Cameron Carpenter: The ABC’s Of Rock – L is for Live

The great news of Sam Grosso (Cadillac Lounge) buying the El Mocambo last week got me to thinking of all the great old venues I was lucky enough to spend time at in my youth.

We are very fortunate in Toronto to have so many great venues for acts to play at. On Queen West alone you have The Rivoli, The Legendary Horseshoe, The Cameron House, The Hideout, The Bovine and Cherry Colas to name but a few. The Tattoo Rock Parlour had a ton of potential but they just didn’t seem to be able to fully commit to “the rock”.

Segarini: Workin’ the Bars…and a GREAT video tribute to one of Canada’s most charismatic Record Industry Icons.

When I first moved to Canada I was drawn to the music coming out of Montreal. We (The Wackers) had gone there in the first place to record the follow up to our first album, Wackering Heights as a kind of reward for making such a good debut LP. Our producer, the legendary Gary Usher, had promised to take us somewhere exotic to do the next record if the first either sold a pant-load, or the record was really good. The record was really good. Although I had played Vancouver at various times in different bands, Montreal was a mystery to me. Usher told me, “You’ll love it! They all speak French!” Wow, I thought, we’re going to Europe. Then I looked Montreal up in our huge Rand McNally World Atlas. Oh. We’re going to Canada. Fuck!