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Urban Planner: January 18, 2010
Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to [email protected].
Margaret Barnes-DelColle, Gambi Bowker, Lucasta Ross, and Nora Currie. Photo by Gail Bryck, from Treat Me Like Dirt.
WORDS: Today’s This Is Not A Reading Series event is a pretty awesome one that includes punk rock, Toronto, and all things Fucked Up. To celebrate the release of Toronto writer/poet/editor Liz Worth’s latest book, Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk In Toronto and Beyond (1977-81), TINARS has brought together Worth and Damian Abraham, lead singer of Toronto’s current purveyors of punk rock, the 2009 Polaris Prize winners, Fucked Up. The pair will discuss the many stories behind Toronto’s punk music past (some of which we told you about last week in our interview with Worth about the book). Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West), 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7 p.m.), $5 (free with book purchase).
MUSIC: The 13th Annual Maple Blues Awards will be held tonight, honouring some of the greatest blues musicians playing in Canada today. Hosts Danny Marks (blues musician and Bluz FM radio host) and David Gogo (Juno-nominated blues guitarist) will provide two of the performances in-between awards during the night, alongside Harry Manx, The Twisters, Paul Reddick, and Clio. The host band, The Maple Blues Band, will consist entirely of past Maple Blues Award winners and nominees. The awards are put on by the Toronto Blues Society (with lots of help from the Canadian government), and this is the first year that they will be celebrated at The Royal Conservatory of Music and its new Koerner Hall. The hall will add a bit of elegance to the evening and allow for a larger audience with its 1,135-seat capacity. The Royal Conservatory, Koerner Hall (273 Bloor Street West), 7 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.), $28 ($20 for Toronto Blues Society members).
ART: The Unveiling is a series of one-night-only “soirées/exhibitions” that are designed to both reinvent the sort of “unveilings” that artists used to throw for their latest work with a group of colleagues, critics, and collectors, and to celebrate the work of some deserving artists. Artists/curators William A. Davison and Robert Dayton create a performative atmosphere (complete with an auctioneer and snacks), where the pomp and circumstance of an exclusive back-room exhibition of a single work mixes with good humour and genuine appreciation of that artist’s work. Tonight’s unveiling features a collaboration between artists Jason McLean and Mark DeLong. McLean will be in attendance as his work is revealed and then swiftly auctioned off for a starting bid of one hundred dollars. The unveiling will be followed by The Ossington’s usual Intervention Monday party. The Ossington Bar (61 Ossington Avenue), 10 p.m., FREE.
HAITI: As part of the relief efforts we mentioned this past weekend for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, volunteers will be stationed at several TTC stations across Toronto accepting donations to the Canadian Red Cross. Cash donations will be collected during rush hour at Bloor-Yonge, King, Finch, Sheppard-Yonge, and Kennedy stations. TTC subway stations across GTA, morning and afternoon rush hours, pay-what-you-can.
HAITI: Can’t make it out to the subway? You need only look as far as your nearest radio to donate. As part of a special “Help Haiti Day,” all of Astral Media’s eighty-two radio stations (Virgin Radio, EZ Rock, Newstalk, etc.) will be accepting donations through a dedicated 1-800 number and webpage. The money donated will go to the Canadian Red Cross, which is matched by the Canadian government dollar for dollar. The airwaves, all day, pay-what-you-can.