Article originally published November 16, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

As the Mod Club Theatre turns 10, Then & Now explores the story of how a ‘60s-retro dance night came to spawn a world-class concert and DJ venue, transforming College Street in the process.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Mod Club Theatre, 722 College

Years in operation: 2002-present

History: To share the history of how The Mod Club Theatre came to be, one must first trace College Street’s evolution as a nightlife destination. The stretch of College running west of Bathurst to Dovercourt has, of course, long been a hub for Italian, Portuguese and Latino communities. Restaurants and cafés have dotted the strip for decades—with Café Diplomatico at College and Clinton serving as a landmark spot for over 40 years—but it wasn’t until the 1990s that people began to open a broader array of venues that would entertain into the wee hours.

El Convento Rico—originally a haven for Latin gays, lesbians and transgendered people—opened in 1992, bringing dancing and drag shows to College and Crawford. The early-to-mid ’90s also saw the opening of spots including Souz Dal, College Street Bar, Ted’s Collision, and Alex Lifeson’s live music venue The Orbit Room. Intimate café 52 Inc. fed, entertained and politicized on the other side of Bathurst from 1995-2000, while Bar Italia opened on College in 1996 and Ted Footman launched Ted’s Wrecking Yard and Barcode—two floors of live music in one building—in 1997.

Musician Dan Kurtz—formerly of The New Deal and currently of Dragonette—knows the area well.

“When I moved to Canada as a little kid, I lived at College and Bathurst, and spent most of my childhood in the neighborhood,” he says. “As an adult, I bought a house on Beatrice and renovated it, just a year or two before things really began to heat up on the strip. I did that a couple more times with houses in the neighborhood before I moved out and, during that time, College Street became the hottest place to hang out. It was a great mix of a really authentic, old-school and virtually unchanged Italian and Portuguese neighbourhood by day, and an increasingly broad mix of great and cheesy bars and restaurants at night.

“My friends, my band, and most of my family lived in the neighborhood at that time, and it was probably one of the best times of my life,” he adds. In the late ’90s, Kurtz performed at venues like Ted’s, Bar Italia, and Orbit Room while a member of bands including Que Vida.

“At the time, almost every show I played was memorable, since my bands were just coming up,” says Kurtz. “Getting a good gig on College was some measure of legitimacy.”

Lava Lounge, at 507 College just west of Palmerston, added much to the strip. Opened in September 1997 by former Rivoli staffers Greg Bottrell and Rob Eklove (with support from The Rivoli and Queen Mother Café owners Andre Rosenbaum and David Stearn), Lava Lounge was located in the former home of Portuguese family restaurant Cheers. Bottrell and crew transformed it into a resto-lounge, club, and patio licensed for 270 people, making Lava one of the largest spots on College at that time.

“College seemed like a cool up-and-coming area,” recalls Bottrell. “But when we first opened, there was not that much happening on the street. It hadn’t blossomed yet.”

Their timing was good, as the area soon exploded. Hip new spots dotted the landscape, with venues ranging from the super cool (Ciao Edie) to student-centric (Midtown) to pool halls (Clear Spot, later Andy Poolhall), all featuring DJs.

“The late 1990s to 2005 was College Street’s heyday,” says Bottrell, who also opened Asian fusion restaurant Tempo at College and Clinton in 2000. “It was the hip and happening restaurant, patio, and bar area in those years—along with a few clubs, Lava Lounge being one of them.”

Lava featured both live music and DJs from its start. Resident DJs included the likes of Fish Fry, Mike Tull and Tony Lanz, Shawn MacDonald, and John Kong, while Tuesdays were known for the live soul-jazz of Thomas Reynolds and Shugga, often accompanied by vocalist Divine Earth Essence (now Divine Brown).

Bobbi Guy (left) and Mark Holmes, circa 1999. Photo by Edward Pond.

In October of 1999, a new Wednesday weekly dubbed Mod Club launched at Lava Lounge. Helmed by friends and British expats Mark Holmes (also known as the vocalist in Platinum Blonde) and Bobbi Guy, the Mod Club nights were inspired by shared obsessions and, partly, the success of Davy Love’s Blow Up Saturdays, then held at The El Mocambo.

“I went to the U.K. with my friend Bobbi in 1999 and, on our way back to Toronto, we hatched this plan for something totally different than Blow Up,” says Holmes, at the beginning of a lengthy phone interview.

“So many bands, like Blur and Oasis, were talking about the influence of all these ’60s bands, and I thought that if people were interested in those bands, they might be interested in where the music came from. I was an absolute 1960s fanatic; I had VHS tapes of The Prisoner, The Avengers, The Saint, and I was crazy about the music, the clothing, everything. I just wished so heavily that I could transport myself back into that time.”

They did the next best thing. Guy designed the Mod Club logo, the pair promoted around town, and soon they were projecting 1960s British imagery while spinning deep collections of Motown, soul, R&B and mod bands in the similarly styled Lava Lounge.

The original Mod Club sign, outside Lava Lounge. Photo courtesy of Mark Holmes.

“Basically, you were in a time capsule the moment you walked in,” says Holmes. “I loved every last magical minute of it.

“Everybody came out dressed like the ’60s; all the guys had suits, all the girls had Vidal Sassoon haircuts. And then it just exploded. After a few Wednesdays, the lineup was down the street. I got my wish: every Wednesday, I got to go back into the ’60s.”

“That night was just a great scene,” agrees Bottrell. “People looked the part. They had scooters, Fred Perry, Ben Sherman. It was a good-looking, young, and—because it was mid-week—downtown crowd. The music with Mark and Bobbi was wicked. People danced their asses off.”

The scene inside Mod Club Wednesdays at Lava Lounge. Photo courtesy of Mark Holmes.

Mod Club packed Lava every Wednesday until the club was forced to close in spring of 2004. The building it was in would be torn down to make way for the huge  href=”http://condos.ca/condominiums/toronto-the-europa-308-palmerston-ave” target=”_blank”>Europa condo building of today.

“We’d signed a regular corporation lease, which had a ‘demolition clause’ in it,” Bottrell explains. “Back then, no one would have predicted that such a condo boom was on the horizon. Also, no one would have guessed that people would demolish a more than one-hundred-year-old building that took up most of a city block to build a bigger and brand new condo.”

By fall of 2004, Bottrell opened Supermarket in Kensington Market. Guy and Holmes continued there for many months of soul-soaked Mod Club Wednesdays.

“I remember one night at Supermarket, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were in and requested some slow music,” begins Guy. “We obliged, and the whole bar looked on as they re-enacted The Notebook on the dancefloor. We played about six slow songs while they just made out, without a care in the world. Another night there, a guy came into the booth with a weird accent and complimented me on my Hammond groove set, then looked through my CDs. I gave him some tickets to go get us drinks, and watched as he lined up for 10 minutes at the bar. He returned, and then introduced himself as Tiesto. Nice bloke.”

The first Mod Club go-go dancers at Revival. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

But the Mod Club story also takes us back to College Street, and mirrors its growth. In November 2001, while still holding down Wednesdays at Lava, Guy and Holmes also launched a Saturday Mod Club weekly at newly opened Revival Bar.

Opened by Domenic Tedesco and chef-turned-restaurateur Joe Saturnino, Revival is housed in a beautiful building at the corner of College and Shaw that was once a Baptist church, and later a Polish legion hall. Having been a partner in Italian fine-dining restaurant Veni, Vidi, Vici, which also attracted a later night crowd, Saturnino saw the writing on the wall.

“College Street had always been vibrant,” he says. “But Revival opened at a time when a new adult crowd was taking over. It was a young professional crowd looking for new places to go to.”

Revival gave that crowd food, DJs, and live music. Mod Club Saturdays attracted thousands to College Street and packed Revival for three years.

DJs DaSilva and Benny K. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

Guy and Holmes spent Saturday afternoons putting up banners, sorting décor, and tweaking sound in anticipation of their capacity crowds. There were mod go-go dancers, confetti cannons, big lighting effects, and live acts that included both locals and touring artists like The Dandy Warhols, who performed an acoustic set.

“My main focus was to discover new music and also go around finding bands to play on our Saturday nights in front of a full house,” describes Guy. “That gave me the most pleasure, giving young bands an opportunity to play on such a stage.”

“We made it into a massive rock show,” says Holmes, who DJed alongside Guy and a cast of characters including Boozecan Bob, Taylor & Gedge, Benny K, DJ Da Silva, and Jesse F. Keeler.

“Upstairs on Saturdays, there was a more modern sound comprised of Britpop, and the newly emerging electro sounds coming out of the U.K.,” recalls Guy. “For the diehards, there was ’60s soul and Hammond groove in the basement.”

Guy and Holmes at Revival. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

“I think in Mark and Bobbi’s minds, the basement was going to be the part that was more like the Wednesdays, and I know I certainly broke that rule, but within context,” chuckles Jesse F. Keeler during a phone chat. “I’d start playing ska, dub, and old reggae in the last hour.

“People wanted to be challenged,” adds Keeler, who’d also been a regular attendee at the Mod Club Wednesdays. “I had a lot of people come up and say, ‘I had no idea that that rap song was a sample until you played that song.’ It was a fun sample school to run for people.”

Keeler was a resident until the band he was most heavily involved in at the time—Death From Above 1979—began to tour regularly and he missed a month of Saturdays. “I walked in one night, ready to go, and there were new guys I’d never seen before in the basement.”

By this time, the Mod Club weeklies were a phenomenon that would soon spawn a now internationally recognized club and concert venue.

Guy and Holmes DJ the opening night of the Mod Club Theatre, November 2002. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

The birth of the Mod Club Theatre: In early 2002, Revival was closed for two weeks because of a liquor-licence infraction.

“We took our scheduled shows across the street, to Corner Pocket,” says Revival’s Saturnino of the pool hall that operated out of 722 College at the time. “Dom and I showed Bruno Sinopoli how to transform his place into a club.”

“It had been a club, and before that it had been some kind of theatre, with the stage and everything,” says Holmes of the space. “I walked around upstairs and thought it was amazing, like in that scene from Quadrophenia when the guy jumped off the balcony into the crowd. It was a beautiful place, but just so gross inside at the time.”

The Mod Club nights would go on to pack both venues on Saturdays for years, with DJs and dancers darting back-and-forth across the street from Corner Pocket to Revival.

Early into their run at both venues, Holmes was inspired.

“I got to thinking that the reason people were going to Lava on Wednesdays and Saturdays at Revival was for Mod Club so I said, ‘What would it be like if I had a place that is The Mod Club? What would it take?’

“A little while later, I made a deal with [Corner Pocket owner] Bruno, put all my money in, and designed the whole place on my laptop. I gave that to the builders, and we built The Mod Club Theatre. People were worried that it would be such a gamble, but I felt I had to keep moving forward.”

Bobbi Guy, boxer Lennox Lewis, and Mark Holmes on opening night. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

The Mod Club Theatre officially opened doors in November 2002. Bobbi Guy recalls a fave moment from the first night.

“[British-Canadian world heavyweight boxing champion] Lennox Lewis had been invited, and came with his entourage of large humans. I knew he was a West Ham United fan so we started talking about some old faces we both knew back in London. We ended up singing West Ham songs arm in arm, much to the bemusement of his troops.”

Why it’s important: “I think, mainly, we gave club-goers a different option from what was happening elsewhere in the city,” says Guy, a main Saturday resident DJ until early 2010. “People were weary of going to the club district for a good night out. We were in a lot safer area, but were just as deadly on the dancefloor. College Street was a quiet place till we showed up; now look at it.

As for the venue itself, Mod Club Theatre brought a professional 700-capacity club and concert space to College Street.

“It raised the bar for sound and lighting,” states Holmes. “I wanted a place where you could see bands in a beautiful surrounding, with fantastic lights and sound, and where you could sit down without getting chewing gum stuck to the seat of your trousers.”

Early on, films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey screened, but Mod Club Saturdays remained the main draw. Fridays were initially launched as glam night Velvet Goldmine, with Joan Jett flown in to guest DJ at the opening. Crystal Castles’ Ethan Kath was a Friday resident DJ, back in the days when he still answered to “Claudio.”

Holmes also worked to establish Mod Club Theatre as a concert spot, reaching out to event producers including Against The Grain (now Collective Concerts). After Muse performed at the club on a Saturday in April 2004, concert bookings poured in. Area restaurants, like neighbours Il Gatto Nero, benefited from the business.

Muse’s Matt Bellamy gets acquainted with the Mod Club’s bar. Photo by Trevor Roberts

Above all, Mod Club Theatre is highly versatile as a venue.

“Mod Club is fantastic from a technical perspective, with amazing sound, production, and sight lines,” says Adam Gill, founder of event production company Embrace. “It’s an amazing live/concert room, but also works great for DJ/electronic-type events.”

“The first time I went to Mod Club Theatre was on a Saturday,” recalls DJ/producer and A.D/D Events co-founder Mario Jukica. “Mark really blew me away with the level of production he was doing, creating an exciting atmosphere that relied heavily on the use of video technology and pyrotechnics.

“I was impressed as it felt a bit like a concert. The tech team, led by Mark Prinsloo, had the ability to set the stage for a live band and tear down within minutes, then set up a DJ platform centre stage. This gave me a lot of ideas, and made me really want to work with them.”

It’s this very versatility—and group of people—that made Mod Club Theatre one of the global hubs for the merger of rock and electro.

From 2003 to 2007, Holmes a.k.a. DJ MRK, programmed and played the highly rated Mod Club radio show, broadcast live on 102.1 The Edge, Thursdays from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. Guy also introduced three new tracks each week.

“That’s when the music scene really changed,” says Holmes; “It’s when the whole indie band mixed with electronic music idea moved forward. Necessity is the mother of invention. We were – Bobbi especially – very much in contact with a lot of British DJs who would send him stuff. I had an idea to bring the indie crowd and the dance crowd in to the same place, and I worked on that with quite a few people. That’s how the radio show got started. Then A.D/D came in after that and started solidifying that whole vibe. Then the whole scene exploded.

“Obviously that happened all over the world, but when I think back to the radio shows, we had to make our own music. We bootlegged indie tracks and mixed them with electronic music. It was great because people at The Edge started getting requests for songs they’d never heard of and never playlisted. I had control of the music for the live-to-air because I was the DJ. It was like witnessing the birth of a new scene.”

Toronto’s Crystal Castles and MSTRKRFT both formed during this time period, and both played the live-to-air with Holmes.

MSTRKRFT backstage at the Mod Club Theatre. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

“That’s how I reconnected with Mark,” says Keeler, the Mod Club-at-Revival resident DJ who’d become half of MSTRKRFT. “I found out he was playing and championing music from both MSTRKRFT and Death From Above. At one point, he asked if I wanted to DJ the live-to-air. I pulled no punches that night. It was MSTRKRFT, and we played the same way we would have in England or anywhere else in the world at the time.”

“Mark took a lot of chances with the music he played through such a commercial medium as 102.1,” confirms Jukica. “Hearing artists like LCD Soundsystem and Mylo on the radio was refreshing. It definitely helped expose the music we were championing at our parties.”

By late 2004, Jukica and Eve Fiorillo were producing parties under the banner of A.D/D at Mod Club Theatre. They booked local DJs including Barbi and Rory Them Finest, and presented themed events like Return To New York, with Arthur Baker, and I Love Neon, with guests including Tiga. A.D/D also had tight ties with influential French electronic label Ed Banger, presenting many of their artists, including at the infamous Daft Punk afterparty of August 2007.

“That was, for sure, our highlight at that venue,” says Jukica, who also DJs as Milano. “Seeing them at the party unmasked until the bitter end, when the club was empty, was special. All the Ed Banger related events had an incredible energy level.”

A.D/D would later take their bookings and colourful, post-raver crowd to CiRCA for their Randomland Fridays, but when that concluded in summer 2009, Adam Gill and Embrace stepped in to fill the void by presenting the musically related Arcade Fridays at Mod Club Theatre.

Arcade Fridays crowd. Photo by James Drobik.

Over Arcade’s two-plus-years, Embrace highlighted locals like Milano, Meech, Poupon, Gingy and Bordello, Andy Ares, St. Mandrew, DJ Medley and Auto Erotique while also presenting weekly international guests. That impressive roster of names includes Simian Mobile Disco, Claude Von Stroke, Zedd, Laidback Luke, Rusko, Toddla T, and Trentemoller, who presented a most incredible live band show in April 2011.

“Arcade had a great run, and there were so many good nights, but Benga was a special one,” recalls Gill. “It was when dubstep was still a very new and fresh sound, and was a very cool night of music. Wolfgang Gartner was insane; the place went absolutely nuts for him. Fake Blood on our one-year anniversary might have been the best night there though. People went crazy.”

Keeler—who has DJed Mod Club multiple times as part of MSTRKRFT—has another favourite from the venue’s Friday night history.

“I really liked when Vitalic played there live—both times, but the first one was really special. The crowd was really receptive for someone like Vitalic, who doesn’t fit in a box real easy. He’s not a pop guy by any means, but it was just rammed. For a while, Fridays had such a dedicated crowd that seemed to really enjoy a big spectrum. The first time I saw Torro Torro play was there, and I was super impressed.”

Amy Winehouse (centre) with husband Blake Fielder-Civil and Mark Holmes, backstage in 2007. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

Who else has played/worked there: “Mod Club Theatre was the Cadillac of gigs on the College strip, and it was the best-sounding room to play, too—in no small part due to Mark Prinsloo and his good ears,” says Dan Kurtz. “The first New Deal and Dragonette shows there felt like big deals.”

The New Deal, in fact, staged their high profile 2009 CD release show at the club, and Dragonette has chosen to perform there multiple times.

“I feel that with Dragonette in particular, we kind of became legit at our shows at the Mod Club Theatre, at least as performers. We liked how we sounded, and how our shows looked. It felt, I suppose, big.

“It was also the first place I ever DJed at, which was terrifying, but we [Kurtz and Dragonette drummer Joel Stouffer] drank our entire rider before we started, so we felt pretty awesome about 15 seconds into it. I also saw a Feist show there that I just loved. It was a perfect venue for her intimate style of performance.”

The list of artists who’ve performed at Mod Club Theatre is both impressive and enormous. For electronic music fans, live shows by both Booka Shade and Modeselektor are highly memorable. Amy Winehouse performed two heartrending sold-out shows in May of 2007. K’naan launched his Troubadour CD there in 2009, while The Weeknd made its live debut on the same stage in 2011. And, of course, dozens of British acts of all musical stripes—from Paul Weller to Kaiser Chiefs to Mike Skinner—have headlined.

Embrace, Collective Concerts, Live Nation, and other concert promoters continue to book in shows, making Mod Club’s listings ones to watch.

And when it comes to staff, longtime manager Jorge Dias is another frequently credited principal player; he, Prinsloo, and Bruno Sinopoli were also the key figures behind the transformation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

“The Mod Club staff is amazing,” Jukica summarizes. “They buzzed really hard on the nights of our shows, and were a major reason for the electric vibe in the room.”

Mark Holmes with Mike Skinner a.k.a. The Streets. Photo by Trevor Roberts.

The here & now: The venue now technically known as Virgin Mobile Mod Club, thanks to a 2011 sponsorship deal, celebrates a decade in business this weekend. Many credit the club’s success largely to Holmes.

“Mark has vision, and he succeeds at doing things right,” says Bottrell, who continues to happily operate Supermarket. “He has an artist’s eye for detail, and he sure is bang-on with wanting the best in lighting, sound, and visuals.”

“There’s not a lot of spaces that are made that intelligently, or places where people care that much about sound—despite what they might tell you,” agrees Keeler, who spoke while on a break from working on a new Death From Above 1979 album that’s nearing completion. “Everything I’ve ever seen at Mod Club has sounded great. I’m always impressed by that.”

Saturday night at The Mod Club Theatre. Photo Trevor Roberts.

As for Saturnino, he appreciates the ties between his venue and Mod Club.

“Both places have different identities,” he says, pointing to Revival’s blend of burlesque, bands, and soul and house-heavy sounds.

“Having another [sizable] club has given people more choices, and helped make our entire area better for business.”

“That such a residential neighbourhood, with small neighbourhood shops, could also have such a first-class venue, with world-class artists playing there on a weekly basis, makes that part of Toronto truly fantastic,” concurs Kurtz.

Mod Club’s 10th anniversary party this Saturday (Nov. 17) features guests including Dr. Draw and DJ Jelo, alongside current U.K. Underground Saturday residents MRK and Tigerblood. The Saturday sounds may have changed over the years, but the song remains the same.

“The Mod Club means ‘modernist’ and to be a modernist, one must embrace the future, embrace technology, and search for and present the new all the time,” says Holmes, now also busy with the recently reformed Platinum Blonde.

“The times change, and the scenes change. We still spin some Britpop tracks and the crowd loves them, but it’s 10 years later, and it’s different music. Now it’s other kids’ time to make their history, their time capsule.”

Thank you to Adam Gill, Bobbi Guy, Dan Kurtz, Greg Bottrell, Jesse Keeler, Joe Saturnino, Mario Jukica and Mark Holmes.

The post Then & Now: Mod 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.

The post Then & Now: Ted’s Wrecking Yard appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published August 10, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

The legendary Spadina venue has just been sold for a reported $3 million, with its new owners promising to return the club to its late-‘70s glory days. But in this edition of her nightlife-history series, Denise Benson looks back at the people and parties that kept this Toronto landmark alive during its leanest years.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The El Mocambo Tavern, 464 Spadina Ave.

Years in operation: 1946-present. Here, I focus specifically on the era spanning 1989-2001.

History: Arguably Toronto’s most illustrious live music venue, Spadina’s historic El Mocambo Tavern has meant many things to many people over the past 66 years: soul and blues hub, revered rock and roots venue, queer-punk hotbed. The building itself is said to date back to 1850, and to have acted as a haven for escaped slaves in a part of the city that was long home to a sizable African-Canadian community.

The El Mocambo, complete with infamous palm-tree sign, opened in the 1940s as a two-floor live music venue, and was granted one of Toronto’s earliest liquor licences. While it’s never been fancy, the El Mo boasts an incredible rock, soul, jazz, and blues pedigree. Charles Mingus, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Guess Who, Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, U2, Blondie, and The Ramones all played there, as did a certain British band that performed two nights under the pseudonym of The Cockroaches.

“The Rolling Stones’ shows in 1977 put The El Mocambo on the ‘world stage,’” says longtime local music booker Enzo Petrungaro, who co-owned the venue from 1989 to 1992.

“It was probably the most talked-about club in the world during the days that followed, not only because of the scandals—the Prime Minister’s newly separated wife seen running around with the band, and Keith Richards’ subsequent bust at the hotel—but it was the first time in many years that The Stones played such an intimate venue. And they were stellar performances!”

Stones fans know that the shows resulted in side three of the band’s Love You Live album. In the years that followed, the El Mo was at times considered a coveted, A-list club and, at other points, a shoddy spot to be avoided—a perception largely contingent on who owned it at the time.

Look past the club’s “glory years” of 1972 through the mid-’80s—when owners Michael Baird and Tom Kristenbrun worked mainly with in-house booker David Bluestein—and you’ll find a long list of subsequent owners and operators, some lasting less than a year.

In light of the recent sale of both the El Mocambo Tavern’s building and business to Sam Grosso (owner of Cadillac Lounge) and Marco Petrucci (of 99 Sudbury), we examine a crucial turning point in the club’s history: the period of 1989 through 2001.

These transformative, albeit tumultuous, 12 years begin with the El Mo’s purchase by Petrungaro and end with its sale to Abbas Jahangiri. In between, there were successful stretches, many colourful characters, and a number of sudden closures.

Why 1989-2001 were important years at The El Mocambo: Encouraged by earlier El Mo owner Shaun Pilot, Enzo Petrungaro and a silent partner bought into the business at a point when the crowds weren’t coming. They began with widespread renovations.

“We immediately moved the stage [from the east side] back to the middle of the room upstairs, then gutted and rebuilt the dressing rooms, washrooms, kitchen and offices,” recalls Petrungaro. “We tore down and rebuilt all the bars, complete with new draft lines and pumps, installed new flooring, central air conditioning, exposed all of the bricks, and thoroughly cleaned and painted the entire space.

“We also built the staircase to the second floor at the back because the original one was condemned. This is where the bands would load-in their equipment. The renovations were extensive, expensive, and very necessary. Once we opened, the music was all that mattered.”

As a talent booker, Petrungaro didn’t limit the El Mocambo to specific sounds. He credits Pilot and industry veteran Joe Bamford with helping to fill the calendar in his early days, with local promoters and bands soon taking interest.

“We installed a great-sounding PA system upstairs, and a similar, scaled-down version for the ground floor. In spite of all the challenges and complaints with the building—the load-ins were a struggle, there were too many stairs to get to a dressing room with no private washroom, and you had to walk through the crowd to get to the stage—artists still loved performing there. The stage sounded great, the room sounded great, and the seating virtually enveloped the stage, creating a very unique and intimate experience not only for fans, but also for the artists.”

Petrungaro booked a number of respected artists in for weekly residencies, with acts like Danny Marks, Paul James, and Jack de Keyzer repping on the rock and blues front, while the-then-unknown Barenaked Ladies hosted their Barenaked Circus. Popular Front would also transform into The Lowest of the Low during their El Mo run. Arlene Bishop, Ron Sexsmith, Johnny Lovesin, and Alix Anthony all hosted residencies too, and an all-ages Saturday matinee-cum-jamboree with Melody Ranch proved popular.

This three-year period could be thought of as a second set of “glory days,” as Petrungaro and his partner made a viable go of it. Back then, up ‘n’ comers like Amanda Marshall, The Holly Cole Trio, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, and Leslie Spit Treeo were booked regularly, alongside touring acts that ranged from blues/soul artists Rory Gallagher and James Cotton to folkies Fairport Convention and Sylvia Tyson, from alt-rockers The Feelies and Dead Milkmen to iconic industrial act KMFDM.

Sean D’Andrade with Buddy Guy (right) at the El Mo, circa 1992. Photo courtesy of D’Andrade.

Petrungaro has a number of El Mocambo shows from this era that he still considers personal favourites, among them “Pere Ubu; Buddy Guy, because afterwards he said it was one of his favourite stages to play in the world; Dr. John, because my late brother Sam was a huge fan and got to meet him and walk him to the stage; and Gonzalo Rubalcaba with Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette, because it was a super show from an extreme super-group. The Tom Robinson Band put on a great show, but it was also memorable because Rob Halford came in after his Judas Priest show at Maple Leaf Gardens and sat to watch from my table.”

Although they raised The El Mocambo’s profile and popularity, Petrungaro and his partner handed over the keys in 1992 when the building’s landlord requested a big rent increase. Petrungaro went on to book The Opera House for five years and has been the General Manager and booker at The Phoenix since 1997.

“In my opinion, Enzo and [his partner] were the last ‘great’ owners of the venue—it’s been a free-for-all since they closed,” states local concert-industry veteran Jeff Cohen. Cohen himself worked as an El Mo booker twice before going on to co-own Horseshoe Tavern, Lee’s Palace, Collective Concerts, and other businesses.

“When I was hired by Tom, the next owner [Editor's note: not to be confused with Tom Kristenbrun], in 1993 or so, my interest was to revive the venue to where they’d had it,” Cohen says. “I got the best of the local alterna-bands, like The Rheostatics, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, The Waltons, and Furnaceface to play there weekends, and filled the mid-week with touring blues and roots music acts. On the first floor, we went no-cover and developed local acts like Headstones, Days of You, and The Mahones.

“I had the venue rocking during my first tenure as the talent buyer but, after two years, Tom fired me, saying he felt he could book it as well as me. Eight months later, the club went bankrupt.”

Cohen did another stint of booking for a new set of owners at The El Mocambo in 1996, but remained for less than a year before heading to the Horseshoe.

Musician William New also worked to keep the El Mo afloat during the turmoil of the mid-1990s. The Groovy Religion vocalist and main man behind three-decade-strong indie showcase Elvis Monday had already booked clubs including the original Drake Hotel and The Edgewater before coming to amp up the El Mocambo for five years, beginning in 1993.

His job was to fill both floors of the club seven nights per week, an impossible task as owners came and went.

“During the time that I was booking, I worked for five different situations of ownership, including a couple of landlord-in-possessions,” explains New. “What would happen is someone would disappear in the middle of the night; I’d come to work and there would be a padlock on the door. Then the landlord would want to keep it open while he would look for a buyer so he would get in touch with me and say, ‘Just keep going. Business as usual.’

First there was the Tom to whom Jeff Cohen referred.

“He told me his name was Tom Ancaster, but that was just the name he worked under,” offers New, who also says that Ancaster simply “disappeared.” [Note: in a comment posted November 26, 2012, in response to the original publication of this article, Ancaster states that his tenure at the El Mo ran from September 1991 to January 1995. He also disputes Cohen's claim that he was fired. See Ancaster's full comment below.]

Next, New recalls that a group of El Mocambo staff members, including soundman Courtney Ross, ran the club for the better part of a year, from 1995 into 1996, before the landlord repossessed and later sold the club to Lamin Dibba and Jim Eng.

New worked for them all, booking in various weeklies over the years, including his own Elvis Monday; John Borra and Frank Nevada’s acoustic Tune Saloon on Tuesdays; the infamous Tribute Wednesdays; and Sedated Sundays, a psychedelic night helmed by Steve Bromstein of Poppyseed & Love Explosion Orchestra.

“I was trying to do an indie-rock and alternative kind of thing, just because that’s all I knew,” says New of his programming focus. “I didn’t know what cover bands or R&B bands were good, despite the fact that the El Mocambo had a long history of doing those types of things. I just booked it as an extension of what I’d been doing at The Drake and Edgewater, and with my Elvis Mondays at various venues. More or less punk rock and edgy alternative stuff.”

New fondly recalls shows by the likes of Pete Best (The Beatles’ original drummer), Steve Hackett (ex-Genesis), and Alex Chilton. His years of Mondays were also celebrated with the 1994 release of Elvis Mondays Vol. 1 on Kinetic Records. Elvis Monday later returned to The Drake Hotel (post-2004 renovation), where they continue to this day.

By June of 1998, The El Mocambo was once again run down and losing patrons. To reverse its fortunes, owners Lamin Dibba and Jim Eng hired passionate, polarizing ex-Montrealer Dan Burke to book their club.

“When I first came to Toronto in November 1977 and listened to CFNY, Q-107 and CHUM FM, I’d always hear, ‘Tonight, under the Neon Palm!’” Burke begins. “When I started booking the club, it was on the doorstep of the glue factory. No concert promoters put shows there. The Neon Palm was an unlit, rusted eyesore. The plug was pretty close to being pulled on what I thought was a fabulous cultural landmark.”

Never known to shy away from a dingy rock bar or a challenge, Burke dug in. He’d spent the year before booking the short-lived Club Shanghai down the street, and had proved to be prescient in his taste. Burke promoted some of the first Toronto appearances by bands including The White Stripes, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Montreal’s Tricky Woo.

“I’d quickly learned that, as a new player in the field, I had to tap into acts, labels, and booking agents that weren’t already sewn up by established competitors,” Burke writes in an email interview. “So that’s what I did—and very deeply so—once I was at The El Mocambo. Whatever was cutting-edge—The Toilet Boys from N.Y.C., stoner rock acts from Man’s Ruin Records, nerd heroes like Wesley Willis, electroclash ensembles like Chicks on Speed, Japan’s Zoobombs and The 5,6,7,8s, Montreal’s The Dears—I got the best of them, and made the El Mocambo an important international club again.”

The Deadly Snakes, The Sadies (sometimes with R&B legend Andre Williams), Danko Jones, Sum 41, and Peaches were among the local favourites booked by Burke. He was also responsible for repeat visits by Japanese noise rockers Zoobombs, who recorded their album, Bomb You Live, at the El Mo in April 2000, and released it on Toronto’s Teenage USA label in 2001.

“Being a show promoter is like gambling,” says Burke. “When you win, sometimes you also get to see a great show. When you lose, sometimes you get to see a great show. It’s the greatest job in the world if you can keep going.”

Who else played/worked there: It would be impossible to list all of the key bands, DJs, bookers, and promoters who played a role in The El Mocambo’s story from 1989-2001. Along with rock and roots music, there were goth and glam shows, hip-hop showcases, and even the occasional rave. Punk band The Sinisters played numerous Halloween shows. Hip-hop supergroup Gravediggaz made its Toronto debut at the El Mo in 1994, while Canadian hip-hop icons including Choclair, Rascalz, and Kardinal Offishall introduced their “Northern Touch” collaboration in the same room a few years later.

Video: Aldo Erdic

The seeds of Hot Stepper Productions’ long-running soul-funk monthly, Bump N’ Hustle, can even be traced to 464 Spadina. BNH mastermind Carlos Mondesir got his event-production career started there in 1995 after soundman Courtney Ross “roped me into” promoting the weekly Soul Sundays.

Working with DJ Curtis Smith and tutored by Ross, Mondesir learned to book bands and produce live shows.

Flyer courtesy of Carlos Mondesir.

“It made me a far more versatile promoter, coming from a DJ-focused club world,” says Mondesir, who brought performers including k-os, Jacksoul, Medeski Martin & Wood, Arcee and Fatski, Blaxam, Jukejoint, and Camille Douglas to the El Mo’s upstairs stage.

“There was an obvious history of soul and blues at the club, but we were into an updated soul style fused with new beats. My first gigs with DJs like Paul E. Lopes, Mike Tull, Jason Palma, Vancouver’s Luke McKeehan, and Atlanta’s DJ Injex were all there, too.”

But there are two DJ-driven events that will forever be synonymous with The El Mocambo in the late 1990s through to 2001: Davy Love’s Blow Up and Will Munro’s Vaseline (later renamed Vazaleen after threats of legal action from the namesake skin-care manufacturer).

DJ/promoter Davy Love’s incredibly popular Saturday weekly was “all about British pop music from the 1960s through 2000s,” says the man himself. ”We played indie, underground, massive sellers, and the way-out stuff, too.”

Davy Love at the El Mo. Photo courtesy of Davy Love.

Blow Up ran for more than 10 years at almost as many venues, including two stints at the El Mo. His first was in 1996; he would move the night, which drew more than 500 well-dressed, fiercely loyal followers each week, back to the venue in 1998 because he liked its new owners and vibe.

“Lamin and Jim are two of the nicest, most honest, straight-shooting guys I’ve ever dealt with in clubland,” shares Love, who also encouraged Dan Burke to come work for them.

The crowd at Blow Up. Photo courtesy of Davy Love.

“I also loved the venue, and its down-and-dirty history. I saw many shows there when I was a teenager. The El Mo will always be the greatest rock ‘n’ roll landmark in this city; it was the perfect place for Blow Up to thrive. It had just the right amount of seediness and rock ‘n’ roll-ness that appealed to both the pretty, rich kids who were out to rebel against their parents and the downtown working kids/art students who spent all their cash from their minimum-wage jobs on Saturday nights.”

Love was joined by DJs Duncan Rands, Adam Gorley, Johnny Culbert, and the duo of Trevor Young and Darrell Joseph a.k.a Bangers & Mash (“which was which, we never knew”). Bands, including Stars, performed live before the party got underway. Welsh band Super Furry Animals guest DJed, partied through the night (“It went on till the cleaners came in at 10 a.m. the next day”), and later asked Love to remix their 2003 single “Hello Sunshine.”

The celebs who frequented Blow Up were not limited to musicians.

“We had Will Ferrell and Janeane Garofalo dancing and drinking it up one night, and Dave Foley came many times,” spills Love. “So many famous faces were through Blow Up at the El Mo, but it was never a big deal to anyone. They were just having fun like everyone else.”

After all, the main attraction was Blow Up’s music, which blasted out of a powerful system set up for live music.

“The sound system was amazing,” Love extols. “It was a massive stack of speakers that boomed throughout the room. You could actually feel the music hit you, it was so loud.”

Meanwhile, artist Will Munro, along with a wonderfully motley crew of queers, would gather downstairs, monthly on Fridays, for Vaseline.

Dan Burke, who’d been tipped off to Munro by members of The Deadly Snakes (“they were the cornerstone of my local band alliances,” he says), gave Munro the chance to launch his queer-rock extravaganza in January of 2000.

“Will sure knew what he was doing!” exclaims Burke of the DJ/activist who lost his battle with brain cancer in May of 201o. “The first Vaseline drew over 200 people, and it soared from there. It was a fabulous experience working with Will. He was like the United Nations of gay people. What a diverse crowd.”

The Vaseline crew (clockwise from left): Tawny LeSabre, Will Munro, Bennett Jones Philips, Zoe Dodd, and John Caffery. Photo courtesy of Caffery.

“Vaseline was our fantasy event that actually materialized,” says Miss Barbrafisch, the metal-loving DJ who was a Vaseline resident from the start. “It was rockers, punks, metalheads, and misfits, weirdos of all stripes and genders. It was inherently informed by the identity politics of the ’90s, but without the anger. Vaseline was positivity and perversion and great music and great people. Once a month, the outsiders had a clubhouse.

“Vaseline was magical during the El Mo years,” she continues. “The entire historicity of the venue as a distinctly rock venue was a constant reminder that we didn’t need to compromise our musical perspectives.”

“Compromise” is a word that will never be associated with Vaseline.

“Peaches played the first Vaseline ‘Shame’ party,” recalls Kids on TV’s John Caffery, who first graced stages as a go-go dancer there, shaking it up alongside Coco LaCreme at Munro’s behest. “Peaches also played beats when Will pulled a rainbow flag out of his ass.”

That same June 200o Vaseline also featured guest DJ Miss Guy, of Toilet Boys fame. Other early guests included Vaginal Davis, Kembra Pfahler of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, and Cherie Currie, a former member of The Runaways who played live in June 2001, backed by a band of Toronto musicians.

Caffery—who was also game to be involved in Vaseline “stage antics like Bobbing for Butt Plugs, Cock Sucking contests, and Drag Queen Roller Derby”—feels passionately about this night that proved so popular it outgrew the El Mo’s small downstairs room, moved upstairs, and would later go on to pack Lee’s Palace.

“Vaseline was transformative for me, and created this massive shift in the way I perceived Toronto nightlife and the queer and trans community,” he says. “I started to think of clubs as a place to be creative, fuck shit up, and challenge public norms rather than simply a place to drink with friends. It also broke down a lot of the silos I saw within the community, with the bears, punks, leather women, and goths all partying together.”

Blow Up, Vaseline, and Dan Burke’s overall programming shifted the public perception of The El Mocambo. It may have been physically worn, but new audiences meant the club was solvent again.

“By 1999, we were making money,” states Burke. “In 2000 and 2001, we were a highly viable enterprise financially.”

Burke—with the help of Love, Munro, William New and countless bands who played benefit shows—even managed to raise the $22,000 required to fix the El Mo’s landmark palm sign in 1999. It was later damaged.

Blow Up marquee at the El Mo. Photo courtesy of Davy Love.

What happened to it: As has been well documented, 464 Spadina Ave. was sold to Abbas Jahangiri in 2001. His vision put the brakes on the Burke-led rebirth. Burke went out with a two-floor show on November 4, 2001. He also put up a fight and was famously handcuffed and evicted by police afterwards. Burke has long since booked for The Silver Dollar and, occasionally, at The Velvet Underground.

In his 11 years of owning the El Mo, Jahangiri both nurtured and took away. Though plans to transform the upstairs into a dance studio never fully materialized, his renovations reduced the floor—once The El Mocambo’s heart—to a shadow of its former self.

Still, thanks largely to the booking efforts of Yvonne Matsell—who worked under Jahangiri’s direction for the past decade—the club did stay afloat while featuring shows in the refurbished ground-floor room by the likes of Julie Doiron, Patrick Wolf, Holy Fuck, La Roux, and People Under the Stairs. DJs were also more welcome than ever, with dozens of dance parties bringing house, funk, techno, drum ‘n’ bass and more to the two floors. Jahangiri recently decided to sell the building in order to devote his time to missionary work.

New co-owner Grosso has already made it clear that his El Mocambo will return to the rock and roots-music focus of earlier decades. He has referenced The Rolling Stones repeatedly in interviews while expressing sentiments like “we want to bring great rock ‘n’ roll back to the city.”

Grosso also raised many eyebrows by stating flatly that he won’t feature hip-hop. It’s an odd, and questionable, sentiment at a point when the influence of hip-hop is so pervasive across all contemporary music.

“I think Sam has a preference to roots-geared genres,” offers Matsell by email. “After all, he has made the Cadillac Lounge into a successful venue that gears itself to those tastes. He does know that there is some really good hip-hop out there, so perhaps his comment was more off the cuff. Time will tell.”

Matsell, who continues as the El Mo’s main talent booker, tells me that the current priorities are fixing the neon sign, adding air conditioning and proper heating, renovating the bathrooms, and more.

“The upstairs room will be changed to look like when the El Mocambo was having its heydays in the ’70s.”

The reno process is being documented by posts to The Original El Mocambo Tavern Facebook group, where band listings are also found. The El Mo is currently open for shows Thursday through Saturday. Expect a re-launch party come spring.

Although Matsell emphasizes that “I will still book local and upcoming artists; that has always been a mandate in all the years I have been booking clubs,” there is concern that Grosso may just be dwelling a little too heavily on the El Mo’s past.

“I wish Sam the very best,” offers Jeff Cohen. “His other venues are wonderful, but what that venue needs is to reach out to local promoters and book the best new bands in North America, not talk about who played there some 40 years ago. No venue today can survive without being focused on new music, lest it be an oldies club or a generic folk or blues club.”

“I would tell Sam and his partner to embrace the history of the building, but don’t dwell on it,” echoes Enzo Petrungaro. “Make some of your own!”

“Don’t limit your options—you may not have as many as you’d like,” says Mondesir.

That said, one El Mocambo alumnus is eager to return. Davy Love, now owner of The Bristol Yard restaurant, will host his 18th-annual Blow Up Holiday Party there on Dec. 15.

“I booked it the very same day I heard that Sam bought it,” he says.

Addendum: In September 2014, Grosso announced that the El Mocambo had been sold and that the club would close as a live music venue for good. On November 6, the date that the El Mo had been set to shutter its doors, a surprise announcement was made: investment maverick and Dragons’ Den star Michael Wekerle had purchased the building with the intent to keep the El Mocambo alive.  He plans to renovate, and hire an experienced team to help launch the club’s new chapter.

Thank-you to Miss Barbrafisch, Carlos Mondesir, Dan Burke, Davy Love, Enzo Petrungaro, Jeff Cohen, John Caffery, William New, and Yvonne Matsell for contributing. Thanks also to Amy Hersenhoren, Dave Munro, Jonathan Ramos, and Stuart Berman.

The post Then & Now: The El Mocambo, 1989 – 2001 appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.

Article originally published January 4, 2012 by The Grid online (TheGridTO.com).

In the latest instalment of her nightlife-history series, Denise Benson takes us back to College Street in the mid-90s, when a female-friendly hotbed for arts and culture opened up just as Little Italy was beginning to explode.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: 52 inc., 394 College Street

Years in operation: 1995 — 2000

History: On August 2nd 1995, two 23-year-old friends—Kate Cassidy and Amy Katz—opened a community-minded café, bar and boutique just one block away from their shared rental apartment at College and Borden. 52 inc., named as a nod to women forming fifty-two percent of the global population, was a complementary addition to a neighbourhood filled with diverse independent businesses.

By then, College Street west of Bathurst was beginning to explode with trendy lounges, restaurants and shops opened alongside Little Italy mainstays. But it was a different story for the strip of College that lies north of Kensington Market.

“It was a gritty stretch that was complete with small businesses: grocers, salsa clubs, a few clothing shops and some very busy diners, many of whom had been there a very long time,” recalls Cassidy. “There was nothing slick or ‘happening;’ it was just people going about their daily business. We wedged ourselves into that stretch and loved being a part of it.”

“We did all of our shopping for the bar on the block or in Kensington Market, and rarely needed to leave the neighbourhood for anything,” says Katz. “We were both working in restaurants, learned a lot from other spaces, had some serious mentors and opened with a lot of help. We wanted to create a place for the neighbourhood to come in and express itself.”

“We wanted a place where the coffee was always strong and good, a place where a woman would always feel comfortable sitting solo while having a drink at the bar, and a place where the music was never an afterthought,” Cassidy adds.

52 inc interior. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

The storefront building with beautiful, high ceilings housed a unique social space as the women of 52 inc. made the most of their one-thousand-square-feet. Designer Carina Rose worked with Katz and Cassidy to create a warm wooded space accented by tiles, lighting fixtures and other materials, including the infamous mermaid glass shower doors that divided the venue, repurposed from a demolished 1950s North Toronto bungalow home.

“For the first couple of years, the front area was a bar while the back area was a small store,” explains Katz. “We sold clothes from local designers, comic books from local artists, music and more. When we had DJs in, people danced under the dresses. After awhile, we got rid of the store.”

For lots of us living in the area—I rented on Brunswick north of College for 15 years—52 inc. was a huge boon with its thoughtful menu, welcoming vibe and novel nightlife. Open six days a week, with events on most evenings, 52 inc. meant many things to many people.

Why it was important: Cassidy and Katz were actively committed to feminist ideals, the promotion of local artists, and the desire to bring communities together. As a result, 52 inc. featured everything from live jazz to debates, discussions and DJs.

“Our ‘business model’ was to see what happened, and this generated a spontaneity that allowed us to witness many moments of beauty,” shares Katz. “We benefited from the commitment, skills and imagination found in the neighbourhood and in the city. 52 inc. was a window into what was already going on. The people who worked, performed and displayed their work there shaped the place.”

Visual artists and graphic designers including Fiona Smyth, Cecilia Berkovic, Suritah Wignall and Noel Nanton created work for 52 inc. Smyth also participated in an afternoon discussion with artist Sook-Yin Lee and former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall. Local clothing designers like Sim & Jones—who had a shop of their own just doors down—helped organize ‘subversive’ fashion shows. Sundays boasted popular open mic night Mocha Lounge’n where DJs Blanco, Son of S.O.U.L., K.I., K.Rafike and others were joined by spoken word artists such as Dwayne Morgan, Jemeni, El Machetero, Clifton Joseph and Hajile Kalaike. Kalaike later went on to host Sundays and continue the spoken word tradition. There were also book launches, art openings and activist talks.

Sook-Yin Lee and former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

“The space was small and super dynamic,” says Cassidy. “There was a constant flow of ideas, people and movement. Most people came for a glass of wine, a cocktail and to consume, but 52 inc. often had a community centre vibe. It was thrilling to look around the room at times and see who had gathered—to watch connections be made between artists, hip-hop producers, clothing designers, filmmakers, neighbourhood moms, singers, writers, activists and others.”

52 inc. was also one of the first small bars in the area to feature DJs nightly. Paul E. Lopes was the first weekly resident, with other early musical contributors including Mike Tull, DJs Kola and Serious, Mike Klaps and John Kumahara.

“I really hit it off with Amy and Kate because we shared a similar outlook on music and culture,” says Lopes. “It felt like it was a new era, a new funky freedom community. It was a hangout spot for us. They brought artists, DJs and designers together in one small, low-rent space and it felt like home. Watching them serve their patrons equal parts brunch and attitude was fun too.”

“The door at 52 inc. was always open,” agrees Tull. “It was a place where many Toronto DJs honed their skills. I for one would go by every Thursday to test out the records I bought.”

Like Lopes, Tull played regularly both at the College Street location and many of the larger 52 inc. events held elsewhere.

“Kate and Amy were very down-to-earth in their approach to everything, something that is definitely lacking in the promotion game nowadays. The fact that they were women also gave their parties a different vibe.”

College Street in the mid-90s. Photo courtesy of Kate Cassidy.

Who else played there: “We were a small bar and thought big,” says Cassidy. “It’s amazing to think of what we squeezed into that place over the five years.”

That’s no braggadocio. Bands including LAL performed. On the DJ front, dozens and dozens played for a 52 inc. gathering at some point: Nick Holder, deejay nav, Jason Palma, John Kong, Groove Institute, Malik X, Moonstarr, Moodswing, and Noel Nanton are but some of the names. 52 inc. had very close ties with DJs from Toronto’s three community radio stations, with myself and fellow CKLN hosts like Nik Red, Karen Augustine, DJ Zahra, Ray Prasad and Verlia Stephens also mixing it up.

DJ Moodswing. Photo courtesty of Kate Cassidy.

“There was a lot of rare and beautiful music played,” summarizes Katz. “People spent a lot of time at the DJ booth, asking what was being played. There was a lot of experimenting going on.”

To that end, the women of 52 inc. expanded their reach by producing ambitious events at external venues, including warehouse spaces like The Mockingbird and Roxy Blu, where they were one of the first promoters to host regular events.

There, 52 inc. presented a sold-out show by Philly poet Ursula Rucker, spearheaded two massive grassroots fundraisers dubbed Shake:Body (both featured close to 30 DJs and performers), and hosted a series of epic DJ Battles complete with props, ropes and Paul E. Lopes as referee.

“Amy and Kate went all-out and rented movie props,” recalls Lopes. “They had a huge trophy, a giant banner, and hung a life-sized whole side of beef near the DJ booth, to look like Sly Stone training in Rocky. They handed out whistles and towels for the ‘big choons,’ and the crowds, who were like no other, went mad.”

“People always told us our parties were so different—friendly, inviting and fresh,” says Cassidy. “Everyone also knew that our parties reflected our name. More than half of the crowd on the dancefloor were women.”

DJ Jason Palma poses with the giant DJ Battle trophy. Photo courtesy Paul E. Lopes.

What happened to it: With the summer of 2000 approaching, Cassidy says, “our five-year lease was coming up, the landlord was challenging to deal with, and we were exhausted. It felt okay to have 52 inc. come to an end on a high note. We threw a huge party in August, everyone came through to say goodbye, and it felt right somehow. I think we were both also ready to have our own quiet social lives by that point.”

The Cloak and Dagger Pub opened soon after.

Katz has since worked as a community organizer in a variety of capacities. She currently works for a health centre and is concerned with the creation and preservation of community centres and public spaces.

Cassidy, mother to a 20-month-old daughter, will contribute music-programming ideas to friends soon set to open the Midfield Wine Bar and Tavern at Dundas and Gladstone.

The post Then & Now: 52 inc. appeared first on Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History.