Results tagged “gladstonehotel”

Frequency is certainly better than your average shot-in-Toronto thriller, and not just because it makes such subtle use of local locations that you'd never notice.

       

Torontoist stopped by the Gladstone Hotel last Tuesday for the launch party of two exciting new documentaries airing on the CBC starting this Thursday night. This Beat Goes On and Rise Up chronicle Canadian music's growth in the '70s and '80s, respectively. The films were made by the two key players responsible for 2006's Shakin' All Over, which dealt with the '60s: director Gary McGroarty and writer/researcher Nicholas Jennings. Jian Ghomeshi narrates. Viewers are treated to an impressive collection of clips: concert footage, television appearances, and music videos, as well as interviews with classic and contemporary Canadian pop stars (think rock royalty like Burton Cummings sandwiched between Hot Hot Heat and k-os).

How lucky are we that the "artistic funhouse" (a.k.a. the SummerWorks Performance Gallery) is on for seven more nights (August 7–9, 13–16)? Yesterday, we took in the debut soirée at the atmospheric Gladstone Hotel, not knowing what to expect, and left agape at the stunning performances that are practically being given away for free (PWYC). On any given evening, as many as seven different five- to eight-minute shows are available for patrons to peruse at their leisure, taking place in the rooms (including the restroom) and hallways on the second floor. The doors to the balcony facing Queen Street are thrown open to the summer evening, letting the sounds of the city meld with the eclectic mix of performances that make up the Gallery. Below are some we particularly enjoyed.

The Gladstone Hotel launched a new weekly music series last night (meaning Peter Styles can only hijack your karaoke harmonies on Fridays and Saturdays now), and while throwing another night of bands and beer into the city's already saturated mix might seem exhausting before you even get to it, the price (always free!) and promised performers for Thursday Night Confidential are, in the very best meaning of the words, a 100% safe bet.

CRAFTS: More than twenty local Etsy artisans will combine their talents in an effort to sell wares today at the Gladstone Hotel. The Spring Handmade Market will feature many impulse purchase opportunities, such as Allthingssmall's adorable sewn mice (and the above-pictured penguins), Eyesore Design's cool record album notebooks, and Stitchface's painfully cute eco-friendly stuffed woodland creatures. For more information on vendors, and interviews with the artisans, check out the market's official blog. Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West), 11 a.m.–4 p.m., FREE.

The Gladstone Hotel is offering “truly affordable works of art” for sale in their front lobby. For $2.01—two dollars for the art plus one sacrificial penny—you can choose from four different designs by Canadian artists Douglas Coupland, Marian Bantjes, Burton Kramer, and Paul Butler.

The question of whether Paul G. Russell's career is more transom than mullion, more bridge than pillar, is a tough one. His achievements span virtually every artistic medium—from writing to television to film to stage to art—yet each are significant contributions atop which Canadian culture continues to build.

Does your Canadianness matter to you? And what does it even mean to be Canadian? The old joke, of course, is that Canada is NotTheUnitedStates, that we define ourselves as America's inverse, or perhaps her kinder, gentler cousin, but have no substantive notion of what our identity is absent that contrast. On the other hand, lots of us vehemently reject that trope, arguing that Canada does have a distinct sense of itself. Just what that identity consists in though (Multiculturalism? Socialized medicine, or a broader concern for social welfare? Our climate and geography? The sheer course of historical events?) isn't always entirely clear.

The food we eat, and the sources thereof, have become the subjects of increasing attention over the past few years. In an attempt to bring farmers and the people they feed closer together, Slow Food Toronto hosted its second annual Farm-to-Home Fair at the Gladstone this past Saturday. Local farmers and food producers came out in force for some agricultural show-and-tell, and local eaters (that's us) came to learn more about the importance of buying from sustainable, Toronto-area farms. Torontoist departed with two dozen pastured, laid-this-week eggs, and also a bit of insight into our local food culture.

Remember Contact? It was made in 1997 and was adapted from a weird Carl Sagan novel about extraterrestrial life and faith—ergo, starred Jodie Foster, plus a pre-indie fame Jena Malone. She's an outer space–obsessed girl who grows up to be a SETI scientist, receiving alien transmissions while searching for proof they exist, and eventually falling in love with one. It's among the greatest science fiction films ever made, which does not mean that it's good. It's terrible.

MUSIC: We've been following the qualifying rounds since the first week, and tonight the Fifth Annual Karaoke Superstar Contest Finale hits the Gladstone Hotel's Melody Bar. Go cheer on your favourite finalists from the previous three weeks as they battle it out in front of a panel of local celebrity judges, featuring two former Canadian Idol contestants (Sebastion Piggot and Katelyn Dawn), the "trashtastic" Ryan G. Hinds, and the Gladstone Cowboy himself, Hank Young. The winner will receive a grand prize of $1,000 and the coveted title of Karaoke Superstar! Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West), 9 p.m.–2 a.m., FREE.

If memory serves, high school Canadian history classes always struck us as a little wimpy. How, we felt in our drama-loving teenage hearts, could coureurs des bois and Trudeau hold a candle to Napoleonic exploits and JFK? With age comes wisdom, fortunately, and we now find Canadian sagas as compelling as their flashier counterparts elsewhere. Helping us along are organizations like Heritage Toronto, whose mandate is to get us excited about our fair city’s past. In a first for the organization, it is currently co-hosting a photography exhibit showcasing some of Toronto’s most interesting and vulnerable heritage buildings. It’s one of those ideas which works so well that it's a wonder no one thought of it before: get some of Toronto’s great photographers—in this case, members of the Shadow Collective—and send them for a ramble through a few of our most architecturally compelling landmarks. "Building Storeys" is the result, an exhibit which, in the words of Heritage Toronto historian Gary Miedema, gives us “a unique way of looking at these buildings.” Part history lesson and part artistic adventure, "Building Storeys" had its opening party Tuesday night and early indications are that the show will be a hit.

In the hustle and skelter of Toronto's (unofficial) Design Week—comprised of a massive IDS 09 and its younger alt-bro of a show, Come Up to My Room at the Gladstone, plus MADE's Radiant Dark and a smattering of smaller exhibits and excuses to party—playing favourites is work. How to choose from the million-and-one objects and projections of desire proffered by our city's proliferation of designing minds? It's trickier still when you're dazzled and confused by Swarovski installations or Castor in-jokes, to get to the point of purchase. It's one thing to admire, another to sanely advise someone else to buy.

The concept was pretty simple: appoint an eclectic curatorial team; pool together some of Toronto’s leading designers; assign each team one room to transform; invite the masses to poke around the re-conceived spaces. And, bingo: a design show!

Things of which we are fans: cycling advocacy, dancehall-laced DJ sets, jokes about benzodiazepine, tipsy city councillors. Last night we were lucky to find all of these in the very same room, at the first annual Toronto Bike Awards, hosted by the Toronto Cyclists Union. The Gladstone Hotel’s ballroom was standing-room only, packed with die-hard cyclists and the people who love them. While the City of Toronto has distributed Bicycle Friendly Business Awards for many years, this was the first time that a full evening’s worth of partying was devoted to recognizing the individuals and organizations that are working to continuously improve the state of cycling in our city. In addition to the City’s awards, the Cyclists Union inaugurated their own Golden Spoke Awards: one each for the outstanding city councillor, volunteer, and cycling advocate of the year. The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) and I Bike T.O. gave out their own awards as well—proof of the breadth and depth of cycling activism in the city.

GREETINGS: Since the days of fur trading, it has been tradition on this continent to pay your respects to the Master of the Fort. In current parlance, that means citizens of Toronto—if they can get out of bed—can go to City Hall today for the Mayor’s Levee. Mayor David Miller and city councillors will be available to exchange greetings with the public. The City will also provide refreshments and unnamed local entertainment. Toronto City Hall (100 Queen Street West), 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m., FREE.

MUSIC: Remember baggy pants, pure MDMA, and walking home as the sun cast its judging rays across the still streets at 7 a.m.? Well, the Crystal Method are back to do it all over again. Head down to hipsterville and catch their DJ set tonight. The Social (1100 Queen Street West), 10 p.m., $19.50 in advance.

BOOKS: Come see the magic that happens when books meet film at The Moving Stories Film Festival tonight, presented by Pages Books as part of their This is Not a Reading Series. Featuring shorts based on the stories of recently published books from around the world, the one-night festival aims to enhance the appreciation of both literature and cinema through the combination of the two (as is evident in cinema masterpieces such as Twilight). Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West), 7:30 p.m., $5 (includes a free drink, woohoo!).

FILM: For the ninth year in a row, the imagineNATIVE film festival will feature videos and films by indigenous artists, alongside exhibitions and workshops voicing stories of survival and identity. You may have noticed their Indian Jane posters around—the festival's annual marketing campaigns cleverly deconstruct Hollywood stereotypes of natives (we've been informed that the awesome scene in Temple of Doom where the guy gets his heart ripped out didn't actually happen...sigh). Various locations, runs October 15–19. Tickets start at $7.

POLITICS: It's Federal Election time! Torontoist will be liveblogging the results this evening, so make sure you've read up on all of our election coverage in advance. Go vote! Seriously! Various locations (find yours here), 9:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m., FREE.

FILM: War/Dance, winner of the 2007 Hot Docs Audience Award, will be screened tonight at the Bloor Cinema. The documentary follows a children's dance troupe from northern Uganda invited to compete at an annual dance and music festival. The screening is presented in association with GuluWalk and AMREF Canada. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 7 p.m., $10 ($5 for students).

MUSIC: We can't really think of a better way to nurse your Nuit Blanche hangover than spending an afternoon with Nardwuar. The Human Serviette himself will be performing at Trash Palace with his band, The Evaporators. He'll also be presenting clips from his "Video Vault," which feature interviews with Marilyn Manson, Iggy Pop, and Michael Moore. The 3Tards and The Weirdies will also perform. Trash Palace (89-B Niagara Street), 3 p.m., $6.

MUSIC: Today, War Child Canada is presenting "Busking For Change," a day-long busking event featuring a number of reasonably successful Canadian performers. Among those performing are Our Lady Peace's Raine Maida (a fervent supporter of War Child Canada), Chantal Kreviazuk, Zack Werner, The Waking Eyes, and Neverending White Lights. Expect to see lots of teenaged girls unable to control their excitement, and a slough of disgruntled buskers who've had their spots stolen by real musicians with stable income. Various locations in the downtown core, 8 a.m.–6 p.m.., FREE (plus the donation to War Child Canada you'll inevitably end up making).

MUSIC: The Polaris Music Prize Gala is happening tonight at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, where the winner of this year's best Canadian album will receive $20,000. The gala will include performances from nominees Holy Fuck, Shad, Two Hours Traffic, Basia Bulat, and Plants and Animals—but it's also invite-only. Those of you who can't get in have still got a number of options, though: CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence will be hosting a live broadcast of the gala, which you can listen to on both CBC Radio 3 and Sirius Channel 86. You can also head over to the Drake Hotel, where there will be a free official after party open to the (of age) public. Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh from Holy Fuck will be DJing, along with Shad and DJ T-Lo (1150 Queen Street West, 10 p.m., FREE).

WORDS: Zoocheck Canada founder Rob Laidlaw wants your kids to be as jaded as possible from an early age. To implement this idea, he's releasing Wild Animals in Captivity, a new non-fiction kids book that examines animal life in decidedly un-Disney-like settings. Laidlaw will be speaking to elementary students this morning at the Yorkdale Indigo (3401 Dufferin Street, 10 a.m., FREE). Later tonight, he's giving a lecture at the George Ignatieff Theatre called "The Bond Between Us: Reflections on the Human-Animal Relationship." Polar bear expert Else Poulsen and author Elizabeth Abbott will also be speaking at the event. All proceeds and book sales will go towards Zoocheck Canada. George Ignatieff Theatre (15 Devonshire Place), 7 p.m., $8.

MUSIC: Psychedelic folk band These United States are playing at Sneaky Dee’s tonight. Coincidentally, today is also the release date of their sophomore LP, Crimes. No strangers to the Ist-a-Verse, These United States actually wrote a few tour blog entries for DCist a year ago. Also playing at Dee’s this evening are Entire Cities and Dickie Haydon. Sneaky Dee’s (431 College Street), 9 p.m., $5.

ART: In anticipation of Thursday’s launch party for his new book, 2nd: The Face of Defeat, photographer Sandy Nicholson will be showing photos for the next four days at the Gladstone Hotel. The book, a series of shots taken of second-place finishers immediately after losing a competition, is for those who are sick of coming in second place, and also for those who take pleasure in seeing the facial expressions of miserable bodybuilders. Until Thursday. The Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West), 12–5 p.m., FREE.

WORDS: “This Is Not A Reading Series For Tots,” a new monthly literary program for children that we told you about a few weeks ago, is launching today at the Gladstone Hotel. Kids aged two to eight will get to meet the authors of childrens’ books and participate in art activities, sing-a-longs, and puppet shows. Speaking today is Matt Hammill, who will be giving a PowerPoint presentation about his new book, Sir Reginald’s Logbook. Kids will then get to do some art projects with author/artist Irene Luxbacher, who will guide the kids through some of the lessons in her Starting Art Series for children. Hosting the event is playwright/novelist Claudia Dey. Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West), 8:30 a.m., FREE.