October 2nd, 2013
The following is a guest post from Track Toronto, a new project to collect and map songs about Toronto – the project aims to create an interactive archive of songs about the city – with the ultimate goal of allowing listeners to wander the city and discover songs as they go.
There’s something magical about learning that Leonard Cohen’s Closing Time was written about the now shuttered Matador Club at 466 Dovercourt, or that the house you think you’re standing in front of at 555 Spadina Road is actually a hidden Toronto Hydro sub-station, and yes, there’s a song about it.
Living in a city like Toronto is exciting because of the constant process of discovery. We’re always being confronted by a shifting collective realm, deeply layered and densely populated by a diversity of voices. It’s touching to be able to connect with others through a common experience of place, and this happens in many ways. We want to find and share the moments where this can happen through music.
Our experience of music is increasingly intimate and solitary. We carry our personal soundtrack around with us, listening to private portable devices. Encountering a connection between music and a familiar location can drag us back out into the public realm. This enriches our relationship to the music, the place, and our fellow city dwellers.
Inspired by the [murmur] project, we will post physical markers around Toronto allowing people to discover and listen to songs about the place they are in, encouraging them to navigate the city and its diverse musical landscape at the same time.
We are at the very beginning of this project, and we would love to hear from anyone who can suggest a song related to Toronto – especially local musicians. The connection between song and site can be of any type. It could be expressed through lyrics, or simply exist through the experience of the song’s creators.
We’ve plotted all the songs we’ve found so far on a map – and we are looking for help to build the collection! The more suggestions the better!
Here’s how you can participate:
- Check out the map.
- View the complete list of our collection so far.
- Email your ideas to us, please include the name of the artist, the song, and the site specific reference. We’d also love to hear any bits of insider knowledge, historical significance, or juicy gossip that ties the song to the place.
Track Toronto is: Lauren Barhydt, Chloe Doesburg, Jonathan Tyrrell. We are architects & musicians (well truthfully only one of us is a musician, that’s Jonathan – of the band the Ketch Harbour Wolves)
The project began out of a conversation we had at NXNE 2013. Jon had just attended a panel discussion which introduced the 4479 Toronto Music City brand. This kind of collective effort between music advocates, city council, and Toronto tourism was really inspiring. The Ketch Harbour Wolves had recently released their album “Queen City: Volume 1″ (planned to be the first in a series of 3 albums) in which each song relates to a specific site within the city. We got to talking later that night before The National show at Dundas Square and we got really excited about the possibility of registering this kind of virtual map in the physical city. The [murmur] project was a natural precedent for this and got us thinking about gathering other songs about Toronto into an expandable archive that could be built, and experienced, by anyone in the city.
URL: www.listentotrack.ca
email: collect@listentotrack.ca
Twitter: @tracktoronto
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/track.listen.local.toronto
link to map: http://listentotrack.ca/map/
October 2nd, 2013
“The Sam the Record Man sign is a meaningful part of Toronto’s music history, and we believe its iconic presence on Yonge St should be preserved. Great parts of our city’s collective memory, like Sam’s sign belong out in the urban environment rather than in a museum.
We urge Toronto City Council and Ryerson University to uphold their original agreement and reinstate Sam’s sign on Yonge St.”
Sincerely,
Lauren Barhydt, Chloe Doesburg, Jonathan Tyrell
Track Toronto
October 1st, 2013
“Toronto is a growing city in danger of losing her heritage. Yonge Street is Main Street, Toronto – it’s in our care. At the root of this great road is our downtown.
For many years, Sam the Record Man and his iconic sign shone a welcome to Toronto City, a beacon to music lovers and emblematic of Toronto’s entrepreneurial spirit.
A bond was made to save this sign and all it represents, which is especially inspiration to students of business and arts in our city.
For all of us and all who come to visit Toronto, this sign makes us unique and belongs to all of us.
It’s in your hands. Please let that sign shine.”
– Danny Marks
Producer/Host Jazz.FM91
Use our campaign tool to stand up for Toronto’s cultural heritage by emailing your city councillor and urging a solution that will ensure the sign is properly restored, maintained and mounted so that it can be enjoyed by the public.
October 1st, 2013
“Sam Sniderman a.k.a. Sam the Record Man was an important figure at a time when the Canadian Music Industry was just getting on its feet. He was a warm guy who always had a big smile and a hearty greeting. But more than that, he was a champion of Canadian music. He thought it was as good as anything else from anywhere else and he put his business where his heart was. He routinely put Canadian artists in the prominent front of store location along with their display materials. He thought that given the proper chance Canadian records could sell as well as British or American records and by golly, they did!
Sam’s big revolving neon record sign dominated the landscape at Yonge and Dundas and was a familiar landmark to all of us in music and a sign that somebody did care. Sam was an iconic guy. He and Ed Mirvish were very much the same kinds of people; both important to the cultural heritage of Toronto.
We’ve become very good at sacrificing heritage on the twin altars of progress and economy and that is a sad thing to me. When I found out that a plan was afoot to remount the old Sam’s sign at the corner of Yonge and Gould on the wall of the new Ryerson building I was happy. Not just because a touchstone was being preserved but also because an important reminder of who we are when we want to be ourselves would still be smiling down on the passersby.
So a deal was struck and a bargain was made and now there is an attempt to unmake it. Well-if I signed a contract to do a show and all the people were there expecting it and I failed to turn up because I thought the gas was too expensive, I would not be warmly spoken of.
Surely if there were technical and restoration challenges in preserving and mounting this iconic artifact, they would have been well understood when the bargain was made. I can see no reasonable grounds for reversing course. Come on folks! Do the right thing!”
– Murray McLauchlan
Use our campaign tool to stand up for Toronto’s cultural heritage by emailing your city councillor and urging a solution that will ensure the sign is properly restored, maintained and mounted so that it can be enjoyed by the public.
October 1st, 2013
“The two iconic neon signs, that were for many years a fixture of Yonge street, represented the many wonderfully supportive things that Sam Sniderman and his record store did for music, musicians and music fans in Toronto and across Canada. Visitors from all over the country came to Toronto wanting to shop at his special store. For music lovers the sign was a beacon and welcoming entrée to a limitless choice of music styles. I believe the Sam the Record Man sign needs once again to be a part of our vibrant downtown city core.”
– Liona Boyd
Use our campaign tool to stand up for Toronto’s cultural heritage by emailing your city councillor and urging a solution that will ensure the sign is properly restored, maintained and mounted so that it can be enjoyed by the public.
