Concert Reviews

First and foremost, I must give the Kalmunity Music Week 2018 a standing round of applause for creating an excellent event with numerous artists from home and abroad spanning numerous genres.

As part of the week, the collective hosted a hip-hop night featuring Washington D.C’s own Sa-Roc (a.k.a Goddess MC), and she did what she usually does: put on a great performance.

The Distortion Psychfest returned to Église S-E-J du Mile-End May 9 to 13 2018 for its third edition. The festival showcases some of the best psych, garage, and noise bands from Montreal and beyond. This years edition kicked things off with a double release party — Tel Aviv→New York guitarist Yonatan Gat’s latest LP Universalist, and Montreal band TEKE::TEKE’s debut EP Jikaku. Sheenah Ko which I unfortunately missed, opened the show filling in for Chris Forsyth, and Sunwatchers took care of the music for the after party.

The sound check was so loud that some customers at the back of Reggies’ Bar, oblivious to the fact that a rock concert was about to begin, complained about the sound to the bartender. Unfortunately for them, the show hadn’t even started yet.

As a small Concordian crowd assembled in front of the stage, the first band, The Nicotines, stepped up onto the stage, surrounded by an army of amps and cabinets.

The Montreal-based trio has been gigging for about one year, and has released one EP, Spaced Out. This was their second concert at Reggies, following ROCK the Winter Away which took place in March.

June 2004, Verdun Auditorium. Once a tour stop for massive acts like The Clash, Metallica, Black Sabbath and Nirvana, by the 2000s, the venue remained mostly unused, other than for minor hockey. The first—and last—show I would ever see in Verdun was The Darkness, touring their massive debut album Permission to Land. I don’t remember too many details from that night; only that it seemed everyone I knew was there, and we all had an incredible time. I don’t believe there have been any other shows at Verdun Auditorium since. Certainly, it went out with a bang that night.

The musical style of Owen Hopper, a.k.a Mouth Breather, is one that cannot be easily defined but it does make people want to dance. Hooper produces the majority of his songs, mixing the beats, creating the melodies, and layering the vocals. He describes his sound as a mesh of all the art that he consumes and simply makes it his own.

This year, I had the privilege of attending South by Southwest 2018 in Austin, Texas, with my fellow music directors. I was really excited because Austin has the perfect weather, great people and southwestern charm. During SXSW, the city is filled with loud music and a ton of great shows to see and artists to discover.

On our first day, after picking up our badges at the Austin Convention Center, we tracked down nourishment for the night ahead. I met up with a rep and headed to The Belmont for the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, hosting RZA of Wu-Tang featuring Stone Mecca and Pussy Riot.

Back from an exhilarating experience at South by Southwest 2018 in Austin, Texas, it is time to digest our street meat and musical discoveries from this seemingly never-ending music-at-every-corner festival and conference.

As World Music Director, my mission was to discover as much "world" music-inspired artists as possible. Some buzz words that peaked my attention included afro-futurism and global future, wrapped around more favourite words like funk, electronic, and psychedelic.