Toronto as you remember it

Maggie Trudeau (wife of the then-PM and mother of the current PM) reportedly disappeared for a few days of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll with Ron Wood.

Quel horror!

ROLLING STONES FLASHBACK: El Mocambo Tavern, Toronto 1977

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Hotel El Mocambo, Boca del Rio, Veracruz, México.

Pedal Pawn BluesPrint based on SRV 's Tube Screamer

Pedal Pawn BluesPrint Dual Overdrive, inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan Tube Screamer. This stompbox is a dual-channel drive pedal designed to capture the essence of SRV’s “juiciest mid-hump overdrive tone” while offering a fresh tonal perspective. Crafted by Obsession Pedal Pawn owner Chris King Robinson, a touring guitarist, embarked on a quest for the perfect dual overdrive. His journey led to…

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Paul  Ciuuci  of Compact - Live in El Mocambo  _ Toronto  Photos BABAK 

This Thursday, looking forward to performing with my band at the legendary El Mocambo! Doors at 7pm hit the stage at 8pm.

🖤💋

The Rolling Stones Reissue Review: Live At The El Mocambo

(Interscope)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Multiple times during The Rolling Stones’ 1977 concert at Toronto’s El Mocambo, Mick Jagger asked whether the critics had had enough to drink. It was presented as a joke, but I can’t help but think he was half serious. They were only five years removed from Exile On Main St., a huge commercial success that saw the band combine their early blues influences with pure rock and roll better than they ever had. The three albums that followed, culminating in the prior year’s Black and Blue, were considered minor Stones releases, certainly some of the least critically acclaimed of their career. So picture Jagger, leading one of if not the biggest band in the world at two secret shows at a 300-capacity venue, performing for adoring fans, joking more than once about music journalists. Almost half a century later, and after a few tracks initially appeared on the band’s 1977 live album Love You Live, we finally have a full document of these legendary concerts with Live At The El Mocambo. It paints a clear picture of a band looking back at their earliest inspirations while trying to stand up for the artistic merit of their somewhat maligned new material.

With the likes of keyboardist Billy Preston and percussionist Ollie Brown in tow, the Stones’ initial idea for their El Mocambo shows was to revisit the blues standards that first made them want to start a band, some of which they hadn’t played since their early days playing similarly small clubs, and a few of which they recorded for their early records. As such, they burn through classics like Big Maceo’s slow-lurking “Worried Life Blues”, Howlin’ Wolf’s dark, wailing dirge “Little Red Rooster” (featuring blues piano from road manager Ian Stewart), and Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy”, a song they would eventually play with Waters in Chicago. What’s remarkable is how well these older tunes fit alongside Black and Blue songs that can’t decide whether they’re trying to be blues or dive deep into the keyboard-funk jams of the 70′s. As much as the disco breakdown from “Hand of Fate” and falsetto-imbued slow jam of “Fool To Cry” foreshadow 80′s Stones, a song like “Crazy Mama” leads perfectly into “Mannish Boy”. In general, Preston shines on the Black and Blue tunes, from his bouncing piano lines atop the scratchy guitars of “Hot Stuff” to his vocal harmonies on an encore performance of the sneaky “Melody”.

During the encore, the band plays It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll’s “Luxury”, and Jagger introduces it by calling it “lesser known” and saying they want to make the tune more popular. The album had come out three years ago, and perhaps Jagger thought the tune’s reggae influences would be newly welcomed by a crowd more attuned to the popularization of the genre through Bob Marley. Still, it’s remarkable to imagine the Jagger of today worried about the reception of a minor song on a three-year-old album. The album ends with an 8-minute version of “Worried About You”, a song written for Black and Blue whose recorded version wouldn’t surface till 1981's Tattoo You, an album full of outtakes that ironically would end up sporting more hits and well-known songs than its predecessor Emotional Rescue. In hindsight, the 1977 El Mocambo shows were a turning point for the band, a combination of reflection and tinkering that reminded them how to synthesize the various things they did best, both new and old.

How’d you like to be this close?

Uncredited photo from the Stones 1977 El Mocambo gig in Toronto.

They just released a double-album (equivalent) of it today which is fantastic.

ROLLING STONES

Rolling Stones performing live onstage for the El Mocambo Concert 5th of March 1977. This was a secret gig the Stones went under the name of "the Cockroaches" in Toronto Canada.

Some bookkeeping: I've had a draft of a review of the Rolling Stones El Mocambo 1977 half done for months, and in an effort to clear the decks and make some room for other things, and not feel like it's going to rot, I finished it off tonight. So here it is. If you like the Stones even a little, this album is a must.

justin trudeau DIVORCE moment??

Live at El Mocambo...