It's only bricks and mortar, or so they say.

There are gaps appearing in a skyline I used to be familiar with. The day to day errand running would take me through some of central London’s back streets as I would go about business chores. Old boarded up pubs once proudly boasting an establishment date of 1865 now gone and currently a building site wrapped in plastic. 

The replacement building will be tall, and made of glass and will sell characterless anaemic coffee on the ground floor. All over the city the price of its own success is fighting against the local communities who have have moved on, moved out and sold up. There are still hives of local flavour and colour though that flummoxes the new. I went to a book launch at an independently run small bookshop in Notting Hill the other night. I met up with an old Island Records work colleague who had recently moved back to the area and we went for a drink in a bar recently opened which looked all 80’s gleam and yuppie sheen. The staff wore designer threads and had impeccable taste in clothes and facial hair while attending to the customer seated by the window. He was waiting for his date and was looking at his smart phone, an unopened bottle of Bollinger on the table in front of him. I bought a bottle of Chinese beer. The accents were more eastern European than they were Ladbroke Grove. This is the story across the city. It’s not a bad thing but you can see how the new is changing the old. The old is still there though. It’s still kicking back and showing the new a bit of dirty character and has a spark of life. A car pulled up and parked outside, the name of a local band spray painted across the sides. This was the manager and he’s local as well. The newbie bar staff stopped what they were doing and gazed out the window in amazement. “Why would anyone do that to their car,” they seemed to be saying, “and what’s a ‘Pink Cigar’”. The locals have seen it all before though. Hardly merits a raised eyebrow. So after our Chinese beer we wander over the road to the bookshop where there’s a reading by the author of a just published book about dead rock stars. These dead rock stars will have known The Portobello Road during their short lives. The Streets in W11 have always been a hive and a hub of bohemia full of new arrivals to the city. Eager beaver youngsters keen to make their mark. The book store was full of some of the old school. Many of the characters are now old timers more than likely now not living in the area but all re-meeting each other and chit chatting about times gone past. There was a relaxed atmosphere and a flamboyant sense of fun and there was a vibe. “Off to the pub!” the author shouted after the talk was finished. There was more going on there than in the stale low light bar across the road. Earlier in the evening as I climbed the stairs up to street level from Notting Hill Gate tube I almost ran into The Clash’s Mick Jones. He was wearing a suit and touting a tatty looking plastic bag, obviously off to the shops looking for a pint of milk. I guess he still lives in the area. Glen Matlock from The Sex Pistols turned up as well as did a photographer or 2 and everybody was scanning your face in the cramped bookshop just checking to see if you should be recognised.

The Gang Of Four played at the tiny Edge club in Toronto in 1979 to an audience of roughly 200. Just launched 'Smash It Up' fanzine was able to sit down with guitarist Andy Gill.

ALONE AND GONE THE STORY OF TORONTO'S POST PUNK UNDERGROUND

‘ALONE AND GONE – The Story Of Toronto’s Post Punk Underground’

Copies will be available at the BOOK LAUNCH Saturday 20 June 2015 between 1 and 4 PM at THE RIVOLI 334 Queen St. W.

‘Alone And Gone’ is set in Toronto during a time of the worst unemployment since World War 2. There was a nuclear accident in our backyard and a civil war within the North American Continental boundaries. In 1979 Punk Rock had blown itself out and what was left was a dispiriting caricature. When The Edge closed down in 1981 it was assumed that the local Toronto music scene was finished.

But that is where our story begins.

In 1980, there was no NOW magazine, no MTV, no CDs and no internet. As a 17 year old just out of high school you got your information about your favourite bands by listening to CFNY, hanging out at The Record Peddler, buying fanzines and going to The Turning Point.

‘Alone And Gone’ is a book based around the photographs of Simon and Nick White as seen in their 2010 exhibition, ‘Toronto Calling’. Using original interviews from the fanzines of the day and chasing down some of the surviving protagonistas, ‘A&G’ portrays a city in flux; a city uncomfortable with its staid ‘People City’ reputation. It wasn’t all clean streets and people muttering “sorry” as they shuffled off to their office jobs. There was an underground of youth who were fired by the initial wallop of punk and were inspired by the DIY nature of the music they were hearing on the then just born CFNY, ‘The Spirit Of Radio’. Fanzines; rough photocopied rants and tirades summed up the feeling of the times, and were the only way to learn about our favourite music. Ryerson Radio (CKLN) boosted its signal and became a beacon of the just emerging local music scene, which was unwilling to repeat what the punks had done before.

This period (1978 – 1983) is widely credited as being the ‘Post Punk’ years. Bands such as The Rheostatics, The Vital Sines, Breeding Ground, The Sturm Group, The Dave Howard Singers and Rent Boys Inc. all released their home produced basement recordings on cassette tape, which was the cheaper alternative to vinyl.

In any other major city such as London, New York, Los Angeles, this period has been documented, covered, re-hashed, examined and picked over; but in Toronto? Aside from a few vague references and comments online, nothing has appeared to try and understand what was going on. It was an exciting time. Post Punk is about what happened when a vibrant new energy collides with the world wide events of the day. The College radio network was just being born and CFNY had championed acts like The Specials, Bob Marley, The Clash, Talking Heads and Blondie. This ‘Post Punk’ era laid the groundwork for what was to happen next.

Using the original ‘cut and paste’ methods as seen in the ‘zines of the day, ‘Alone And Gone’ applies scans, digital methods, rough techniques, bashed up old typewriters and original ‘DIY in the basement’ film processing to tell the story of the post punk underground in Toronto.