Type Bar, Music venue Built 1920s | Genre(s) Alternative Opened October 1981 | |
Location 408 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 2A7 | ||
The Cameron House is a small bar, live music venue, and informal cultural centre located on Queen Street West, just west of Spadina Avenue, in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Cameron has a front lounge and a back room, both with the capacity for audiences of no more than sixty people. It has been described as a Toronto crossover of CBGB's and the Chelsea Hotel in New York.
Contents
History
First opened as a working hotel in the early 1920s, since October 1981 the Cameron has been a community-based space for music, performance, and visual art. Blue Rodeo, Jane Siberry, Ron Sexsmith, Molly Johnson, Gordie Johnson, Holly Cole, Barenaked Ladies, The Meligrove Band, Lorraine Segato, Willie P. Bennett, The Government, Fifth Column, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Handsome Ned, The Golden Dogs and many other well-known Canadian musicians all performed here early in their careers.
Recent
House acts at the Cameron in 2005 included The Cameron Family Singers, The DoneFors, The Countrypolitans, Run With the Kittens, The Backstabbers, and Kevin Quain, Freeman Dre and the Kitchen Party and the Mad Bastards.
In 2011, the Cameron House served as a launching pad for Cameron House Records, a new record label.