Celebrating the iconic Yellow Door + the Elderly Project with a live show + free mp3s

The Yellow Door is a small basement venue in Montreal’s McGill ghetto. It is tiny, awkward, with minimal technical equipment, and it glows down the street and radiates out for miles and decades with a goodness and desire to bring beauty and music and yes, even an indisputable gentleness, to all and sundry. Some places are special and attract special people, relationships, and events; the Yellow Door is one.

As the longest-running coffeehouse in Canada, the Yellow Door Coffeehouse has become a landmark while remaining a lively folk music and spoken word venue.

A lot more goes on at and through the Yellow Door than the incredible, legendary, folk that has come through it’s door/yellow curtain over the years. Since 2003 1972! they have been behind a community care and sneakernet social network called The Elderly Project, and it is this project that they are celebrating and fundraising for with an event on the 25th of August. To that end the performers playing the show have sent us mp3’s to share with you, which you’ll find below. First up, some more info on the goals of The Elderly Project:

• To provide a practical community experience for the helping professionals of tomorrow.
• To counteract the growing isolation and loneliness felt by many seniors.
• To understand through firsthand experience the personal, social, economic, and political concerns of today’s urban elderly.
• To enable elderly residents of the inner city to maintain a viable life in the community by working to prevent premature institutionalization.
• To inform and to empower the elderly, and to uphold their sense of dignity and respect as individuals and as important members of our society.

The show is being co-presented by the Yellow Door and CKUT and is called “Before These Summer Nights are Gone”. It features Brie Neilson, B.W. Brandes, James Finnerty, Whistlestop, Bent by Elephants, and some poetry readings.

It’s at Sala Rossa on August 25th at 9 p.m.

Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door and can be purchased at Casa del Popolo or the Yellow Door, or they can be reserved by calling 514-845-2600. Proceeds go to The Yellow Door’s Elderly Project.

Whistlestop

[MP3] from Brie Neilson – Walking Alone

[MP3] from James Finnerty – Borderline Ferry

Check out more music recorded by James Finnerty in this Solar Dog Records podcast.