Seeing how both of us were flying out the next morning, Kevin and I had no problem figuring out what to eat on Saturday night. Neither of us had ever had poutine—the classic Québécois comfort food—so it seemed almost mandatory that on our last night in town we visit Resto La Banquise, considered by many to be Montréal’s premiere purveyor of poutine.

Resto La Banquise is open 24 hours a day and serves up 25 different varieties of poutine, including an “Elvis Poutine” a “Kamikaze Poutine” and a “T-Rex Poutine”. Being that we were both first-timers, Kevin and I opted for the classic poutine, which consists of french fries topped with cheese curds and chicken velouté sauce (essentially a chicken gravy). The dish is warm, salty and simultaneously soft and crunchy. Good poutine, it’s said, is marked by the freshness of the curds, which should “squeak” when you bite into them. As you might imagine, poutine is a favorite late night snack in Quebec, so its not surprising that Resto La Banquise tends to be packed well into the wee hours of the morning.

—Mehan Jayasuriya

I’ve heard it said that this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York felt like an indie rock summer camp. After attending M For Montréal, I now know what that means. Over the course of the three-day festival, the international delegates (that is to say, the group of about 30 festival buyers, agents and journalists who had traveled from abroad to attend) were carefully shepherded from activity to activity by the festival staff. In addition to the showcases there were dinners, happy hours and networking events, all of which were carefully planned and orchestrated by the aforementioned handlers. To their credit, however, the festival never felt like a contrived daycare for music industry insiders. Friendships came easily over the course of three days and even those activities that sounded like tourist clichés on paper turned out to be more than worthwhile. The key was not taking oneself too seriously—something that both the organizers and the attendees seemed to understand instinctively.

Take, for example, the city tour, which took place inside of a yellow school bus on a Saturday morning. Instead of being led by a dry, professional tour guide, the journey was narrated by the festival’s booking and promotion guy, Mikey Bernard. Looking like a Cobra Snake-approved L.A. hipster with his ostensibly ironic moustache and fedora, Mikey was the perfect tour guide, injecting each comment with a bit of sardonic wit. He also knew Montréal’s indie rock landmarks like the back of his hand: the street where American Apparel founder Dov Charney once lived, the apartment where the idea for Vice Magazine was hatched, the restaurant where Leonard Cohen likes to have his breakfast.

Of course, no trip to Montréal would be complete without a visit to Schwartz’s famous Jewish delicatessen, a mainstay of Montréal cuisine for 80 years.

The specialty here is the smoked beef brisket, which is piled high on a two comparatively puny slices of white bread. The meat is rich, hearty and flavorful and almost seems to melt in your mouth—just the thing for a cold Montréal afternoon.

—Mehan Jayasuriya

After a short walk in the brisk cold, we found ourselves at the Cabaret & Studio Juste Pour Rire (“Just For Laughs”), where the night’s showcase would unfold. Sets alternated between two stages in the complex, separated by interludes of five minutes. Much like South by Southwest, which has often been described as a musical version of speed dating, M For Montréal can feel like an event geared toward the attention span impaired. A band performs a handful of songs, you walk a few feet and five minutes later, another band is set in front of you. As you might imagine, this approach has its upsides as well as its drawbacks. If you’re stuck watching an act that doesn’t particularly move you, you’ve usually only got a few more songs to sit through. However, if you really like a band, you’ve got to deal with the fact that you’ll only get to see them play for a few more minutes at most.

First up was Chinatown, a five-piece from the French-speaking side of town. While it’s said that their music combines the French pop of the ‘60s with the indie pop of today, to my ears, Chinatown just sounded like a sub par, Francophone bar band. If I was forced to tell you two interesting things about this band I would mention that:

1.) That singer kind of looks like Ewan McGregor, doesn’t he?

2.) Their guitarist looks, dresses and acts a bit like Joe Perry from Aerosmith. Can’t say he solos like him, though.

—Mehan Jayasuriya

Due to scheduling conflicts, I arrived in Montréal late on a Thursday night, a full day after events editor Kevin Pearson had touched down. As such, I missed the first day of the festival, not to mention a few swanky dinners, courtesy of the festival’s organizers.  Luckily, there was still plenty left to be seen, heard and tasted in Montréal and I was determined to make the most of my weekend in the world’s second largest French speaking city.

Coincidentally enough, I was born in Montréal, though my family left Canada when I was just a few months old. Though I had made a few trips back as a child, this would mark the first chance I would have as an adult to explore the city in earnest. As such, my trip was filled with a peculiar sense of nostalgia; fleeting moments of recognition in a city that I knew almost nothing about.

Our home base, the fashionably minimalist Opus Hotel, was located at the intersection of two of Montréal’s great thoroughfares, the Boulevard Saint Laurent and rue Sherbrooke. Boulevard Saint Laurent is apparently referred to as “the Main” by locals, as the street serves as the dividing line between the Anglophone and Francophone parts of town. Leonard Cohen owns a nondescript grey stone house about a mile from the Opus, not far from the corner of Boulevard Saint Laurent and rue Marie Anne (the latter street, apparently, serving as the inspiration for the song that bears its name).

Even though I arrived after midnight on Thursday, Kevin managed to coax me into going out to a bar (okay, I admit, it didn’t take much coaxing) with him and a few folks he had met at the festival. We ended up at Korova, an upstairs hipster dive on the main drag that somehow felt both authentically divey and authentically Canadian. The DJ spun great tunes (‘50s and ‘60s pop 45s, mostly), the bartenders poured St. Ambroise brews from Montréal’s own McAuslan brewery and practically everyone danced themselves into a sweat as the moose heads mounted on the wall silently observed the proceedings.

—Mehan Jayasuriya

PopMatters Picks of the best of M for Montreal WE ARE WOLVES MySpace CREATURE MySpace CHOCOLAT MySpace

Check out Day One

Day two of M for Montreal began with something a little bit unusual for a music festival: a round of “speed schmoozing” at a martini lounge with booking agents, talent managers, festival people, and anyone brave enough to jump into the shark-infested waters of timed small-talk.

Not really the most fun activity with someone who has more than a touch of Social Anxiety Disorder, but I thought it could at least provide a funny story. Mostly it was funny because, even though I do love music and listen to a lot of different things, at a music festival such as this, there will always be someone who will ask you if you know about the most current “It” band. Of course, being mainly a film person, I know nothing about any “It” bands, but after my hour plus of schmoozing, I was properly schooled in who was who in Montreal.

Watching the delegates interact was actually the best thing about the nerve-wracking exercise. It was a fuzzy reminder that music can really defy boundaries. New Zealand, Austria, Germany, Norway, Finland, the UK, and more were represented at the festival by delegates ranging from press to promoters to label owners. The importance of forging relationships with markets that might have heretofore been unnoticed was stressed and there was a genuine feeling of interests being piqued while the international crowd mingled.

It is a nice change to catch something elusive to the American music scene: bands that sing in another language. In this case, French. This is the true “hard sell” of M’s export-ready crop of artists. While the bands of the festival will sound awesome for those who appreciate good craftsmanship, it is probably going to be a detractor for the American record-buying public.

At the same venue as the previous evening’s showcase (Cabaret Just for Laughs), another eight acts readied to take to the tightly-organized stages. 16 bands in two days, each playing for 30 minutes, on two stages, with no overlap, and no snags. Sounds impossible? Not so for co-founder and artistic director Sebastien Nasra, who took to the stage after each act (often times with an omni-present mega-phone) to successfully direct the throng of listeners to scurry away in time to catch the next band. Sometimes there was even time to choke down a quick cigarette in between. Yes, I am talking to you, time-efficient British Delegates.

KRIEF [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Night two, musically, didn’t leave as favorable an impression as the electric opening night. Perhaps jet-lag was settling in on the audience. Krief, an unremarkable blues-inflected act devoid of style and originality (and with bad lyrics) had the unenviable task of kicking off the night. While the guys have obvious heart, there was just a fundamental connection missing between them and their audience. There was a lack of cohesion in their playing and especially in the lead singer’s vocals—which need to be worked on before showcasing like this again. As a unit, the band pulled it together by the end of their set, triumphantly.

SHAPES AND SIZES [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

When the 2nd band, Shapes and Sizes, came out (God bless their youthful exuberance), their downright awful sound made Krief look like The Beatles.

Featuring the first female front-woman of the fest, albeit one that had a piercing, off-key howl that should never, ever be used in public again, the band seemed oddly uncharismatic and lacking energy. Their sound, at best, was incoherent. They skirted some sort of pseudo-hippie/folksy/raga sound that did not translate in their live show at all. It was an incomprehensible set.

The white-boy-reggae percussion section sounded poor and contrived, while the singer’s vocal desperately aimed for “quirky” but ended up just sounding so foolish. It was a classic case of a bunch of young white kids with stupid faux-Jamaican inflections missing any soul or character that are engrained in that musical genre’s roots. Shapes and Sizes was a train wreck that sent everyone running to the door to smoke. Oddly enough, they were one of the most touted bands of the night, signed to Asthmatic Kitty records.

ELSIANE [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

HOT SPRINGS [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Thankfully, there were a couple of other female front women that, to varying degrees, erased Shapes and Sizes from everyone’s memories: Hot Springs’ charismatic leading lady Giselle Webber had her swagger down with a rollicking, yet somehow generic set of poppy rock ‘n’ roll. Elsiane was a bizarre solo female act steeped in mismatched tones of Portishead and other assorted trip-hop who is basically regurgitating what Bjork did about 15 years ago, only not as capably; although in her defense people seemed to really be buzzing about her work. It was actually quite brave of festival programmers to give her a spot on the mainly-rock stages, sandwiched in between all of the testosterone and the guitar squalls.

CREATURE [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

THUNDERHEIST [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Creature‘s Anastasia and Lisa provided the liveliest female presence at the M festival, kicking it with an old school knack that would make Kate and Cindy of the B-52’s smile with approval. Strutting around in majorette boots and taking the audience directly to Funkytown via the express train, Creature was one of the most engaging, fun performances of the two days.

Kim’s swirling falsetto combined with the harmonies and rhymes from the girls invoked everything from Blondie to the Rapture, and while the cowbell is played out more than any other instrument, they managed to rock it. Creature was the only band of the entire fest that looked as though they were actually having fun. With their infectious dance grooves and questions like the age old “would you get high with Brigitte Bardot?”, the band is looking forward to a proper full-length release coming out sometime early next year.

More fun and rhymes closed the night courtesy of Thunderheist‘s Isis, who doled out shots of liquor to the crowd from a giant bottle—a smart strategy to get an audience on your side. At that point, you might as well get wasted, right? Isis provided a nice counter-point of musical diversity and in honesty was a really good emcee but kind of a bad live singer. Her verses celebrated drinking and drugs, and were sort of silly, but still really fun.

WE ARE WOLVES [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

The biggest news of night two had to be when, deservedly, We Are Wolves won M for Montreal’s Galaxie Prize. Voted on by International Delegates and funded by the Continuous Music Network of the CBC, the winners received $5,000 in tour support, and also were ensured exposure with the guaranteed booking of a one week tour in Europe (in the UK and France). We Are Wolves, as part of this winning package, will also be given a spot onstage at Brighton’s The Great Escape Festival.

From the Arcade Fire to The Besnard Lakes, and now to We Are Wolves, Montreal is a hotbed of musical life, bubbling over with a vibrancy sorely lacking in other hipster music scenes. There is an elegant quality to the varied music coming from this haven, a unique perspective that is thankfully being validated by the Canadian government and being given its due by discriminating audiences the world over.

M for Montreal is the mediator of a cutting-edge experiment and a somewhat unholy marriage between the state and rock and roll. While this sounds absolutely preposterous in theory, that music should be joined in any way with government, it is a beautiful, interesting marriage that manages to work. I left Montreal feeling definitely more educated about the evolution of their musical landscape. It is thrilling to experience first-hand.

Check out Day One

—Matt Mazur

PopMatters Picks of the best of M for Montreal WE ARE WOLVES MySpace CREATURE MySpace CHOCOLAT MySpace

Stay tuned for part two on Monday…

My voyage to the M for Montreal showcase, which featured 16 export-ready local acts over two days, began with the worst kind of airport red flag: my flight got cancelled.

No biggie, I was re-routed to another, more direct flight, which at first glance, seemed even better. Brandishing the moniker “international delegate” (or as the festival staff put it, a “tastemaker”), I would soon be on my way to this intense examination of some of the premiere emerging acts from the city. Or would I?

I stepped out onto the tarmac to find that I was expected to board a tiny 16-seat aircraft powered by propellers. I actually wondered aloud to myself “is this some sort of (expletive deleted) joke?” This didn’t exactly endear me to my fellow passengers, each similarly shaking with fear.

First, I have to cop to one thing: I am terrified of flying. Period. My initial thought when I was standing on the runway, readying to get onto the plane that was smaller than some cars I have been in, was “I have to get the hell out of here”.

But, in the spirit of international relations, journalistic integrity, and the pursuit of the freshest rock and roll in the world, I did what any self-respecting, tenacious reporter would do: I choked down a valium with the remainder of my latte, had a severe panic attack (always attractive in public!), forced myself to strap in, and started praying.

I did not stop until my feet touched sweet Canadian soil and I was safely in the arms of the crackerjack M for Montreal staff. It was, without hesitation, the single most horrifying experience I have had in my entire life, I can’t stress that enough. Lucky for me, the upcoming two days would hold in store for me a virtual musical bacchanal to assuage my airplane hysteria.

NUMERO [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Montreal is a city filled with good looking, skinny, impossibly fashionable people. Everyone smokes and if you don’t, you’ll start! Everywhere you look there are older women with rainbow shocks of punk rock hair color, tight pants, and fur. Outside the airport a Muzak version of Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” played. This is definitely more like being in Europe than in North America. It’s a beautiful world beseeched by cultural hybridity, and it rocks hard. So close in proximity to the US, the city and M for Montreal itself are some of the best kept secrets for the young, jet-set, and elite who are sick of average vacations and the same old boring music festivals.

This very special event ain’t child’s play: it is expertly-organized, and friendly. Visitors are given a personal cutting edge experience. In its sophomore year, M for Montreal draws industry types, press, and promoters from all over the world. While many festivals purport to be “international”, this is the one that delivers on that promise: there were delegates from almost every major European festival there to scout acts.

Funded mainly by the government of Quebec allows for a tremendously unique opportunity to showcase the city’s most bright talents for alternative markets in corners of the world that may have otherwise never known about them. This is a brilliant move on the part of festival organizers and the Canadian government.

Such a generous gift to the artists from the state is one that should be not only commended, but aped. Governmental support for the arts in the US might be controversially scarce, but our government’s support of up and coming music acts (rock and roll or otherwise) is practically non-existent. Add this fete accompli to the ever-growing list (pot smoking on the street, gay marriage, universal health care, gruyere cheeseburgers with remoulade) of things the innovative country has made work that need to be emulated by the States.

LES BREASTFEEDERS [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

As part of the event, the first activity was a panel discussion with American speakers, led by Rhyna Thompson, an M for Montreal organizer and local artist manager. Providing insight to the US music market, specifically for Montreal bands, the talk featured Tom Windish (of the Windish Agency in Chicago, who works with acts such as Animal Collective), Brent Grulke (Creative Director of Austin’s South by Southwest festival), Tracy Mann (owner of MG Limited PR in NYC), Greg Diekroeger (Assistant Director of NACA—a group that brings events to college campuses), and Slim Moon (Senior Director of A&R at Rykodisc). Highlighting current industry trends (such as the notion that record labels might disappear altogether in the next few years), the panel dished out sage advice to an audience of eager artists.

“Things are happening really fast right now. It is a really exciting time,” said Grulke, while lamenting about the “old” way of doing things that is still engrained in the business end of the music industry. Mann had this practical advice for up-an-comers: “Everything is harder. You have to be in all of the places all of the time.” Listing avenues such as grassroots marketing campaigns, the internet and blogs, as well as popular media, she stressed the importance of not only telling good stories through music, but also coming up with the proper mythology for your act. Multi-tasking and a strong work ethic were the two most common talked about elements for new acts, but Moon put it more succinctly, saying that “talent is your best bet.”

The panel explored the impact the internet has had on promotion and sales of records and everyone seemed to be buzzing about the eventual downfall of traditional record labels as we know them. Moon talked at length about the internet facilitating and accelerating a band’s buzz on a global scale and the pressure this puts on labels to sign new acts to high risk deals.

One of the most interesting topics brought up at the discussion was, as Mann said “cultural and linguistic diversity in the industry”, and if geography does indeed matter. For Montreal bands (many of whom sing in French), this is an especially important facet of the business end. The panel acknowledged the need for proficiency in English when dong interviews, but the general feeling was that the tide was slowly turning in regards to what listeners were going for, and that having a reputation (no matter what language you are singing in) was the key to getting play in other markets.

CHOCOLAT [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Fortunately for those attending the evening’s band showcase, there were plenty of solid French-speaking bands raring to go. Chocolat, the event’s first act (who do sing in French), had the unenviable opening slot before the crowd could properly get their drink on, but managed to win most people over with their scrappiness and charm.

With a forceful swagger that invoked everything from The Stooges to the blues, Chocolat careened through an infectiously danceable with no shortage of soul. Mostly the attention was focused on lead singer/guitarist/harmonica player Jimmy Hunt, who possessed not only the best, most technically-impressive singing voice of the entire festival, but likely also the tightest pants, begging the age-old question “the tighter the pants, the tighter the band?”

PLANTS AND ANIMALS [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Across the board, night number one was filled with surprisingly little mediocrity for a festival so broad in scope. Usually, one would expect to hate at least half the bands when seeing such a large volume, but the festivals organizers really ponied up Montreal’s finest. The second act, Plants & Animals echoed a lot of Chocolat’s bluesy sentiments, but it was third act We Are Wolves that, for me at least, was the night’s biggest winner.

Merging theatric with a pulsing wall of sound, the three piece act seemed to be channeling malevolent digital spirits with giant skull apparatuses strapped to their backs and the nasty, loud electric grooves that were interspersed with shocking squalls of guitar. Think of them as a younger, hungrier Liars with a low-fi edge. Their record, Total Magique was recently released in the US and the boys are currently taking their act on the road stateside.

TORNGAT [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

Torngat, which features a member of the Bell Orchestra, was one of the night’s nicest surprises, with a cache of epic, dreamy tunes that boasted a dueling horn section that traveled out into the audience for a striking effect. These guys rocked their horns out like their lives depended on it, with no shortage of showmanship or skill.

PRIESTESS [Photo: Marie Tremblay]

This innovative, sensitive sound was given a nice counter-balance sandwiched in between the abrasive metal of Priestess and the most frenetic band of the evening, Les Breastfeeders. The latter band brought a kick-ass French twist to a classic dance-rock sound and featured the only female band member of the first night. Also, as part of their act, they feature a truly bizarre tambourine player who wears ghoulishly macabre make-up and a cropped, fuzzy coat. Apparently, this member has caused quite a stir in the scene.  It’s weird, but it works.

The respectful, congenial crowds of gorgeous, tattooed style mavens were far removed from the usual throng of snotty hipsters you would find at a comparable festival in the US. It was like being in another world, light years away from the jaded indie rock scene. There was a real feeling of camaraderie permeating M for Montreal on the first night, especially with local hero, the completely ageless Melissa Auf Du Mar (formerly of Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins, as well as a solo artist) presiding over the festivities, encouraging everyone to see every band.

It is an event like this that have the power to fill cynical hearts (like my own) with hope for the future of music, even when it seems like everything is up in the air. If the situation is as dire as we are being led to believe, then it is a relief to know that there is a contingent out there working their asses off and that at least someone out there who wants the world to see new, emerging acts.

The homespun feeling of M for Montreal really was the first time I have experienced a scene or a city as a whole really standing up for their hometown’s best and proudly promoting them; no matter the band’s style, and no matter how prolific they were or were not. It was intimate. And it was a nice change from the ordinary, gratuitous festivals I have experienced.

Stay tuned for part two on Monday…

—Matt Mazur