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Any Night of the Week


Based on Any Night of the Week: A D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music 1957-2001 (Coach House Books, 2020), this podcast takes the listener on a virtual walking tour through Toronto’s most musical neighbourhoods, with stops at key sites in Toronto’s music history. Author Jonny Dovercourt illuminates how the various hotbeds of the music scene migrated through different neighbourhoods throughout the city, as clusters of music venues, sometimes along a single street, fostered new scenes and movements.

Oct 31, 2020

Queen Street West is arguably Canada’s most important countercultural main street, and may even be North America’s. Queen West was a quiet, mostly forgotten commercial strip until the punk rock, new wave and reggae explosion of the ‘70s, and it really came to live in the diverse, inclusive, alternative ‘80s —  eventually becoming a main hub for the Canadian music industry in the ‘90s. This two-part tour will take us west from University all the way to Gladstone Avenue.

Part II follows Queen West as the subcultural strip pushed further west past Spadina — and towards more glorious black-clad griminess. Venues visited include The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, the Cabana Room, The Cameron House, Drom Taberna, the Velvet Underground, the Bovine Sex Club, The Big Bop/Reverb, The Great Hall, the Drake Hotel and the Gladstone Hotel. The tour concludes with a consideration of where else future tours might go — such as the East End or Toronto’s inner suburbs.