Recording: SAP

Artist: SAP

Song: Babbling Brook

Recorded at Dina's Tavern, November 23, 2025.

SAP - Babbling Brook

Shit be weird, was the first thing that I wrote in my notepad as I soaked in the environs of Dina's Tavern, a new venue located on the former location of — and in the image of — beloved local dive The Silver Dollar Room. Weird, or, perhaps more precisely, uncanny. Walking up from Spadina, there were familiar faces out front, smoking and hanging out under the big Silver Dollar sign, just like there should be. Stepping in brings some disjunction, as there's now no flight of stairs to climb up (and no Comfort Zone looming below) — but once inside the doppelgänger effect kicks in, the room looking pretty close to what one's memory might hold. Looking closer tears at the illusion a little, as some of the details sink in — the whole side of the room behind the bar that held the pool table and booths hasn't been recreated, and the bathrooms are up a flight of stairs, through a door that suddenly reminds you that you're now in a 21st century condo-style building.

But still. Most of the virtues and drawbacks are intact. That weird layout, with the stage along one of the long walls, instead at the end of the space, squaring off against the bar — and the sonic oddness that that entails. (And to help maintain the feel of the past, there was a part of the crowd just hanging out along the bar, chatting away through the show.) Once I found my old spot, the new PA sounded decent enough.

In this city, we've gotten so used to things being torn down and taken away, and the only replacement seeming to be unending construction. So to have something like this venue exist — do recall that it was a "heritage feature" basically forced upon the developers by the city as a condition of being allowed to redevelop the site — feels like a minor triumph. So far, it seems like there's some decent programming happening there, so hopefully it will endure for a spell.

Settled into the environment, I was well-pleased to hear some good old rock music that would have been right at home in the old Dollar, courtesy of locals SAP. (Their name being fairly ungoogleable, I will note you can find their music on bandcamp here.) The music, under singer-guitarist Rochelle Bulmer's leadership, has some grunge-y elements and a willingness to rock out, abetted by a supporting cast of familiar faces including Patrick Grant on guitar, Jay Anderson on drums, and Paul Saulnier on bass. (The latter also gave a sort of stripped-back parallel approach to his P.S. I Love You project in a solo opening set.)