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I remember the attendance was actually 564, because I read the review in the paper and I was like “oh, it’s an 1800 cap venue”, I was thinking about numbers back then. You’re 13, living in the suburbs, and you see a long line of mostly people in leather jackets. My first Toronto gig was where I’m sitting, which was Motörhead and Helix. Masonic Temple always stays there though. And uh, pretty sure those condos weren’t there. It was almost like a revolving door sometimes, you know, you never knew who was going to actually get up and play with them and they were just doing something unique at that time and, and people just were drawn to them.Īnd it grew very quickly, so quickly that within a very short space of time, they were moving on to bigger venues because they suddenly got an agent and you know, people could see that the band was starting to happen. There was so many people who were friends in the band. It was like a camp of a school kids camp, but only grownups.

Bands seemed to just grow out of another band. And it just began to be as a thing, you know, it was a really cool time. But they, uh, they were able to pull in a great crowd.

The place was full because there was so many good musicians in the band that all had friends. I found that really amusing because he was so gregarious as a person. He was telling me about what his plans were with this new band and he put it great show together one night. They were a brand new band and Kevin Drew, the singer, used to be one of my students when I taught at Harris school. You know, it seemed that that was the community area that a lot of musicians lived in and they wanted somewhere new to play and they came at me like crazy.īroken Social Scene started coming to me. Get a new PA and get my sound guys because I trust my sound guys to do a good job.Īnd, um. Um, and Ted loved music, and, uh, I got him to change the PA. So again, you know, I've got a clean slate to start. And it was very gritty and he had a restaurant downstairs that seemed to be not doing too well. So I went to take a look at the venue and it was again, another small venue held about 200 people. The last club before the El Mo was Ted's Wrecking Yard. Yvonne Matsell: Hi, my name is Yvonne Matsell and I've been a booker of numerous clubs in Toronto, and I’ve had a history with many Canadian acts. Although teams from both venues tried to keep hosting live shows in the downstairs Barcode space on College Street, the collaboration didn’t last. It was a bad year for live music in Toronto, with live music at the El Mocambo also shuttering after a change in ownership. In October 2001, Ted’s Wrecking Yard abruptly closed. and the Broken Social Scene, the first-ever public appearance of the group’s name. Only a few months before the release of BSS’s first album, Kevin Drew took to the Ted’s Wrecking Yard stage in December 2000, performing as John Tesh Jr.

The venue also witnessed the debut of Broken Social Scene. Ted’s became a haven for indie music in Toronto by 1999, hosting a weekly music showcase known as Wavelength (now an annual Toronto concert festival). Although Barcode offered jazz and swing, the upstairs Wrecking Yard was a grittier space: painted black with wooden floors. Opened in 1997 by Ted Footman, the venue offered two floors of music, Barcode on the main floor with Ted’s Wrecking Yard above. That wave was focused on 549 College Street. In the early 2000s, there was a wave of new energy to promote independent music in Toronto.

#BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE SKYLINE FULL#

Broken social scene skyline