MAKING THE SCENE

STUART HENDERSON IN CONVERSATION WITH CARL WILSON

How is 'hip' manufactured? And do most countercultures come with a fixed shelf life? To launch Making The Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto In The 1960s (University of Toronto Press), author, academic and pop culture commentator Stuart Henderson will discuss such timely concerns with noted music journalist, Carl Wilson. Want to hear the sounds of 'Hip Toronto?" The Pinecones will perform a live set.

Stuart Henderson addresses such timely concerns in his history of 1960s Yorkville, Toronto's countercultural mecca, Making The Scene.

Henderson narrates the hip Village's development from its early coffee house days, when folksingers such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell flocked to the scene, to its tumultuous, drug-fuelled final months. Making The Scene explores how this neighbourhood came to be regarded as an alternative space both as a geographic area and as a symbol of hip Toronto in the cultural imagination.

Through recently unearthed documents and underground press coverage, Henderson pays special attention to voices that typically aren't heard in the story of 1960s Yorkville -- notably those of women, working class youth, and municipal authorities. Through a local history, Making the Scene offers new, dynamic ways to think about the phenomenon of counterculture and urban manifestations of a hip identity as they have emerged in cities across North America and beyond.

Making the Scene is a brilliant and engaging study of Yorkville, which Henderson dubs the "bellybutton" of Canada's counterculture. An important intervention in the scholarship of the 1960s, Making the Scene is also a terrific read.
Alice Echols, University of Southern California

STUART HENDERSON is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at York University, and Features Editor at PopMatters. He is also a regular pop culture commentator on CBC Radio. Making The Scene is his first book.

CARL WILSON is a Toronto-based writer and editor. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, New York Times, Pitchfork and Slate, amongst other publications. Wilson also tends to the blog Zoilus.com and is part of the team behind the renowned non-lecture series, Trampoline Hall. His first book, Let's Talk About Love; A Journey to the End of Taste, remains the bestselling title in the popular 33 1/3 series.

THE PINECONES features singer-guitarist Paul Linklater and other veterans of Toronto's indie music scene. In January 2009, Halifax' Brent Randall & his Pinecones released their debut album, "We were Strangers in Paddington Green," receiving rave reviews from both national press and fans alike. The piano based orchestral pop of Paddington garnered comparisons to classic songwriters such as Paul McCartney, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson. One year later, they returned with a new name, a new sound and the new album, SAGE!
Following a move from Halifax to Toronto, the new outrageously talented line-up consisting of Brent Randall, Brian O'Reilly (Their Majesties, Meligrove Band), Joel Goguen (Laura Peek & The Winning Hearts) and Paul Linklater (Bidiniband) reformed simply as The Pinecones.

This Is Not A Reading Series (TINARS) offers a ground-breaking theatrical dimension to the appreciation of fine writing. Employing music, comedy, psychodrama, dance, multimedia performance, lectures, dialogue—everything but reading—TINARS investigates the creative process behind literary works.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Carl Wilson
• Stuart Henderson
• Yorkville
• Toronto
• book
• Making The Scene
• Neil Young
• Joni Mitchell
• 33 1/3