Any Night of the Week: A D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music, 1957-2001

by Jonny Dovercourt

The story of how Toronto became a music mecca. From Yonge Street to Yorkville to Queen West to College, the neighbourhoods that housed Toronto’s music scenes. Featuring Syrinx, Rough Trade, Martha and the Muffins, Fifth Column, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Rheostatics, Ghetto Concept, LAL, Broken Social Scene, and more! “Jonny Dovercourt, a tireless force in Toronto’s music scene, offers the widest-ranging view out there on how an Anglo-Saxon backwater terrified of people going to bars on Sundays transforms itself into a multicultural metropolis that raises up more than its share of beloved artists, from indie to hip-hop to the unclassifiable. His unique approach is to zoom in on the rooms where it’s happened – the live venues that come and too frequently go – as well as on the people who’ve devoted their lives and labours to collective creativity in a city that sometimes seems like it’d rather stick to banking. For locals, fans, and urban arts denizens anywhere, the essential Any Night of the Week is full of inspiration, discoveries, and cautionary tales.” —Carl Wilson, Slate music critic and author of Let’s Talk About A Journey to the End of Taste, one of Billboard’s ‘100 Greatest Music Books of All Time’ “Toronto has long been one of North America’s great music cities, but hasn’t got the same credit as L.A., Memphis, Nashville, and others. This book will go a long way towards proving Toronto’s place in the music universe.” —Alan Cross, host, the Ongoing History of New Music “The sweaty, thunderous exhilaration of being in a packed club, in collective thrall to a killer band, extends across generations, platforms, and genre preferences. With this essential book, Jonny has created something that's not just a time capsule, but a time machine.” —Sarah Liss, author of Army of Lovers

Genres: Canada, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published May 5, 2020

About the author

Jonny Dovercourt was born Jonathan Bunce in Scarborough, Ontario. He is currently co-artistic director of the Music Gallery in Toronto. He co-founded the Wavelength music series and zine, and has written for Eye Weekly and MusicWorks. He has been a member of numerous Toronto independent rock music bands, most recently Republic of Safety.

Reviews

[Matt Pilgrim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I moved to Toronto in 2006, near the tail end of the so-called "Torontopia" movement that is described at the conclusion of Any Night of the Week. I wish I had been aware of the underground music scene's half-century of rich history that Jonny details here with care. I would have had more reverence for my regular haunts if I had known the ups and downs the bands, promoters, and audience experienced over the years. Music is personal and Dovercourt clearly is more passionate about some genres than others; he gushes over Phleg Camp whereas he respectfully acknowledges The Lowest of the Low. However, I think that it is the personalization and passion that makes Any Night of the Week an engaging read. The chronology flows naturally and I appreciate that it zones in on marginalized genres that represent Toronto's diversity. I'm energized after reading the stories of individuals who fought to create art in their own way without relying on traditional methods. I may not live around the corner from Kensington Market anymore, but I feel closer to the city than ever before after reading this book.

[Julian Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any Night of the Week is an eminently readable account of Toronto’s post-war evolution from being a sleepy, provincial, uptight backwater — at least in terms of its music scene — to the powerhouse that it is today. Jonny Dovercourt wisely sticks to a high-level storyline rather than trying to be exhaustive with details, which makes the book much more accessible and at a significantly faster pace than Michael Barclay’s comprehensive Hearts on Fire. The book does suffer from the unavoidable dissonance arising from trying to represent one art medium using another: one wishes for the accompanying soundtrack to all of these great bands that no longer exist. It’s too bad there isn’t a podcast or audiobook version that actually incorporates the music described, rather than having to read about it.

My only complaint is that the book falls a little short of its purported focus to trace the evolution of Toronto music through its venues. Dovercourt makes a gallant attempt, one which is more successful earlier on in the book when one suspects he had to rely more upon the historical record (given that he wasn’t actually around in the 1950s and 1960s). But later in the 1980s and 1990s when he himself is a musician, he can’t help pivot towards describing the bands, the music, their personalities and evolution, etc. rather than the venues, their boom and bust, and how they facilitated the growth of music in Toronto. The reporting isn’t completely lacking; it’s just uneven, with the inclusion of rooms like the Horseshoe Tavern, the Cameron House, and the El Mocambo getting outsize billing, but with not a single mention (outside of the foreword) of C’est What, Hugh’s Room, the Free Times Cafe and many other legendary venues. Nor do we get to hear what happened to venues like Club Shanghai after booker Dan Burke and owner Shirley Wu had a massive blowout.

One thing I do give Dovercourt immense credit for is the detailed coverage of the whole gamut of musical genres, including reggae, hip-hop, rap, and electronic music — not an easy task considering how white and indie-music centric the Toronto music scene was for so long. Dovercourt gives appropriate credit to venues like the BamBoo Club and groundbreaking artists like Truths and Rights, Michie Mee, Dream Warriors and others for putting Toronto on the map for these formats long before Drake and the Weeknd showed up.

I’m also sad that I only lived in Toronto near the end of the time period that Dovercourt describes (1996-2011). During these 15 years, Toronto started down a path of rapid gentrification and commercialization leading to massive inequality (and subsequent erosion of the arts), driven in no small part by the conservative Mike Harris government’s forced amalgamation of the former boroughs of Metro Toronto into the city to essentially — and successfully — silence Toronto’s progressive nature. I’m glad I was there long enough to see the tail end of this wonderful era of creativity in Toronto’s arts and culture, but it’s painful to know that there were decades of it that preceded my time living in the city, and that Toronto is unlikely to return to a time when it was rougher but more creative. There’s just too much bourgeois money in it now for that to happen. Books like Any Night are an elegy for the city that once was.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

For many years after I moved to Toronto in 1987, I went to lots of bars to hear live music ... not so much any more. Since this book covered those years, I thought I'd check it out.

The author talks about many groups that played in Toronto ... some I knew, some I'd never heard of. I found myself saying, "I remember them!" and then going to find them on Spotify and then following them there to listen to another time. He covers many genres of music (folk, blues, rock, pop, rap, punk, etc.). I've been to many of the bars he spoke of like Albert's Hall, Grossman's, the El Mocambo, the Horseshoe, the Opera House, the Diamond, etc.

The author wrote with knowledge and passion. There are bits of interviews with some of the singers and groups along with pictures. As a head's up, there is swearing.

Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2020/12...

[Lori Zuppinger · Rating 2 out of 5]

The early sections were quite good, but once it got to the time period where the author was involved with the music scene it was unnecessarily long & detailed, and dismissed some influential bands simply because the author didn't like them. Was just skimming it by the end.

[Rachele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was actually an astoundingly well written chronology of the Toronto music scene. It did a fabulous job not only of documenting the overlooked indie and underground alternative rock music going back to the 60s but was fairly critical and balanced in criticisms of public policy and gentrification and acknowledged issues of race and class with regards to who gets recognized and who doesn't. I don't think the previous review was being fair at all as it's understandable when given the context that some of the musicians quoted had some sour feelings towards the mainstream Canadian music industry. It wasn't so much the authour taking jabs at I Mother Earth and Moist but indie musicians and bookers he quoted in the book who resented the approach the Canadian music industry took towards the homegrown art scenes. This was a huge undertaking and it shows through and through and reads as a long love letter to the vibrancy of what Toronto was, is and could be when it's not being destroyed by greedy landlords and strangled by obtuse politicians. This city has an incredible music history that everyone should know about and this is an incredible book that details many entry points into that story. I sincerely hope he follows this up with more in depth stories about the many eras, people and genres that flowed and continue to in defiance of the onslaught of condo development and threats to the arts from our city

[N · Rating 3 out of 5]

An worthwhile read, for the most part, with some interesting stories about how bands in Toronto came together (Like, the HS I would have gone to was an arts incubator. Who knew?). Seems to bog down a bit in the details in early 90's. Biggest problem is something I find with music critics writing, and it's really, really, annoying. It's usually something along the lines of 'This is the best band that ever was, but they only played one show and no one recorded it'. Or, 'This band only recorded one album/EP/single but there were only like 10 copies of it made, and they're all gone, so you'll never hear it'.

That said, connecting the musical threads from the 50's to the 90's is fairly well done.

[Lauren Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a little bit linear (“this happened then this happened”) but the overall narrative is really strong, and there are great stories in here I didn’t know.

[Jade DeLuca-Ahooja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Research for my documentary — home grown talent!!! Settings I knew about!!! so much fun music discovered in these pages!!!