Then and Now: Toronto Nightlife History » Johnbronski

Then & Now: Club Focus

Denise Benson — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 19:48:40 +0000

Club Focus bouncer Marc Kyriacou. Photo courtesy of Johnbronski.

Article originally published February 29, 2012 by The Grid online (TheGridTO.com).

Denise Benson looks back at the all-ages venue that first introduced many of today’s top nightlife-industry players to the Toronto dance scene—and also served as a breeding ground for infamous ‘80s street gang The Untouchables.

Club: Club Focus, 14 Hagerman

Years in operation: 1986-1989

History: Club Focus was housed in a nondescript, two-storey building that would have been constructed during the decades (1870-1960) when Toronto’s original Chinatown was centered near the corner of Elizabeth and Louisa. The one-block-stretch that runs parallel to the north end of City Hall, from Elizabeth to Bay, was later renamed Hagerman.

In the 1950s, many buildings in this still-industrial area—with the original City Hall and Eaton’s Annex main store nearby—were obtained by the city for the construction of Nathan Phillips Square and a new City Hall, which opened in 1965 and spurred nearby development. The Eaton Centre was built two blocks away, on the east side of Bay, in the late ’70s.

While Focus opened upstairs at 14 Hagerman as an unlicensed, all-ages dance club near the close of 1986, the site had already been a social hub. As Hagerman Hall, it had hosted community dances (including those of pioneering gay organization Community Homophile Association of Toronto, a.k.a. CHAT, in the very early ’70s) and a karate club; the space was known as Club Kongos in the early/mid ’80s.

Club Focus owner Warren Webley was already well known by Toronto’s music-loving youth for his Sunshine Sound enterprise. Webley and family provided sound gear for school and community dances, while the Sunshine Sound Crew of DJs—including JC, Tony Duncan and Brother A.J.—could often be found behind the decks.

Despite his club’s spitting-distance proximity to Nathan Phillip Squares, Webley erected massive walls of sound in Focus and gave Toronto’s teens a place to soak up new experiences on weekends. Once they made it past security, through the long line and up the stairs (where they paid a $5-7 cover to Webley’s wife), hundreds of kids danced late into the night on a sizable, dimly lit checkered floor. There was also a raised stage by the mirrored back wall, a lounge area with video games and a screen on which hockey games and skateboard videos were projected. Bars of neon illuminated the slightly elevated DJ booth. The most popular drink at the concession stand, by far, was Sarasoda, a carbonated cooler that contained 0.5% alcohol, which made it cool among the kids.

Why it was important: Club Focus was a teenage epicentre, complete with all of the energy and drama one might expect, when you consider the many subcultures gathered. (And given that most teens at the time didn’t carry cameras around at all hours, no photos of the club could be sourced for this article.) Unlike other unlicensed—and, by definition—all-ages clubs that had come before, like Twilight Zone and Voodoo, Focus drew a high-school crowd generally aged 14-18. It was also a heavily inner-city scene, as suburbs like Mississauga had their own all-ages hotspots. Only RPM’s all-ages Sundays offered a similar downtown experience for young dancers.

“Because of its location near the Eaton Centre, and the city’s central skateboarding site at the time—Trinity Square, behind the Eaton Centre—Club Focus was an instantly popular skater hangout,” recalls Hal Wong, a Focus regular now known as DJ Hali of the Box of Kittens crew. “The club was unkempt and a bit divey; it was sort of like a dark, grimy, unsupervised high-school dance, complete with the occasional slow song, like ‘Somebody’ by Depeche Mode. And it was frequented by two main types of people: preps and skaters, and later on by mods also.”

Hal Wong (left) and friends, circa 1987. Photo courtesy of him.

Wong, a serious skater kid who began attending Focus in the spring of 1987 at age 16, describes some of the fashion staples on the new-wave nights he went to: skater tees and shorts, rugby and polo shirts, tightly tapered workpants, Vuarnet sunglasses, and Swatch watches, with a whole lot of Polo cologne in the air. It was racially mixed, but largely middle-class. Depending on the night you went, Focus was packed with mods, rude boys and skinheads, too.

Music was the main draw. In the beginning, Club Focus was the musical domain of Sunshine Sound Crew’s Tony Duncan who, by then, had formed his own KAOS crew with young DJs Jamie Delaney and Steve Webster. The trio played everything from The Beatles, Stones, and Kinks to Beastie Boys, Run-DMC and new wave faves like Depeche Mode, New Order, The Smiths and The Cure. Fridays initially featured heavier doses of reggae and ska, attracting the rude boys and skins, while Saturdays’ new wave emphasis appealed to the skaters and preps with floppy hair.

Warren Webley’s son Devon later became a Focus star DJ. In his late teens, Devon came up playing school dances and then DJed Fridays at St. Joseph Street all-ages Club Z, which his father had bought from Charles Khabouth in 1987. Devon then moved to Fridays at Focus; by 1988, he mixed the music both nights, blending new wave, reggae, ska, hip-hop and house.

“New wave was kicking at the time,” recalls Devon Webley. “The shocking surprise for a lot of people was that it was a black guy knowing and playing the alternative music, not to mention blending it at the same time. I also had a lot of house music and mixed that in.”

As Webley added seminal house tracks like “Work it 2 the Bone” and “House Nation” to his blends, the crowds grew even larger and people stayed later into the night.

“The music that was played at Focus, it was the happening sounds of the time,” says Webley. “Whether it was house or new wave or ska, the beat had to be there. And the sound system was the big thing. Whatever music was played, that bass was coming through your body. You might hear some of the same music at other places, but it wasn’t the same experience.

“Also, I have to say, that if you couldn’t dance and came to Focus, you knew how to dance after that.”

Focus attracted a deeply loyal crowd of regulars, many of whom attended every weekend for months or even years.

Paul Seguro was a DJ who Warren Webley recruited from intimate, Bloor-and-Ossington all-ages spot, Blondie’s. He was already a Focus fan and attendee, so he was thrilled to take over Fridays in ’88, when Devon Webley moved back to Club Z for those nights. Seguro also mixed the likes of The English Beat and The Specials with reggae, house and new wave.

“It was all about the music,” emphasizes Seguro, “played on a great soundsystem in a good downtown space. Some nights, I’d guess there were 500 people packed in there like sardines. The floor would bounce! In the summer, Warren would turn on a big wall fan. It being a sauna in there on a summer’s night, the air outside was actually cooler, so people would rush in front of that fan to cool off.”

Many of the young people who sweated it out on the Focus floor would, like Hal Wong, become deeply involved in underground dance music and nightlife. Focus was a breeding ground for future generations of DJs, promoters and venue owners.

Matthew Casselman, a.k.a. DJ Matt C, aged 14. Photo courtesy of his mom.

Matt Casselman a.k.a. DJ Matt C, later a co-owner of Industry nightclub, was one of them. As a 13-year-old from Scarborough, he told his parents he was working his bus-boy job at the Royal Canadian Legion while often heading instead to Focus and Club Z.

Some of the friends he rolled with included Wayne McNaught (a.k.a. DJ Wayne Wonder), Chris Sherwood (later co-owner of The Adelaide Street Pub), Roger Moore (now an actor—no, not that one) and scenester Makepeace Charles, who became a surgeon.

“Focus was very cool; the kids were really, really trendy,” Casselman gushes. “We were young and full of testosterone, so trying to pick up girls was a main attraction, too. There was a lot of grinding going on. It was a very sexually charged club.

“Also, Devon Webley was an amazing DJ; he had a massive influence on my DJ style,” adds Casselman, who started playing dances at age 13. “Devon and Warren used to go to New York to buy records, so he had a lot of music that most people didn’t. I remember when Inner City’s “Big Fun” came out in ‘88, that New Year’s Eve, it was the first song Devon played at midnight, and it tore the place apart.

“Another thing I really remember about Focus is that if the crowd didn’t like a song that was being played, they would sit down on the floor cross-legged,” Casselman chuckles. “That was a trendy thing to do.”

Flyer for a 1989 all-ages event, which included original Focus DJ crew KAOS. Courtesy of Hal Wong.

Who else played/worked there: Although others, including CFNY hosts like Skot Turner, would grace the Club Focus DJ booth on occasion, the men mentioned above were the club’s main musical draws, along with MCs including Brother Different and Butch Lee.

But at Focus, the bouncers also played a key role. Walking hip-hop encyclopedia Johnbronski worked there for a stretch. A security guy named Garth is mentioned repeatedly, remembered for his ability to hold the masses behind an established, but invisible, line on the sidewalk. Apparently a cousin of famous Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, Garth was also known to select those who would get in on the busiest of nights.

It was crucial that Focus’ doormen could control the teenage masses.

“Focus was not always good times and alcohol-free bubbly drinks,” explains Hal Wong. “In the late ’80s, there was still a lot of lawlessness and crime in the downtown core. Stories of muggings, or being rolled, by skinheads simply for wearing Doc Marten shoes were very common. So were street fights.”

In fact, Wong tells me of a massive, hour-long street brawl between skinheads and skaters that occurred in front of Focus in October of 1987. Cops barricaded the area, but allowed the fight to continue as they threw individuals into police vans. Tensions between skaters and skins remained high, and Focus was prime turf, especially as members of infamous Toronto street gang The Untouchables were also known to frequent the club.

“Focus was the epicentre of all that gang shit at the time,” says Marc Kyriacou, a former bouncer who worked at the top of Focus’ stairs for two years. “We had our fair share of going home with bumps and bruises.”

Now an architect, designer and part of the Uniq Entertainment Group that owns venues including Cobra, Brant House, Maro, The Ballroom and Jacob’s Steakhouse (the latter of which is housed where Roxy Blu once was, Kyriacou tells a chilling tale.

“I remember the first night we got a metal detector,” he begins. “At Focus, once people entered the downstairs door, they were stuck on that staircase until they came up. If you went back outside, you had to go back to the end of the line.

“At the end of that night, when we walked down the staircase, we must have found a hundred knives, sticks and stuff. People hadn’t known about the detector so they pulled stuff out of their pocket and dropped it the ground. We were tripping over things.”

That said, despite its sometimes-violent history, Focus remains close to the hearts of many.

“Focus will always be important to me,” says Wong. “It was the first actual nightclub I experienced, and also the first place I discovered a lot of seminal underground dance music. Hearing songs like ‘Jack Your Body,’ ‘This Brutal House‘ and ‘House Nation’ will forever remind me of those early days. So Club Focus, with warts and all, is like that first sweet love of mine.”

“I can remember every inch of that club to this day,” says Seguro, who now builds homes and, for the purpose of this article, drafted the floor plan below from memory. “It was probably one of the best years of my life. If I could time travel, I would go to a Saturday night at Hagerman. It was home.”

Club Focus floor plan, as drawn by Paul Seguro.

What happened to it: By most accounts, Club Focus closed on Hagerman as its lease expired and the City of Toronto reclaimed the property for development. 14 Hagerman was demolished and a private parking lot currently stands in its place.

The parking lot at 14 Hagerman. Photo by Denise Benson.

As mentioned, Warren Webley also owned Club Z at 11A St. Joseph Street. There was a stabbing there in 1989, and Webley briefly closed the location as a result of the murder.

It then re-opened as the new home of Club Focus, with DJs including Paul Seguro, Devon Webley and younger brother Michael Webley. This closed after less than two years, and the Webleys moved Club Focus to Oakwood and Vaughan, into a spot known as The Cave. Even with a roller rink upstairs and banquet hall downstairs, it never caught on.

Warren Webley then opened a Sunshine Sound and Lighting shop at Christie and St. Clair. Today, there are locations on Eglinton West and in Scarborough, with the east-end location run by Michael Webley.

Devon stepped away from DJing and acted as executive producer for a few releases on Focus Records, including X’onia’s “By The Way.” Today, he’s a happy family man and TTC bus driver.

Thank you to all who contributed research to this piece, also including Adina Shore, Jp Navidad, Johnbronski, Michael Webley. Thanks also to those who searched for Focus photos, flyers or memorabilia. Please let us know if you have photos!

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

Then & Now: Club Z

Denise Benson — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:47:52 +0000

Anything could happen at Club Z. Photos courtesy of INK Entertainment.

Article originally published February 16, 2012 by The Grid online (TheGridTO.com).

In this instalment of her ongoing nightlife-history series, Denise Benson looks back at the first club creation of Toronto nightlife magnate Charles Khabouth. At just 22 years old, he opened Club Z in 1984, but its groundbreaking legacy lives on to this day.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: Club Z, 11A St. Joseph Street

Years in operation: 1984-1989

History: Tracing the history of this city’s nightlife tells us much about its physical transformation and urban development. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the corner of Yonge and St. Joseph. Here, we’ve recently seen a few significant buildings largely demolished as part of their ongoing metamorphosis into Five Condos.

I had often wondered about the physical similarities between the original red brick buildings at 610 Yonge, 5 and 11 St. Joseph, and 15 St. Nicholas, but only recently noticed the plaque on 11’s easterly side. It turns out that moving and storage company Rawlinson Cartage built all of them, with the warehouse space of 11 St. Joseph constructed between 1895 and 1898.

Gay Torontonians who socialized in the 1970s and early ‘80s will remember 11A St. Joseph as popular all-ages discotheque Club Manatee, a three-level spot where the DJ booth was in the bow of a boat hanging above the crowd.

In September of 1984, directly after the Manatee’s closing, a 22-year-old Charles Khabouth debuted as a nightlife entrepreneur by opening Club Z in that very location. Now known as the CEO of INK Entertainment, whose many impressive properties include The Guvernment, La Société Bistro and the Bisha hotel/condo project, Khabouth started with just $30,000 and a desire to fuse his love of music, fashion and dance.

At the time, unlicensed (hence all-ages) after hours clubs were more common. Twilight Zone had opened in 1980 and was a bold new force on Richmond Street; Kongo Club (later Club Focus) would soon open on Hagerman; and Club Z neighbours Le Tube and Voodoo drew large fashion-conscious crowds, both gay and straight, with blends of new wave and alt disco.

“Back in those days, most nightclubs were limited to the confines of hotels,” recalls Khabouth. “In the early ’80s, the St. Joseph Street area was known to be the more underground social hub of nightlife. That area at night had an energy and vibrancy about it—an aura that you couldn’t get in hotel clubs. It had a bohemian feel, which is why it appealed to me.”

Khabouth describes Club Z’s aesthetic as “Do it yourself industrial design,” with much of the décor reportedly purchased at Canadian Tire. The club was bare bones, dark, but splashed with neon paint and squiggly lasers projected onto screens. It was multi-level, with two dancefloor/stage areas, high ceilings and a raised DJ booth accessed by a ladder. The back of the club contained a juice bar and video games like Pac-Man.

Club Z’s soundsystem was huge, and the space was reportedly licensed for 700-plus, but attendance was dauntingly low at first—until Khabouth rented a tiger to build buzz.

“After only being open for two months, and having no budget for advertising a Halloween event, I had to be creative,” he explains. “I had heard about a zoo up north that had tigers, and before I knew it, I had one delivered to the club. My office at the time had a large window and was street level, so it made for the perfect observation space. It caused quite the commotion.”

That’s an understatement. The tiger smashed the window in the early morning, and though still confined by a metal grille, it drew large crowds of people, the police, and the Humane Society. The incident made headlines and Club Z became a sensation.

Charles Khabouth was only 22 years old when he opened Club Z in 1984.

Why it was important: Club Z was one of Toronto’s first clubs to feature breaking sounds in dance music, with house mixed alongside freestyle, electro, early hip-hop and new wave. Khabouth himself took regular trips to New York, Detroit and Chicago “To hunt for new sounds in record shops.”

Music was central to creating an atmosphere that brought together a diverse downtown crowd Friday-through-Sunday, with Sundays a dedicated gay night that included drag shows.

“The crowd was very urban and eclectic,” recalls Toronto house music bricklayer Dino Demopoulos, who got his DJ start at Z, playing with twin brother Terry on occasional Fridays.

“There were a lot of alternative types there, the kind of freaks that you only had in the ’80s,” he says lovingly.

“During the Charles years Club Z was very hip downtown,” agrees journalist, DJ and then-Starsound Records employee Johnbronski, a regular at the club who later tended to its sound system.

“Gay, straight, new wave, hip-hop, disco, black, white, Chinese, Indian—it didn’t matter because the music came first. Remember, no booze was sold; it was just a big warehouse type space for dancing to some serious bass. The shared love of hip-hop and dance music culture was a very big part. You really needed to have an ear to the streets to know what was up back then.

“It was a place where a teenager could escape,” Johnbronski adds. “You’d sneak out of your house at midnight and head downtown, meeting and making new friends that you’d only see between 1-to-6am on weekends. Teachers and school friends thought I was making up stories about an all-ages dance club that opened at 11pm.”

Khabouth, who could often be found by the club’s front door, built his own career foundations at Z. He’s clearly proud of it to this day.

“I believe that Club Z pioneered a whole new music direction and a generation of club culture in Toronto. That’s why I am still looking for the latest sounds, and still find it crucial to invest in the best sound systems. Music is everything, and it’s the soul of any club.”

Club Z’s rise, in fact, can be heavily attributed to its star DJ: JC of the Sunshine Sound Crew, a Z resident from 1985-1988, long before he helmed the Phoenix’ famous Planet Vibe Sundays.

“Club Z was really all about JC,” says Demopoulos. “His talent put Z on the map because the club was known for having a shit-hot DJ playing all the best electronic music in Toronto, in my opinion. Though he didn’t play that much house, he covered a lot of ground musically, from Kraftwerk and Alexander Robotnik to New York electro and freestyle stuff like Debbie Deb’s ‘Look Out Weekend,‘ and just a lot of great club music like Denise Edwards, Joyce Sims, Nu Shooz, Madonna, and Colonel Abrams.

“JC was also the first DJ that we saw who had a drum machine—a Roland 808—up in the booth, and he would do much more than just play records. He was super professional at what he did, the most technically perfect DJ we had ever heard, so he really raised the bar for what a DJ could and should do in a club. He was that good.”

Dino & Terry were Club Z regulars, not only listening to and learning from JC, but also throwing occasional parties there and guest DJing alongside Dave Ahmad during his Friday night tenure between 1986-87.

“We’d been DJing at house parties, school parties and things like that,” says Demopoulos; “But this was our first real club, playing the kind of music that really changed our lives and put all the rest of our music career things in motion.

“At the time, pretty much only the Twilight Zone was playing underground house from Chicago, Detroit techno and New York stuff, and we were pretty crazy collectors of anything in the genre. We would take all the latest and greatest white labels and hard to find stuff to play at Club Z on Fridays. A fun story: we used to make sure to pour very stiff drinks for Dave Ahmad so that he would get really drunk and let us play for longer. He was so cool, and really progressive with the underground music at the time. Although JC would play some underground house stuff, Dave and us played a lot more of it.”

As for Ahmad himself, he’s one of Toronto’s true dance music pioneers. From 1981-2000, he hosted a variety of programs on CKLN 88.1FM, most notably influential Sunday afternoon program Dave’s Dance Music. He also DJed at Toronto hotspots including The Copa, Twilight Zone and Fresh.

“We played mainly house, but threw in some heavier electro and some wave; Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill‘ was a big one then,” Ahmad recalls of his Fridays at Z. “The crowd loved their music, but took time to rock out to anything new.

“I remember breaking out ‘Erotic City‘ by Prince there. Half of the crowd went nuts while the others didn’t know what hit them. [Dancer/choreographer] Steve Bolton was in the crowd, and ran up to the booth. I showed him the cut—it had just come in at Starsound that night. So the crowd was not all trendsetters, but they loved their music. Hot clothes too!”

Charles Khabouth (far left) and friends at Club Z

Who else played there: Other Club Z residents included electro, freestyle and new wave DJs Chico and Sherwin, who also opened popular after hours spot Amadeus right around the corner.

“I used to make my pilgrimage down to Z to hear Sherwin,” says Johnbronski. “I loved the way he mixed stuff like ‘I Love You‘ by Yello with Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode—those were essentially house beat records before house was even a concept. He was ahead of the curve on that, and mixed on three turntables, taking pieces from here and there, and layering in acapellas.”

International guest DJs and performers at Club Z included Grandmaster Flash, Newcleus, De La Soul, and Joyce Sims.

Also interesting to note is that famed New York nightclub operator and restaurateur Jeffrey Jah got his start producing parties at Club Z.

11A St. Joseph Street today

What happened to it: Charles Khabouth sold Club Z to Warren Webley, father of Sunshine Sound Crew and owner of Sunshine Sound and Lighting, in 1987.

“I had opened up Stilife and needed to focus strictly on that,” says Khabouth of the trendsetting, sophisticated spot he opened at Richmond and Duncan in 1986. “Although I was still involved with Club Z, it broke my heart to sell it.”

While DJ JC continued to play at Club Z, a lot of the house heads switched their allegiances fully to Twilight Zone.

Johnbronski, who began to work for Warren Webley as a DJ, sound tech and occasional doorman, recalls that his boss—also owner of Club Focus on Hagerman Street—closed Club Z’s doors for a period. It was re-opened as the new Club Focus in 1989. By that time, the area had become much rougher, with vandalism, muggings and overdoses all associated with the St Joseph Street clubs. Racist and homophobic skinheads were also a problem.

A young man named Jamie Withers was, in fact, stabbed and killed inside Club Z in 1989. His death is said to have prompted Webley to close Club Z and later re-open the space as Focus.

“My memory is that the fights and stuff were mushrooming and that I wanted to stay away from there,” says Johnbronski. “It was at a time when Toronto was beginning to go through a real urban expansion. I mean, think about it—it’s Toronto after hours, it’s near Yonge Street and we’re talking before Richmond and the whole club district existed. That area attracted a lot of everybody.”

11A St. Joseph later became dark after hours spot Playground. In the late ‘90s, Steve Ireson and partners cleaned the space up and opened it as The Pad. Between 2002 and 2004, 11 St. Joseph was redeveloped for residential use. It’s now marketed as Eleven Residencies.

As for Charles Khabouth and INK, they recently launched Chroma inside The Guvernment. Their newest nightclub, Cube, will open at the end of February, replacing INK’s Ultra club at 312 Queen West. Many Torontonians will most strongly associate this address with the BamBoo, a legendary restaurant and live music venue that was at the heart of Queen West for decades.

Thank you to all who contributed to this piece, including Paul E. Lopes, Hal Wong, Steve Ireson, Carlos Mondesir and Chris Torella. Sadly, despite much searching, very little photographic evidence of Club Z could be found. Please let us know if you have photos!

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