MODOS DE INDIVIDUALIZACIÓN

While spaces like those of the drum ‘n’ bass community may appear as primarily youth- oriented to the uninitiated society at large, decision-makers, and even those favourably oriented towards “Music City” initiatives, as, sociologist and scholar of youth sub/cultures Patrick Williams succinctly explains,

Go to a subcultural venue in almost any city and you’ll probably see more teenagers than anyone else, but there are other people to be seen as well. Subcultural affiliation is most likely to begin during adolescence, but its significance can last a lifetime. The concept of “youth subcultures,” so commonly used in social-science writing,

theoretically denies the continuing significance of subcultural participation to those of us who have accidentally grown up and grown older over the years.14

But even if we were to discount the correct observations of Williams, the importance of

intergenerational equity and intertemporal distributive justice, as we will see in Chapter 7, should

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not dissuade decision-making processes and policy developments from actuating, or preventing the development of friendly legislation and intangible heritage recognition of these spaces of subcultural community wealth.

An approach that more effectively acknowledges the varied cultural and subcultural actors within the city space is also intimately connected to how cities, provinces, and nations, choose to treat, define, and valuate their intangible cultural heritage as it is deployed through the various legal complexes that shape the cityscape.

II. THE GUVERNMENT: HISTORY, COMMUNITY, SPACE, AND USE

“RIP Guv”, read the graffiti tag that remained nearly until the end as Guvernment was slowly demolished over a three-month period in the Winter of 2015 by Pro Green Demolition.15 Its passing not only signified a loss to the electronic dance music community, but also a further reduction in the pool of available live music venues and spaces for attending events as well as for production companies looking for space to host their music events.

Not without irony, Guvernment’s history and relevance is succinctly summarized on the sales website for the Daniels Corporation’s new mixed-use condo development that is replacing it:

The club unfortunately finally closed its doors on January 31st, 2015. Formerly the RPM nightclub for about 10 years which brought legends like the Beastie Boys and made former Jamaican born Canadian DJ Chris Sheppard into a superstar in the dance music world. Now currently the Guvernment nightclub which opened its doors in 1996 where superstars such as Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones played and where DJ Deadmau5 got his start. Charles Khaboth [sic], owner of INK

Entertianment [sic] tried to buy the building with his partners but were unsuccessful as Daniels Corp. has bought it to turn the site at Queens Quay and Lower Jarvis into residential and commercial properties known as the Daniels Waterfront Condos.16

15 _{See e.g. Chris Kotsy, “Demolition at The Guvernment/Kool Haus Nearing Completion”, urbantoronto.ca (2 April}

2015), online: <urbantoronto.ca> [Kotsy, “Demolition”]; Chris Kotsy, “The Guvernment/Kool Haus: Its History/It’s History”, urbantoronto.ca (23 April 2015), online: <urbantoronto.ca> [Kotsy, “Guvernment”].

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In the days following its final night of operation on January 25, 2015, the demolition of

Guvernment began with the loss of the “m” in its sign that stretched out along the length of the complex in big block letters, and it was only a matter of days after the new developer had taken over the space for the main entranceway to be unceremoniously gutted.

During the three-month period that it took to demolish Guvernment in the winter of 2015, many loyal past attendees watched with a sinking feeling of dismay and documented the slow destruction online with shared photos and comment threads lamenting the sad state of

Guvernment as it was taken apart, commenting on the different parts of its anatomy as they were slowly exposed to the elements as demolition progressed through the building, and the memories that the exposure of these different spaces conjured up.17 As an unintentional ode to the facelifts Guvernment had received over the years, its slow demolition returned portions of the space to past iterations of themselves before their final destruction, further calling to mind memories of days, nights, and concerts spent at Guvernment.18

Opening in 1996, Guvernment was known as the longest-running and largest indoor nightclub in Canada, and, over the years it served as an entry point for a number of generations into the world of electronic dance music and DJ culture in Toronto.19 It was characterized by a number of maze-like divided performance spaces of various sizes—such as Haven, the Gallery, Surface, Chroma, and Skybar—that could host a number of diverse shows in order to

simultaneously cater to different subgenres of musical tastes.20 Its audio capabilities and

17 _{See e.g. Kotsy, “Demolition”, supra note 15; Kotsy, “Guvernment”, supra note 15.} 18 _{See e.g. Kotsy, “Demolition”, supra note 15; Kotsy, “Guvernment”, supra note 15.}

19 _{There are countless anecdotes and stories that attendees have about Guvernment, but see e.g. Benjamin Boles,}

“The Beat Finally Stops at the Guvernment”, Now Toronto (25 January 2015), online: <nowtoronto.com> (written on the last day that Guvernment would be open) [Boles, “The Beat Finally Stops”].

20 _{Denise Benson, Then & Now: Toronto’s Nightlife History (Toronto: Three O’Clock Press, 2015) at 513. See also}

Kendra Mangione, “Guvernment Nightclub Shutting its Doors”, CTV News (2 May 2014), online:

<Toronto.ctvnews.ca>; Benjamin Boles, “A Brief History of the Guvernment Nightclub”, blogTO (6 June 2014), online: <www.blogto.com> [Boles, “A Brief History”].

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construction ensured that these different acts could play the various rooms without sound leakage from one room to the next. These numerous smaller rooms functioned as mini-clubs and were also one of the reasons for Guvernment’s success as it could cater to so many musical tastes at once.

The Guvernment portion of the space was the heart of the whole complex. It was especially known for its cutting-edge sound system and custom-made light design and production displays for shows that could be adapted to cater to the nuances of the musical subgenre being performed. While some preferred the smaller rooms, the extremely high-quality sound system and the production values of the shows hosted in this main space were what made the Guvernment a favourite space in the complex.21 Installed in order to optimize the

soundscape, the Guvernment’s suspended and fastidiously cared for wooden dance floor was also known for its required upkeep and yearly need to be redone. Less known for its acoustics, which have been fondly compared to that of an airplane hanger, the size of the no-frills Kool Haus (formerly called the Warehouse) warehouse-style portion of space filled an important gap amongst Toronto music venues with an ability to accommodate 2000-3000 attendees—an ideal capacity for large indoor music events as it is larger than what a large nightclub can hold but not as huge as a stadium.22

Guvernment was often open until 7am or later, well-past last call when the venue would transform from a bar/nightclub scenario to an afterhours space reminiscent of a warehouse or community hall rave. Guvernment was known for its well-attended music events, role in

developing Toronto’s local electronic dance music and electronic dance music scene, and for its prolific nearly twenty-year contribution to Toronto and Canada’s international music reputation.

21 _{See also ibid.}

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Guvernment was a key venue specifically in the continuing development of Toronto’s and Canada’s drum ‘n’ bass musical subculture and existing minority music community

characterized by the bass-heavy 150-180 BPM range.23 Guvernment’s history saw a plethora of key modern performers give concerts in its space—a list much longer than that of the Silver Dollar Room, which will be discussed in the next case study.

While Guvernment itself opened in 1996, a similar venue, RPM and its sister venue Warehouse, had operated in the space since 1985. RPM was itself important within Toronto’s electronic dance music history and, like Guvernment, served as an entry point into the scene for many with its all-ages parties—not to mention the live-to-air DJ sets by Chris Sheppard that were played there and reached beyond Toronto to the late Saturday night programming of radio stations in other Canadian cities, like Edmonton, Alberta.24 I still remember that one Sunday afternoon weekly track and field practice when one of my friends passed me a tape she had made the night before of Chris Sheppard’s Pirate Radio Show. It was my very first exposure to this kind of music. I fell in love with it instantly and began religiously listening to the broadcast of his show every Saturday night and recording the show myself when I could. These early personal experiences provide an example of how the cultural value of this space emanated well outside the boundaries of the City of Toronto itself.

But even before RPM, the space had operated for a few years as Fresh Restaurant and Nightclub, which connects us to Chapter 7 where Twilight Zone will be discussed as it was the Assoon brothers who opened both Twilight Zone in 1980 and then Fresh in 1984.25 Although Fresh was not open for long and experienced nowhere near the following that Twilight Zone

23 _{For just one example of the tours that came through Toronto and the extremely well-attended, high-quality, drum}

‘n’ bass events that Toronto was able to populate and accommodate at Guvernment, see Handlebar Films, “Andy C Nightlife 5 Tour Toronto.mov” (9 April 2012), online: <youtu.be/jjM2gaWDgTI?list=RD1tghlmNxQPM>.

24 _{See also Boles, “The Beat Finally Stops”, supra note 19; Boles, “A Brief History”, supra note 20.} 25 _{Benson, supra note 20 at 159, 495.}

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would eventually become known for, the Assoon brothers were the first to begin instigate the legacy of the space that would become RPM and then the Guvernment.26

As a large warehouse-reminiscent music complex, Guvernment was the precise kind of space that spoke to the burgeoning Toronto rave scene when it opened in the second half of the 1990s.27 Electronic dance music was beginning to enter the mainstream in Toronto, and Toronto was becoming internationally renown as a center for electronic dance music culture and drawing visitors who came to experience the scene. All of this required venues that were both suitable in size as well as in the music featured. Guvernment met both needs in addition to the ability to ensure that subgenres of electronic dance music that catered to different tastes, like drum ‘n’ bass were also represented within the space. The kind of space Guvernment provided was also ideal as the city soon began to crackdown on illegal warehouse raves that were widespread at the time, and production companies had to increasingly look for large, legal, and licensed venues to hold their events.28