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Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene has witnessed the transformation of the Drake first hand. In December, 1991, Canning played the basement of the Drake when it was still a run-down hotel in a run-down neighbourhood. His band at the time, hHead, was opening for local indie rockers Phleg Camp as part of Elvis Mondays, a no cover new music series that continues to gives upstarts a friendly place to play. About ten years later the hotel / bar / live venue was transformed from dubious dive to chic hotspot, and saw its profile rise globally right while Canning was getting his own share of worldwide attention with his new band, Broken Social Scene. What forces shaped these two cultural success stories? The singer/bassist checks into a suite at the Queen Street landmark and recounts his most memorable nights spent rehearsing, performing, DJing and soaking up the sounds of a city coming into its own.
We’ve told you before that George Vale knows everyone and we weren’t kidding. Once again, we were able to pair the director with an old friend and conspirator. George’s greatest claim to Broken Social Scene-related fame revolves around being arrested in NYC (which you can read about in the new BSS book, This Book is Broken), but there’s more to his history with Brendan Canning than just that.
Not to get too dramatic on you but you really can’t do a series about Toronto music history and not include Broken Social Scene. No other band has tuned so many ears towards this city in the 21st century. At the collective’s core is bassist and co-founder Brendan Canning – whose personal history with the city’s music community goes way back to playing the div-iest of bars with his former band hHead. We found out he remembers the date of every one of those gigs, especially those he played at the Drake Hotel.
