But anyway, the El Mo was under construction. The owner that had it at the time, the new owner was trying to develop a dance club upstairs, meaning learning modern dance, not a club dance situation.īut he realized because there was uproar over the closing of the El Mo that he had to keep music happening there. So Ted had introduced him to me and he said, you know, he'd like to work with me. I was there for 11 years, but it was an interesting time there. Musicians can have loyalty to people, and they didn't have loyalty to that owner at that time. So they were actually unhappy that he’d originally bought it and was turning it into a dance club. So based on that, you know, I had two schools of musicians: I'm never playing there again or oh yeah, I need to play there. So when I started off, it was it was a bit of a long haul to try and get it back on its feet again because it had been closed for awhile.Īnd I did. It was just perseverance and it was a huge room to fill. But because I have great connections with people, I have great connections with promoters, record labels. Just people who would want to help get the club back up and running.Īnd they were willing to work with me and help bring bands in that were touring bands. So I did a lot of really cool stuff there, including the Kaiser Chiefs from the UK. Which is now probably a stadium band over there, but we had their first show for 30 people. We had Amy Millan from Stars came and did an acoustic set with Emily Haines. Queens of the Stone Age came in and did a stadium-style show in that room because they played the ACC and then they decided to do that club. So based on my connections with people, I was able to get a lot of cool stuff happening, and then I would continue trying to build bands as well. And we look around here, what do you think? Are you happy with your work? Six years of your blood, sweat, and tears to get this place open. Michael Wekerle: You know, for six years, I’ve been coming here and I was kind of like, oh man, not this problem, not this problem. As I came down about two or three months ago, I go, there, it’s coming. How long is it going to take to get Michael Wekerle up there with some big name band? Ross: You got the main stage here on the second floor. Wekerle: You know, as I tell people, you know, I always will play the El Mocambo. I played a few venues in Toronto when I was a kid and I looked the part but I was terrible. So I finally played the El Mocambo, I decided to buy it first. Ross: You’ve done something pretty unique here. You’ve got this main stage here but then you got another stage downstairs. You could have two shows going simultaneously at the same time. Wekerle: Yeah, someone’s playing downstairs, I’ve got Joan Baez playing up here. They’re totally isolated, totally soundproof. And it’s really unique because that was the thesis here. Is that we could have people interacting. We’ve got an elevator that goes up and down. With all the acoustics, it’s really simple for a band to come in here, plug in and do what they want to do.
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