EDIT: Our friend Sparky posted a link in the comments to a short piece he wrote about Who’s Emma on the To The Lions blog a while back. Go check it out!
Over the last few months – maybe longer – our friend Lyndall has been putting together a documentary project about Who’s Emma. In brief, Who’s Emma was an anarchist bookstore in Kensington Market that operated throughout the late 90s. A number of great bands played there over the years including DROP DEAD, LOS CRUDOS and many. BOARD OF EDUCATION played there as well. Unfortunately, I was never able to experience a show there but I hope and expect that Lyndall’s documentary will help those who weren’t there understand the value of that space to Toronto’s alt-culture community.
It’s pretty safe to say, almost 10 years on, that Who’s Emma existed when politics and different social ideas were a lot more important than they are now to the hardcore community. Ultimately, it was one of the last bastions for punk in Kensington Market.
Personally, I’ve become fascinated with any sort of history pertaining to the Southern Ontario Hardcore Community so I’m pretty excited about this. Some of Toronto’s best current bands were borne out of Who’s Emma and it will be interesting to see the space reflected upon.
If you want more info on the Remembering Who’s Emma project, check out Lyndall’s blog (link fixed). We’ll be sure to keep you in the know as to when the documentary will see the light of day.
Wow. Almost ten years? It’s nostalgic and awesome to see these videos. I’m pretty sure both this Dropdead video and the Swarm were the same show. Good work, anyway.
I have a lot of old videos, the Ruination show (might have been the last Who’s Emma show), a bunch more old Toronto vids and general 90s stuff, a ton. If someone has the means to transfer VHS to AVI or MP4 whatever or whatever, get it touch.
http://tothelions.blogspot.com/2006/02/lost-venues-in-southern-ontario-whos.html