ONTARIO - LOCAL ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
MARK OLIVER
Raving Then and Now
The current generation of Toronto’s dance music fans will easily recognize the
name Mark Oliver. The Guvernment Nightclubs resident DJ and a staple of
Toronto’s current dance climate, Mark can be found playing to club goers in
Toronto’s largest nightclub nearly each and every saturday night of the year. Not
only is he the most recognizable name in local DJing, but he’s maintained that
reputation with three decades of experience in Toronto’s nightlife scene. Having
both pioneered Toronto’s rave movement in it’s infancy and seeing the industry
move to the levels it is today, Mark’s lineage speaks wonders even when
performing at Veld Music Festival or any of Ink Entertainment’s all access events.
DJ Mag Canada had the chance to speak with Mark before one of his Guvernment
main room closing sets that he has gained so much notoriety for. Most unique
was the discussion topic of ‘The Gift’, an annual all vinyl open to close set
performed by Mark. For years the event has been the venues Christmas themed
event, but more importantly a night to hear classic tracks that you might have
forgotten about or have been waiting a lifetime to hear once again.
What was the inception process for ‘The Gift’?
The Club opened in 1996 and for the first 5 years I was the only one who played
here. I was doing 9 hour sets every week. There were a lot of tracks that became
synonymous with the club and back then it was only pure vinyl. So there were a
lot of white labels that didn’t actually get a commercial release. Half of my records
were white labels, and some of them were boot leg; they couldn’t release them
without copyright. So they became tracks that were sort of known as ‘Guvernment
tracks’. It’s like when you think of house music, in Chicago there was the club
called the Warehouse. the music you heard at the Warehouse was only heard
there, nowhere else. it was Frankie Knuckles. When people talked about it they
said “Warehouse music” and then they shortened it to house music. It was a
similar thing here. There were tracks i played that never hit the mainstream.
The Gift came about as one night to give back to the regulars. It’s one night where
all they hear are the classics. Every week I would play a few classics, but the only
way for the club to move forward was to play different types of music. I wasn’t
always popular with the older crowd because