{"id":48326,"date":"2014-04-22T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=48326"},"modified":"2014-04-22T13:05:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T17:05:17","slug":"torontos-music-scene-segregated-race-class-geography-nice-show-hopes-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/04\/22\/torontos-music-scene-segregated-race-class-geography-nice-show-hopes-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Toronto’s music scene segregated by race, class, & geography? The NICE show hopes to change that"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR’S NOTE<\/strong>: NICE<\/a> is a new curatorial collaboration between two veteran music promoters: independent presenter Dalton Higgins<\/a> \u2014 a well-known figure in the hip-hop, reggae and African music scenes \u2014 and Jonathan Bunce<\/a> a.k.a. Jonny Dovercourt, Artistic Director of Wavelength, long-running champions of Toronto\u2019s indie\/punk\/experimental community. The aim of NICE is \u201cto present a live musical experience that better reflects the demographic and musical realities of Toronto.\u201d The first NICE event happens this Thursday, April 24 at Tattoo Queen West (567 Queen St. W.) and Dalton and Jonny got together to explain their thinking behind the event to Spacing here. <\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

Dalton Higgins:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is the Toronto music scene as forward-thinking and progressive as some might say it is? I\u2019m not convinced. The silos between genres \u2014 which tend to break down along race \/ culture \/ class lines \u2014 is the pink elephant in the room. Case in point: When I brought the legendary Jamaican Brit renaissance music raconteur Don Letts (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite) to Toronto for his first ever visit, he was amazed about how segregated the local Toronto music scenes appeared here, across genres.<\/p>\n

To see reggae and rap, I’d have to drag him to the west end of the GTA; to check out some \u201cindie rock,\u201d it\u2019s Trinity Bellwoods; electronic music downtown; to see African, we’d have to go in the east\/Danforth. I booked him to DJ at The Drake Hotel and he was like, “this sucks, we’re right downtown mate, where are all the reggae and electronic heads?!” And this is the guy who introduced the punk world to reggae, and shot documentaries on Sun Ra, Gil Scott Heron and Franz Ferdinand.<\/p>\n

Well, this NICE collaborative promoter Masterplan thingy with my dawg Jonny serves as my ode to Letts, except remixed, more “Electro-Rap-Reggae meets the Indie Rockers Downtown!”<\/p>\n

Jonny Dovercourt:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first heard \u201cDread Meets Punk Rockers Uptown\u201d \u2014 the Don Letts compilation Dalton just referenced, which showed the influence of reggae on the London (UK) punk scene of the \u201870s, it blew my young mind \u2014 and as a lifelong Toronto music booster, of course the first question I asked myself was, \u201cwhy couldn\u2019t this happen here?\u201d With our legendary cultural diversity, Toronto seems primed to be a musical melting pot, but instead we all seem to be stirring different cauldrons. It\u2019s nobody\u2019s fault, I think it\u2019s more structural \u2014\u00a0there isn\u2019t one place where we can all play together. Venues and festivals here are still really genre-rigid;\u00a0 you have indie-rock bands on one stage, hip-hop acts on another, electronic DJs on yet another, and culturally specific \u201cworld music\u201d tucked away on the other side of the proverbial parking lot.<\/p>\n

To me, this seems to reflect a hidden cultural conversatism in Canada, which belies our outward social liberalism. The attitude being, \u201cohhh no, people won\u2019t like things they don\u2019t think they like, so let\u2019s not risk anyone feeling awkward.\u201d I only imagine what would happen strictly in terms of musical innovation if there were more opportunities for people from different scenes and background to get together and collaborate. If you compare the music industry to the tech sector, there\u2019s way less emphasis on innovation in music \u2014\u00a0maybe because it\u2019s assumed that music that takes risks is going to be \u201cexperimental\u201d and thus unlistenable and unsellable \u2014 but this isn\u2019t necessarily the case. Look at Complaints Dept. \u2014 who are headlining our NICE collab on Thursday \u2014\u00a0and are celebrating the release of their new EP. Their membership is made up of people from the reggae, punk, ska, hardcore and jazz scenes, and they can set a room on fire!<\/p>\n

Speaking of rooms, we\u2019ve also decided to stage this show at a venue that might seem an unorthodox choice: Tattoo Queen West, formerly known until recently as Tattoo Rock Parlour, at Queen and Portland. Yes, the place that downtown indie rockers would have written off as \u201ccheesy\u201d or just for \u201cd-bag 905ers.\u201d In some ways, we\u2019re taking the risk of turning off Wavelength\u2019s core demographic of 25-34 downtown leftie music nerds, who wouldn\u2019t be caught dead anywhere with a whiff of \u201cEntertainment District.\u201d But not only has Tattoo been rebranded as a non-genre-specific new live music scene, booked by veteran hip-hop\/R&B promoter Jonathan Ramos \u2014 so don\u2019t worry, no one\u2019s going to force you to do a J\u00e4gerbomb upon entry! \u2014 but it\u2019s also the most centrally located venue in the city.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s really important in terms of bringing people from different communities\/neighbourhoods across our huge city together: we need to rebrand downtown as \u201ccentral meeting place\u201d rather than \u201ccultural headquarters.\u201d Culture is originating in all sorts of oft-hidden pockets throughout the city, but there still needs to be a central, accessible forum where we can all come together to experience it. Now NICE is just one show, on one night, in one nightclub, and we\u2019re not going to possibly redress all these structural imbalances in one night \u2014 but hopefully we can demonstrate how good music can cross boundaries and create an awesome collective experience that couldn\u2019t happen anywhere else but Toronto.<\/p>\n

NICE launches Thursday, April 24 at Tattoo Queen West (567 Queen St. W.) with performances by Complaints Dept., Most People, pHoenix Pagliacci and Montreal\u2019s Ought. More info here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

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EDITOR’S NOTE: NICE is a new curatorial collaboration between two veteran music promoters: independent presenter Dalton Higgins \u2014 a well-known figure in the hip-hop, reggae and African music scenes \u2014 and Jonathan Bunce a.k.a. Jonny Dovercourt, Artistic Director of Wavelength, long-running champions of Toronto\u2019s indie\/punk\/experimental community. The aim of NICE is \u201cto present a liveContinue reading “Is Toronto’s music scene segregated by race, class, & geography? The NICE show hopes to change that”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4010,"featured_media":48327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-culture","category-events"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Toronto's music scene segregated by race, class, & geography? 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