Article originally published November 2, 2012 by The Grid online (thegridto.com).

After punk exploded in the late ’70s, this infamous Gerrard Street new-wave mecca kept the fire burning into the ’80s—even if its many famous performers were in danger of getting doused by the overflowing upstairs toilets leaking onto the stage.

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Edge, 70 Gerrard St. E.

Years in operation: 1979-1981

History: On the northeast corner of Gerrard and Church sits a modest three-floor building that has had—and housed—many lives. It is said to have once been the residence of Egerton (pronounced “Edge-erton”) Ryerson, a prominent Canadian educator who, in 1852, founded the Toronto Normal School at what is now Bond and Gould streets.

Ryerson University is named after him, as was Egerton’s Restaurant and Tavern, a student hangout and folk-music club that opened at 70 Gerrard St. E. in the early 1970s. Licensed as a “listening room” and required to sell food, Egerton’s was open seven days a week, sold cheap beer, and booked live performers like Stan Rogers.

“We lived in the shadow of The Riverboat [in Yorkville] and bigger clubs that had bigger stages and dance floors, like the El Mocambo, Midwich Cuckoo Tavern, and Jarvis House,” recalls Derek Andrews, a veteran Toronto live-music programmer who got his start in the industry as a dishwasher at Egerton’s in January 1974.

Andrews would continue at the location for almost eight years, working his way up to busboy, waiter, and general manager. He shares that Egerton’s had been owned by Warren Beamish, PC candidate for the Rosedale riding in 1974’s federal election, before it was acquired by Bernie Kamin and Harvey Hudes, partners in Mosport Park, among other projects. The pair brought in a young Ron Chapman as co-owner and managing operator.

Chapman and Andrews—who together would run the Nite Life management company which represented artists including songwriter Eddie “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Schwartz, Paul Quarrington, and Ellen McIlwaine—would go on to book the likes of legendary funk drummer Bernard Purdie during Egerton’s later period.

But Chapman also had an eye on Toronto’s emerging underground. Late in 1978, he invited prescient concert promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier, together known as The Garys, to come book live music at Egerton’s.

Gary Topp (left) and Gary Cormier, as they appeared in the Toronto Star, circa 1980. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

The Garys were, by then, known for presenting live shows by eccentric singer-songwriters and cutting-edge jazz, blues, punk, and new-wave artists. Topp had programmed films—and occasional live bands, including the debut performances by both Rough Trade and Nash the Slash—at east-end movie theatre The Roxy. In 1976, Topp launched the New Yorker Theatre on Yonge (now the Panasonic), where artist David Andoff would introduce him to carpenter and fellow music head Cormier.

Partly influenced by screening Blank Generation, Amos Poe’s movie about early New York punk, Topp had decided he needed to build a stage at The New Yorker and bring in bands. Cormier and he were in sync, and joined forces to present The Ramones in September 1976, followed in ’77 by fellow New Yorkers the Dead Boys, U.K. punks The Vibrators, and locals including The Viletones and The Poles.

After rent was raised at The New Yorker, The Garys relocated to The Horseshoe Tavern where they built a stage, brought in sound and lighting, and booked bands beginning in March 1978.

“Our statement was that we were going to be Toronto’s first concert club,” says Topp.

They brought in a wide range of artists—from Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and Etta James to Talking Heads, Johnny Thunders and a then unknown trio called The Police—before The Horseshoe’s owners opted to revert to a country format that December.

Enter Ron Chapman.

“Ron started coming down to The Horseshoe, and was there the night we did The Police,” recalls Cormier. “When everything kind of collapsed at The Horseshoe—when they said, ‘Take your fucking punk music and get out of here’—Ron said, ‘Come to Egerton’s.’

“Everybody thought it was a horrible idea because it was a little folk room. Although, if the truth be known, most of the shows that we did at The Horseshoe only drew 100 to 200 people. So I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll go to Egerton’s, and we’ll call it The Edge, and that’s that.’”

The Garys worked with Chapman and Andrews to quickly transform the Egerton’s space. It was painted black, the stage was moved, raised, and expanded, with sound and lighting upgrades also helping to create a proper concert space. The staircase that divided the long main room into two halves remained, as did a fireplace. Some walls were removed to increase capacity and (slightly) improve sightlines, but the venue’s wooden chairs and tables stayed put as per its dining licence. Food was served from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. The building’s second floor featured an office and washrooms with notoriously leaky toilets.

“The Edge didn’t really ‘open’ so much as enjoy a name change, with rebranding and a music-policy change,” explains Andrews. “The menu and staff were in fact the same initially. The reach was to catch the wave, so to speak, of young audiences coming out for live music.”

The venue’s official start date was December 31, 1978. Local favourites Martha and the Muffins brought in the New Year.

The Edge menu, courtesy of Gary Cormier.

Why it was important: “The two-and-a-half year life of The Edge was like a high speed train running through Toronto music culture,” says Andrews. “The club was an exploding black box inside a colonial historic building. Sometimes the vibe was chilled by free jazz, folk legends, or blues artists, but the dominant sound was a mix of crunchy post-punk and British new wave.”

By 1979, Toronto’s music and art scenes were exploding. The city had style, originality, and attitude to spare. There was as much camaraderie as competition among bands in the downtown scene, with people pushing one another to go further.

As a 200-capacity live music venue that was open every day and night of the week, The Edge played a unique role. There were not many venues in town devoted to emerging, often esoteric live bands—though punks had previously infiltrated venues like Turning Point, Crash ’n’ Burn, and the infamous Larry’s Hideaway on Carlton Street—and certainly not on such a regular basis.

“There were a lot of little places having bands, but I don’t think there were any venues like The Edge, which was bringing in major international artists alongside the locals,” says Gary Topp. “It was a concert hall in the guise of a club, and it became a hangout.

“Because it was also a restaurant, with food during the day, you could go in and watch as people soundchecked. It was also all-ages, because it was a restaurant, and we put a PA out on the patio so people could still hear sold-out shows.”

“The Edge really did feel like a new beginning,” says veteran musician and photographer Don Pyle, a regular at the club. “Punk had happened, and the venues had been appropriate for that. Now, things were becoming artier and more experimental. This seated and more comfortable venue, with food even, reflected some kind of maturing in the ‘scene.’”

Photos courtesy of Gary Topp.

At a time when there weren’t large booking agencies, like-minded concert promoters across the continent formed bonds to bring over the Brits and others.

“The Garys brought in the who’s who of emerging acts of the day—be it locals, first plays from the U.K., and of course a lot of acts from New York City, Ohio, and beyond,” says Ivar Hamilton, another Edge regular who also held sway as the Import Music Director at CFNY 102.1 FM during its most adventurous years. “They were ahead of the curve on nearly every level, and that made The Edge such an iconic venue for the short time it was in existence. They didn’t always do punk and new wave; there was a great mix of genres of music, plus poetry and film. You had to be there!”

“The Edge was our little clubhouse,” says Gary Cormier. “All we wanted to do was see these bands. There were a few things behind our thinking. It was like: ‘Take me to a place I haven’t been,’ ‘Show me something I haven’t seen,’ and ‘Let me hear something I haven’t heard before.’ Underlying that whole theme was—to the rest of the industry—something akin to ‘Come on. Is that the best you guys can do? Is that all you’ve got?’ It wasn’t necessarily a sense of one-upmanship or whatever, but clearly we were on a different path than everyone else. There was nothing that we were afraid to do, and we were not afraid to fail. We lost so much money sometimes, but we weren’t in it for the money.”

Adds Topp, “The scene was so small back then that it was actually like a club—like the Mickey Mouse Club. We were all punkateers.”

Wayne Brown of The Fits (right) and an Edge staff member stand outside the club in a “punk fashion” magazine spread. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

“It was smallish, but really electrifying,” says Steven Leckie, best known as lead singer of seminal Toronto punk band The Viletones, who performed frequently at the club. “Looking back, I think The Edge was at an absolute peak of things. I lived just up the road, at Church and Isabella, and went almost every single night. Bands that now have big-name recognition would play three or four nights out of every seven.”

“The Edge was cooler than shit,” Carole Pope tells me. “All my close friends went there. It was like being at a club in New York or London.”

As lead singer of hugely influential Toronto band Rough Trade, Pope performed all over the city and toured internationally, but The Edge remains especially close to her heart.

“I saw so many great bands there: Ultravox, The Slits, John Sex, Nico, B-52s. The Slits were all about shocking the audience. One of the chicks said, ‘I have my blood,’ sharing with us that she was on her period. Nico was all-mysterious, wrapped in her Velvet Underground aura. Ultravox was amazing; I loved everything they did.”

XTC at The Edge. Photo by Don Pyle.

Sun Ra at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

“Within the first two to three months of The Edge, we did both XTC, and Ultravox with John Foxx, which was a completely different animal than without him, and they were just incredible shows,” Cormier recalls. “Every minute that those bands were on stage in that room were captivating, with the entire audience in sync. Those nights, you could go home without a nickel in your pocket and you thought you had the world by the tail.”

Topp is equally enthusiastic. “Everybody we booked was special to at least one, if not both of us. XTC played with Barry Andrews on keyboards, before he left. Sun Ra—the real Sun Ra, when he was alive—played, with half the band in the audience because there was no room on the stage. Nico played twice. One of the times, she was wandering around in the afternoon in the attic of the house and encountered a ghost. There were lots of punky shows—999, The Viletones. Wayne/Jayne County recorded Rock ‘N’ Roll Resurrection on New Year’s Eve in 1979. But of all the international artists, John Otway played the most, like five or six times.”

“The Edge was my favourite venue [in North America], followed by Max’s Kansas City in New York,” says eccentric British singer-songwriter Otway, billed as “rock and roll’s greatest failure” in new documentary Otway: The Movie. “The Edge was the gig in North America that felt very much like a U.K. venue. From the very first show there, we went down a storm. It was brilliant. The audiences, as I remember, got bigger and bigger each time we came over. It probably cost me a fortune because I believed if we could do this all over the continent we would crack America in no time.”

John Otway at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

The Garys were notorious for booking oddball acts with cult status. Another was U.K. rockabilly outfit Crazy Cavan ‘n’ The Rhythm Rockers, the band responsible for altering Steven Leckie’s life and look.

“They were this working-class rockabilly band from Wales that managed to get around 50 teddy boys and girls to come with them on this North American jaunt,” says Leckie. “The next day, I changed my hair, I changed everything, and got really deep into U.K. rockabilly, which was way more glamorous than the American stuff.”

Poster courtesy of Gary Topp.

Surprisingly congenial for a guy once nicknamed Nazi Dog who earned a rep for cutting himself on stage and throwing himself into audiences, Leckie recalls that The Viletones in fact debuted their own stylistic and musical take on rockabilly at The Edge.

“It went over like Bob Dylan going electric,” he chuckles as we chat by phone. “It really went badly, but it gave the band a lot of longevity. Plus, it looked better and it seemed more primal. It was the sheer ego of it. I see rock ‘n’ roll as a glamour artform. For me, The Edge was really high glamour.”

The Viletones’ Steven Leckie goes rockabilly. Photo courtesy of him.

Especially glamorous, it seems, were the club’s second-floor bathrooms, mentioned by almost everyone I spoke with.

“The bathrooms were above the stage, and were often fucked up,” says Topp. “Sometimes, the toilets would flood and the water would pour down on the stage while bands were playing.

“The best time of all was one night while Jonathan Richman played there. It was a Sunday, he was solo, and the water was pouring down at the front of the stage. He had the luxury of just moving back, and I was doing lights, as I usually did. That night, with the water falling in front of Jonathan, it was kind of like the coloured lights on Niagara Falls at night.”

That said, The Garys did work hard to create a sense of glamour at the street level. Posters blanketed downtown, ads were placed, and they had good connections with a handful of Toronto music journalists. While CFNY had the most obvious and significant programming overlap with the club’s bookings, particularly during the Ivar Hamilton and David Marsden years, both CHUM-FM and Q-107 featured some adventurous programming back then as well. Q-107 host Bob Mackowycz Sr. was frequently at The Edge and played many of its visiting bands on his popular 6 O’Clock Rock Report. Gary Topp even hosted a weekly show on the Q dubbed The Edge of Morning, Sundays from 1-2 a.m., in 1980.

Poster courtesy of Don Pyle.

The Garys saw the club as a springboard for emergent local acts.

“We nurtured a lot of local groups who got signed from playing regularly at The Edge and from being promoted the same ways we would promote The Police or whoever,” says Topp.

He namechecks more than a dozen Toronto acts of the time, including The Mods, Drastic Measures, The Sharks, The Curse, Spoons, Battered Wives, The Demics, The Dishes, Johnny and the G-Rays, Blue Peter, and The B-Girls.

“The B-Girls should have been The Go-Gos or The Bangles,” says Topp. “They deserved it, but they lived in small-town Ontario—that is, Toronto—so people didn’t believe in them.”

Martha and the Muffins certainly benefitted, both from frequent bookings and by snagging Arthur Fogel as tour manager. Fogel was a young musician hired by Derek Andrews; he was first a bartender and then made night manager. He worked at The Edge for about two years, before leaving to work with the Muffins and then at Concert Productions International (CPI).

“The Edge somehow [caught] the spirit of the time,” says Fogel. “It was cutting edge yet down to earth. It was kind of like seeing great artists in your living room.”

“It was an exciting time, and The Edge was one of the best venues Rough Trade ever played at,” says Pope. “It was hip, and everyone wanted to play there. The audience was really into it and The Garys were great to work with. They were music aficionados who really got it. So many bands launched their careers there.”

“Rough Trade was one of my favourite regular bands at the club,” Andrews says. “They filled the place, and were a perfect fit for our aesthetic. I fondly remember my parents joining me on a birthday night when I had to work, and Rough Trade was playing. The band must have already had their ‘High School Confidential’ hit because my folks were impressed that they were at the club. When Carole Pope grabbed her crotch, my dad covered mom’s eyes. They liked the show, though!”

That was part of The Edge’s charm: Audiences were a mix of in-the-know Queen Street types, queer art-school kids, and people who came from all over Southern Ontario to see bands that often played nowhere else in the region.

Poster courtesy of Gary Topp.

Who else played/worked there: “Considering the level of talent that appeared consistently, The Edge was a special place to be,” says Ivar Hamilton, who’s worked in marketing and promotion at Universal Music for the past 24 years. He remembers many favourites.

“The first Canadian show by Magazine was simply fantastic! I saw Ultravox in the John Foxx era, numerous Pere Ubu appearances, The Police’s second Canadian show, Penetration, Shrapnel, many appearances by Chris Spedding and Jonathan Richman. 999 tore the roof off the place, Nash the Slash almost had a second home there, and I remember a very early Martha and the Muffins playing, too.”

Nash The Slash at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

Don Pyle—who played The Edge as part of punk band Crash Kills Five before going on to form Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet with two of the three other band members—also caught dozens and dozens of shows. He photographed many of them, with the results included in his great 2011 book Trouble In the Camera Club.

Courtesy of Don Pyle.

“It was easy to go four nights a week,” says Pyle. “Bands I recall most vividly are The Dils, partly because I had helped book the shows and was a huge fan. XTC was really memorable because they were so great at that time, and it was still somewhat rare to see bands that had come from punk scenes with keyboards. Barry Andrews was so captivating to watch. Colin Newman [of Wire] played one of his first solo shows there, with light only coming from a film projected onto his band. Psychedelic Furs performed, without an album out in North America, and were totally amazing at that time. The Cramps played a few times, and were always incredible.”

The list of artists that performed at The Edge during its less-than-three-years is simply mind-blowing. Others who should be mentioned include Mink DeVille, John Cale, Alex Chilton, Squeeze, John Hammond, Joan Jett, Nona Hendryx, Echo and the Bunnymen, Simple Minds, The Teardrop Explodes, William Burroughs, X, and The Knack. (“They had all of these sponsored Marshall amps and they couldn’t get them to work—ridiculous,” chuckles Topp.) Joy Division was scheduled to perform May 25, 1980, but cancelled their North American tour when singer Ian Curtis committed suicide one week earlier.

John Cale at The Edge. Photo courtesy of Gary Topp.

A band that practically personified The Edge was Dick Duck & the Dorks. Singer Paul Ekness, like many of the band’s merry punksters, worked at the club and added to its family feel. John Otway would later bring them over to tour the U.K. and Scandinavia with him.

“There was a core of regulars that was relatively small, so everyone who was there often knew each other,” recalls Pyle. “Some people had been with The Garys since The New Yorker, like filmmaker Colin Brunton, who worked the door and box office, and a bouncer named Tank. The bands and the staff together created the atmosphere that was so different from most venues.“

Cook Catherine Lalande would cater The Garys’ shows through the years while bartender Chris Pegg went on to do lighting with them before forming his own company.

Derek Andrews also credits Edge staff including bookkeeper Jayne Martin, now a production manager; waitress Julia Sasso, now a leading choreographer; and Jordy Sharp, an ace busboy who would go on to buy The Brunswick House and hire Andrews to book Albert’s Hall.

“Jordy’s dad is Issy Sharp, of Four Seasons Hotels,” says Andrews. “Jordy was worth $600 million when he was clearing tables.”

“A good bunch of people worked hard, and had fun while making the club a great place to perform or to see a show,” summarizes Fogel, now CEO of Global Touring at Live Nation Entertainment. He’s organized tours for the likes of Bowie, The Police, Madonna, U2, and Lady Gaga. “The Edge holds its place as a great moment in time in the rich tradition of Toronto live music clubs.”

“The Edge years added important ingredients to the Toronto music menu,” adds Andrews. “It forever enhanced the credibility of Toronto as a music centre, and inspired thousands to believe that contemporary music culture deserved respect and attention. Gary Cormier and Gary Topp made that club a beacon, and deserve credit for the music alchemy it enjoyed.”

“It’s like I always say: When you break all the rules, everything is wrong, but it’s right,” says Cormier.

The Edge’s final flyers. Courtesy of Gary Topp.

What happened to it: Though nights at The Edge were generally busy, the momentum was hard to maintain. Daytime restaurant sales had also slowed, and related expenses were high.

“The morning and lunch business actually suffered as a result of the brisk night business,” says Andrews, who worked in the building until a few weeks after The Edge closed. “It was harder to create a pleasant atmosphere after 200 sweaty, smoking youth pounded the place.”

Andrews reveals that staff paycheques had begun to bounce in the final months of The Edge, and the club’s owners closed it abruptly.

“The building was bought by the Catholic Church, and turned into a home for troubled youth,” says Andrews, who went on to also program at The Horseshoe and Harbourfront Centre, and is now Music Curator and Artist Manager for Luminato. “We all thought that was ironic, given the previous use: troubled youth and all.”

The Edge closed on June 6, 1981 as British singer-songwriter Kevin Coyne played the last of a three-night stint, his only Canadian shows ever. The Garys had tried to book Coyne for years and, in fact, had taken a chance on The Police because guitarist Andy Summers also played with Coyne.

By that point, The Garys had already begun booking larger concert venues like The Music Hall, Palais Royale, and The Concert Hall. They continued to set the pace throughout the 1980s, also bringing bands to large clubs like The Diamond and RPM.

Cormier now teaches concert promotion at George Brown College, and programs shows for the Toronto Jazz Festival and elsewhere.

Topp also remains active—and selective—as a concert promoter. On November 12, he presents Lydia Lunch—who once performed at The Edge as part of no-wave group 8-Eyed Spy—at Wrongbar, alongside The Dave Howard Singers and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.

Ron Chapman went on to manage bands, produce films, and now runs marketing and communications company Brandworks.

Steven Leckie is at work on three books, two of them “deep memoirs,” and the other a poetry collection he expects to be available by year’s end.

70 Gerrard St. E. is now the location of Mary’s Home Emergency Shelter for women.

70 Gerrard Street East today.

Thank you to Arthur Fogel, Carole Pope, David Barnard, Derek Andrews, Don Pyle, Gary Cormier, Gary Topp, Ivar Hamilton, John Otway, and Steven Leckie.

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

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

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

BY: DENISE BENSON

Club: The Diamond Club, 410 Sherbourne St.

Years in operation: 1984-1991

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Diamond’s entryway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Randy Charlton offers another set of circumstances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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