…so, twenty-seven years ago I was working in Toronto as a reporter for a national technology magazine. I had recently moved from Ottawa, where I had been fired from a technology newspaper called ‘Silicon Valley North’ (SVN) for refusing to write what’s called “native advertising” — writing advertising copy and not branding it as an ad. Basically “fake news”.

When I was working at SVN, I was also their primary photographer. Which was awesome. I was able to get backstage at all kinds of Events — from the Ottawa Air Show, to the signing of the ‘Ottawa Treaty’ [link]. My new employers, however, had their own photographers. Which sucked.

Photography had always been my hobby, and now I had no Events to take photos of.

When I moved to Toronto, in 1998 or 1999, the only person I knew was Justin, and he lived way out in Etobicoke… or Mississauga, I just knew that it was far from my rooming house near Dufferin and College Streets.

Weirdly enough, a month after I had moved, as I was walking home from the Subway station, and crossing the street at Dufferin and College, I heard my name yelled out. Crossing towards me were three Vankleek Hill people, Darell, Sam, and Steve. They were heading to a bar called ‘Ein*Stein’ near College and Spadina, and invited me along. That’s where I met another VKHer, Jamie, who was the bartender.

The four of them — Jamie on bass and skateboard; Sam on lead guitar and vocals; Steve on keyboards and backup vocals, and; Darell on drums, had started a punk band called “Constable Brennan”… named after a police officer who used to patrol the streets of Vankleek Hill. They invited me along to one of their first shows at the ‘Comfort Zone’, I asked if I could bring my camera, they said sure, and that’s how I started taking photos of Toronto’s punk-scene (1999-2002).

…I’ve been moaning a lot on this site about how, to keep busy over the past bunch of years, I have to take photos of flowers:

“Several years ago I spent most of my nights taking photos of and for punk bands in Toronto. Now it’s flowers during the day. There are similarities between the subjects, like both will pay you about the same amount and, soon after forming, they’ll both break apart, wither and die. The biggest difference between the two is the amount of alcohol and ephedrine it takes to kill them.” [link]

I have hundreds of negatives in my basement, most of them are from my years in Journalism school, but there are also dozens of negatives from my time in Toronto. I just have to find a way to get them scanned…

…anyways. These are a few of the prints that I (badly) scanned years ago, but then forgot about until very recently. They’re mostly of Constable Brennan, and friends of ours — they’re from Toronto bars like the 360, the Horseshoe, the Comfort Zone, the Kathedral, and Fionn’s, and include The Kingpins (from Montreal), The Peelers (also from VKH), and Trip The Off (…also, coincidentally enough, from VKH). I found a lot of colour shots as well, but I’ll save them for the next post.

Anywho… if you’re down with it, click on a photo to get the carousel going (that’s me in the bottom row with the cigar… I think Steve took the photo).