Introducing... Any Night of the Week
I'm very proud to welcome my first book, Any Night of the Week: A D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music 1957-2001, into the world! It's out now on Coach House Books, and for the foreseeable future, mail order is your best bet to bring it into your home.
This 320-page tome has been a long time coming: it was a four-year passion project to write, but it's also kind of my life's work. I’ve been involved in the Toronto music community since I was a teen in the 1990s as a writer, a musician and concert presenter, as I’m one of the co-founders of the Wavelength Music Series. I’ve always thought the music scene here was really underrated and under-appreciated, and it’s become something of a personal crusade to champion and document it.
I had been thinking of writing a Toronto music history book for a while, but I wanted to do from an indie, DIY community-based perspective more than an industry one. The book also covers 44 years, and my aim was to “connect the dots” between all the various genres and eras and really tell the story of how both the city and its music scene evolved. Any Night of the Week is structured into two distinct halves, which are interwoven throughout the book: The first half is a chronological narrative which takes you on a journey through the different neighbourhoods that were home to live music venues in different decades. The other half is a series of profiles, interspersed throughout the main narrative. This is where I got to tell the story of some key Toronto artists and scene builders, many of whom have been unfairly overlooked or forgotten over the years.
The book takes you on a journey from the Yonge Street strip in the late '50s, where Arkansas transplant Ronnie Hawkins ripped up the stage of Le Coq d'Or with then-new rock'n'roll and R&B, to the turn-of-the-century College Street scene, where post-everything indie bands like Broken Social Scene emerged from dream-pop and ambient electronica, at vital, now-lost spaces like Ted's Wrecking Yard. And there's a lot of interesting stops along the way.
Order your copy of Any Night of the Week here!
Thanks to those who gave the book an advance read and lent their words of support on the back and inside covers: Michael Barlclay, Alan Cross, Sarah Liss, Don Pyle, and Carl Wilson.
Praise for Any Night of the Week:
‘Toronto was always weirder than anyone thought. It’s a major-label town where the thriving underground has been routinely written out of official histories – until now. Jonny Dovercourt is in a unique position to connect the T-dots through decades of freak-flag-fliers. This long-overdue document, rich with personal stories, is also just a great read. Every Canadian music fan should read it.’
– Michael Barclay, author, The Never-Ending Present; co-author, Have Not Been the Same
‘Toronto has long been one of North America’s great music cities, but hasn’t got the same credit as L.A., Memphis, Nashville, and others. This book will go a long way towards proving Toronto’s place in the music universe.’
– Alan Cross, host, The Ongoing History of New Music
‘The sweaty, thunderous exhilaration of being in a packed club, in collective thrall to a killer band, extends across generations, platforms, and genre preferences. With this essential book, Jonny has created something that's not just a time capsule, but a time machine – as you take in his keen insights into the (r)evolution of the city’s independent music scene, you’re there, on the floor, pogoing or pumping your fist or just imperceptibly swaying with folded arms, in a sea of other fans taking in the best fucking band you’ve ever seen on a stage.’
– Sarah Liss, author of Army of Lovers
‘A dizzyingly thorough map of scenes and spaces that collectively assembled the fabric of Toronto’s musical identity. Since no one else was paying attention, we often only had our own comrades to witness our creative impulses, creating a parochial fishbowl that only recently is open to the rest of the world. This book is a mad web of cross-references, baby steps, and a real love story to a place that was forced to DIY, but chose to DIT – Do It Together – creating a community model that is still part of the local psyche.’
– Don Pyle, musician, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and author, Trouble in the Camera Club
‘Jonny Dovercourt, a tireless force in Toronto’s music scene, offers the widest-ranging view out there on how an Anglo-Saxon backwater terrified of people going to bars on Sundays transforms itself into a multicultural metropolis that raises up more than its share of beloved artists, from indie to hip-hop to the unclassifiable. His unique approach is to zoom in on the rooms where it’s happened – the live venues that come and too frequently go – as well as on the people who’ve devoted their lives and labours to collective creativity in a city that sometimes seems like it’d rather stick to banking. For locals, fans, and urban arts denizens anywhere, the essential Any Night of the Week is full of inspiration, discoveries, and cautionary tales.’
– Carl Wilson, Slate music critic and author of Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, one of Billboard’s ‘100 Greatest Music Books of All Time’
