This west end live music venue comes to you from the people that run the Garrison just down the street. It sits in a building that was a Portuguese dive bar for likely much of its past life.
It's a pretty no frills venue, but I will say that there is one thing that makes this place impressive as soon as you walk in the door, and that is their craft beer list. They have a wide selection of Ontario brewed tallboys, and a selection of 8 or so craft options on tap including the ever wonderful suds of Collective Arts. Sure it's a plastic cup you'll be drinking from, but the beers are good and reasonably priced at $7-8 depending on format.
Once you move beyond the front area, the actual music venue part of the venue fills the rest of the surprisingly large space. It's not huge, but a decent medium sized venue with an adequately raised stage and what for the show we were at, seemed like a decent sound system.
The walls are all simply painted black and there isn't much in the way of lighting, or seating for that matter... But our city is losing live music venues monthly it seems, so I'm appreciative of the fact that they're making it work. They also seem to house the occasional dj based event from what I've seen.
While I'll admit that the bulk of the shows that are booked here, are artists I've never heard of... But I'm hoping that it continues to succeed and helps Toronto's collective music scene grow again. read more