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INTERSECTION MUSIC & ARTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CANADA BLACK MUSIC ARCHIVES PRESENTS:Intersection Festival 2025 Day 3.1: A RADIO ACTIVE COMMUNITY PANEL DISCUSSION
Moderator: Judy Perry
Panelists: David Dacks, DTS, Phil Vassell
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education
3-5pm
ALL AGES
FREE
A Radio Active Community is a personal journey back to the heady days of Toronto's campus radio in the early 1990s. David Dacks, who volunteered at the University of Toronto’s CIUT-FM for 25 years, digs deep into his digitized cassette library of his own and his colleagues’ airchecks from all three Toronto campus radio stations to create a sound collage of music, commercials, custom station IDs, interviews, technical bloopers and above all, many voices making radio history in defining and unifying the city’s underground sounds. While CBC’s Brave New Waves has been rightly chronicled for its influence in bringing emerging music to a national audience, Toronto was paced by “the golden age of” campus radio which not only brought new sounds but up and coming culture - especially Afrocentric culture - social trends, politics and artists to as many as six million people within a listening range covering the GTA and New York state. A Radio Active Community addresses this somewhat overlooked time in Toronto and Canadian media history.
This special panel discussion at 918 Bathurst Centre will dive into the context, conflicts, triumphs and legacy of the era explored in the Dacks’ installation. Co-presented by the Canada Black Music Archives, the panel will be moderated by CIUT radio veteran Judy Perry and also include Phil Vassell (CBMA) and DTS (The Masterplan Show).
PANLISTS
Judy Perry
Judy Perry began her involvement with CIUT sometime in 1986 as the host of “The Urban Underground” and carried on until 1990. That show focused on local Toronto bands and included almost weekly interviews with artists and musicians. During those years, she was heavily involved in the station’s early fundraising and organizing efforts. For a couple of years, she worked with the spoken word side of CIUT as a technician, recording community-based magazine shows and supporting a number of radio documentaries. She returned to CIUT in 1992 as one of the co-hosts of “Third Wave” a spoken word show focusing on issues in the Global South.
Phil Vassell
Phil Vassell is a Co-Founder of the Canada Black Music Archives, who, since 2020 has been building a digital archive to chronicle the many manifestations of Black Canadian music. Previously, Phil hosted “Level Vibes” on CIUT during the early 90s. He was hired at CBC National TV News where he worked for five years as a researcher and briefly as a reporter at CBC Windsor. In 1992, he and wife, Donna McCurvin founded WORD magazine to profile Black music and art in Canada.Phil was also the co-founder and Artistic Director for the Toronto Urban Music Festival Inc.. which produced the Toronto Urban Music Festival & Conference and the TD IRIE Music Festival, which lasted for 20 years. After the COVID pandemic, Phil and Donna switched their focus to building the largest digital music archive chronicling Black Canadian musicians across Canada from the late 1800s to the current times.
Dave DTS Clarke
Dave Clarke, known as DJ DTS, is an award-winning DJ with over 40 years of success in Toronto and internationally. A pivotal tastemaker in Canadian hip hop, he has been central to the growth of urban music while hosting The Master Plan Show, Canada’s longest-running hip hop radio program for 35 years.Beyond performing, DTS has advanced analog and digital DJ innovations, dedicated thousands of volunteer hours, and mentored emerging talent. He was instrumental in the Reggae Meets Hip Hop mixtape series, which earned the Soul Controllers the 2003 Justco Mix Tapes Award and a worldwide following.
David Dacks
David Dacks is a Toronto-based advocate of creative music in all its forms. He is currently Executive Director of Labyrinth Music Workshop Ontario and was previously Artistic then Executive Director of renowned experimental venue the Music Gallery from 2011-23. Previously, David was an editor of Exclaim Magazine’s coverage of jazz, R&B, experimental music, reggae, and music from around the world. His has also written for Spinner.com, The Grid, Weird Canada, BlogTO, Paste Magazine, The African Drum and Musicworks. He was a programmer and host at CIUT-FM for 25 years, and produced four documentaries for CBC Radio. As a musician and DJ, he recorded eight albums featuring wild combinations of electronics with dub, cumbia and improvised elements, and ran his own record label. David served on the Toronto Arts Council’s Board of Directors from 2017-23, and was a juror for Polaris Music Prize (Grand Juror, 2011), and Polaris Music Heritage Prize. He currently serves on the board of New Feeling Writers Cooperative.
https://intersectionfestival.org/2025-festival/day-3
Promotional Designs by Andrew Zukerman
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education, 918 Bathurst St, Toronto, ON M5R 3G5, Canada
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