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Music News
Karen Bliss
September 2009
Movie Entertainment
It’s cheap entertainment, but high in quality.
On any given “slow” night in Toronto, free or for a nominal cover charge, one can see some superb musicians jam the night away in various intimate venues from pubs to clubs. There are Sundays at Supermarket and at the Orbit Room; Mondays at Dora Keogh; and Tuesdays at Chick ’n’ Deli, to name just a few.
Great for the audiences, the jams are good for the artists too: “It keeps your chops up when you’re not on the road,” explains Eric Paul, drummer for gold-selling rock band Thornley. “When there are breaks, you’ve got to keep the money coming in.” Between Thornley gigs, Paul plays the Sunday night jam at the Orbit Room with the cover band Stifler’s Mom.
The very narrow club, co-owned by Rush’s Alex Lifeson, gets super busy after 11 p.m., and before the night is through people are dancing in front of the stage, filling any floor space not occupied by tables. For a mere $5 entry, a cover band never sounded so good. The full band plays a range of rock music, including the
Killers, ZZ Top, the Beatles, the Tragically Hip, and the odd country tune. “We covered a Keith Urban song for the first time and his band ended up being at the Orbit Room that night,” Paul says.
It’s not out of the ordinary to see some top names in the room or hopping onto the stage, but Paul says Stifler’s Mom only invites its musician friends or artists passing through town to join in. Ian Thornley, ex-Tea Party frontman Jeff Martin, Wade O. Brown, ex-Joydrop members Tara Slone and Tony Rabalao (who also hosts Sunday night at Supermarket), Suzie McNeil, and members of the Trews have sat in with the band.
“We had Danny Carey from Tool come up two summers ago,” Paul says. “Bryan McCabe from the Maple Leafs is a friend [of ours] and he’s friends with them, and he brought Danny and the bass player [Justin Chancellor].”
At the Irish pub Dora Keogh, an acoustic open jam called J.T.’s House Party is hosted by Julian Taylor, former frontman for Warner act Staggered Crossing.
The pub is a tamer scene than the Orbit Room, filled more with musicians than spectators, mostly singer-songwriters. JD Fortune (ex-INXS), Moe Berg (ex-The Pursuit of Happiness), Justin Rutledge, Bob Egan and Peter Katz have all gone onstage to sing either covers or originals. Taylor does open it up to unknown walkins, but starts off giving them one song each to see how it goes.
“There is definitely a standard,” he says. “If somebody is horrible, we don’t want them up for the entire time. It’s a great family-like atmosphere … in a very warm room, conducive to live sound, as most of it is made out of wood. We’ve managed to have a lot of regulars and they all end up supporting one another. In many instances, we all get up and jam together.”
CHECK OUT THE SCENE
Orbit Room: www.orbitroom.caDora Keogh: www.allens.to/dora Supermarket: www.supermarkettoronto.com Chick ’n’ Deli: www.chickndeli.com List of jams in Toronto: www.bigsmokemusic.com/jam.py
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