue Sputnik,” along with meeting a vast array of stars, from Petula Clark, Tiny Tim, Divine and KISS’ Paul Stanley to Don “Get Smart” Adams and Leonard “Dr. Spock” Nimoy.

“I remember hanging out after hours in the managers’ office with John Candy, getting blasted, and listening to one hysterical true story after another. He was so cool and über-nice.”

Steele is also proud to have DJed the first Fashion Cares event, held at The Diamond in 1987 to raise funds and awareness in the early battle against AIDS. On a related note, The Diamond’s Wednesday nights—helmed by event producers, promoters and then-partners Wanda Marcotte and Irena Joannides—were a beacon for Toronto’s fashion set from the late 1980s into early ’90s.

“Our night started as ‘Dance Into Fashion Wednesdays,’ and brought together the cool fashion, art, and media crowd by incorporating fashion shows, concerts, performance, dance, and special events,” explains Joannides.

Initially, DJs Jason Steele and Ivan Palmer played an array of underground sounds while incipient fashion designers like Izzy Camilleri and Dean and Dan Caten showed their creations. A few months in, a solo Steele borrowed a page from DJ Barry Harris’ groundbreaking Sunday nights at The Copa, and focused more heavily on an emerging new sound: house music.

A month later, the Wednesday crowd had grown from 300 to 1,500 and more. Capacity was reached early, with people then spilling over to the parking lot across the street, where they created their own parties.

“The crowd was diverse—something unheard of in a mainstream venue at the time —bringing together people of various ethnicities and sexual orientations. This was the big strength of the night, and its impact on so many levels,” says Joannides, now a film and television writer/director. (Marcotte passed away from ovarian cancer roughly a decade ago).

“It was the loudest and danciest crowd I had ever spun for,” says Steele, then also immersed in underground dance music as co-creator and editor of StreetSound Magazine.

“That was so early in the house music scene that I would literally buy every single house track that came in to shops,” Steele adds. “In those days, kids like Peter, Tyrone and Shams, Mitch Winthrop, Dino and Terry, and Nick Holder would come and listen to the music that would soon become a major part of their lives. Nothing would have ever happened without Wanda and Irena, though. Wanda was a formidable force; you either loved her or were afraid of her.”

Rawle James concurs: “Wanda was everywhere, worked hard, was very humble and boy did she know how to throw a party. The Diamond’s Wednesday nights were legendary. I remember moisture running down the walls. The room was hot in more ways than one, and Jason would drive them crazy.”

Joannides provides a clear example of the crowd’s commitment to grooves.

“One Wednesday, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd asked to play live; we had a crowd that was interested only in dancing and listening to house music. When Gilmour went on stage and started playing Pink Floyd material, the crowd was obviously disinterested. Realizing this, he brought up his back-up singers, and started playing Motown classics. The crowd responded well to that.”

Diamond staff photo by Gokche Erkan (www.gokcheerkan.com). All rights reserved.

Who else played/worked there: Few other DJs played at The Diamond with any regularity. Of note is former StreetSound managing editor Chris Torella, also known for his many years spent working at Starsound record shop. Now a video producer based in N.Y.C., Torella turned The Grapevine into a soul and disco hangout on weekends for some time.

The list of notable live acts that performed at The Diamond over the years is huge, especially as top promoters like The Garys, CPI, Elliott Lefko, and the late Lance Ingleton brought a lot of shows to the stage.

The Garys alone booked in dozens of shows, with Gary Topp pointing to personal favourites including Sun Ra, Waterboys, Psychic TV, John Cale and Chris Spedding, Mink de Ville, Ornette Coleman, Bob Mould, Pere Ubu, Hawkwind, Marianne Faithfull, and Gwar.

“Watching Gwar make blood and body parts all afternoon, repairing  costumes, and getting made-up was most memorable,” says Topp. “They were a true artists’ collective. They were brilliant.”

“I went to as many concerts there as I could, even when I wasn’t DJing,” says Jackson, citing everyone from Loudon Wainwright III and Long John Baldry to Julian Lennon and Burton Cummings.

“My fave was Diamanda Galas in 1985, though. I was ecstatic about that show. Also, Run-D.M.C. played one night and I DJed. I remember noticing how the hip-hop crowd and the heavy rock crowd all nodded their heads in the same way.”

James points to stellar shows by Thomas Dolby, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Sinead O’Connor, Tracy Chapman, and Doug & the Slugs.

“The Fishbone concert especially stands out to me,” says James. “It was early evening on a Friday, and not a packed house, but they took the stage and blew the roof off the venue with the most energetic show I’d ever seen.”

A YouTube search also turns up Diamond concert footage from the likes of Sonic Youth, Daniel Lanois, Pere Ubu, and Dalbello, who makes her way through a packed room.

Off stage, The Diamond worked so well because its staff did.

“Kinga, Gidget and, later, Dawna at the door and coat check were the faces of the club and set the pace with their extremely ambiguous cross of punk and glam,” offers Steele.

Charlton also points to security and promotions man Jim Zeppa, front-door figure Mickey Power, and in-house publicist Sharon Garvey as key.

Musician Tim Welch was a main lighting tech for The Diamond’s entire history while National Velvet vocalist Maria Del Mar worked coat check. Fellow musician Drew Rowsome, now also a FAB magazine editor, tended bar. The staff list is extensive, with a long list of contributors gathered on this Diamond-related Facebook page.

“I also remember this guy Paul we used to call Mr. Dressup,” shares Steele. “He’d arrive nightly with his suitcase full of outfits, and then spend the night behaving in a most peculiar fashion. All at once, he’d do a pirouette across the dancefloor. I miss him.”

Diamond regular Paul Crossen (left) with Kinga, performer and Diamond staffer. Photo courtesy of Crossen.

What happened to it: After spinning at The Diamond for most of its seven years—he broke from the fold to DJ at The Copa for a stretch—Jason Steele lost his residency late in 1990. Audience numbers dropped sharply.

“Draw your own conclusions, but when I left, the place was at capacity on the weekends and very shortly thereafter the doors were closed forever,” says Steele, who went on to DJ at Klub Max, become a Toronto rave pioneer, and release records as Deko! on Plus 8 sister label Probe.

Randy Charlton offers another set of circumstances.

“The building had been sold the previous year and there was a fair bit of acrimony between the new owners, who were a couple of lawyers, and Pat Kenny. The lease was up, there were negotiations… and, well, the money that they wanted was too much in Pat’s mind. He also felt that bigger clubs tend to have a finite lifespan as a certain name. The lease expired December 27, 1990, and I was able to convince the two lawyers to let us get through New Year’s Eve. I tried to see if I could work something out with them to keep going but, by Jan. 16, Pat had pulled out and the owners basically shut us down.”

The Diamond closed and Charlton went on to work at venues including Albert’s Hall, Club 279 at the Hard Rock Café, and Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse. Charlton is now a talent buyer and assistant general manager at Sound Academy.

“I can safely say there has never been another club like The Diamond, as far as notoriety and fame for valid purposes,” summarizes Steele. “It was the hottest and most acclaimed live music and dance club venue. I’m not entirely sure any of us knew how much we’d miss it after the fact, and still do decades later.”

For the past decade, Steele has owned and operated PartyBusCanada.com, and continues to produce music.

Pat Kenny passed away in 2002, at the age of 73.

Eleven months after The Diamond closed at 410 Sherbourne, The Phoenix Concert Theatre rose in its place. The building was not greatly changed, although the westerly wall where The Diamond’s main stage once stood became The Phoenix’ long main bar. The Phoenix’ north-side stage was an elevated bar area at The Diamond.

The Phoenix has now operated successfully for more than 20 years. A documentary about its history, titled Strange Parody, Rise of a Generation, is currently in the works.

Thank you to Randy Charlton, Andrée Emond, Rawle James, Irena Joannides, Marva Jackson Lord, Jason Steele, Chris Torella, and Gary Topp for participating, as well as to David Barnard, Paul Crossen, Gokche Erkan, Stuart Berman, and Valdine Zakzanis.

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

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.

BY: DENISE 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.

“It was existing and licensed as a banquet hall, which meant it came with a liquor licence, so we were able to get around the new bylaw,” says Footman. “I thought, ‘Good—I’ll just take this existing place and do a much better live-music venue.’”

Ted’s Wrecking Yard and Barcode opened in July of 1997, with customers welcomed on both floors seven nights a week. Legal capacity was in the area of 200 people per floor. Of the name, Footman says: “Basically, if you can’t fix it over at Ted’s Collision, you go over to Wrecking Yard.

Ted’s Wrecking Yard matchbook cover. Courtesy of Ted Footman.

“Upstairs, Ted’s—as it said on the front door—was home of ‘Both kinds of music,’” Footman explains. “You could read that as ‘country and western’ or as ‘country and classical.’ Ted’s was the dark room, with loud rock ‘n’ roll and country, while Barcode downstairs was more of a terrazzo, a nice bright room—we did some classical shows that were really great. We once did Beethoven’s Fifth Concerto in the [adjacent] parking lot, but the rehearsals in the room were the most amazing thing.”

The brighter Barcode was a good spot to go read, grab a coffee, and generally hang out. The room, complete with a grand piano and round metal stage at the back, was filled with mismatched furniture and reclaimed materials before that became a codified College Street look.

A steep set of stairs took you up to Ted’s Wrecking Yard, a rectangular room painted black, with tire-track prints, rarely functioning toilets, a wooden floor, and a long bar running down one side. A set of couches looked out onto College while, at the south end of the room, behind a sizable stage, was a rarely used kitchen that acted mainly as the bands’ green room and impromptu jam space.

Footman had occasional run-ins with the city, especially as he was partly licensed as a restaurant, but didn’t often sell food.

“I tried with a French chef and had lobster and steak, but nobody trusted in it,” he says. “That didn’t work, so all we ended up with was a nut machine.

“I’d put bloody tables and chairs on the stage when I knew the City inspector was coming. He was pretty good; it was the City councillor who was trying to shut me down.”

The Barcode Stage. Photo courtesy of Ted Footman.

Why it was important: Footman’s fiery personality, coupled with his aesthetic and preference for live music rather than DJs, made Ted’s and Barcode stand out on the strip. The rooms became magnets for the many musicians, artists, and lovers of indie culture who’d moved to the area. Art was hung, super-8 film festivals took place, and readings were held.

“Ted’s was fresh; there was an innate excitement about the rough-and-tumble aesthetic that related to—or was even out front of—what was beginning to happen culturally and artistically in town,” says musician Jason Collett, who performed there in many contexts, and hosted his Radio Mondays songwriters’ showcase events there.

“Historically, Toronto has such conservative roots,” Collett adds. “Ted’s stuck its neck out and shook off some of that past. I think that resonated in the music scene and beyond.”

Upstairs, Ted’s featured live music seven nights per week. Sound was so-so (“we had an old CNE PA in there, so it was a bit rough,” Footman says), but the bookings were spirited. The club’s first booker was Paul Laventhol, former guitarist for British psychobilly band King Kurt who’d relocated to Toronto and next played in The Texas Dirt Fuckers. Both bands played at Ted’s, as did a bunch of rockin’ roots-based acts, including The Backstabbers, who hosted Dodgy Mountain Music Mayhem on Thursdays for a stretch.

Downstairs at Barcode, live music could be found a few nights each week, with Footman’s beloved classical concerts eventually giving way to Terry Wilkins’ and The Swing Gang’s Wednesday weekly, and a Thursday residency held down by Lori Yates’ band Hey Stella.

Hey Stella (with guest vocalist Holly Cole). Photo courtesy of Ted Footman.

The attention paid to Ted’s Wrecking Yard and Barcode picked up a great deal after Footman hired well-respected talent booker Yvonne Matsell in 1998, and gave her free rein.

“Ted’s Wrecking Yard was limping along as a local music bar [at the time],” recalls Matsell, who’d finished stints of booking for clubs including the Horseshoe Tavern, The Ultrasound, and Reverb.

“I didn’t have to conform to any musical genres, which gave me the ability to discover new talent and work with them, to build up an audience and gradually fill up the room.”

That she did. At a time when there weren’t a lot of quality venues prioritizing local indie acts, Matsell upgraded the sound system, took advantage of the room’s great stage and sightlines, and turned Ted’s into a showcase spot nurturing Toronto talent.

“Ted’s arrived just as the Toronto Renaissance did, and was the perfect mid-size room that the city needed,” enthuses Collett. “Ted was a real character and his bars reflected that, and with long-time booker Yvonne—the biggest sweetheart of a matron you could ever meet—they were a great team.”

Ted’s Wrecking Yard quickly became an indie haven. Acts like Collett, Feist, and Broken Social Scene—a band in which they were both members—played plenty in their early years.

“I love discovering new indie bands and helping them to climb the ladder, so that became a focus,” says Matsell. “Some other discoveries were Kathleen Edwards, The Weakerthans, The New Deal, Metric, Andy Stochansky, and Sarah Slean—all early in their careers. I was able to book bands there that created a really vibrant, thriving musical scene—a musical community, which is really important to stimulate creative juices in other new bands.”

Ted’s did help foster a culture of collaboration by providing a consistent place to play. Most influential local labels—like Teenage USA, Three Gut, Paper Bag, Blocks Recording Club, and Broken Social Scene’s Arts & Crafts—started up after Ted’s did, and most of their core acts graced that stage.

“For Broken Social Scene in the early days, it really felt like Ted’s was our venue, our scene,” says BSS co-founder Brendan Canning. “Looking back, it was important to feel some kind of ownership and be comfortable in a space where you were throwing a party for your friends. Like, ‘This is where we do what we do.’”

Canning estimates that BSS, in various incarnations, played seven or eight shows at Ted’s between 2000 and 2001.

“BSS once opened up a Ted’s show with a song called ‘The Stuck,’ which had such a long outro at the time, so the song probably went well over 10 or 12 minutes. Then we took a twenty-minute break. We all enjoyed that gag—Kevin [Drew’s] idea of course—an awful lot.

“Ted’s was also the first place where the Big Band all got together,” recalls Canning, who’s now busy with his recently revived Cookie Duster project and is writing the score to Paul Schrader’s film, The Canyons, starring Lindsay Lohan. “I can remember being choirmaster during the quiet moments of ‘It’s All Gonna Break‘ and thinking, this is really so much fun.”

“The Broken Social Scene shows were great,” enthuses Footman. “One night, Feist played downstairs with Peaches, and there must have been 20 people on the stage. It was so good; it went to three or four in the morning. I just locked the door, kept throwing beer at the band, and they kept playing.”

Broken Social Scene, in fact, played a number of their earliest shows as part of Wavelength, a genre-defying Sunday night showcase of underground music that launched at Ted’s Wrecking Yard on February 13, 2000 and ran there until October 21, 2001.

Inspired by nights like Sedated Sundays at the El Mocambo, ° (a.k.a. “Degrees”) at the Lion Club, and William New’s long-running Elvis Mondays, Wavelength was founded by a collective that included co-programmers and ‘zine co-editors Jonathan Bunce (a.k.a. Jonny Dovercourt) and Derek Westerholm (a.k.a. Paddy O’Donnell), fellow programmer Minesh Mandoda, Duncan MacDonell (a.k.a. emcee Doc Pickles), and a host of ‘zine contributors.

“The aim of Wavelength was to foster excitement around the local Toronto music scene, which at the time was pretty under-loved,” begins Bunce, who then also played in bands including Kid Sniper, Christiana, and Currently In These United States.

“This was pre-BSS, so there had really been no breakout successes from the local scene to put the city on the international music map. Though bands like The Deadly Snakes, Danko Jones, and Do Make Say Think were bubbling under, a lot of people still associated Toronto indie music with ‘wacky’ bands like Barenaked Ladies and Moxy Fruvous, or rootsier fare like the Lowest of the Low and Blue Rodeo. Most people with edgier, noisier, or more experimental musical tastes still glamourized bands from the U.S. and U.K.”

Each Sunday at Ted’s, Wavelength featured two live bands and a related scenester DJ who shared sounds ranging from noise-rock and free-jazz to indie-pop, shoegaze, math-rock and experimental electronic.

Mean Red Spiders backstage at Ted’s. Photo courtesy of Wavelength.

Peruse Wavelength’s archive of early shows, and you’ll find band names like Do Make Say Think, Constantines, The Fembots, GUH, Manitoba (now Caribou), Russian Futurists, Mean Red Spiders, Picastro, Deep Dark United, and The Hidden Cameras.

“I was stocking the fridge before that Hidden Cameras show and saw a tall, nerdy looking guy [band leader Joel Gibb] cutting holes into white sheets,” recalls then bartender Stephanie Comilang.

“I asked if he needed help, and he said, ‘Sure.’ Later into the night, the band performed with these ghost costumes singing about golden showers and banning marriage. It was the best.”

Now a filmmaker living in Berlin, Comilang also occasionally did projections, including for Final Fantasy and the Singing Saw Shadow Show, on Sundays.

“Working Wavelength was really interesting,” she says. “I sort of blindly entered into a pretty small, but established DIY music community. Jonny Dovercourt and the Wavelength people fostered an environment that wasn’t known yet outside Toronto, or for that matter Canada. It’s where I saw Peaches doing Peaches, with dildos, rapping about nastiness, and not giving a shit that the room was empty. It’s where I came to know what the Toronto indie-music scene was.”

Two other favourite moments for Bunce: “Michael Snow playing in a trio with John Oswald and Eric Chenaux, and also screening his 1967 classic experimental film Wavelength. And Vancouver’s Dan Bejar playing solo at his first Toronto show, under the name Destroyer.

Adds Bunce: “Ted’s and Wavelength felt like the start of a new music movement on College, one that was unabashedly nerdy and eager to share.”

Ted’s Wrecking Yard helped establish an audience for other indie ventures in the neighbourhood. Soundscapes—the record store across the street opened by Greg Davis in 1999—had a Ted’s section, for example, while the originally tiny Big Chill served ice cream largely to big kids late into the night.

Ted’s became both a clubhouse for musicians (says Matsell: “The Blue Rodeo guys seemed to look at Ted’s as a second home—Bazil Donovan and Bob Egan would get their bus to drop them off at the venue when they got back from a tour”) and a key venue for bands to be seen and potentially signed.

Radio Monday poster courtesy of Jason Collett.

Who else played/worked there: “Now, all the bands that were playing there are on the CBC all the time,” says Footman. “It’s kind of nice to hear, but when Yvonne first started booking them, bands would be in for weeks in a row. There’s be nobody there, then 10 people, then 15, a hundred, and then 300.”

A condensed list of folks who joined Jason Collett at his Radio Monday showcases further confirms Footman’s CBC statement: Jian Ghomeshi, Kurt Swinghammer, Andrew Cash, Luke Doucet, Hayden, Jose Contreras, Kathleen Edwards, Carolyn Mark, and future Dragonette frontwoman Martina Sorbara are just some of the songwriters booked in by Collett after he launched the series in April, 2001.

“Radio Monday was about putting five or so musicians in a half circle on stage, sharing songs and stories, and being purposefully informal so that we could approach a kind of domestic intimacy in a club,” explains Collett.

“The series served a unique social function for a burgeoning community of musicians interested in getting a closer look at what their peers were working on.” (Collett now produces the similarly minded Basement Revue series at The Dakota Tavern, and will release his fifth solo album, Reckon, Sept. 25 on Arts & Crafts.)

Ted’s grew to be such a popular spot that established bands were happy to do multi-night residencies. Rheostatics played a number of such stints between 1999 and 2001.

“The biggest plus was that Ted’s was close to everyone’s homes,” says band co-founder Dave Bidini, whose parents grew up in Little Italy. “It was also upstairs, and upstairs clubs kinda rule, with music pouring into the streets. Footman was always loopy and easy to be around, and we could play pretty much as late and as long as we wanted. Some nights we didn’t stop till 3 a.m.”

The author and now leader of BidiniBand recalls, “Drummer Don Kerr’s last show with us was at the end of one of those runs. The Weakerthans had opened all seven shows, and, on the last night, we played for so long and were so loud and intense that we destroyed the sound system. Ted had to cancel a week of shows. We felt bad for that, in a way, but we were also sort of emboldened to have destroyed all that equipment. Also, crowds drank the bar dry pretty much every night and I know Ted really had to scramble and call in favours to keep it wet throughout the week.”

Yvonne Matsell also carries a number of Ted’s Wrecking Yard moments close to her heart.

“The Sadies’ New Years Eve shows were always brilliant fun,” she begins. “Richard Ashcroft of The Verve did his first solo showcase performance outside of the U.K. at Ted’s [in May 2000], with music press flying in from everywhere to cover the show. Richard was a major rock star at the time, but he was very down-to-earth.

“Sum 41, then very young, did a six-week residency of Tuesdays that went from a half-dozen attendees to packed-out nights. A&R men from the U.S. flew in to see and eventually sign them.

“I also remember a shy 15-year-old called Avril Lavigne being brought in by her then-managers to say, ‘Hello.’ She didn’t think I was very funny when I told her she couldn’t drink.”

As for other key staff at Ted’s and Barcode, bartenders included future weewerk label-head Phil Klygo, then just launching his Teenage USA Recordings imprint, and Kaili Glennon, now in country band The Pining. In-house sound techs Les Charbonne and Mark Finkelstein are mentioned fondly by Brendan Canning and others.

549 College became an LCBO location in December 2011.

What happened to it: Ted’s Wrecking Yard and Barcode were closed Oct. 24, 2001. On a related tip, the nearby El Mocambo had recently been sold to Abbas Jahangiri and it was believed he would convert that legendary Spadina club into a dance studio. As is documented in a number of articles from that time (including here and here), former El Mo booker Dan Burke had made contact with the leaseholder of 549 College, with plans to open “The El Mocambo on College.” When Footman was late on rent, chains were put on the club’s doors.

“Originally, they were going to do an El Mo room downstairs, and I was going to keep upstairs, but it didn’t work out like that,” shares Footman. “I was getting a bit older, so staying out till three or four in the morning probably wasn’t the best. It was an okay time to get back into architecture so, really, I wasn’t that bitter.”

In a twist of fate, Burke encountered resistance from the City and was never able to obtain a liquor licence with a permit to present live entertainment at that address. The El Mocambo, of course, remained a club in its original Spadina location; Yvonne Matsell has been its booker for the last decade.

Footman now runs his own architectural practice, doing “everything from heritage work to really modern projects.” He’s worked on libraries and houses, but has also left his stamp on more than a dozen restaurants and clubs, including The Social, 3-Speed, Reposado, and Woodlot. He ran for City council in 2010, but has no plans to run again. “This ward seems well taken care of with Mike Layton.”

549 College remained vacant for 10 years. Plans to convert it into boutique hotel Inn On College were never fully realized. It opened as an LCBO last December.

“Ted’s will always be the spiritual home of Wavelength,” says Jonathan Bunce, the Founding Director who helped lead the series to Lee’s Palace, then Sneaky Dee’s, and now into its current capacity as a more selective, site-specific, concert-promotion organization, hosting events like the recent ALL CAPS! Island Festival.

“I always felt a little glum when I passed by the building, and felt a strange satisfaction in it remaining vacant for the better part of a decade,” says Bunce. “In some ways, I’m glad that it became an LCBO; 549 College is still providing good cheer for the neighbourhood.”

Thank you to Brendan Canning, Dave Bidini, Jason Collett, Jonathan Bunce, Stephanie Comilang, Ted Footman, and Yvonne Matsell, as well as to Darrin Cappe (Rheostatics archivist), Heidi Krohnert and Kieran Roy at Arts & Crafts, and Stuart Berman.

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