Official Blog of City Sonic Toronto

Director George Vale sets up to shoot Danko Jones in the back of a Toronto cab.

GEORGE VALE knows everybody. He has shot music videos and more with everyone from Broken Social Scene and Stars to the Rolling Stones and Alice in Chains so it was no surprise that he already knew Danko Jones, aka the Mango Kid. In fact they once shared an apartment.
George also attended the historic Maple Leaf Gardens show in question so he was the perfect choice to recreate the story for City Sonic.

LL: Give us your “elevator ride” pitch: the concept for your film in three sentences or less.
GV: Danko Jones gives a Henry Rollins-styled taxicab rock rant that explains his KISS cred and how he was on the last bill to play Maple Leaf Gardens but almost missed it. Sometimes funny but always honest, Danko Jones talks about what it meant to play the Gardens, over top of some of the best music he’s made.

LL: Any advice for other filmmakers on how to work within the 4-minute time limit?
GV: Four minutes is a long time for a music video or for just someone talking shit, but it goes by real fast when it’s both combined into one documentary-music form with an open creative license. Also get ready to edit, edit and edit and then edit it down again.

LL: How do you see the future of films made for mobile?
GV: There are already HD capable cellular phones out there in Japan so I can imagine a whole wave of content being produced by mobile phones.
It will probably take something like porn to popularize it but for most people the better the web playback quality the more they will be interested in watching and making TV on their phones.

LL: Do you have an “I was there!” Maple Leaf Gardens story of your own?
GV: I was 15 in 1976, old enough to stare rock’n’ roll in the face. That year a concert floodgate opened for me: I saw The Who with Keith Moon, KISS and Bowie there and went to the House of Lords for a shag-styled trim before every show.

Danko on the Monitor

Maple Leaf Gardens stopped having concerts in 2002. It’s now owned by Loblaw Companies, who tightly restrict access to the historic building. We were pretty bummed at being shut out of filming inside the Gardens despite our best efforts but when you’ve got Danko Jones around, you don’t need much else besides his mouth to make storytelling magic. Director George Vale found some innovative ways to take us inside anyway. Find out how he does it with behind the scene photos on our Flickr page.