On April 6, Vic Records hosted its first-ever live recorded open mic, as a part of their “Studio Sessions” series. The event featured live performances from the musicians and bands in the Vic community. It was fairly standard for a Cat’s Eye event: Caffiends catering, plenty of refreshments, and a packed room. As opposed to the usual open mic fare, however, the event had a twist: the live performances were recorded, to be released as part of a new initiative for Vic Records.
The event capped off a year of growth for a club that has been relatively inactive for the last three years. The last time the club released anything was in 2010-2011, when they released a limited-run compilation of original recordings by Vic artists. This compilation includes a rendition of “The Old Ontario Strand,” Victoria College’s original rallying song, a sort of proto-Frosh chant from the past.
But for years after that, without an executive team or a clear mandate, the club’s status was in limbo. This year’s open mic, along with production workshops and DJ-ing Vic events, helped raise the club’s profile and integrate it more with the Vic community. But it hasn’t been an easy road to visibility.
“We spent a lot of time this year trying to figure out exactly what Vic Records means to the community,” club executive Aaron Rambhajan said in an interview. “We started the year focused on workshops, but the turnout wasn’t really what we wanted it to be. So we took a while to try and figure out where we can fit in at Vic.”
This year, the club’s initial goal was to hold production workshops to teach Vic students how to use a variety of audio engineering tools and equipment.
But with attendance at these workshops lagging, the club decided to reorient its approach.
“I was like, wow, we might be a little too purist about this,” Rambhajan remembered thinking after another workshop with low attendance. “We were understanding this music club in a certain way, which isn’t how other people [were] understanding it.”
Charlène Hanania, another member of the club, joined after attending one of the workshops with the idea that something different could be done. “I was like, you guys should be reaching out to the community more,” she said in an interview. “Music is a platform that a lot of people love, but they don’t really know how to engage with a greater community of it.”
With the success of the open mic, the club hopes to host more in the future as well as expand the ways it can help musicians at Vic. Hanania outlined plans for a series of songwriting workshops, recordings (the club has recorded audio for the Hart House Jazz Ensemble and will soon be recording for some of the artists featured in the open mic), and more community events to bring musicians together under one roof.
“When people get together around music, it always turns out well,” Hanania said. “That’s what we want to help people do.”
