Dan Burke: Writer, fighter, booker, legend

Dan Burke

I arrived early and waited for him at the bar. After 20 minutes and no sign of him, I ventured from the barstool and walked around the joint.

Finally, I asked the doorman if he had seen him and he pointed to a gentleman wearing a brown cap at the other side of the room scratching upcoming music acts on a chalkboard.

After a short introduction, he and I went out back so he could have a smoke before our formal interview started.

It was there, behind The Silver Dollar Room on Spadina Avenue, just north of College Street, where I first spoke with Dan Burke.

The evening’s event was called Honky Night in Canada and featured a band called Drunk Woman. Members perform classic country songs and even some full albums such as Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline.

We eventually sat down in the restaurant section of the bar. There were three of us: me, Burke and Chris Levoir, a musician from a band called The Middle Inside. Levoir is also one of Burke’s sound guys.

The band warming up in the next room immediately started banging on the drums as part of the sound check, and we had to move.

I was led through the kitchen and down a back set of stairs to the basement of the bar known as The Comfort Zone – an after-hours dance and rave club.

The lights were off, yet the room was illuminated by black light. The questions prepared for Burke in my notebook were unreadable, but the red light on my recorder reassured me as I began interviewing one of Toronto’s most renowned music bookers and promoters.

Being in this space brought back memories for Burke, who recollects a show by a band called The Zoobombs.

“It was the third show of a three-night stand,” he said. “The place was packed. I put a lot of money on it. I had to worry about the bandleader’s son. I was babysitting him. I had him in my arms when I introduced the band. It’s amazing the relationship I developed with this band from Japan.”

Burke has been meeting and bringing new music acts, such as the White Stripes and Sum 41, to Toronto for over a decade.

“Toronto has got the biggest indie rock scene in the world,” he said. “It’s amazing to be able to sustain and enrich Toronto’s connection with the world and its position as a crossroads or epicentre of indie rock.”

But in his early years growing up in Montreal, Burke was miles away from becoming a legend around Toronto for booking music, being involved with drugs and getting into fights in bars.

His dad was a sports columnist and Burke worked as a copy boy. He wrote about crime for a magazine and was scouted by CBC. At CBC, Burke worked for the investigative journalism program The Fifth Estate.

He declined a staff job at Maclean’s Magazine. Struggling with a drug addiction, he moved to Toronto and checked into a rehab clinic.

It was after Burke left the clinic that he put his name into the history books of Toronto music.

“I created a club in 1997 called The Shanghai,” he said. “(It had) two floors and just came out of nowhere. I didn’t know anybody. No bands, nobody in the music scene.”

Burke booked music acts for the Shanghai and various other venues he has worked, such as the El Mocambo. He currently works for The Silver Dollar Room and The Velvet Underground.

“I assemble equations or recipes of bands,” he said. “Try to get them to blend…you want the bands to be excited about playing with each other. My first responsibility as a booking agent, as a club booker/promoter, is I create my own shows and I risk money on my own shows.”

His taste in music and his ability to put memorable shows together became a calling card with Burke, in the eyes of musicians.

“Everyone has their own opinions, but I hold him in high regard,” Levoir said. “A notorious rock-and-roll beacon, a lightning rod for strange and glorious nights, shows and scenes. Someone I can hang my hat on and trust in to keep the purity of it all in check.”

Along with the entertainment provided from the stage, Levoir recalls Burke giving the audience a little extra by using his fists.

“Sitting at a bar stool with Geoff, from my band, after witnessing Dan beat the (expletive) out of a drunk preppy kid, the two of them rolling around on the floor throwing punches at our ankles,” he said.

“Dan sat down beside Geoff and I with blood streaming down half his face as if nothing had happened and started talking.”

Dave Johnny is the drummer for Toronto garage/punk band The Johnnys and he can attest to Burke being remembered by bands around Canada.

“I’ve met musicians from all across the country and if they have come to Toronto and had an experience with Dan, even if they’re a Vancouver band or an Edmonton band, nobody forgets that guy.”

Back in 2004, Burke ended up in a brawl with a two-piece band from San Francisco called The Hospitals at The Silver Dollar Room. A video of the event was taken and has since become popular on YouTube.

“I’m not happy with everything I’ve done in my life; really unhappy with some of it,” Burke said. “I’ve squandered a lot of money, I’ve lived really recklessly.”

Discussing his past is something Burke would rather stay away from.

“I’m not so much interested in publicity for myself,” he said. “There comes a point when you get tired of being a character. I’d rather just be a business person.

“I’m not a bad business man, I’m not horrible, but I’ve never been able to assemble/organize things managerially as well as I should have.”

Whether he wants to accept it or not, Burke’s role as an iconic music booker and prominent figure in the Toronto music scene still remains today.

“I think Dan more than anyone I can think of, has given Toronto world-wide street credentials in terms of rock shows, rock-and-roll remains pure in clubs,” Levoir said.

“He has put this city on the map as a city with an eye for talent,” he said. “He knows true, undiscovered rock-and-roll and has put his money where his mouth is time and time again to help international artists and young homegrown bands get their first tastes of international or big city appreciation.”

“I don’t think it would be right to call him anything but a Toronto music legend. He is this city’s Ambassador of rock-and-roll.”

Advertisement