CONSTANTINES as part of 30th Anniversary Series at Lees Palace (529 Bloor West), Thursday and Friday (September 24 and 25), 8:30 pm. $29-$50. rotate.com, soundscapesmusic.com, ticketfly.com.
Thirty years ago this month, Chong Su Lee opened Lees Palace, a new music venue some distance away from the bustling Queen West scene. Almost immediately it became a place for local bands to kick-start their careers and a hot spot for touring bands trying to break into Canada.
Long before Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis and so many other seminal bands made their debuts at Lees, the two-storey space was a movie theatre built in 1919, then a cabaret called the Blue Orchid, then dinner/dance space Oriental Palace. Nowadays, its owned by Collective Concerts, which also owns the Horseshoe.
For the 30th anniversary, the Constantines play two nights. Coincidentally, the first time I went to Lees Palace the Cons were playing an all-ages matinee with the Weakerthans. I was a high schooler coming down from Barrie, and I tore apart my closet trying to find my coolest, most Toronto outfit. (I went with a granny cardigan and an 80s prom dress.)
For so many Torontonians, bands and promoters, Lees is associated with these types of rites of passage, whether its watching Kurt Cobain throw stuff at the audience or seeing an emerging band sell out a two-night stand. Below, a brief oral history of the legendary venue from those who know it best.
BAZIL DONOVAN
Blue Rodeo bassist
Blue Rodeo played the second show at Lees Palace. Handsome Ned did the first, and he suggested to Mr. Lee that he hire us. Ned was really good at talking people into taking chances. When we showed up that night, Mr. Lee was extremely angry at us because we hadnt put up any posters. He was screaming at us, No posters! There are no posters anywhere! Nobodys going to come! We knew it was going to be okay. Later that night there was a line-up to get in, and Mr. Lee was smiling and looked over at us and said, I dont know where everyone is coming from, but its a good day!
CRAIG MORRISON
Booker 1985-1990,
general manager 1990-2000
I started working there a couple of months after it opened. I was helping out a friends band who played at Lees early on, and when I met Mr. Lee he asked if I wanted to help book the club. My first impression was that the venue was big. It had high ceilings, great sightlines, a raised stage. I thought it was great. Id go out and see bands play, try to understand who was popular and give them an appropriate night.
We were open seven days a week then, and Sunday was the biggest. We had something called the Sunday Night Jam, led for years by Frank Fazi. He had some well-known participants, like the folks from Greg Godovitzs Goddo. It all wrapped up by, like 11 pm, so it wasnt crushing for people who had to work the next day.
DONOVAN I did the Sunday Night Jam every week for about a year. I was the resident bass player. It became a kind of community.
Before Lees there was the Cameron House and the Horseshoe. If you did well at the Cameron, the Horseshoe and the Rivoli would offer you a gig. There was just that little strip no other clubs. When Lees started, it was like, Oh great, theres another room booking stuff. Even though it was up on Bloor, it wasnt out of the neighbourhood. It was like the northern outpost.
ALEX AL RUNT CURRIE
Lees Palace mural artist
I started working at Lees as a waiter when it first opened. At the time, I was a pretty popular Queen Street artist doing stuff for the [reggae club] Bamboo and the Cameron House. Mr. Lee fired me as a waiter but hired me to do the first incarnation of the mural on the outside. It took me a few weeks and it was really big and simple. There were about 15 characters on it.
MORRISON Mr. Lee [who passed away in the early 90s] was a sharp businessman. He started with the little Stop & Go corner store at Bathurst and Harbord and somehow became interested in the music venue concept through some folks at the Cameron House. He made a very, very shrewd real estate decision buying the Lees Palace building.
IAN DANZIG
Exclaim! publisher
I started going to Lees soon after it opened. A lot of local bands I loved from the 80s played there. It was a step up to play Lees for a band whod been playing the Rivoli. For me, in the early 90s, some of those first shows by independent American acts coming through were really watershed moments. The Nirvana show was obviously notable. It wasnt great. Not many people. Kurt wasnt into it at all because the crowd wasnt into it.
Toronto audiences, especially at the time, were notorious for being reserved, and probably still have that reputation. Everyone was just sitting there watching Kurt, and it pissed him off. He grabbed a chair and sat down. After a while he started throwing stuff at the crowd, and they started throwing stuff at him.
MORRISON When Nirvana came in 1990, they were supporting their debut album, Bleach. Elliott Lefko brought them in. I remember the band throwing beer bottles at the back of the stage, and I seem to recall asking them to leave.
DANZIG About a year later, in 1991, I saw the Smashing Pumpkins play. They were the opening band. Their first album, Gish, had just come out. People were loving it, but again, they had their arms crossed, heads nodding. After the set I was with Billy Corgan at the bar and I said, That was a great show, and he was like, That was a terrible show. Nobody was into it. Everyone sucked. He was as miserable then as he can be now.
AMY HERSENHOREN
Former booker at Lees Palace, current booker with Collective Concerts Craig [Morrison] did things very scientifically. When he booked local bands he would give them colour-coded tickets to sell to their friends, so when people came through the door he could tell which band drew the most people. He kept meticulous records. He had a file for each band with how many tickets theyd sold, the bar sales. He was like a statistician.
MORRISON I became the general manager around 1990. I often told people my business was to sell beer. I never fancied myself an A&R person by any means. I recognized my role was to run a bar. I was sort of the Moneyball of bar bookings in the 80s and 90s.
DANZIG [In the 90s] youd see more and more important bands playing Lees. It was such a perfect size for bands that had something happening for them a sweet spot before they got into the big concert halls, be it airplane hangars like the Sound Academy or gorgeous places like Massey Hall. I saw Ween there in 1993. Ben Folds Five he was touring with his own piano. Some of the best Tortoise sets Ive ever seen were at Lees.
MORRISON I left the bar in 2000. Id done a computer science degree at University of Toronto while I was at Lees. I now do IT risk management.
It was hard to know where you were at the time. If Id understood, if Id known the significance, I would have got photos of me with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as they stood there naked with socks on their penises. I would have a photo of me with my arm around Kurt Cobain.
I remember getting a call from [band manager/Canadian Idol judge] Jake Gold, who was booking the -Tragically Hip. I think he wanted me to pay them $75. Obviously, this was the very beginning, and I said, No, forget it, buddy. You can have the money from the door and thats it.
LYNN McNEILL
Current bartender and former booker/manager at Lees, owner of the Beaver
I started bartending at Lees in 1990, and I still work there at least once a week. Ive been there the longest. Nobody even comes close.
Will Munros Vazaleen party was amazing. It came to Lees in 2001. Nina Hagen played, Jayne County, Peaches, the Gossip, MEN. It was fantastic to pull together segments of the queer community and put it in this really great, fundamentally rock and pop environment, because generally speaking, the gay subculture is much more about dance.
HERSENHOREN I remember the first Vazaleen at Lees. [It was originally at El Mocambo]. I had two friends in from L.A., and we still talk about it. The lineups to get in were insane. The outfits were off the hook. I dont consider myself a prude, but I was stunned. There were so many naked men with their junk hanging out, walking around. There was gay porn projected onto the walls. People were dancing everywhere.
BRY WEBB
Singer/guitarist, the Constantines
We had our 10th anniversary shows there in 2009. We did three sold-out nights, and to me, they were our last real shows before we took a break because they were the last ones with all five of us. Those shows are my favourite Constantine shows of all time. We had bands that were really important to us playing: Tropics, Ladyhawk, Julie Doiron, John Samson, Attack in Black, Oneida, METZ. It was a big family event, so Ill always have a soft spot for Lees.
CURRIE In 1992 I redid the mural. Mr. Lee had painted it over I dont know why. I think he just wanted a change. It was blank for a number of years. Then I talked him into letting me do a second incarnation. That one was a little more complicated, and it lasted 18 years.
I redid it again in 2010. I cant believe how loved that mural is. Its un-freaking-believable. When the second incarnation was taken down, people were going through the dumpster to take pieces of it. In the course of doing that mural three times, I probably got shit on 100 times by pigeons.
HERSENHOREN Lees is a dump, but the most important thing to me is that it sounds good when the lights go down, that the bar isnt too expensive and the security isnt too rude. I always sell more tickets there than I do in other rooms of the same size.
MORRISON Im always a little bit amazed that building is still physically standing. That building, boy. The water was never where you wanted it to be. It was either flowing down the wall through the ceiling or out of the toilets, and then it was not in your dishwasher or ice machine.
BEN PEARLMAN
Current booker
A memorable show we did recently was with the Wooden Sky. They closed off their set by playing on Bloor. They shut down traffic for four minutes, and the whole crowd spilled out onto the street.
We did the Mumford & Sons show [in April] for their new record, which was pretty neat. Their first proper Toronto show was at Lees Palace back in the day. We get a lot of those kinds of breakout shows. Every year we seem to get two or three bands who play a crazy sold-out show at Lees at the height of that initial excitement. Hey Rosetta!, the Sheepdogs, Arkells, July Talk. Its nice to be factored into the plan for a lot of bands.
MORRISON Lees was a great deal of fun. If I could be 26 again and get up at noon and book at the club and stay out until 5 am, that would be great.
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