Michael  Louis  Johnson  

In my four decades as an entertainer, I've made theatre and film, I've made music and created cultural events, I've made people dance and laugh and and sometimes cry. I play on stages in front of thousands of people, I play on street corners for passers by. I play from my place of service behind the bar. It is my vocation.

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The youngest child of four, I have always been an entertainer. My first taste of the Biz was when I signed up for the amateur night at Punchlines Comedy Club in Vancouver. I was a natural and took Runner Up in their 1989 new talent search. After graduating UBC with a useless degree in International Relations, I moved to Toronto to follow my dream of being an actor and filmmaker. 

My big brother Gordie had just started his band Big Sugar and was already well connected in the TO music scene. His pals in the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir had an extra room available in their shared house, so I took it. I was instantly immersed into the community of Toronto musicians. 

I did stand up around the region for a bit, but really didn't like the scene, so I dusted off my old high school trumpet and hit the streets. All I needed was enough coin to pay my rent, buy spaghetti, garlic, olive oil and espresso and I'd be set.

One time in Yorkville, legendary jazz drummer Max Roach stopped to listen to me play, he threw me a 10 and said, "Son, you got a big fat tone." I was in heaven. 

“Son, you got a big fat tone.” Max Roach

Another time, this fella in a fedora and trench coat stopped to listen. He introduced himself as Big Rude Jake and invited me to sit in on a gig at the Silver Dollar. I became one of his Gentlemen Players and Jake and I would become partners in crime for most of the 90's, a decade of SwingPunk. 

My busking spot was King and Duncan. I played every night as the shows let out from the Royal Alex. Every night except Thursdays and Saturdays when I was at the Rex and the Pilot playing with Jake. My nights were filled with music, but my days were filled pursuing my acting career. I wrote a comedy called Absolutely the Last Supper that was a smash hit at the Fringe in both Montreal and Toronto. I got hired by a theatre company called Yes, Oh Yes! that did a form of dramatic improv called Playback Theatre. It's with them I learned to embrace "the Nothing Moment", a concept that has given me the presence and courage to face any artistic situation. 

By 1998, after years of recording and touring North America as Jake's right hand man, I had grown bitter about the music industry. It was my first Saturn Return, (so I've recently learned) and I quit music to focus on acting. I booked a photo session with Tim Leyes, convinced my buddy Joel Bissonette to introduce me to Carolyn Govers, the best agent in town. She took me on and I got lucky, booking three out of my first four auditions, one of them for the role of Needlenose Norton, the asshole cop in the cult classic Bride Of Chucky. In fourteen days of shooting I made more money than playing 150 shows with Jake the year before. I did alright for a couple of years. I got blown to bits by Chucky and Robocop. I got shot by Highlander, the Raven. I got an axe in the back from Jason Priestly. I made some little comedy films with friends. I enjoyed the standard career of a Toronto actor with a bald head.

Valentine's Day, 1999, my favourite restaurateur Domenic Bertucci asked if I could give him a hand with service. I donned a crisp white shirt, black tie and black pants and re-entered the hospitality business. The next few years I would be trained in Italian cuisine, fine wine, and the art of gentleman service. On weekends, after dinner was served, we'd push an upright piano into the dining room, I'd swap my apron for a suit jacket and perform with the Dimestore Orchestra. This was my first experience mixing service with performance.

Winter of 2000 my old friend Sean Power convinced me to spend three months sleeping on the floor of his East Village apartment to help him create a play about Billie Holiday. He was the writer and director. I was the music director; choosing the tunes, hiring the band, guiding the spirit of the show.  Lady Speak Easy did a sold out run at Ellen Stewart's legendary theatre La MaMa. New Yorker Magazine wrote: "music of a quality rarely heard in the theatre."

The early 2000's were a bit of an "in-between" time for me. My old friend from hHead, Brendan Canning, invited me to do some recording and play a few shows with his new project, Broken Social Scene. That was fun, but not really my jam at the time. Early 30s are hard, and my cynicism towards the business of film and television was at its peak. I got tired of being the bald guy who puts on a uniform and gets killed. 

Spring of 2003 my house-mates Paul and Tricia opened a tiny bar in Little Portugal called the Communist's Daughter. Paul's bandmate Patrick began studying the guitar styles of Django Reinhardt and needed a place to play. Red Rhythm and our Saturday Matinee was born. Since November of 2003, every Saturday from 4pm till 7 our little bar has been standing room only, a four piece acoustic string band in the window, me singing and playing trumpet all while tending the bar. No marketing, no pressure, no ambition, pass the hat to pay the band, it is pure joy. Our show has been featured in two renowned documentary films, Push and A Different Path. We've been written up in travel magazines around the world, and there was even a chapter about us in a hard-cover book called Toronto: A City Becoming. 

In the early days of the Commie, it seemed like the world was falling apart, 9/11, then SARS, George Bush's war on Islam; they all led to a growing protest scene. I found a new friend in Shamez Amlani, the owner of a french bistro in Kensington Market called La Palette. 

“the angrier we get, the funnier we must become” shamez amlani

Perhaps the creation I am most proud of is my weekly event Dcide on the Bside. Since 2011, Mondays at the Communist's Daughter have become an institution of barroom democracy. People are invited to bring their favourite vinyl. We listen to the A side, then we "Dcide on the Bside"

February 2026 marks my second Saturn Return, and again things seem to be changing. I am taking a 9 month sabbatical from Toronto, Lemon Bucket and the Commie to go and work at the Stratford Festival. I have been invited to compose, curate and perform music for their production of Death of A Salesman. I also get to play the part of Stanley, the waiter, naturally. 

2026 should see a gush of new recordings: MLJ Greatest Hits, MLJ Gets Rambunctious, there's a collab with Opera Revue of songs by Weill & Verdi, and of course, my music from Death of A Salesman.

That's the story for now. See yah around.