Hit The North!

Last year, I went to Canada for the first time in my life, in order to find out what one of my favorite NYC bands would sound like in Canada. I was also going to cover the POP Montreal Festival, the city wide cultural showcase which has been curating a mix of avant and otherwise honest sounds since 2002. The plan was to document the fest for the Winter 2023 print issue of CREEM. Then my bosses found out that the festival had flown me to the festival and put me up in a hotel. A number of emails were exchanged with my bosses, where terms like “integrity” and “ethics” were thrown around in a way that I found to be more than a little hurtful. I tried to explain that an hour and half flight was barely an hour more than not flying at all, that there wasn’t a hotel room on earth that had towels nice enough to make me have fun at a festival, and that in Canada payola is fine as long as, when you get your check, you do a land acknowledgement. No dice. Not only was the piece killed, my masthead title was changed from “Editor at Large” to “Disappointment at Large.” To illustrate just how much trouble I was in, I’ll simply say this: None of the emails I received from CREEM higher-ups contained a single exclamation point.

That was then. Through a combination of sycophantry and backstabbing, those bosses who crossed me have either been won over or forced to move back in with their parents in Dayton. As for our publisher, I pointed out Canada’s proximity to Detroit and made him a mixtape with nothing but songs by Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Zumpano, and Nomeansno. Now he thinks Canada is “pretty cool,” and wants a write up of last year’s POP Montreal and a preview of the fest coming up in September. Which is wonderful, and kind of makes me wish I’d at least written a draft of the piece from last year and didn’t have to cobble together my memories of it from notes that consist of the following:

Day 1

Kate NV Ze records Tropicana sock hop Rube Goldberg production

Late night joint that appeared to be staffed by Funeral For a Friend

As Ratboy weren’t named after Kristen Hersh’s memoir, it made sense that they didn’t sound like Throwing Muses. Did Tonya Donnelly write a memoir? If she does, and calls it Ratboy, that’d definitely circle a square or two

There’s a certain kind of alt indie where Boston in 1989 is the height of civilization. I hope Julianna Hatfield is proud

Like being at The Bronze, sans vampires

A little civilization can be a lot

Scratch Acid shirt

Montreal in General

A tolerable Portland: All the freaks, anarcho sloganeering, rat pack neon nostalgic strip clubs, and zombified harm-reductionees, without any of the bad stuff.

Portland has more goths, but in Portland you think you’re about to watch a goth band and they invariably sound like Hagar the Womb

If Montreal is such a party town, how come I didn’t see any girls in black dresses sitting on the curb sobbing? How come I wasn’t scared of imminent bodily harm every time I saw a backwards baseball cap? How come it doesn’t suck

More like “VERY French” fries, amirite?

Day 2

Backxwash rules, plays Devil in the Mosh pit twice

crowd=Lesbian bumper cars

Protest: “no black flags on stolen land” (???) (Ask Babyballs)

La Securite playing to just right amount of creeps

Risking Death By Baba Yaga just to see Water From Your Eyes

Might get bagels you guys like bagels?

Dude in suicide shirt liked WFYE

Door guy stopped checking for badges at club so clean cut post-teens milled in and out of venue in a state of bemused and frustrated horniness I assume is their natural state

PyPy/Red Mass: “We have mushrooms”

Day 3

Tangerine Dream patented brand of pink loafer car chase rock

Fun? Fun.

No idea what any of that means, except the part about the dude from the astoundingly great garage-psych band, PyPy, offering me mushrooms, me saying that “I don’t do mushrooms,” him saying “well, what do you do,” him having what I did do, and me—as a guest in his country, city, and the bathroom stall of the bar his girlfriend worked at—doing it. Also, I know the meaning of the last note. Which is brilliantly observed, if I do say so myself. Because Pop Montreal is indeed quite fun.

As festivals worldwide become more and more homogenized, with every mega-fest announcement in a death race with the others to see who can book the greatest number of reunited ‘90s detritus, contemporary Oasis cosplayers, and obliquely spelled EDM DJj/pantomimes, POP Montreal decidedly ain’t that. The fest’s founders and organizers have constantly put forth lineups which balance forward thinking pop and anti-pop, the truly out-there artists of the last half century, and enough skewed-but-accessible guitar acts to ensure that any noble-hearted nerd with even the slightest bit of curiosity can bliss the fuck out. This year, POP Montreal is building on its own wiley tradition by featuring the electro pioneer/freak needer Egyptian Lover (whose live show I recommend to an unsettling degree), Still House Plants (AKA The Actually Good Band Doing That Talk Singing Thing), the transcendent vibology of Claire Rousay, Los Bitchos (AKA the soundtrack to yr absolutely coolest life), Nabihah Iqbal’s painterly pop-plus-plus, and the genuinely sublime Iris DeMent (rumors of her having reconciled with the Mystery are, at this writing, unconfirmed).

Though it bills itself as being “For musicians and artists, fans, curators, critics, record labels and industry,” POP Montreal prioritizes the first three, as well it should. Sprawling across the city as it does, the festival makes sure the lineups for each day are appropriately staggered and that all participants are equipped with an embarrassment of maps and traveler tips. In this, attendee’s safety is also prioritized while also making it so that nobody misses any act they want to see badly enough to put a little hustle in their step. In fact, the only way you’ll miss a show you have your heart set on is if you, say, decide to ignore the POP Montreal app and wander blindly through the plentiful, gorgeous, and often lightless foliage which breaks Montreal up like some druidic counter-offensive. (I just remembered what the Baba Yaga note was about: I GPS’d a venue that Water From Your Eyes were playing at and started walking in a straight line, which took me through a part of Narnia they don’t include in the brochures, where the footpaths have been designed via chaos magick and maintained through the generous funding of the Turkish Delight lobby. So, use the maps.)

POP Montreal runs from September 25-29 this year. Unless you prefer the millionth iteration of “Nostalgia, Nostalgia, DJ Pun Name, Rapper Who Won’t Show, The Killers, More Nostalgia, No Original Members Reunion Playing Their Worst Album In Its Entirety, and special appearance by *checks notes* Zedd,” I strongly suggest attending this festival instead. I mean, both Mannie Fresh and Calexico will be there. Plus, no jam bands. And, yes, Montreal’s public transit system is charming as hell.