Will Munro
Encyclopedia
William Grant "Will" Munro (February 11, 1975 – May 21, 2010) was a Toronto
artist, club promoter, and restaurateur known for his work as a community builder among disparate Toronto groups. As a visual artist, he was known for fashioning artistic works out of underwear; as a club promoter, he was best known for his long-running Toronto queer
club night, Vazaleen.
Born in Australia, Munro grew up mostly in Mississauga, Ontario
, Canada, and moved to nearby Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 2000. Influenced by such artists as General Idea
and the queercore
movement, he received critical attention for his work with men's underwear, a medium he used eventually to create collages of colourful performers he admired such as Klaus Nomi
and Leigh Bowery
. He created silkscreen posters to advertise Vazaleen—his monthly nightclub party that was unusual for being a queer event where punk
and other rock music was prominently played, and for being one of the first to exist beyond the confines of the gay ghetto
. The party was known for attracting a diverse crowd, and at its peak brought in such performers as Nina Hagen
; international "best-of" nightclub lists took notice.
Munro died of brain cancer in May 2010. Posthumous exhibits of his art work included a 2010 show at the Art Gallery of Ontario
, and in 2011 he was the first male artist to be featured in the feminist Montreal art gallery La Centrale
.
, and then lived in Mississauga, Ontario
from 1980 onwards.
Despite his involvement in nightclub events, Munro did not consume alcohol or recreational drugs. He was a vegan from a young age. For many years, he volunteered as a peer counsellor at the Toronto Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line
, where an annual award was established in his honour after his death.
Munro was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery to remove a tumour in 2008. A second surgery was performed in October 2009. He entered into palliative care
in April 2010, and died on May 21, 2010.
after high school, to attend the Ontario College of Art (OCA). From early on in his career, his signature medium was pastiche work with men's underwear. The origins of this work date back to his Intro to Sculpture class at OCA, where his professor asked the students to "bring a special object to class that isn't really functional, but is special to you." Munro had long had an affinity for special underwear, ever since his mother had refused to buy him Underoos
superhero underwear when he was a child; regarding white briefs, he said, "They were clinical and sterile. They weren't very sexy. It just felt very repressed. I wanted Underoos so bad." For the sculpture class, Munro decided to bring in a pair of underwear that he had stolen from a high school friend on whom he had a crush. He put the grey underwear on display in a Plexiglass cage, complete with air holes. In his subsequent work he decided to use white briefs as a medium "because they were so accessible." The summer after his sculpture class, to keep himself busy on a road trip, he made a quilt out of white underwear. In 1997, his first show involving underwear was held in a gallery supported by his college. The show received publicity after conservative columnist Michael Coren
, in the Toronto Sun
and on the radio, criticized Munro and his show, in particular for having said that it involved "boys' underwear" (although Munro had simply meant guys' underwear). Coren asked the public to bring dirty diapers to the exhibit, but no one did. Munro went on to have many showings of his underwear art, mostly "rescued" from second-hand Goodwill
clothing outlets, including at Who's Emma, HEADspace, and Paul Petro Contemporary Art. Actor Selma Blair
bought one of Munro's underwear works when she was in town for the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival
.
Munro's influences included the work of General Idea
, and the queercore
movement. Speaking about the confluence of his music events and his art, Munro said in 2004, "This is where the music scene and gay underground come together. We're at a time when all kinds of shifts are happening. The structure of artists' galleries are changing. Magazines are changing. There's more different kinds of artist activity that's happening. All this is having an impact on my visual work. And my visual work is more and more going into performance." Galleries exhibiting his work have included Art in General
, in New York City, Confederation Centre Art Gallery
in Charlottetown
, and Toronto galleries Zsa Zsa, Mercer Union
, YYZ Artists' Outlet
, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, and the Art Gallery of York University
. Munro was named on the longlist of finalists for the Sobey Art Award
in 2010.
A posthumous exhibit of his work, "Total Eclipse", was presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario
in 2010. Works included collages, made from underwear, that depict Klaus Nomi
and Leigh Bowery
, both of whom Munro admired. Reviewing the show in Canadian Art, critic Sholem Krishtalka wrote that Munro's work is "insistent on the necessity of self-made culture and buttressed by an encyclopedic knowledge of queer underground cultural history."
Other posthumous exhibitions of his work include a 2011 show at the feminist La Centrale
gallery in Montreal—a first for a male artist in that space—and in 2012 a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of York University.
Munro started the monthly party Vaseline (later renamed Vazaleen) in Toronto
at a time when most gay clubs featured house music
or other types of dance music. His hope was to draw a more diverse crowd: he said at the time, "I'd like to do something that'll encompass all the freaks out there, myself included." In addition to its stereotype-countering incorporation of punk
and other rock music, his club night was also noted to be unusual for being located outside of the Church and Wellesley
gay neighbourhood. It was atypical as well for having about 50 percent women attending the event. Munro said, "I was determined to get women to attend and I did it in a really simple way. I put lots of images of women and dyke icons on the posters and flyers—groups like The Runaways or singers like Nina Hagen
and Carole Pope
. I wanted women to know instantly that this was their space as much as anybody else's." It began in the downstairs space at El Mocambo
in late 1999, moved to the upstairs space in January 2000, and in late 2001, when El Mocambo was threatening to close, to Lee's Palace
, where it continued as a monthly event until 2006.
In a lengthy article about Vazaleen in Toronto Life
, critic R. M. Vaughan
wrote, "In its lewd, spontaneous, hysterical and glamorous way, Vazaleen defined a new Toronto aesthetic, a playful and endlessly inventive mode of presentation that encompassed everything from lesbian prog- rock to tranny camp to vintage punk revival to good old-fashioned loud-mouthed drag." In an editorial in C magazine, Amish Morrell wrote, "At [Vazaleen] it was not only okay to be gay, but it was okay to be other than gay. One could be just about anything. The effect was that it completely destabilized all preconceptions of gender and sexual identity, in a hyperlibidinous environment where everyone became a performer." Benjamin Boles of Now
wrote, "These days it’s normal in Toronto for hip gay scenes to flourish outside of the queer ghetto and to attract a wide spectrum of genders and orientations, but that didn’t really happen until Vazaleen took off and became a veritable community for everyone who didn’t fit into the mainstream homo world. For too long, it was too rare to see dykes, fags, trans people, and breeders hanging out together, and Munro changed that." Vazaleen became a launching pad for such musical acts as Peaches
and Lesbians on Ecstasy
. Other bands performing at Vazaleen early in their careers were The Hidden Cameras
, Crystal Castles
, and The Gossip
. At the height of the event's popularity, Munro appeared on the cover of Now
magazine (made up to look similar to David Bowie's Aladdin Sane
album cover), musical guests included Carole Pope
, Tracy + the Plastics
, Vaginal Davis
, and Nina Hagen
, and Vazaleen appeared on "best-of" nightclub lists internationally.
Munro produced other Toronto club nights such as Peroxide, which featured electro music, No T. O., which showcased No Wave
, Seventh Heaven Dream Disco, and the amateur stripper party Moustache. In 2006, Munro and his friend Lynn MacNeil bought The Beaver Café, in the West Queen West neighbourhood. Arts columnist Murray Whyte of the Toronto Star
wrote, "Will’s virtual status as hub took bricks-and-mortar form: The Beaver quickly became that cozy, everyone-in-the-pool house party, a sort of community hall/mini dance club, and an alt-culture oasis". "Love Saves the Day" became Munro's dance music night at The Beaver, which he continued to organize even as his illness began to prevent him from leaving home. His final night of DJing in person was at a special Halloween Vazaleen party at Lee's Palace in 2009.
Bruce LaBruce
wrote of Munro's impact on Toronto, just prior to his death: "As we all know, Toronto can be a cruel and unforgiving city. What makes Will Munro so extraordinary as an artist and as a person is that he has not only remained true to such a harsh mistress, but that he has also contributed so substantially to the fabric and heft of this often maleficent metropolis. His dedication to community work (including volunteering for a decade at an LGBT youth crisis hotline) and to creating social and sexual stimulation for the queer community outside the decaying gay ghetto (namely, his wonderfully raunchy club night, Vazaleen, and his participation as a founding partner in revitalizing the Beaver Café) is unmatched."
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
artist, club promoter, and restaurateur known for his work as a community builder among disparate Toronto groups. As a visual artist, he was known for fashioning artistic works out of underwear; as a club promoter, he was best known for his long-running Toronto queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
club night, Vazaleen.
Born in Australia, Munro grew up mostly in Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga is a city in Southern Ontario located in the Regional Municipality of Peel, and in the western part of the Greater Toronto Area. With an estimated population of 734,000, it is Canada's sixth-most populous municipality, and has almost doubled in population in each of the last two decades...
, Canada, and moved to nearby Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 2000. Influenced by such artists as General Idea
General Idea
General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994.As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated activities and continues to be a prominent influence on...
and the queercore
Queercore
Queercore is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk. It is distinguished by being discontent with society in general and its rejection of the disapproval of the gay, bisexual, and lesbian communities and their "oppressive agenda"...
movement, he received critical attention for his work with men's underwear, a medium he used eventually to create collages of colourful performers he admired such as Klaus Nomi
Klaus Nomi
Klaus Sperber , better known as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona....
and Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and...
. He created silkscreen posters to advertise Vazaleen—his monthly nightclub party that was unusual for being a queer event where punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and other rock music was prominently played, and for being one of the first to exist beyond the confines of the gay ghetto
Church and Wellesley
Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented community located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from...
. The party was known for attracting a diverse crowd, and at its peak brought in such performers as Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen is a German singer and actress.-Early years:Hagen was born as Catharina Hagen in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen , a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer...
; international "best-of" nightclub lists took notice.
Munro died of brain cancer in May 2010. Posthumous exhibits of his art work included a 2010 show at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
, and in 2011 he was the first male artist to be featured in the feminist Montreal art gallery La Centrale
La Centrale
La Centrale is an artist-run gallery in Montreal, Canada, founded in 1973. It is known as the city's only feminist art gallery.- History :The idea for the gallery grew out of a consciousness-raising group that met on a routine basis at a crafts store, Flaming Apron, in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...
.
Personal life
Will Munro was born in Sydney, Australia in 1975. Later that year his family moved to Canada, just outside of MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, and then lived in Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario
Mississauga is a city in Southern Ontario located in the Regional Municipality of Peel, and in the western part of the Greater Toronto Area. With an estimated population of 734,000, it is Canada's sixth-most populous municipality, and has almost doubled in population in each of the last two decades...
from 1980 onwards.
Despite his involvement in nightclub events, Munro did not consume alcohol or recreational drugs. He was a vegan from a young age. For many years, he volunteered as a peer counsellor at the Toronto Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line
Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line
The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line, founded in 1994, is a Toronto-based peer support organization for LGBT youth. Although best known for their phone support line, the organization also offers Internet chat and e-mail support services, as well as promoting and supporting other events and programs...
, where an annual award was established in his honour after his death.
Munro was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery to remove a tumour in 2008. A second surgery was performed in October 2009. He entered into palliative care
Palliative care
Palliative care is a specialized area of healthcare that focuses on relieving and preventing the suffering of patients...
in April 2010, and died on May 21, 2010.
Art career
Munro moved from Mississauga to TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
after high school, to attend the Ontario College of Art (OCA). From early on in his career, his signature medium was pastiche work with men's underwear. The origins of this work date back to his Intro to Sculpture class at OCA, where his professor asked the students to "bring a special object to class that isn't really functional, but is special to you." Munro had long had an affinity for special underwear, ever since his mother had refused to buy him Underoos
Underoos
Underoos is a brand of underwear for children, produced by the Fruit of the Loom company. The packages include a matching top and bottom for either boys or girls, featuring a character from popular entertainment media, especially superhero comics, animated programs, and fantasy/science fiction...
superhero underwear when he was a child; regarding white briefs, he said, "They were clinical and sterile. They weren't very sexy. It just felt very repressed. I wanted Underoos so bad." For the sculpture class, Munro decided to bring in a pair of underwear that he had stolen from a high school friend on whom he had a crush. He put the grey underwear on display in a Plexiglass cage, complete with air holes. In his subsequent work he decided to use white briefs as a medium "because they were so accessible." The summer after his sculpture class, to keep himself busy on a road trip, he made a quilt out of white underwear. In 1997, his first show involving underwear was held in a gallery supported by his college. The show received publicity after conservative columnist Michael Coren
Michael Coren
Michael Coren is an English-Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He hosted the television talk show The Michael Coren Show on the Crossroads Television System from 1999 to 2011 when he moved to the Sun News Network to host an evening talk show, The...
, in the Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
and on the radio, criticized Munro and his show, in particular for having said that it involved "boys' underwear" (although Munro had simply meant guys' underwear). Coren asked the public to bring dirty diapers to the exhibit, but no one did. Munro went on to have many showings of his underwear art, mostly "rescued" from second-hand Goodwill
Goodwill Industries
Goodwill Industries International is a not-for-profit organization that provides job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs for people who have a disability, lack education or job experience, or face employment challenges...
clothing outlets, including at Who's Emma, HEADspace, and Paul Petro Contemporary Art. Actor Selma Blair
Selma Blair
Selma Blair is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. She has performed in feature films including Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, Hellboy, The Fog, Purple Violets and Hellboy II: The Golden Army...
bought one of Munro's underwear works when she was in town for the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
.
Munro's influences included the work of General Idea
General Idea
General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994.As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated activities and continues to be a prominent influence on...
, and the queercore
Queercore
Queercore is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk. It is distinguished by being discontent with society in general and its rejection of the disapproval of the gay, bisexual, and lesbian communities and their "oppressive agenda"...
movement. Speaking about the confluence of his music events and his art, Munro said in 2004, "This is where the music scene and gay underground come together. We're at a time when all kinds of shifts are happening. The structure of artists' galleries are changing. Magazines are changing. There's more different kinds of artist activity that's happening. All this is having an impact on my visual work. And my visual work is more and more going into performance." Galleries exhibiting his work have included Art in General
Art in General
Art in General is a non-profit contemporary art exhibition space in New York, New York. Founded in 1981 in by artists Martin Weinstein and Teresa Liszka, Art in General is a nonprofit organization that assists artists with the production and presentation of new work...
, in New York City, Confederation Centre Art Gallery
Confederation Centre Art Gallery
The Confederation Centre Art Gallery is one of the largest public art galleries in Atlantic Canada and possesses a significant collection of historical, modern, and contemporary Canadian art. Its exhibition spaces feature contemporary and historical exhibitions year-round, as well as special...
in Charlottetown
Charlottetown
Charlottetown is a Canadian city. It is both the largest city on and the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, Charlottetown was first incorporated as a town in 1855 and designated as a city in 1885...
, and Toronto galleries Zsa Zsa, Mercer Union
Mercer Union
Mercer Union is an artist-run centre in Toronto, Ontario, established in 1979 to exhibit contemporary art.In 2009, the gallery moved to the Bloor and Lansdowne area in Toronto's west end. Previously the gallery had held homes at 29 Mercer Street , 439 King Street West, 333 Adelaide St...
, YYZ Artists' Outlet
YYZ Artists' Outlet
YYZ Artists' Outlet is a gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It displays visual art as well as artists’ film and video. It also publishes works on Canadian art and culture.-External links:*...
, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, and the Art Gallery of York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
. Munro was named on the longlist of finalists for the Sobey Art Award
Sobey Art Award
The Sobey Art Award is Canada's largest prize for young Canadian artists. It is named after Canadian businessperson and art collector Frank H. Sobey, who established The Sobey Art Foundation...
in 2010.
A posthumous exhibit of his work, "Total Eclipse", was presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
in 2010. Works included collages, made from underwear, that depict Klaus Nomi
Klaus Nomi
Klaus Sperber , better known as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona....
and Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and...
, both of whom Munro admired. Reviewing the show in Canadian Art, critic Sholem Krishtalka wrote that Munro's work is "insistent on the necessity of self-made culture and buttressed by an encyclopedic knowledge of queer underground cultural history."
Other posthumous exhibitions of his work include a 2011 show at the feminist La Centrale
La Centrale
La Centrale is an artist-run gallery in Montreal, Canada, founded in 1973. It is known as the city's only feminist art gallery.- History :The idea for the gallery grew out of a consciousness-raising group that met on a routine basis at a crafts store, Flaming Apron, in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...
gallery in Montreal—a first for a male artist in that space—and in 2012 a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of York University.
Club promoter and community builder
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
at a time when most gay clubs featured house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
or other types of dance music. His hope was to draw a more diverse crowd: he said at the time, "I'd like to do something that'll encompass all the freaks out there, myself included." In addition to its stereotype-countering incorporation of punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and other rock music, his club night was also noted to be unusual for being located outside of the Church and Wellesley
Church and Wellesley
Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented community located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from...
gay neighbourhood. It was atypical as well for having about 50 percent women attending the event. Munro said, "I was determined to get women to attend and I did it in a really simple way. I put lots of images of women and dyke icons on the posters and flyers—groups like The Runaways or singers like Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen is a German singer and actress.-Early years:Hagen was born as Catharina Hagen in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen , a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer...
and Carole Pope
Carole Pope
Carole Pope is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, whose provocative blend of hard-edged New Wave rock with explicit homoerotic and BDSM-themed lyrics made her one of the first openly lesbian famous entertainers in the world...
. I wanted women to know instantly that this was their space as much as anybody else's." It began in the downstairs space at El Mocambo
El Mocambo
The El Mocambo Tavern is a live music and entertainment venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Spadina Avenue, just south of College Street, the bar played an important role in the development of popular music in Toronto since the 19th century...
in late 1999, moved to the upstairs space in January 2000, and in late 2001, when El Mocambo was threatening to close, to Lee's Palace
Lee's Palace
Lee's Palace is a concert hall located on the south side of Bloor Street West east of Lippincott Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The facility consists of a converted motion picture theatre and can accommodate several hundred guests.- Founding :...
, where it continued as a monthly event until 2006.
In a lengthy article about Vazaleen in Toronto Life
Toronto Life
Toronto Life is a monthly Canadian magazine about entertainment, politics and life in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Life also publishes a number of annual special interest guides about the city, including Home Decor, Stylebook, Eating & Drinking, Real Estate and Weddings. Established in 1966,...
, critic R. M. Vaughan
R. M. Vaughan
Richard Murray Vaughan is a Canadian poet, novelist and playwright.A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of New Brunswick, Vaughan currently lives in Toronto. He was playwright-in-residence at Buddies in Bad Times in 1994-95, and has published numerous works, including...
wrote, "In its lewd, spontaneous, hysterical and glamorous way, Vazaleen defined a new Toronto aesthetic, a playful and endlessly inventive mode of presentation that encompassed everything from lesbian prog- rock to tranny camp to vintage punk revival to good old-fashioned loud-mouthed drag." In an editorial in C magazine, Amish Morrell wrote, "At [Vazaleen] it was not only okay to be gay, but it was okay to be other than gay. One could be just about anything. The effect was that it completely destabilized all preconceptions of gender and sexual identity, in a hyperlibidinous environment where everyone became a performer." Benjamin Boles of Now
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
wrote, "These days it’s normal in Toronto for hip gay scenes to flourish outside of the queer ghetto and to attract a wide spectrum of genders and orientations, but that didn’t really happen until Vazaleen took off and became a veritable community for everyone who didn’t fit into the mainstream homo world. For too long, it was too rare to see dykes, fags, trans people, and breeders hanging out together, and Munro changed that." Vazaleen became a launching pad for such musical acts as Peaches
Peaches (musician)
Merrill Beth Nisker , better known by her stage name Peaches, is a Canadian electronic musician and performance artist who lives in Berlin, Germany. Her songs are noted for disregarding traditional gender norms and their use of sexually explicit lyrics...
and Lesbians on Ecstasy
Lesbians on Ecstasy
Lesbians on Ecstasy is an electronic band from Montreal, Quebec.The band toured across Canada and the U.S. with Le Tigre before the release of their first recording.The first album, the self-titled Lesbians on Ecstasy was released on October 26, 2004...
. Other bands performing at Vazaleen early in their careers were The Hidden Cameras
The Hidden Cameras
The Hidden Cameras are a Canadian indie pop band. Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, the band consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb once described as "gay church folk music"...
, Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles (band)
Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and...
, and The Gossip
The Gossip
Gossip is a three-piece American indie rock band formed in 1999. The band consists of singer Beth Ditto, guitarist Brace Paine and drummer Hannah Blilie. After releasing several recordings, the band broke through with their 2006 studio album, Standing in the Way of Control . A follow-up, Music for...
. At the height of the event's popularity, Munro appeared on the cover of Now
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
magazine (made up to look similar to David Bowie's Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane is the sixth album by David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1973 . The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, it was the first album Bowie wrote and released as a bona fide rock star...
album cover), musical guests included Carole Pope
Carole Pope
Carole Pope is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, whose provocative blend of hard-edged New Wave rock with explicit homoerotic and BDSM-themed lyrics made her one of the first openly lesbian famous entertainers in the world...
, Tracy + the Plastics
Tracy + the Plastics
Tracy + the Plastics is the name of the electro-pop solo project of Wynne Greenwood, a lesbian feminist video artist based in Olympia, Washington. The music consists of a Boss DR-5 drum machine, an Akai 612 disc sampler and anything else Tracy, Nikki, and Cola feel like using...
, Vaginal Davis
Vaginal Davis
Vaginal Davis is an American genderqueer performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, and writer. Davis's name is a homage to activist Angela Davis.-Life and career:Davis is often associated with the formation of the Queer-Core Zine Movement...
, and Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen
Nina Hagen is a German singer and actress.-Early years:Hagen was born as Catharina Hagen in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen , a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer...
, and Vazaleen appeared on "best-of" nightclub lists internationally.
Munro produced other Toronto club nights such as Peroxide, which featured electro music, No T. O., which showcased No Wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
, Seventh Heaven Dream Disco, and the amateur stripper party Moustache. In 2006, Munro and his friend Lynn MacNeil bought The Beaver Café, in the West Queen West neighbourhood. Arts columnist Murray Whyte of the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
wrote, "Will’s virtual status as hub took bricks-and-mortar form: The Beaver quickly became that cozy, everyone-in-the-pool house party, a sort of community hall/mini dance club, and an alt-culture oasis". "Love Saves the Day" became Munro's dance music night at The Beaver, which he continued to organize even as his illness began to prevent him from leaving home. His final night of DJing in person was at a special Halloween Vazaleen party at Lee's Palace in 2009.
Bruce LaBruce
Bruce LaBruce
Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground gay porn director based in Toronto, Ontario.-Biography:...
wrote of Munro's impact on Toronto, just prior to his death: "As we all know, Toronto can be a cruel and unforgiving city. What makes Will Munro so extraordinary as an artist and as a person is that he has not only remained true to such a harsh mistress, but that he has also contributed so substantially to the fabric and heft of this often maleficent metropolis. His dedication to community work (including volunteering for a decade at an LGBT youth crisis hotline) and to creating social and sexual stimulation for the queer community outside the decaying gay ghetto (namely, his wonderfully raunchy club night, Vazaleen, and his participation as a founding partner in revitalizing the Beaver Café) is unmatched."
External links
- Munro featured in Toronto Now series at the Art Gallery of OntarioArt Gallery of OntarioUnder the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...