Tim Notter
Born in 1950, Tim was already a bartender back in the early seventies, at the same time as Rush were starting and a time when live music was rife in downtown Toronto. “We grew up knowing what good musicians are,” he says, recalling how he used his evenings off to go watch the band. “I saw them at high schools, Abbey Road, Piccadilly, The Gasworks, you name it…”
His interest led him to write for the Toronto rock press, but his day job continued and before long he had a bar of his own. One bar was in the East End of Toronto, “A regular was Alex,” says Tim, who became firm friends with the guitar player. A decade or so later, when Alex was looking for other things to do than just music, he came to see Tim. “They were going to take some time off anyway, so Alex was knocking around looking for something to do,” explains Tim. The pair agreed to go into partnership, to set up a restaurant bar with a little live music on the side, just like old times. “The original intention was a little lounge that served food and cocktails. The band was to play Saturdays so that Alex would have someone to play with.”
Tim’s first challenge was to find a band. “I phoned up the only other musician I knew – this was Lou Pomanti.” Lou took the job of putting a band together, and Tim got on with creating The Orbit Room – the Room first opened its doors in November 1994, with musical accompaniment by The Dexters. Over the months that followed, the restaurant gave way to a bar where live music was the centrepiece. “It’s been refitted a few times to get to the situation it is in now,” says Tim. “By year two we had live music every night.” Tim is relaxed about Alex’s association with The Orbit Room. “If we owned it anywhere in the US it would be an enormous success, but here in Toronto, it’s just a bar.”