Volume 30 Issue 5 | April & May 2025

FROM UP HEREHOMES FOR

FROM UP HEREHOMES FOR MUSICViewpoints andoverviewsSOPHIA PERLMANFor more than a year now, I have been using thislittle bit of column space to explore the landscapeof arts and culture in Ontario from the viewpointof my home in a remote community in the north of theprovince, a hop-skip-jump over the 49th parallel.“From Up Here” has been myloosely defined beat, and the ideahas woven its way into this spacein different ways: highlighting thepeople making music, and thespaces they are making it in, in the“up here” region; featuring artistswho are bridging the “up-down”divide in different ways; andtrying to offer a “bird’s eye view”of the creative life (and well-being)of remote and rural communitiesthat aren’t necessarily seen ashaving a “music scene.”Luckily for me, I’ve also been granted “backstage access” to anincredible resource for my armchair travelling. Over the last year,and particularly through the cold and dark of winter, I’ve beendigging into the wealth of current and historical information in TheWholeNote listings archive – at least as far back as 2012 when thecurrent listings database came online: tens of thousands of individualmusic listings, extensive databases of artists and presenters; and, mostfascinating from my point of view, a database titled “venues” in whichthere are well over 2,100 venues and spaces that have been home tothe events that have found their way into The WholeNote.I’ve replaced much of my regular internet scrolling time withmapping, updating and analysing the data. It has been a fascinatingand useful exercise.Views and overviews: The “up here” idea is fine for overviews, butnot so helpful when you are trying to trace the human connectionsthat make artistic life possible in the community you are actually in.Unless of course you are just climbing to the top of the roof on thetallest building in that particular community to trace possible routesto explore when you are back in street view mode.Speaking of possible routes to follow in a column about musical life,I admit there has probably been too much talk here over the past yearabout travelling by train: but the advantage of travelling on the groundis that you don’t just arrive at a destination, you arrive with an understandingof how you got there. And instead of the journey being justtwo points on a map, you realize that there are all kinds of places, andpeople, in between. It’s a start for a new kind of awareness, but it’s farfrom a perfect solution. In the 1,100 or so kilometres on my trip home,there is only one stop (Capreol, around 5am) where I could actuallyget off the train long enough to explore or talk to anyone who wasn’tgetting back onboard with me to continue on.GEE-WONG LUCA PERLMANAt some point, if you’re serious about documenting the scene, youneed boots on the ground.Over the last several weeks, therefore, I’ve been in touch with friendsand colleagues (some of whom have contributed to this column overthe past year) to try to get their takes on “their community,” howeverthey define it. Over the next couple of columns, I am hoping they willhelp me paint a picture of the cohesive “micro-zones” which are fundamentalto community-based artistic life across Ontario.DafyydHughesKensington-Chinatown, TorontoThere were three tallest places fromwhich I remember getting an overview ofmy neighbourhood as a child – my villagein the town. Two were private propertyand required getting a current tenant tolet me onto their rooftops. The third is thetop of the Green P municipal parking lotthat runs from St. Andrew to Baldwin,just west of Spadina Avenue. Locally basedmusician Dafydd Hughes and I have spentsome time sharing memories of thatparticular neighbourhood lookout point.He agreed to take on reviewing the venues in our listings database, forthe “M5T” zone of Toronto, where The WholeNote was born.He quickly spotted a few venues that aren’t on that list – includingthe Free Times Cafe, a fixture for decades. A quick search of theconcert listings shows lots of events at that venue, so it’s some quirk ofthe venue database that’s at issue here. But it took a street’s eye viewof the community to spot the omission.Similarly for the 37 venues on the list I gave him: he mentioned afew venues that are still open but don’t seem to be presenting musicanymore. And he noted a few venues that are annual and eventspecific(like Tom’s Place during the Kensington Market Jazz Festival),or “for special occasions only” (like the venue that is simply listed as“Green P Parking Lot across from Drom Taberna”). He also added acouple of other venues to the list, and pointed me in the right directionfor us to invite them to start contributing their listings.Maybe it’s a hopeful sign in troubled times, but he confirmed thatonly six of those 37 venues are now listed as “permanently closed.”What was most interesting to me was that he agreed to actually photodocumentwhat was at those locations now. On my next trip home,I’m curious to see whether any of the new things that have sprungup include music. Sometimes when a venue closes, the creative echoof the property carries on with the next use - under the curation ofwhoever moves in next.28 | April & May 2025 thewholenote.com

The Boathouse, in Kitchener, open again!From the roof of the GreenP parking lot in KensingtonMarket: Global Rainbow -created by Yvette Mattern.Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2014)A Different ViewAlyssa DVMThe wonderful Hamilton-based musician,theatre artist and creative mentor,mover and shaker Treasa Levasseur oncetold me (she isn’t quite sure who sheheard it from) this quote: that “anyoneover the age of 40 who doesn’t haveat least one mentor under 30: you aredoing life wrong”. I introduced one such“under-30,” Alyssa DVM, a few monthsago in this column when she shared herexperience of coming to play “up here.”Having returned to Kitchener-Waterloo,where she had her creative beginnings, she was kind enough to gathersome intel and observations about her home turf. Again, I gave her alist of the venues we knew about to start.As Dafydd had done, Alyssa noted a few venues I’ve missed, andconfirmed the closing of a few. One of the things that struck me in herresponse was her frank assessment of the venues that, for one reasonor another, present barriers to younger artists or emerging or smallerensembles. Things like “pay-to-play” are still very much an obstacle foryounger artists, and practices like food and drink minimums, while likelyvery necessary to a venue’s survival, are becoming less and less manageablefor audiences – particularly younger ones. From my perspective,the message was loud and clear: the powers that be (i.e. that control theplaces music happen) need to find their mentors under 30, and to betterconsider the perspective of the new generation of artists who are collectivelytrying to find a home - both creatively and quite literally.And while we consider those under 30, Alyssa’s survey of thecommunity also highlights the need to include and affirm thosewho are under the age of 19 and therefore aren’t legal to drink (anddepending on the license may not even be allowed into the venue). Anexample, she mourns the loss of Rhapsody Barrel Bar: “I was so sadwhen this venue closed, they supported all sorts of bands and evenlet a bunch of high schoolers (our School of Rock) play there all thetime.” Letting young musicians in to listen is an important piece of theequation, and making established venues available to the young musicianswho will one day inhabit them to actually perform and buildrelationships is equally so.In better news, she celebrates the re-opening of The Boathouse: “Iwent to a couple shows here when I was in high school (2017/2018)and was super excited to get the chance to play here when I got a bandtogether. [The venue] actually closed in fall of 2019, which obviouslysucked. They reopened in November 2024, and have been hosting aton of open mics and shows!”She also noted that relationships with venues don’t necessarilymean for an audience, pointing out that while she hasn’t performedat the Kitchener Public Library, she and collaborators have often usedthe studio spaces there which she describes as amazing and “superwell equipped - we love it here!”Overall, her report leaves me thinking about artists’ relationshipswith physical spaces over time: the venues that mark milestones past,the ones that sustain them for long stretches of the journey, and theones that become goals to strive for. From the venues on my list, sherecalls singing the national anthem during the Canada Day celebrationsin 2016 at Carl Zehr Square at City Hall - an experience shedescribes as “surreal and incredible.” And she and her brothers all hadtheir high-school graduations at Centre in the Square. “This is a largervenue, and often used by orchestral ensembles,” she noted, “so I havenot been able to play here (yet!)”.Continuing the journey.I am writing this as I prepare for another trip south (mostly bytrain!). My first landing point is St. Catharines, where over the lastnumber of years I’ve started to find another “home away from home.”I am looking forward to continuing the homes-for-music explorationand engaging in some ground-level discovery of my own. I know someof the venues on the St. Catharines-and-environment list quite well.There are others I am less familiar with I can find out more about. AndI am certain there are others I can, with help, add to my map – even ifsome of them are parking lots used “for special occasions only.”And then I have a quick trip to Kensington-Chinatown, my originalhome base, where I’ll get to see for myself the changes Dafydd Hughesdocumented.But my time in both places will be short, and besides, the trainhome won’t give me time to explore any of the places in-between. Soif you would like to give me the street (or road, or track)-level view ofyour creative zone, I would love to hear from you, and am happy tosend you a list and a map to build on!Happy exploring.Sophia Perlman grew up bouncing around the jazz, opera, theatreand community arts scene in Toronto. She joined the creative exodusto Hamilton in 2014, and now eagerly awaits the arrival of herregular WholeNote to Hornepayne, Ontario, where she uses it toarmchair-travel and inform her Internet video consumption.Join the streetview brigade!If you would like to join The WholeNote’s Ontario-wide,homes-for-music venue-finding brigade, contactSophia Perlman at breve@thewholenote.com, and we’llsend you a list of what we know about your communityalready, so you can set us straight about what we don’t!thewholenote.com April & May 2025 | 29