Wild, Wooly, and Wonderful: tales of “pre-gentrification” Parkdale

A was for ART PARTY.

We were likely a headache to the old staff at the Dog and the Sister. Scraps of paper from collaged flyers for ill-attended concerts were inevitably strewn about their establishment floors whenever more than a few of us were congregated. We called ourselves an artists collective but maybe we were just a confetti factory.

B was for BLOB

A social grouping including everyone to whom you are related, all those with whom you have played in a band, and anyone with whom you have swapped spit

C was for CULT

This was not an art-cult. Nobody was being coerced into abandoning their family or socio-financial potential in favour of bohemian splendour and seedy grandeur. There was no mayor of IMAGINATION TOWN

D is for DREAMBOXING

An obscure and inefficient method of street promotion that appropriates real estate news boxes and the like to create dusty, ephemeral, and mostly invisible public art, whose commercial ineffectiveness is both critique of and tribute to the culture of advertising it subverts

E is for ERIN

To whom the first half of the DILLA-PLATH album was demoed and whom the second half aimed to impress

F is for FUN IS BACK

An oft employed slogan of JOHNNY AWESOME, WE ARE FRENCH, and other blob affiliates, originally c. 2008

G was for GUSTO BASKETCASE

A band whose drum chair was once abandoned for Oh Henry $, denied me, granted upon DAWN LEWIS, and for whom I implemented the first “cargo-cult” style merch table at SNEAKY DEES

H is for HIGH PARK

Across from McKENZIES PUB, the saturday afternoon open mic of which marks the first meeting of myself and Mr “Mischeif” McGoey.

I is for ISAAC “BAREFOOT RIVERWALKER”

Who played blues on the steps of NOT MY DOG until he came of age, who stayed up all night before his drivers test listening to Milli Vanilli on the boombox. That guy.

J is for JUSTIN JONES

One quiet night at the LABYRINTH open mic, I met this convivial and powerful man. I told him I needed backbeats and he said he likes the Band. He held the RETRO RADIO drum chair hence.

K is for KLYDE BROOKS

Who slept on my couch and dreamed up his set list for the only ever live show by GARLIC FLAVOUR. Who proclaimed “my best friend is white” and Yank the chain, flush the bullshit down the drain”

L was for LITTLEFOOT LONGFOOT

My cousin's cousin's old band, under whose influence i have attempted to dislocate both my shoulders, and there was that time at the CADILLAC when i stripped off my outer pants while grinding to their grooves.

M is for MIP

Notwithstanding my own sister, the blobber whom i have known the longest, currently on a west coast summer tour. Loud, proud, and powerful. Esp. stoked for u to play Lop Lops.

N is for NUIT BLANCHE

In 2008 several Blobsters performed at the MnB Yummy Ethiopian restaurant, and held the first and only “Boxasaurus Parade”, led by person or persons wearing a paper mache dinosaur head and causing a lot of silly noise, even by NB standards

O is for OPEN MIC

A traditional gathering held by musicians, poets, and sometimes standup comediannes, a sort of musical potluck occuring usually at a local watering hole on an off night and featuring a wide range of performances, random collaborations, often birthing bands

P was for PAPERMAKERS

Anna Mernieks (now with BEAMS) and Katie Plant (now married) started a two piece rock band in high school. Their dance crew was straight clowning, they killed it at Wawapalooza

Q is for QUINCEY JONES, who spoke at the memorial for Oscar Peterson at Roy Thompson hall almost ten years ago, which is a decent entryway into the whole Miles Davis sidebar...

R is for RONCESVALLES

Land of baby strollers and green grocers. Also a good place to run into Damon from the Muckabouts. Clearly above Parkdale on the social ranking because the name of the street is more easily mispronounced

S is for SPACEROCK

One of many attempts to descibe and/or pidgeonhole the various and ferociously un-pidgeonhole-able musical offerings of Toronto's downtown westside

T is for TIA BRAZDA who, let's face it, got me as close to Drake as I'll ever get: https://youtu.be/H-561e330ew

U is for the UNFAMOUS

The state of being well-known and easily identified only within one's own social sphere

V was for VELVET UNDERGROUND

Dan Burke`s club on Queen where one picturesquely rainy night RETRO RADIO played an all-boombox set and i burned a hole thru my cool shirt with a cigarette(the rain saved me)

W is for WAF and thereby also WARREN MCGOEY, who is an unprincipled genius and ought to be stopped, and who discovered the Garrison back before it was the Garrison.

X is for BLOB X, which, aside from the BLOBMAS XMAS 2009 offering, was the tenth and final compilation release by T. Babinski of underground Parkdale bands on compact disc

Y is for YARDWORK, a band inspired in the way of Sonic Youth and Deerhoof and featuring our pal Christine. Had a dream about you bud, where are you now?

Z is for ZE. It sounds just like he or she but denotes no specific gender and sidesteps the potential plurality of “they”. Dont be a stick in the mud. Be respectful and open-minded

150 degrees of pride (part one)

Fuck me canada, you dont look a day over 100

Fuck you Parkdale, you just lost the dog and mezzrows in less than a year

Fuck me Beardonce, u were amaze last wknd

Fuck you John Mayer, ur a dick and a white supremacist

Fuck me Drake, 25 simultaneous billboard hits?

Fuck you Dre, cowardly dr

Fuck me TO Loungers, u have called for the grimy rock, and we shall bring u weekly mixtapes, starting up again tuesdays in august

Fuck you Church. Unmarked children's graves in your yard are still unrepented

Fuck me Sweaterpants, nice work at TO Lounge, catch Mark Watts and the gang every Tuesday in July🍸🎶🎸🍻

Fuck you Cosby. Let's have a cypher, ill tear your weak words apart

Fuck me Trudy. U got some backbone now but still sound unsure in the house.

Fuck you Gomeshi. We won't forget.

Fuck me Brandon. Doctor Decters throwing down some solid modernist ish. B would prolly mention Malevich

Fuck you TTC. More security and worse service. “ride the rocket” i guess they never said “friendly skies”

Fuck me Pride, u sure do know how to party

Fuck you Oliver Stone, you`re not edgy, just self-centered and ignorant

Fuck me Toronto, u look beautiful this summer

Fuck u America. Choose healing, choose life. Stop clinging to an old fake copy of Time Magazine for dear life. Face truth.

The A B Cs of the Parkdale Underground

A is for Aurora Lavender, who can basically make anything and sings good too


B is for Meagan Ballantyne, who's in residency at TO Lounge with her project Authentic Imperfection, performing every Thursday night this June

C is for Chris Harrison, who may or may not be available for comment

D is for for DB Buxton, who's band rocks and will sit down for a talk on june 13

E was going to be for Everyone in Parkdale is famous (in Parkdale) but i think its better to be happy than famous

F is for Aaron Florendo, who's in for an interview on June 6th

G is for Mauve Grove, our house band June 20th, on tour through southern Ontario and Montreal this summer

H is for How can there be this much talent in one bar!?!?!

I is for I think the alcohol helps mediate all their egos


J is for Jenna Strautman, here to hype Rotary Dial`s upcoming album release at the Garrison June 9th


K is for Kylie Precepa, a cool northern breeze of song blowing our way June 13


L is for Lennox, joining us on June 20th


M is for Max, international artist and Insta feed-pleaser


N is for Nia, who will be my co-host in futurist coinage June 27

O is for not yer Open mic, every Wednesday night at the TO Lounge

P is for Peter J Ramsay, also known as the Dread Pirate Laserbeard. He has invented an alcohol and hypnosis based form of regression therapy I like to call “the butterfly effect”

Q is for June 6 DJ Q-Na (pronounced “quick sodium”)
a multimedia selection of queen west and east coast underground music

R is for Robert, our gracious host and bartender.


S is for Shelly, who is also our gracious host and bartender

T is for Teddy Syrette, a poet whom Parkdale can chew on for years

U is for will i CU there?

V is for Very fun summer nights

W is for Wait theres always more! Roslyn Dennet! Half of the Skyline brunch crew! Pamela White! MIP? Luis from Unit 102! Mercy Now (childcare schedule permitting)

X is for Xenophobia, whose cure is our goal

Y? Because they're letting us.

Z is for the Zappaesque riffery Marks gonna drop on y'all June 27

Farewell， Cornell

When i was 12，“ fell on black days” was my least favourite soundgarden single. It was too mellow for me (for a grunge song)，and was in heavy rotation on muchmusic

. I was

Burned out on it over 20 yrs ago.

Now， its playing just after midnight on the day Chris Cornell took his own life， and i am quite moved，compelled to write.

The purpose of this post is threefold:

One

to celebrate a band i like

Two

to comment on recent reactions to celebrity death

Three

to voice my concerns on the ability of contemporary society to wrap its head around the real struggles of depression and suicidal ideation.

So....

Down on the upside came out when i was 15. It was summertime and i was doing all i could to master musical technology， lugging a bass amp to family cabins， plugging vcrs into tape decks， saving up for my first cd burner. Pretty noose rocked my world just as much as bullet with butterfly wings did the year before，i taped it off much asap， i loved every video for the singles off that album，picjed up any guitar magazine that offering transcriptions of the songs. I never saw them play live，but soundgarden still provided me with many real experiences.

When i was young， first exposed to music， videos and other forms of popular culture， i lacked or rather did not apply the critical eye， the perspective with which i now see the 90s.

Of course not. Every riff i heard，every image i saw was simply absorbed into the sponge of my mimetic mind. Impressions of youth.

Ok 

So

The primary reason why today there is an emerging culture of celebrity mourning: We currently have more names and facts about fampus people rattling around in our heads tjan at any previous point in time.

Nevermind the saints，royals，ancestors， protective spirits and local cults of old. Ignore the so called constellations of hollywoods old star system.

It is now， wired up and inspired to pursue each and every celeb obsession we can，after decades of north american cinema and literature and discography， that all previous canons of canonification are being buried beneath a deluge of information pertinant to the latest and ever quickly replaced engenues， hype acts，rock clowns， bad girls and boys whose units they wish we would shift. More celebrities equals more public deaths and more outpourings of grief sadness and other emoticons.

But when someone takes their own life，nobody knows what to say. RIP. Thanks for the tunes， the shows， the lyrics， the “backdrop to my adolescence”. What u will...

What shocked me about both cornells and robin williams’ suicides was that it seemed as though they had overcome their mental illness and strove thru depression to great accomplishment and success, established a comfortable，profitable career and reached a healthy and empowered middle age. I can only hope to do and share and work and travel so much by that pount in life. Im a little behind on the rock and movie-star trajectories of my life.

And yet... 

Chilling reminders that depression is a lifelong affliction， one with which i and many others will only ever learn to live in balance，not without and never completely free of. 

Maybe my life of simple culinary and cultural contribution is what saves me. Imagine having the legacy of a decades-long acting career， or the extra gravity of the superunknown weighing on your head along with  inevitable feelings of worthlessness and self-annihilation?

Gosh.

Our countrys current overdose crisis is being compared to the aids crises， really only a crisis and not simply a public health issue because it is one experienced by marginalised groups whose experience of life lies outside of and is terrifying for the mainstream conciousness to behold. I cant count on one hand the number of people i know even close friends to whom i would really feel comfortable describing my suicidal feelings.

It is a terrible burden to place on anyone，outside of artistic grounds，a poem， video， or piece of music that does more than parents and guidance counsellors to assure the traumatised, the neurotic, the anxious, the depressed and the psychotic that their frame of mind is not unique， that others feel the same way. A great track.on Superunknown is called “like suicide” ffs.

Solutions exist for people living in a world where a successful artist is still able to feel their life is worthless. But such solutions come at the price of bravery，great discomfort， and seemingly tireless persistance. If youre not ready to face your demons just yet， have no fear. Soon enough even the president wont have any other choice.

To quote mr Cornell

Sitting here like uninvited company

Wallowing in my own obscenity

Share a cigarette with negativity

Firing the pistol that shoots my holy pride

Leaning on the pedastal that holds my self denial

Standing here like wet ashes with exes in my eyes

I'm

Drawing flies

Alicia Kathrine Hunt: Home

Tell me about the installation process. Was the hanging of Home conceived of specifically for the AGA gallery space?

I enjoy hanging installation work because the space the pieces occupy and the space around them is vital. Instead of allowing a clean amount of wallspace around each two-dimensional work for example, every part of the room is important to installation work, both the positive and negative space. My hanging process was rather fun. I had been working on a large number of new pieces in my attic studio space. I brought these pieces into the gallery space and played with different configurations on the floor before beginning to test things out by hanging. It really was a layered process, adding and taking away. One large piece from the beginning felt right at home off to the left, and so the rest of the pieces ended up answering the question... how did they all work together to create one alive space. 

Do the forms in Home relate to topographical maps, patchwork spaces, and the view of agricultural fields from a plane?

There is certainly a topographical element to this work. The mark making, dying, sewing all suggest topography, whether physical or pertaining to our internal landscapes. When this suggestion of mapmaking first appeared, it was not intentional, but it's certainly something that furthers the themes I am exploring. I had not thought of my work before as suggesting agricultural fields, but I like that! 

How does working with dirt and cloth engage your sense memory, and/or your instincts in a way painting doesn't?

Though I have always enjoyed the smoothness of paint and think I will continue to return to it from time to time, the mediums I used in Home feel more real in their physicality and tactility. Instead of using a brush to move paint, I interact with the fabric much more closely. The materials each carry their own weight and history. I like that my interaction with these mediums is perhaps more of continuing a story versus creating something entirely new.

What are some future goals, in your career/ life as an artist?

To encourage others to think critically, but perhaps more than that to dwell in experience a little more, to see more vividly through another language by the experience that art can give, and to encourage community building.  I would like to continue to have exhibitions from time to time as a means to share my work. I'd also like to pursue more collaborations with other visual artists, and other art forms. I am currently looking into artist residencies and masters of fine art programs.

 

What are some wishes for the Soo, things you'd like to see happening around here?

I've been delighted by the sense of community that is growing in this city, more focus on local food, I'd love to see this continue to grow.


Artist's statement prepared for the Exhibition:

This body of work surrounds themes of home, belonging, and displacement. Many of the pieces have a map-like, patchwork quality. The use of predominantly natural and salvaged materials represents concepts of place and community.

I start by gathering old pieces of fabric, cast off clothing, and other components like twine, and partially used spools of thread. This gleaning is part of the early process. I then interact with these gathered materials through applying beeswax, ink, graphite and colour. A phase of dying as well as tearing, reassembling, and stitching follows. The salvaged fabric has its own history, allowing the garments to speak of both human construction and presence.

Exploring place is significant to these pieces and informs the already topographical quality of my work. I have gathered rubbings in the Algoma region which imprints an element of the history, narrative, and presence that is within the earth onto the fabric. The times that I feel nearest to the earth consist of more than meeting a place strictly through my vision, but greatly through the tactility, sound, and presence within a place. There is a great oneness in the concepts of place and being.

There is tactility and malleability to both beeswax and hand stitching. Beeswax is a raw, alive substance, and has long been a sign of healing. The purpose of beeswax in the hive is to create a shelter for un-hatched eggs and for food. This beeswax has nurtured life and gives its own narrative of place to the work. The use of beeswax in encaustic painting is an ancient technique used to create early religious icons. The repeated marks found in the icons, hand stitching, and maps connect individuals to the land, other people and history.

The twine creates visual lines of connection as they cross one another and also speak of community. The strings encourage furthering these now permeable boundaries of the pieces.

These fabric works, that appear to breathe, seem vulnerable and fragile but in reality are quite sturdy. In this, there are elements of unity and strength that impart a comfort which is needed to develop a sense of home.

Throughout this series, it has been fascinating to hear stories of many people’s experiences and interpretation of what homeis. For some, it is very place based, and for others solely relationship based. It can be a current reality, and for others something longed for. 

Emily Sweet

Sam: 

How did you get involved with this summer's group show at Tantra Lounge?

Emily: 

I meet Tanzina, the curator of these monthly group shows, at the Art For Animals Show. 

I really enjoyed her company and we stayed in touch!

Sam:

What kind of public speaking/ social justice work are you involved with/ interested in?

Emily:

I am very involved with social justice and public speaking. In the last two years I've done TV and print interviews with Goodlife Fitness, CTV, CP24, The Peel District School Board, Rogers TV, Global News and more. I speak about living with anxiety and chronic pain. I also speak about being the first person in Canada to have a self-trained service dog in school. I have pushed to have multiple policies changed, which has made it easier for Canadians with disabilities to access service dogs and know their rights.

Sam:

What informs or inspires your art?

Emily:

I love learning. I watch the news a lot so my art often alludes to social issues and change.

Sam:

What does living in Toronto mean to you as an artist?


Emily:

I love how welcoming and helpful all the artists are. It's an uplifting community. In a lot of professions people step on each other to get to the top. This is definitely not the case amongst the Toronto artists I've met. We all get genuine pleasure from helping each other; it's very refreshing!


Sam:

Have you ever created graphic novels or comic books?


Emily:

My comic art was published in the March, April and May 2016 Toronto Comic Jam Issues.

Sam:

Do you see anxiety and chronic pain as being invisible ailments in our society?

Emily:

Yes. I once was on a bus and this old man got furious at me because I wouldn't move from my seat. Usually I'd have no problem with that, but I was in a lot of pain and noticed there were a lot of other people that could move. I explained to him that I had chronic pain and was unable to stand. I even apologized. Finally someone else moved and everyone on the bus praised her. I felt horrible. I was singled out for being young, but age doesn't always matter. There are healthy elderly people and sick children. Why would I risk the public embarrassment of not giving my seat to that man if I didn't need to sit? 

Sam: 

How does anxiety relate to and inform art?

Emily:

I have been told that there is a lot of emotion in my work.
This is because I feel most creative when I'm emotional.
I use art as a form of release...

Sam: 

What are the characteristics of anxiety in the big city?

Emily:

I think it varies for each person. If one has social anxiety, it may be aggravated by the amount of people in a big city. There's not many places to chill in a park and be alone in cities when you're anxious. 

When I'm anxious, it helps for me to leave the house. I put headphones on and take my dog for a mindful walk. A mindful walk is where you focus on little details, like pretty windows on a house, to distract you from your anxiety. I also use binaural beats from YouTube.

Tributes and tributaries: Lillian Allen @ the AGO Oct 28th

A story of contacts with dub culture
> > > > > >
> > > > My father came home one day to discover me loudly recording a guitar track in my upstairs room of his prairie house by the railroad tracks. I was trying out something I'd learned from Glenn Branca by way of Sonic Youth, playing my strings in double unisons to a breakbeat I'd vocalised myself earlier, all this driven through my girlfriend's father's old stereo amp and onto the wide tape of an old reel to reel out of  which the voice of my dead great uncle Abe served as the scratched sample for this most peculiar and quite totally lost production of mine.
> >
> > I'd have to say that stumbling upon Glenn Gould's polyphonic radio plays and my time working with Dimitri Brunelle-Derome on his Garlic project were critical contacts with european angles on tasteful and textured dub productions. I called my experiments in my mid-twenties schizophonics and spirals, before I folded in on myself and began collaging with composition, seeking the spirals in hypnotic, pulsing partials. Their method seemed to involve  a lot of late night brooding and inspired madness. At any rate, I began smoking as soon as my apprenticeship started.
> > > >
> > > > > > A dub poet is sleeping on my couch, in a basement of the gorge view apartments, just past the inner harbour of victoria BC, dreaming of things that may happen at our show tonight. This will be the day that she first buys menthols, the only live performance by a band called garlic flavour, a singular gathering of the island's curious and unoccupied. The poet in question is klyde broox, and he is crashing at mine because of mcgilligan books, my granny's name, uncle's impetus, Aunt's job, a generation and sustenance of memories, stacks of books in boxes, a family gathering at McNally Robinson, the circuit of book releases, cafés, and open mics that brings klyde to Victoria, my losenge of solace on the western edge of turtle island, my three year's playpen. His Facebook presence is a treasure. The deftness of his lyricism, and the incise ostinato of his social conscience, hallmarks all of the dubs presence in Toronto throughout my lifetime.

> > > > >
> > > > > >memories of Lillian allen and the dub poets collective begin with being invited over for dinner an hour early, because my family is often quite late. I remember being surrounded by stylish, eloquent, laid-back blackness, an unfamiliar comfort, an urban delight. Maybe it was Clifton I heard there, reciting a piece pared into my own story now, jump high gazelle imagery and presence,  The page on the stage, political rage on page, poetry as a means to an ends.

> > > > > >
> > > > > I remember the house on Lauder out of which McGilligan books was run, with a basement full of books, stories of the underrepresented, of the Arab spring, of dub poetry, mommy-daddy, monday. A basement that held part of Lillian's archives: tapes, dats, and compacts discs spanning three decades of recording sessions, when she moved out of her home nearby, above the spring mount Creek that flows down bull to the Garrison. I remember Allen's Juno award winning albums: revolution tea party and conditions critical. They were part of my early afrocentric musical education, along with Gil Scott heron, and public enemy's Fear of a black planet. I had ambitions of making drum and bass versions of one track, but never made it past the demo stage.

> > > >
> > > > > > > I remember performing rub a dub style with Allen and the parachute club in 2008 at the luminato stage on the street outside of ocad. The drummer was Billy Bryans, who had produced Allen's two heavyweight eighties albums. I got to rap a verse on that song, even though I'm sure I missed every rehearsal. And in consulting video footage available on YouTube, it seems I also recited an italian rhyme amidst the performance of Rise Up. What a ham. I made it to soundcheck tho, chilled with Mischa and my vintage 80s vogues and chatelaine collection, culled from roadside recycling. The best things in life are always eventually free. "oh, look at this porn" he purred. After my turn on the mic, I pogo'd and danced backup to Lillians tune The Subversives, played tambourine and danced through the crowd in the street in a lime green dress shirt that Tia Brazda gave me. Exciting times.
> >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > After that I got to host a poetry night at Ellington's raggae café and record shop (rip) on st Clair for Allen's ocad writing class, goofed around with d'bi anitafrika. You see, I know now how lucky and how privileged I've been to
> > > > > > >spin round this circle
> > > > > > > For she is the canadian queen of dub, laying out politics in poetics, putting pages on the stage since back when queen west was rough warehouses and punk venues.
> >
> > > > >

> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > > In 2013 I was asked to join the online promo team for Allen's last release, Anxiety, and seized upon the opportunity to gain permission to remix her work, blending classic dub, mash K-pop and jazz piano, and spin my own beats and collage production styles in loose spirals around her accapellas. A collaboration fifteen years in the making.

> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Which brings us to today. Ann and Lil both moved out of the old hood where I first put foot to Toronto's Terra firma. They're international now, doing conferences and making speeches. Mcgilligan books is a memory, little Rose is grown and performing music of her own. And Lillians work is being recognized as part of the Tributes an tributaries exhibition at the AGO this month. She's curated four weeks of spoken word, and she'll be performing on October 28th. You got to be there.

> > > > > >