“We’re like the middle ground between the McCormick warehouse at 7am and King Street”

April 26, 2024 | Written by Christine Bradshaw
Photography & Graphic Design: Sierra Madison
Production Assistant: Ali Howidi

This article is part of our BTW series, where we talk to creative professionals across various industries to provide aspiring creatives with first-hand insights and resources to help them navigate those industries.

I heard about High Tide the same way I hear about all cool things happening in Toronto: through my social butterfly bestie, Zain.

He proposed it to the girly pop group chat as such: “We will go to the next High Tide in April cuz the crowd there will be straight men but good straight men”.

Say less, the girls are in!

High Tide is a dance music collective and party series founded in Toronto. The name, High Tide, refers to the aphorism, “A rising tide lifts all boats”, and reflects their approach to building a successful music collective and fostering a community. The group was formed in 2022 by Sasha Kalra and Aidan D’Aoust, and has since grown to include members Terry “T” Obeng, Mike Medeiros, and Eera Echo Bjorn.

On April 13th, the See You Next Tuesday (SYNT) team rounded up as many friends as we could find, and because we’re natural-born attention seekers, we got the whole group to wear our ‘It’s Giving See You Next Tuesday’ tees, in the name of good old-fashioned Guerilla marketing.

We arrived at The Combine, located in the CBC building, at around 11 pm and the party was already well underway. Behind the heavy entrance doors, there was an alcove with a mid-2000s Mac monitor in one corner and a vinyl strip partition (like something you’d find in a meat locker) in the other. Through the partition, the party space was revealed: a long wooden bar to the left, a dance floor straight through to the back, a giant colourful projection pulsing on the two-story back wall, and tucked behind the bar, a staircase leading up to a second-floor loft space. Running along the entire right side was what I can only describe as a cage wall. On the other side of the cage was a two-level, modern-for-2015, office space that looked like it could house a young media company if Canada actually supported those.

The drinks were flowing (our group pre’d with Buzzballs and Capriccios that we bought in Buffalo that morning after picking Zain up from his MCAT, long story), the music was bumping, and lo and behold, there were plenty of “good straight men” —as well as girls, gays, theys, and every cutie in between—to dance with. One of the best aspects of the party for me was the diverse demographic; there was a mix of people from queer and straight communities, people of all colours, aged anywhere between 19 to 40.

As nightlife culture progresses post-COVID, I hope to see more spaces that are as intersectionally inclusive as High Tide’s parties. Friend groups shouldn’t have to choose between the straight bars (that run on misogyny) or the gay bars (that also run on misogyny), we’re just going to co-mingle and have fun.

The next morning, my body satisfyingly sore from all the bouncing and undulating, I felt the positive impulse to DM @hightideto (High Tide’s Instagram account) to see if they wanted to chat with us. A week later, we were riding the TTC over to STACKT Market to meet up with them after their ISO Radio set.

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SYNT: Could you take us back to the moment High Tide started? What sparked the idea to start this collective? 

Aidan: It was 1965, Dylan went electric (laughter)… It started with the two of us first, we were coming out of COVID, and we wanted to go out and dance, but there wasn't necessarily a space for the music we wanted to dance to. 

Sasha: We both had been DJing pre-pandemic, we were playing a lot of Hip-Hop and a lot of Drill and playing at different establishments. Coming out of COVID, we felt like we were going into lockdown for two straight years, and we wanted to go out and enjoy ourselves and socialize but, to Aidan's point, there wasn't any real bar or scene or party that felt right in that sense, so that's sort of the genesis. We just wanted to have a space that we liked so we decided to create one.

It kind of lined up nicely because my friend owned a coffee shop — it's La Piscina now, but it used to be Safe House Coffee — and he had transitioned that coffee shop into a bar right around that time, so he was starting this bar and he was looking for DJs to make it a thing. We were looking to get back into music so it kind of just lined up nicely.

It was never really intended to be more than just one party, we were just like ‘Oh we'll do this once and we'll have a nice time’ and then it was great so we were like ‘Let's do it again’ and we were like ‘Oh that was fun, let's do it again!’ Then Terry was like ‘I want to join’ and we were like ‘You're in’ and then we met Mike and we met Eera. It was only ever meant to be one event but it kind of just grew from there. 

SYNT: Do you guys all have a professional music background or are you working in other fields and kind of just do music on the side? 

T: I think for me, I've been like a jack of all trades. During the pandemic, I worked a lot of jobs, some that were dead ends, some were creatively fulfilling, but ultimately I was yearning to get back into a more creative angle. So I think I had approached Aidan, and he was like ‘I'm doing this party, why don't you hop on with us? You'll learn, you'll meet people, you'll grow’ and it kind of was exactly that. But I've always kind of been that creative where I just want to do something fun. 

Mike: I grew up around a lot of music, whether that's House, Reggae, Soca, Rap, Alternative, Rock, everything. I grew up around a lot of DJs my entire life because that's what my Dad was around. When I was about 13 I was into Electronic music and House music and I got tired of listening to other people's mixes so I was just like, ‘Alright, no I'm making my own now’. At 13 I started DJing and I'm 21 now so it's been almost 10 years of DJing.

I only recently started making music when I was in my second year of University so it's really been like two years of taking it seriously. I did a lot of stuff in Waterloo and tried to do my own events but I was just like, ‘This is not my crowd.’

A few summers later my friend Emily sent me a TikTok of one of their events at La Piscina and I sent it to my buddy and videographer, Marco. We all ended up going, I introduced myself to Terry and I was like ‘I want to play for you. I like what you're doing.’ I did my whole sales pitch and then a couple of months later I got invited to have a drink with them and now we're here.

SYNT: It worked! 

Mike: It really did work! Shoot your shot. 

T: It was an emphatic I want to do this and then it was a SoundCloud link. 

Mike: Yeah, it was a few days later and you're like ‘What up Mike, send me some SoundCloud stuff’ and I ran home from work that day. (laughter) 

T: We were just trying to figure out how to shoehorn you in the mix. We were waiting and we were scheming...that summer it was a lot of like trying to figure out what we are, what we do, and what we want to do and so it was a lot of like hearing people out and trying to experience what we thought High Tide was. I think that's an ever-growing question.

SYNT: I was about to ask you about that; who you are and what you do, what you want to be…could you take us through what that is? 

T: I think initially when we first set up we had just La Piscina as our home base. Those were fun but it kind of got to a point where it ballooned, [La Piscina] is very tiny, so as we kind of grew we scaled. With that we [started] charging tickets and so at that point we were like ‘Well if you're paying for a ticket you should be getting an experience’ and so we decided to have more production.

Aidan: As we were scaling up we wanted it to not just be a party, we wanted it to be like a collective experience and through Terry, Eera came on board and they really had like the skills to execute this amazing AV component that we never had. I think that's what really elevated the collective, what we had to offer, by Eera coming in and being like ‘How about we do this’ and thinking about throwing an event in like a professional and engaging way.

SYNT: [to Eera] What's your background?

Eera: I've done a bunch of things, mainly all creative, but I have a festival planning and art direction background. I stepped out of that work for quite a while and then I met Terry... 

T: I kind of pulled you right back in! (laughter) We were out for dinner and I was commiserating about being in film and you were commiserating about being in film and then I realized that we kind of overlapped in certain senses. I feel like having you on has been a good return to form for you. Also, you’re such a multi-hyphenate, you possess many skills. My running joke is that I'll have like a pie-in-the-sky idea and then I'll have Eera ground it.

Sasha: And sometimes you're like ‘yeah let's do it!’ 

T: Yeah, for the Ace Hotel you were really game like... 

Aidan: For context too, the party you guys went to at the Combine: the lights, the visuals, that was all Eera.

SYNT: Yeah we thought it was all just predetermined lights and visuals, but you had said it’s all live, right?

Eera: Yeah, it’s all just live in the same way that DJing is so there's a certain amount of prep as you would prep for a set but then you just kind of like, you're feeling it out.  

Aidan:  I've been in the music industry for 8-ish years but I've always been on the backend side. My daytime job is A&R at a label so I've never been a creator. Essentially, this is my first foray into creating. I think I might be the only person [in the group] who works in the “industry”, everybody else comes from all these different walks of life.  

Sasha: I was a journalist for a long time. I worked in cannabis for a hot second when that was the thing that people did. Then I've just worked in PR and creative and marketing for the past few years. It's been a lot of helping brands that I ultimately don't care about. (laughter) It's just like… you're working on all these brands and ultimately you have no investment in them and it's your job, so you do it, but at the same time you want that sort of outlet. I was a writer for so long but once I stopped having interest in that, music had always been something that I wanted to try out. Through the DJing and knowing Aidan and starting to get into it, it just felt like a natural sort of outlet.

Now DJing is like 5% of what we do — it's actually like running a business and running a brand and like creating events, it's mostly logistics. It's budgets and boring shit and I've had to do that my whole life for random companies and random brands and now I get to help do it with my friends for something that we care about and that's the best part. 

SYNT: What were some of the initial challenges you faced as a group when setting up High Tide and how did you overcome them? 

Aidan: I think honestly the first real challenge was that none of us threw parties before, so I think figuring out the logistics. That was when Eera came into the fold and was like ‘You have to consider this, you have to think about this’. Even just simple things like gaffing the XLRs along the walls so nobody trips or making sure that you have somebody stationed here so nobody gets too ham. That was a huge eye-opener for me. We all love going to parties, we all love participating in parties and events, but I don't think any of us fully grasped what goes into making a good, safe and responsible party.

SYNT: I guess when you get bigger, and you have more people and there's like more things you have to consider in terms of liability.

T: Yeah, considerations, liabilities, as well as like an understanding of the community. I think when I brought Eera into the fold, you pulled me aside at The Ace and we had an earnest conversation. You said, ‘If you want to be serious these are the things you should start doing’ and it's like the boring admin stuff. Being organized, being ready and also understanding production, setting things up. Everybody loves to throw a party but nobody wants to Throw A Party. So being punctual, being good with vendors, these are like the things that feel obvious until you have to do them and then you're like, ‘oh wow’, this is more involved than just plugging in a USB.

Sasha: I think the other thing that was difficult was like we just wanted to say yes to everything all the time so learning how to say no. Not everything is actually the right opportunity and you need to say no to things sometimes to actually refine what you are. Eera, you really helped me with that. I just wanted to do everything and you've been like, ‘Just take it one thing at a time.’

Sasha: I think the other aspect too is, I remember one party we threw everyone had left and I turned on the lights and I looked down and all I saw were just baggies and I was like ‘oh I love that people are having fun’ but then I was like ‘we should probably talk about harm reduction’. There are moments like that that we had along the way where understanding your audience, understanding what people are doing, and wanting to still provide like a safe responsible experience that you've never thought of initially.

SYNT: I think in Toronto that's one thing I've noticed that a lot of bars and clubs don't focus at all on harm reduction, whereas if you go partying in Europe that is such a big aspect there. So spaces like, Pep Rally, you guys and other party creatives, that are taking the time to be educated on harm reduction and to implement it, are actually making partying way more fun. It's also way safer to be able to let loose in an environment like that.

Sasha: I think one of the founding insights of the group generally was that Toronto is both a literal and figuratively cold place. People aren't necessarily friendly here, they're not necessarily open to meeting new people or to new experiences. We've been going out a lot and realizing that it's just the same people at the same places having the same night over and over again so, how do you create a space where people can let loose have fun, actually dance and enjoy themselves? We're grateful that at our parties, people actually enjoy themselves and it's not like everyone just standing around on their phones which I feel like, unfortunately, is a lot of what happens in this city.

SYNT: Yes, that’s very King Street. (laughter)

SYNT: Could you describe the business structure of High Tide? Are you a corporation? Are you a co-op? And when did you solidify this current structure?

Aidan: Black Rock owns us. (laughter)  

Sasha: I think it was last summer when we threw our first ticketed event and we released merch. It was the first time we were ever dealing with money that was beyond a bar throwing us a few hundred dollars to DJ for the night. [In terms of business structure] we view it as a collective so everyone that you see here is a member and everyone contributes to High Tide in their own way. Some can contribute with more time or a bit more financially but ultimately the reason why you're seeing five of us here is we had a conversation earlier this year about what each person's individual roles are and what they want out of the experience. We've really made decisions ever since then as a unit of five. There's no one in charge here, there's no hierarchy in that sense.  

SYNT: Collaboration is such an important part of the creative industry. You invite DJs from across the city to play at your events and you also had the Brooklyn-based DJ, Corinne, at your most recent event. How do you approach partnerships and collaborations within the music and event industry?

T: Hit my line! (laughter) DM's are the starting point. 

Aidan: I think in terms of potential collaborators and people that we've booked previously, it's mainly just people that we fuck with! (laughter) It's as simple as that. We really like people that spin the same or kind of complimentary vibes that we already spin. I think it was harder earlier on because we kind of put ourselves into this box of just being a disco house party. The first media I think we ever got we were like ‘it's like a disco party’. It was great, we had a huge flood of followers and attention from that, but we were like ‘oh we don't want to just be like a disco party', we don't want to just only book disco house people. So after that, we were pretty conscious about what we were spinning and what we wanted to live at our events.

SYNT: And what is that? What is the vibe? 

Aidan: I guess we're technically open format. It's definitely dance-centric but we play everything. Today is a pretty good example [referencing the ISO Radio set]. I was playing Post Punk and now there's Afro Beat and we played UKG, so I think it's anything that makes you move, essentially.  

SYNT: Do you want to mention some people or put on some people in the city? 

Aidan: KINJO, they're spinning right now... 

Sasha: Zorza, Gem, DJ Planet Express, BabyQ ... 

SYNT: We love DJ BabyQ!

T: Babl... 

Mike: BENCHIN... 

Sasha: Jayemkayem and Freeza Chin who run ISO RADIO. I’m blanking honestly... The Brockton Coup 

SYNT: It’s ok, if you didn't get a shoutout they still love you! (laughter) 

SYNT: For young creatives looking to start their own music collective or event series, what advice would you give them? 

Eera: Get organized. I think what I walked into was people who were really eager and also willing to do the work. When I came, I wasn't walking into a bunch of people who were like ‘Yeah, I just posted a party on Instagram and like people are gonna come.’ You guys were already quite organized. 

Sasha: We had that Google Sheet! (laughter) 

Eera: Event planning is listed as one of the most stressful jobs under a surgeon, you know, which is fucked up. It has a high suicide rate. I think you have to be willing to put the footwork in. You also need to find people who are on the same page as you and then just figure out where everybody's talent is. 

Sasha: Yeah for us, there's definitely places where different members have a specialty and they're kind of the lead in that department. Eera has a background in events, lighting, and visuals. Aidan, having worked in the music industry you have tons of connections and you just understand that space a lot. Terry, from a creative and a visual perspective, and branding. Mike’s a sick DJ and just knows a ton of things that we don't know about because you're 21. (laughter) So everyone kind of has their lanes.  

Aidan: Also big up to our community around us as well. We consistently aren't able to throw the events without the help of people like Lily, who does all of our creative and our graphics, and Terry's wife, Becca, who edited a ton of promo videos for us before. That kind of hit the algo[rithm] for us and brought us a ton of new attention. We have a big community of people around us that kind of prop us up. 

T: Shout out to my wife! (laughter) I love you! 

SYNT: I love that you guys are saying that, especially with your last event being called ‘Family Business’, I feel that's such an important part of the creative industry and going out on your own and doing anything.

Aidan: Also crazy to see that our friends will buy tickets, and they don't ask us to put them on lists. There's real support which we're super, super grateful for. 

SYNT: The dance music scene is getting a lot bigger in Toronto. It started maybe after COVID with events like Boiler Room coming to Toronto, and now it's gotten quite mainstream. What do you guys think of that and what are you doing to make your own corner in that space?  

Aidan: I honestly think the dance boom can be directly correlated to COVID, at least from the mainstream perspective. Obviously, there's been a ton of amazing DJs and producers who have been working forever. The scene has been pretty rich here forever. But I think in terms of the mainstream, I feel recently people just want to let loose and dance after being cooped up for three years. That's how I felt, I wanted to go out and dance. I didn't want to be in a dark club brooding to Drill anymore. (laughter) I still like that music but that's not what I wanted. I need a celebratory, kind of up-tempo, high BPM situation. So, I think that's kind of the genesis of the scene exploding. In terms of what we're doing, I don’t think we’re reinventing the wheel, I just think that we’re creating another space that maybe wasn’t present a few years ago.

T: I think there always will be carve-outs. There's always going to be certain demographics. I'm just under an elder millennial so I've already lost my footing in what's current and what's hip so I can only do what I enjoy. I feel like for the younger generation, what I've noticed is that the rules of engagement have changed. I don't think the Zenners are drinking the same way we used to and aren't going out in the same droves. I think they're finding their own community. I think people are going to find their corner and I'm happy that people choose us each time. I think when we first started it, we would look at the guest list and the ticket sales and I could name probably half the list and we're at a point now where we don't know anybody. That last event was just a bunch of names that we didn't recognize. 

SYNT: When do you think that inflection point was? 

T: BlogTO.  

SYNT: When was that? 

Sasha: This time, a year ago.  

Aidan: Yeah, shoutout Taylor Patterson.  

T: The BlogTO boom was real. 

SYNT: Did you feel pressure to change in any way? 

T: I felt pressure for that BlogTO night. We had that coverage and then we had an event afterwards, we were at La Piscina and we were worried about staffing. 

Aidan: People were lining up like an hour, two hours before. We got there like, ‘This is surreal’. 

Sasha: Our DMs had a bunch of people being like, ‘Where do I buy a ticket?’ and then I remember looking at you [Aidan] like ‘I think we gotta sell tickets!’ (laughter) 

Sasha: The key for us is… the dance music scene, I think, can be a bit intimidating for people who aren't well versed in it. We want to make it more accessible to people. We’re like the middle ground between the McCormick warehouse at 7 am and King Street. (laughter) It's somewhere you can go, you'll have a good time, it's not super sketchy, music will be tasteful but it's still accessible. I feel like that's the key for us. It's to make anyone feel like they can come and we’ll give them a different experience than they're used to.  

SYNT: Looking ahead, what are future aspirations for High Tide? Are there new territories or projects that you're excited to explore? 

T: Yes, I don't know if we mentioned it but we also have our free event called Open House. Right now it’s a community-based event, there’s no fees, but I want to reprogram it. I want to start putting in some personality. It may look like a DJ event, it could maybe be a panel, it could be more of a workshop…I'm trying to figure out exactly what that looks like with the help of everybody. We’re trying to be more than just the party series. I think we have aspirations to do bigger and better. Having said that, throwing a party is amazing to me. It is where I found a lot of fulfillment creatively. Like the Combine event that you guys went to, there was like the Meat Locker [partition], we had a nice little like vinyl strip that you walk into. I love just those small little moments... 

SYNT: I loved the Mac computer!

T: Yeah! We got it for the New Year's event...I saw a TikTok of this eccentric dude and he had this e-waste recycling plant and I saw that bad boy. We had it playing Sims at our New Year's event. That's what I like, those kinds of touches. I want to do really wacky stuff. 

Sasha: Also, we want to do more promoter-based things. We don't have to DJ at every party. We want to get to a place where international DJs are passing through Toronto and they're playing a High Tide event. That's my dream state, personally. I think also just doing things in other cities. We did our first non-Toronto thing a couple of weeks ago, we played in Montreal which was a lot of fun. Hoping to play in New York before the end of the year, expanding…honestly my dream would be to play in London. For near-term stuff, it would be dope if next summer we're on an Electric Island flyer. Something like that actually feels achievable. 

Coming out of this interview, I realised that the positive impulse I had the week before reaching out to High Tide’s team occurred because I could feel that their vibe was very similar to ours at SYNT. Their inception was born out of creating a space they felt was missing, disrupting the status quo, which is identical to why SYNT was created.

If you want to have a fun time, if you want to dance and mingle with kind, cool people, if you want to meet people from all walks of life (yes, including “good straight men” — I wonder what exactly Zain meant by that), I recommend you check out their next event. Here’s their insta.