PREAMBLE BY CHRIS TIESSEN; PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN & OTHERS
WANNA HAZARD A GUESS WHERE JOHNNY PROPOSED TO JUNE? OR WHERE KISS PLAYED THEIR FIRST INTERNATIONAL GIG? HOW ABOUT WHICH CITY IS HOME TO A HAUNTED TOWN-HALL-TURNED-CONCERT- VENUE THAT’S HOSTED THE LIKES OF THE SADIES, JULLY BLACK, DAN MANGAN, HANNAH GEORGAS, AND OTHER LEGENDARY CANADIAN ACTS? OR WHERE YOU CAN RENT AN AIRBNB THAT SLEEPS TWELVE AND HAS A FULL RECORDING STUDIO? OR VISIT CANADA’S ONLY CITY- SPECIFIC MUSIC HALL OF FAME? THE ANSWER TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS IS LONDON ONTARIO, OF COURSE – CANADA’S FIRST UNESCO CITY OF MUSIC. SEE FOR YOURSELF.
COVER IMAGE: The view from the main stage at ‘Rock The Park’, just one of London’s annual multi-day summer music festivals (rockthepark.ca). Photo provided by Tourism London
The recording studio at the Rock n’ Roll Airbnb, a music-themed accommodation that sleeps seventeen and is designed for musicians to lay down tracks (airbnb.ca) A busker performs for the noon-hour crowd near the music-themed picnic tables at Covent Garden Market (coventmarket.com)Artist Ken Ledo’s mural of Johnny Cash and June Carter, located on the north wall of Budweiser Gardens. The mural pays homage to the night Cash proposed to Carter on stage during a concert in 1968 at then-London Gardens (budweisergardens.com) A glass display of punk memorabilia at the London Music Hall of Fame – Canada’s only city-specific music hall of fame. Located next door to the London Music Hall, this Forest City gem honours outstanding musicians from London – including Garth Hudson, Tommy Hunter, Kittie & more (fclma.ca) The ‘Classic Bird Breakfast’ at The Early Bird, a rock-themed diner that serves a mean homefries and the most divine maple bacon (theearlybird.ca) A peek into the Holy Diver, a live music venue and bar that abuts The Early Bird (theearlybird.ca)Billy Talent performing at the London Music Hall, a fantastic downtown venue that’s showcased artists including The Arkells, Snoop Dogg, The Trews, Talk, Calvin Harris & more (londonmusichall.com). Photo provided by London Music HallFrancisco, el Hombre rocking the Victoria Park bandshell at Sunfest back in 2022 (sunfest.on.ca). Photo provided by Whitney South Ben Caplan performs at Aeolian Hall back in 2017 (aeolianhall.ca). Photo provided by Tourism London The main theatre at Aeolian Hall, a nineteenth-century former town hall that has hosted the likes of Dan Mangan, Hannah Georgas, Corb Lund & more. The venue has also been featured in ghost-hunting shows, and has been listed as one of the Top 10 Live Music Clubs in Canada by CBC Radio 3 (aeolianhall.ca) Among the trees at Sunfest, a four-day international arts & music festival featuring 200+ vendors and 50+ performers that takes place each year at Victoria Park (sunfest.on.ca). Photo provided by Tourism London Moskitto Bar lights up the main stage at Sunfest 2022 (sunfest.on.ca). Photo provided by Tourism London
Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
Stratford – and, by extension, Perth County – lends itself to takeaway. A coffee to carry, a sandwich in hand, something sweet tucked alongside – then out into the streets for window shopping, into the theatres for a performance, or down to the riverbank for a nosh.
