Are live-music venues in Toronto an endangered species?
No, not really. Not yet, anyway. We’ve still got quite a few to work with, but we certainly have less than we had just a few weeks ago. And a recent run of dispiriting downtown club closures has now prompted the city to nudge them at least towards the “protected” list, with Mayor John Tory himself co-signing a statement from City Hall on Thursday reassuring the local music industry and those who partake of it that “Toronto remains committed to supporting live-music venues.”
“Toronto’s music community lost a number of live venues in 2016 and, sadly, that trend has continued during the first month of this year,” read a joint message issued by Tory and Councillor Josh Colle, who also serves as chair of the Toronto Music Advisory Council, which was established in 2014 to inform and direct the city towards policies that might fulfil its declared intentions to become a world-renowned “Music City.”
“We share the disappointment of musicians, music fans and the music community (and) we would like the music community to know that we take the matter extremely seriously and are actively taking steps to address it.”
Such a gesture of (re-)encouragement was necessitated by the reality that the City of Toronto’s declaration of intent around four years ago to establish itself as a “music city” of global renown — which Toronto had already organically become, for the record, before any officially ordained attempts to market itself as such began — has lately rubbed up against the reality of Toronto’s position as one of the 21st century’s most privileged metropolises.
Thursday’s statement move came two days after word came down that the long-rumoured shuttering of legendary Spadina Avenue nightspot the Silver Dollar Room would finally happen in May, its future as an indie-rock hotspot uncertain. That’s despite the space’s municipally ordained status as a site of “cultural heritage value or interest” that must be preserved, physically intact, amidst the planned highrise student-housing development that will soon take down the adjacent building that has housed the Waverly Hotel for 118 years.
Most of the venue closures that have lately bedevilled the local music scene stem from similar circumstances, highlighting the downside to Toronto’s cultural communities of the city’s ongoing growth and economic prosperity. In North America’s third-largest music market, venue proprietors — who, in most cases, don’t own their buildings — are suddenly hit with 300-per-cent rent increases or browbeaten out of existence by complaints of noise, congestion and insufficient parking as condos spring up on all sides.
Even news on Wednesday that El Mocambo, the Dollar’s similarly beloved rock-‘n’-roll neighbour to the south on Spadina, would be reopening under the combined direction of wealthy Dragons’ Den star Michael Wekerle and local club-promotion power broker Charles Khabouth’s INK Entertainment, did little to offset the bad buzz brought on lately by closures of live-music haunts of all stripes and sizes: Tattoo, the Hideout, the Tennessee (a.k.a. the old Mitzi’s Sister), the Old Laurel (a.k.a. the old Rancho Relaxo), long-running DIY space Soybomb HQ, Cabal, Cherry Cola’s and, in just the past couple of weeks, the Central and the Hoxton.
Meanwhile, west-end folk outpost Hugh’s Room clings to life after a sudden shutdown at the beginning of January, now subject to the whims of a crowdfunding campaign established in hopes of reviving it by March as a not-for-profit operation.
“It’s the bad-news side of a strongly and rapidly growing city,” conceded Tory during an interview on Thursday afternoon. “That’s why we’re trying to make sure that where there is still opportunity for music venues to exist, they don’t get pushed out by noise bylaws or they don’t get pushed out by other regulatory impediments . . .
“It’s a frustrating problem. But we wanted to convey that while there are some places being lost, there are lots of other often smaller places that are a bit more out-of-the-way that are still thriving and we want to make sure that continues to be the case.
“I think, overall, the music industry in its broadest sense is healthier and even the live-music portion of it is healthier today. It’s just that these venues are victims of growth in the city and that’s why we’re trying to do what we can.”
What steps might be taken will be discussed between Tory and the advisory council at a meeting scheduled for Feb. 13, wherein they’ll field suggestions such as: tax incentives to keep landlords from booting live-music establishments; means of attracting sponsorship deals that might keep those businesses profitable; and “best practices” learned from the actions of other self-declared “music cities” such as Austin, Melbourne and London in the face of similar economic pressures.
Colle and fellow Councillor John Filion already put a strategy before city council last November aimed at preserving existing live venues from “the threat of development,” making it easier to open new rooms and cutting through some of the red tape currently preventing “pop-up” venues from starting in areas not traditionally given over by the city to “entertainment” purposes. Tory, in fact, planned to ring up Austin Mayor Steve Adler this week to see what that city, with which Toronto entered into a “music-city alliance” in 2014, might have to offer as advice.
“I think he may have an idea or two,” said Tory. “I’m all ears.”
For Andreas Kalogiannides, TMAC’s co-chair, Toronto is “on the precipice of kind of a cliff year with all the redevelopment and the growth that Toronto is experiencing.”
“I think it might get worse before it gets better,” he confessed, adding that legislation can only go so far in protecting the city’s live-music infrastructure. “It’s no coincidence that it’s happening now. It’s part of a larger conversation about where the city is headed, period.
“But focusing on the music side of it, I definitely think it’s a moment and I think it’s really going to be a problem for the ecosystem in Toronto because you need these venues — this is where audience development happens, this is where fans get to hear new music, where bands get rehearse and move on to bigger venues gradually. You don’t go from playing your bedroom or a small venue to Massey Hall — you’ve got to play around with other bands from other places in Canada and all over the world and you’ve got to tour and people have got to come. You’ve got to have those smaller, medium-sized places.”
Dan Burke, the tempestuous talent booker who moved north on Spadina to the Silver Dollar when El Mocambo changed hands and underwent a lukewarmly received makeover in 2001, nevertheless contends that there isn’t necessarily a crisis in Toronto on the live-club front. Indeed, he ventures, the case could simply be that there are too many venues in the city.
“Hugh’s Room closed because it wasn’t a successful business. The artists it was booking didn’t draw enough of an audience,” he said. “And The Hoxton? How many live shows did they have? Not many. And the owners went and created a new club by renovating and reopening the Velvet Underground. So what’s everybody crying about? Where was everyone when Hugh’s Room had shows and needed attendance?
“The Silver Dollar is an unfortunate, but understandable result of the city’s evolution. We’re right next to the University of Toronto and a student residence replacing the Waverly Hotel makes a lot of sense. So all we can do now is celebrate the great history of the club over the next few months and then see what happens. A heritage status can’t dictate what kind of business someone runs.
“So if the city wants to force the landlord to build a live club, then it better be prepared to ensure that rent is paid and the club is run well — because operating a live venue is very challenging . . . It’s a crowded business that’s hard to succeed at. I have to work 60 hours a week to make sure the Silver Dollar can pay its rent and costs.”
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