This article out of Toronto’s TORO Magazine has some interesting tidbits that underline a current trend towards an increasingly nuanced curiosity about Montreal ‘tel quel’… (Geoff)
“This year TORO will be covering the sixth annual M for Montreal festival, an industry conference and music showcase series bridging the gap between Francophone indie rock and pop and Anglophone/international artists, including Active Child, M83, The Barr Brothers, and more.
That gap has narrowed in the past several years; Malajube and Cœur de pirate have achieved crossover success while retaining their native language, and Montreal has become known not only as a breeding ground for buzz bands, but a true Canadian centre for music culture and business. Continue reading →
1. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself: what do you do? What motivated you to do what you do today?
Currently I’m the Director of Member Services for the Canadian Independent Recording Artists’ Association (CIRAA), as well as the Blogger-in-residence for Bandzoogle, a website builder for musicians. I’ve been involved with music since I can remember. When I was 5, my Dad needed a drummer for his rock n’ roll cover band, so he trained me like a monkey to play a few beats and I went from there, going on to play drums and bass in punk bands, to working in recording studios, running a record label and booking venues.
2. Can you give me some insight on how the music world works? This would be for someone who has an outsider perspective (non-music person or for someone from a different arts background ex. visual arts, theatre, etc) to better understand this artistic practice and perhaps demystify the idea of the artist who is immediately discovered, like an epiphany, and on their way to stardom? Or does it work like that?
Because of reality television and mainstream media, often the perception is that musicians and bands can become instant successes. But the reality is that many of the artists and bands who are successfully making a living took many years to get there. Even The Beatles spent years performing 8-hour sets, 7 days a week in Germany before breaking into the American market. It doesn’t happen overnight, and there are no shortcuts. It’s like any other profession; it takes years of practice to hone your craft as a songwriter, performer, and often times, a business person too.
3. Can you tell me what emerging musicians need to know in order to make it in the music business? Where do you start if you live in Quebec? What resources could they seek? What are some music-based organizations out there to help a musician? Continue reading →
There’s a quietly surprising profile of Jason Bajada cycling through Western papers today.
The article comes as Bajada launches a new album, The Sound Your Life Makes. But it is worth singling out for the subtlety with which Postmedia’s John P. McLaughlin handles Quebec culture and the fact of English-speaking artists for whom Canada is something of a mystery, but Quebec is home.
The Rabble and the Haunted were Montreal’s two coolest anglo bands in the second half of the 1960s. If the Haunted were closer to the raw, blues-based sound and bad-boy image of the Yardbirds or the early Rolling Stones, the Rabble were farther out in terms of both music and look. They were, more or less, our answer to Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Oddly enough, though, frontman Pimm and lead guitarist Mike Harris wrote some of the catchiest hooks this side of the Beatles.
[...] “A lot of the stuff that happened here was encapsulated here,” Pimm said. “We heard about the Staccatos from Ottawa and the Ugly Ducklings from Toronto, but they never heard of us. It just didn’t work both ways. Even so, Quebec was a neat place to be. The audiences were great and they welcomed original stuff. They were excited about the music. But you were kind of trapped in Quebec unless you really started to travel around and get promoted somewhere else. A lot of memories stayed in Quebec. Good memories. A lot of great bands came out of here, but it just didn’t really have a chance somehow.
“Part of it may be that English Canada wasn’t that interested in this province,” Pimm continued. “Maybe they were a little lost about the two languages going on.” Although the Rabble recorded in English, he pointed out, much of the group’s audience was francophone.
[...] “Way before the Rabble, I wanted to be a professional musician. I didn’t give a damn about stardom or notoriety or being invited to a party because I was in this band. So I moved to Toronto, where there were a lot more choices at the time.”
Just tripped across an excellent Fagstein blog post from last month breaking down the heightened response to Epic Meal Time’s appearance on Tout le monde en parle (scroll to bottom for video of the show). The West Islanders conducted the interview in English and response was swift. Even though this is an old story, we thought the Fagstein analysis was worth sharing. Click the title for the complete article, which includes highlights of the flood of Twitter response, video responses from Youtube, and discussion of education policies, anglo guilt, entre autres… Definitely worth a read.
I put in a request with Epic Meal Time’s agent (yes, they have one), but have heard nothing yet. For the sake of argument, let’s assume they’re like me and many others from the West Island and that they went to English public school. Let’s also assume they know some French but not enough to have an in-depth conversation.
It makes me wonder if I would have been judged so harshly if I had been on the Plateau of this show, and with a mix of nervousness and a desire to be clear I had asked that the interview be done in English. My conversational French is okay, but my grammar is awful. There’s a reason I don’t blog in French often. I have too much respect for the language to expose people to my destruction of it.
That in mind, it seems perfectly understandable that two guys from the West Island who make Internet videos aren’t the best French speakers and prefer to express themselves in the language they’re most comfortable in.
And yet, it bothered me.
It wasn’t so much that they were talking in English. But they had earpieces during the interview, which means they needed the questions to be translated. That’s kind of a depressing statement about the state of French-language education in English schools in Quebec (again, assuming that’s how they were educated).
But even that didn’t bug me as much as this: They didn’t even try.
One thing I’ve learned about Quebec’s French language protectors (at least the reasonable moderate ones) is that they appreciate effort. It’s the thought that counts.
When Brian Gionta introduced the Canadiens at the beginning of the season in quite possibly the most atrocious French anyone has ever heard this side of an Alberta public school, the fans appreciated it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t pronounce the numbers right or that he called Maxim Lapierre “Maxim Laperrière”. He acknowledged that French is the language spoken here and he wanted to make an effort, if only a tiny one, to speak to them in that language.
But Morenstein and Toth couldn’t manage even a “bonsoir” or a “merci”, perhaps because they were playing their tough-guy characters, or perhaps because they just didn’t care and had no respect for the show, the host or the audience they were addressing.
Epic Meal Time's Harley Morenstein and Sterling Toth on Tout le monde en parle (photo: Karine Dufour for Radio-Canada)
The language of poutine
It’s funny because Epic Meal Time has probably been one of the best ambassadors for Quebec cuisine of the past decade. Just two days before taping TLMEP, they released this video of them heading into the woods and preparing a meal that included tourtière and tire sur la neige (words that Morenstein utters in slightly accented but perfectly understandable French).
One of their earliest videos was of the Angry French Canadian, a “meal” that included poutine, steamés and maple syrup on a baguette.
SOURCE: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/…/ Montréal Festimania, regroupement de 11 festivals montréalais qui mettront leurs forces en commun pour promouvoir les activités de la métropole sur la scène internationale, misera essentiellement sur les médias sociaux afin d’attirer les touristes.
Au cours des prochaines semaines, les gestionnaires du Collectif des festivals montréalais (qui regroupe notamment Montréal complètement cirque, Juste pour rire et Nuits d’Afrique) annonceront le recrutement de 12 ambassadeurs internationaux, issus d’Amérique et d’Europe et reconnus autant pour leur amour de la culture et de la vie urbaine que pour le poids de leur réseau social. Ces ambassadeurs seront invités à venir vivre l’expérience des festivals estivaux montréalais.
«Ces personnes ne seront pas payées, mais elles auront des passes pour tous les spectacles du festival, des accès aux coulisses et tous les outils électroniques nécessaires pour parler de leur expérience», indique en entrevue la présidente du conseil d’administration du CFM, Isabelle Hudon. Continue reading →
Du Jazz pour le Japon Montréal is a benefit concert involving some of Montreal’s top Jazz musicians performing to assist in the disaster relief efforts benefiting the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan.
The Jazz pour le Japon Montréal concert will feature such well-known Montreal Jazz artists such as:
Chet Doxas, Frank Lozano, Sonia Johnson, Steve Amirault, Gary Schwartz, LettinGO, Johanne Desforges, Mike Gauthier, Jean-Pierre Zanella and the list is still growing …
A Jazz pour le Japon Montréal CD of the Montreal Jazz artists original material will be available for purchase at the show as well as on iTunes. All funds raised from the concert and CD sales will go directly to the the International Red Cross in Japan.
FTA – Festival TransAmériques program now online at www.fta.qc.ca.
Amazing shows from Montreal and the globe, including Montreal choreographer Chanti Wadge, one of the 154 artists profiled on www.RAEV.ca as part of the Recognizing Artists: Enfin Visibles! project.
(…)
“It may not seem like it but there was a real feeling of exuberance and lightheartedness behind this collection of songs,” Taylor said. “Thematically it’s still quite dark, but a little bit self-ironic. Maybe even a bit tongue-in-cheek.”
The songs playfully revel in the occult and all things Halloween: Kirk croons in “Bad Ritual” of levitating chairs and conjuring poltergeists, and after a potent prelude of climbing violins reminiscent of Funeral, “Lonesome Hunter” speaks of zombies and breaking love spells. The cross on the mountain also makes a lyrical cameo in homage to our city, to which Taylor relocated just over a year ago.
“Montreal I’ve always loved and wanted to try as home. It’s a really inspiring place – the community and scene here feels really strong, really open and inviting. Things move very easily in this city and people were really keen to help.”
If you’re used to seeing long line-ups outside Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen on The Main, prepare to see them at Centaur Theatre’s box office as well. The love-letter to Montreal that is Schwartz’s The Musical will surely be drawing in crowds both meat-loving and vegetarian, local and visiting, and young and old for one reason and one reason alone: this city’s long overdue for a love-in.
Leading the musical charge are Bowser and Blue, the legendary local duo who have made a career out of poking fun at our political situation and cultural quirks. Along with Director Roy Surette, they’ve adapted Bill Brownstein’s book on the beloved restaurant into a two-act celebration of everything that’s note-worthy about its on-going success. But does it all go down as easy as a smoked meat sandwich and a Cott Black Cherry Soda?
