Musicians mourn Silver Dollar
Artists say goodbye to venue before it closes down on May 1
This is it: beloved local live-music venue the Silver Dollar goes dark for an indefinite amount of time on May 1 after one final weeklong run of shows.
No one knows if the music will ever return to the fabled room. While the City of Toronto has succeeded in getting a promise from the developer who plans to turn the building at the corner of Spadina Ave. and College St. which also houses the neighbouring Waverly Hotel — in which the Dollar began life as a cocktail bar in 1958 — into a highrise rental residence for students to preserve the physical Silver Dollar space as it is, it’s unclear what use it will be put to in the future. So soak up as many sounds as you can in the club before it goes down.
And there are a lot of sounds to soak up this coming week. Booker Dan Burke had no problem securing a killer lineup, mostly made up of esteemed local acts who’ve come up through the venue, for the Silver Dollar’s last stand: Atlanta’s Coathangers on Tuesday; Crazy Strings’ Last High Lonesome Bluegrass Hoedown on Wednesday; Montreal trance-rockers Suuns, Doomsquad and Peeling on Thursday; Dilly Dally, Darlene Shrugg and Frigs on Friday; Blood Ceremony, Biblical and Red Mass on Saturday; and one thunderously loud big finish with METZ, Fake Palms and New Fries on Sunday.
We asked a few of the performers who will grace the Silver Dollar’s legendarily ill-placed stage one last time this week for their final thoughts on the venue, which for many is inseparable from Burke, the man who gave the room a new lease on life when he took over booking duties there more than a decade ago. Chris Slorach of METZ: “We’ve played that venue so many times. I’ve seen so many crazy shows there and I’ve been witness to too many insane moments when, you know, Dan has gone crazy on a band or, like, when Jay Reatard punched a kid in the face before he walked offstage at that show, or the Hospitals show where Dan got cracked over the head with John Dwyer’s guitar. I’m not going to say the band’s name, but I witnessed a band do so much drugs in there that they tore down a toilet stall when we played there once with them.
“It’s the home of a lot of Toronto legends. There’s just a charm to that room that got ushered in with Dan and his musical tastes . . . I actually think a Constantines/Deadly Snakes show there would have the perfect closer, but I’ll take it, man. I’m totally honoured to be the last band to set foot on that stage.” Katie Monks of Dilly Dally: “The first few times I went there, I remember thinking that the whole place was out of a movie and that there was something very mysterious and almost Jim Jarmusch about it, kind of casual and dingy.
I think seeing bands like Odonis Odonis and Cartoons there, it was the first time I started to really feel like, ‘Oh my God, all my friends are so cool and all the music coming out of this city is really cool right now.’
“Another big thing I have to say about the Silver Dollar — and I’ve talked to other girls about this — is the f---ing washroom is, like, so iconic for all of the girls in the music scene because we’d all kind of hang out in the washroom. There’s this ledge and a mirror area where girls do their makeup and stuff, but some girls just sit on it and hang out and chat with their friends. I really always loved going into the washroom there. Sometimes I would just go in when I didn’t have to pee just because I wanted to go in there and, like, chat with a friend.”
Mike Le Riche of Fake Palms: “The Dollar was one of those places that, no matter who you were as a band — you could be the coolest band in town or you could just be starting out — you could reach out to Dan Burke and he’d put you on a bill and he’d take a chance on you and, chances are, even if no one knew who you were, he’d still give you a good slot opening for a band from out of town that people were gonna come and see . . . he took chances on me many times and let us play some amazing shows, even when we didn’t deserve to and we weren’t in a place to do it.
“It helped me learn how to be a musician. For that, I’ll always be grateful. And there will never be another place like it.
“Realistically, it doesn’t make any sense as a venue. The way the stage is along the side like that, that weird half-circle that cuts out from the centre of the stage, then the bar’s cut in half so there’s the bar and, like, the pool area — it doesn’t make any sense, but for whatever reason, however, it just rules. It’s so bizarre. No one would ever do that again, but it’s a bummer to lose it because it’s weirdly perfect.”
Joseph Yarmush of Suuns: “I actually asked Dan if we could play. We played there twice when we were called Zeroes and I believe it was our second and third shows ever in Toronto, and that was just me cold calling him back then.
“So that’s kind of like my relationship with Dan Burke, just emailing him out of the blue asking him to play. I kind of felt a bit of nostalgia doing that again for this gig. It was the exact same setup, the exact same response time.
“Usually when I go to Toronto, I just look up who’s playing at the Silver Dollar. I’ve spent a lot of time there and seen a lot of great shows. It’s sad to close it down. It truly sucks. But at least it’s going out in the right way.”
Simone TB of Fake Palms and Darlene Shrugg: “Dan does big shows but a lot of them are obviously just other nights of the week where you get lower- and midlevel bands who also need a stage, and so few of those bands actually ‘graduate’ from the Silver Dollar. That’s gonna be people’s memories as they get older and move onto different things in life, having kids and careers and stuff. They’ll be able to say ‘I was in a band once and I played the Silver Dollar,’ and that’s gonna be a big deal to people forever. And that’s really special. I don’t feel that kind of connection and that kind of ceremonious importance from other venues that exist today. . . . It’s going to be completely surreal walking my sh-- out of there for the last time. There will be, like, real grief for me.”
Chris Coole of Crazy Strings: “Honestly, for me, it was almost like growing up there. I started playing (High Lonesome Wednesdays) there in my mid- to late-20s and kept playing there into my 40s. Those were my formative musical years with all my best friends. It was just such a unique thing to have as an adult and as a musician, to be able to see your buddies every Wednesday and put on these great shows. It was just amazing. Until it closes, it won’t seem real, that’s for sure.”
Trevor Blumas of Doomsquad: “I feel like most of the bands playing this week, the first time I actually saw them play was at the Dollar and those were some of the most memorable shows I’ve ever seen. The space has been around for a long time, obviously, before Dan Burke became involved with it, but for me that space is synonymous with Dan Burke. I’m curious to know what his plan is from here because we’re pretty loyal Dan Burke supporters. So wherever he ends up, hopefully the spirit of the Silver Dollar will follow with him.”