FROM APRIL/MAY 2021 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX

I lived in an old Victorian on Augusta at the top of Kensington Market from 1991 to 2004, when every third storefront was vacant. At night it was a ghost town and felt like the main street of a hamlet in another country, blissfully ignored by the travel guides. While much of downtown Toronto was racing to emulate a glossy magazine vision of World Class, the Market remained a gritty, authentic, unpretentious, charismatic mash-up of culture. I loved it. Ground Zero. The geographic centre of my universe. My stint there was due to an ability to appreciate and endure performance art.

I’d see Meryn Cadell on stage with his head inside a heating duct. Coolest reverb ever and someone I needed to know, so I played in their band and did art direction on “The Sweater” video, which was directed by Curtis Wehrfritz, who lived on Nassau. When an apartment came up for rent in Meryn’s digs, I grabbed it instantly. $800 a month all in for the first floor, basement and backyard. The landlord never raised the price over 13 years.

My first CD, PoMo a GoGo, came out in ‘91 on Fringe Product, with Dayglo Abortions for labelmates. NOW magazine photographed me in the Market for a cover story, which conflicted with my one-day-a-week gig delivering the rag. Kensington was part of my route and schlepping an issue with my mug on the cover would remove every smidgeon of glamour, so I ditched my last ever part-time straight job.

I met pre-Jagged Little Pill Alanis through a songwriting collective and we decided to take a crack at writing a tune together. Breaking the ice, I asked what she was listening to and she mentioned Ani DiFranco, who had hung out at my pad after her recent Elmo show. While shamelessly bragging that I was down with DiFranco, my indoor cat Chippawa snuck out and sprung for freedom over the fence. It took a couple of hours to coax the kitty back home, by which point Alanis had split, the song abandoned. Damn cat thwarted my big break.

Don McKellar lived on August and was always a delight to cross paths with. He and Bruce McDonald created the sitcom Twitch City for CBC in ‘98 and chose the run-down house directly across from my place as the location. The interior scenes were shot on a set, but to achieve an authentic Kensington vibe, a scenic artist was tasked with painting a realistic depiction of my flat, visible through the window in the kitchen scenes.

The clothing store EZA designed and sewed all their own stuff but needed a sign, so I offered to make one and barter for cool threads. And since my mornings started at iDeal Coffee on Nassau, I carved a 3D shop logo in exchange for three years of lattes. For lunch I could grab a sandwich at Hell’s Kitchen, which sported my logo design, and for dinner I could eat at Oasis around the corner on College, where I had a healthy tab for having painted large abstract murals. One day the Restaurant Makeover show called and said they were renovating Oasis but keeping my murals, and could I come by and freshen them up. They started shooting me removing ketchup splatters, but then said I needed to look “angry” because I had a “conflict” with the owner about some petty issue. Who knew that reality shows fabricated dramatic tension? Turns out folks preferred the “before” and the place folded soon after.

A decorative detail too small to be noticed by Hollywood North cameras was the tiny photo of a head glued above my door lock. The glowering face of Jeff Martin, frontman of Windsor’s finest “Moroccan Roll” band and 35th best-selling Canadian artist in Canada, The Tea Party. Cut out from a Long & McQuade sales brochure, it was my personal gargoyle to ward off evil spirits.

I’d been playing occasionally with Ron Sexsmith since producing his first indie cassette release in ‘86. When his major label debut was finished in ‘95, I threw a listening party with strict rules that no industry people were allowed, and no talking while the album was on. It was a meaningful way to share the music with friends, including Steven Page, who was inspired by the night to write “Running Out Of Ink”, which ended up on the Barenaked Ladies Are Men album in 2007.

I was invited to do a live solo recording at the Glenn Gould Theatre for CBC Radio. Though only a few tunes were required, I ripped through an album’s worth ad was able to license and release the session on CD. All the songs were written at my Augusta abode, including one that name-checks notorious Market punks Bunchoffuckinggoofs as well as the mighty Bruce Cockburn, who lived in the hood in the ‘60s and worked with producer Eugene Martynec from the legendary rock band fittingly called Kensington Market.

The launch of two hot spots directly across the street, the groovy nightclub Supermarket and the charming restaurant La Palette, opened the floodgates to the inevitable transformation. The Market became a popular destination. When Sunday afternoon drum circles started spontaneously popping up on my parking pad, I knew it was time to pack it in.