The Green Room, Toronto, 1999, by Joseph Wilson

From MemoryArchive

Who: Blue Avenue, Steve Bell, Joseph Wilson
What: A great bar in the Annex
When: 1999
Where: Toronto, Ontario

During the 1998-1999 school year, some friends (Dan "Shaolun" Chen, Laurel Stroz) and I formed a jazz trio (bass, drums, piano) to get ourselves through University. We played a few shows at random bars in the city (Cobalt, C'est What), but our bread and butter was a regular Thursday night gig at the Green Room, a dive bar located in an alley behind Future's Bakery on Bloor Street in the Annex in Toronto. It was a grimy place with a limited selection of beers, but for some reason they served up killer pitchers of sangria, and of course, cheap red wine in those carafes that look like they were stolen out of a high-school science lab.

We stored our gear in the basement amidst the stacks of dried noodles and huge tins of sour cream, stepping over puddles oozing out of the packed earth floor, trying to keep our instruments aloft so the rats wouldn't nibble cables or drum-skins. In the middle of the basement was a bed, surrounded by plywood stapled up against the surrounding pillars, which we only ever saw occupied once. We were too embarassed to hang around and figure out who it was.

We played three sets a night. The first was pretty standard fare: Green Dolphin Street, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, C-Jam Blues, as the audience consisted mainly of students from the University of Toronto that wanted a beer while they studied, or grad students who wanted some dinner but couldn't even afford the mashed potatoes and coffee around the corner at Future's. Once I remember Sheilagh Rogers from the CBC approaching us after the first set break telling us how pleased she was to here young people playing standards. We started soft, inoffensive, and usually sported dress shirts and shoes, although once I remember wearing one of those Chinese hats that look like the ones I made as a kid out of a piece of newspaper.

By the second set, the dinner crowd had left and made way for the Thursday night crew who were looking for somewhere to go but weren't sure where. It was a popular spot to get trashed before headed over to the nearby Dance Cave. As the crowd drank, we usually did too, and dispensed with the expected standard fair and started to mix things up a bit. We played a drum-and-bass version of Miles Davis' So What, and covers of everyone from Medeski, Martin, and Wood to George Michael.

During the third set we were good and drunk and the crowd had usually decided they didn't have the energy to move on. We often just started playing blues jams so that guitar players, horn players or rappers could come up and improvise something. Sometimes we had dancers. A regular crew of drunkards would join us on stage, and often take their clothes off during an extended coda. A crowd favorite was Just a Friend by Biz Markie, which we'd play pretty straight up, until the chorus, where the piano and bass would cut out, leaving just the drums (sometimes not even them if I fell off my stool), and people would be chanting along, standing on tables and chairs at the back so they could see the tiny stage at the far end of the floor.

The cops got called a few times and shut us down, or the management would get angry calls from Annex residents who actually had to work on Friday (imagine!). The most memorable night, though, was undoubtedly on August 16, 1999, the so-called The Steve Bell show. We plastered the Annex with posters: "Steve Bell is coming" or "The Steve Bell show", whipping up a frenzy of support for the unknown Steve Bell, a friend of ours from high-school who played guitar. By the time the night came, the bar was buzzing: is Steve Bell here? Is he playing tonight? even though no-one really knew who he was except us. Steve came on stage (actually, there was no room, so he set up at stage right) and played a Beastie Boys' instrumental, and another song I've forgotten. The highlight was when we began the Phish version of the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey (by Richard Strauss). The song in question is the perfect crowd pleaser. The progression of chords whips people into a frenzy even if they don't know why. And, because the middle section of the song is just vamping on one chord, you can play it as long as you want, with as many guests as you want.

By the time Steve hit the last chord in the song, the crowd had exploded. People were cheering, singing along to the progression. Dustin started to cry. And, of course, Bruce was there. Two friends of ours, twins, had recently found out they had a long-lost brother, given up to adoption almost thirty years before. Against all odds, the parents found him, and were being reunited. At the Steve Bell show. (Click here for a sample of 2001 at the Steve Bell show.)

Those nights are a little foggy, but remain one of my most emotional memories of University. And of course, we'd go to class during the week and do it all again next week.