T Dot - What A Spot (originally published 5.15.06)

Headed up to Toronto to finally meet my friends Julia and Kim from Kick Magazine and hang out in what has become one of my favorite places. I have been freelancing for Kick Magazine for about a year now, yet have never had the opportunity to meet Julia (the editor) or any of the other Kick staff. Working with Julia and mutual friend, Greg Gow, I was able to arrange this trip north of the border.

I arrived at Pearson International Airport and had a bit of trouble at the border. Although no one asked to check my bags (full of records), they did ask me about 20 different questions and stamped my passport twice. After that I picked up my luggage and met up with Brandon, the promoter for the event, and a really great guy. They dropped me off at my hotel right off Yonge Street and we made plans to meet up later at the club.

I plopped down my bags and hit the street, eager to take in this beautiful, sunny, May afternoon. I walked down Yonge, and hit up the truly massive Eaton Center shopping mall, complete with 50 foot high ceilings and impressive, glass loon sculptures hanging from the roof. I really want in the mood to be a) inside and b) shopping at places like the Gap and Express…so I headed outside and continued down Yonge towards Queen Street.

Queen Street is a beautiful thoroughfare with old school street cars, wonderfully eclectic shops and restaurants and the XX gardens. I walked all the way to Queen Street West, south of Spadina to see my friend Noah Pred at Moog Audio. We chatted for a bit, made some plans for dinner at Korean restaurant and parted ways. I wanted to see what Toronto featured for record shops, and while I really didn’t need anything, I still went on the look out. I started at 2 The Beat, a really well stocked shop on Spadina Avenue. Located in the basement, I headed down and found a great selection of music – including techno, albeit most of it was of the hard, acid variety – including racks and racks of tracks from Dave the Drummer, Chris Liberator, ANT and the like. I later found out that they were all personal friends with Dave, Chris etc…and that was the style most of the customers preferred. Fair play to them, but nothing that piqued my fancy.

I left and walked back up to Youge Street, then back up to my hotel on Carlton. I grabbed a cup of coffee at Tim Horton’s (the Toronto equivalent of Dunkin Donuts) and headed back to catch a few winks.

Around 9 p.m., Julia and Kim showed up to get me and we drove to a great Korean restaurant in Korea Town (and right across the street from Clintons’) on Bloor Street West. We had a great meal (much of which Julia and I cooked ourselves on the grill in the center of our table, and enjoyed the company of Noah and his girlfriend (so sorry I can’t recall her name), Julia, Kim and a great techno producer and nicer guy, Arthur Oskan. After dinner, we literally rolled my records across the street and headed to the gig.

The club was small, on the scale of the Phoenix Landing and more set up for live music, like Metronome in Burlington, VT. The crowd was thin, but the sound was good and Brandon was laying down a nice, smooth opening set. I took to the decks around 12 and played a two hour set that spanned the gamut from minimal beats (Mathias Tanzmann and Trentemoller) to funky drum tracks (Mark Williams and Davide Squillace), to some really hard, bangin’ stuff (Alex Bau and DJ Rush.) The numbers got better and I had most of the room moving at one point or another, but it was never packed by any means.

I got off at 2 and turned it over to local jock, Derek Ramirez who really impressed me. He played a smooth, building, Detroit flavored set that was on point and truly flawless. Very much the yin to my yang, we would make a great team and I hope to work with him again in the near future.

I left the club at 3:30, headed to Arthur’s apartment for a quick shot and then off to Brandon’s place to shoot the breeze and listen to the live PA that Arthur had just completed in anticipation of his performance at DEMF in Detroit. It was on point and so was the vodka and tonic. We left there around 5 a.m. and caught a cab back to my hotel. I slept till 1 and then headed up to Bloor Street for some more shopping and walking around. I caught a cab down to the Harbourfront Centre, and walked along the banks of Lake Ontario for a while. Around 3, Brandon picked me up and we went to dinner at a great Tex/ Mex restaurant, called Sneaky Dees on College Street. I had an outstanding breakfast burrito and a couple of tall bloody marys and we left and headed for the airport.

Apparently there is someone with my name, from New York, that has been a bad boy. Every time (for the last 2 years) that I travel through customs, they pull me aside and grill me on where I live, what I do for work etc etc. After answering all the right questions and having my bags searched (again), I was sent through. Of course, my flight was delayed and I didn’t leave Toronto until 7 p.m. 36 hours after I left, I was back in Boston, and ready to head to bed so I could wake on Monday and get back to the real world of my day job.

Toronto is one of my favorite places and can truly rival any city in the world. They have great food, wonderful culture, lots of different ethnic groups and all the arts, sports and points of interest you would expect in a modern, viable, metropolis. I loved it and can’t want to do it all again very soon.