by JOHNSON CUMMINS

To say that the MIMIs this year filled me with pride, split my sides and created a unification of the divided Montreal music scene would be like me trying to tell you that Just for Laughs’ Gags show is the funniest thing ever on television. Having said that, I know for a fact that the intentions of producer and longtime Montreal music proponent Dan Webster and company are true, but after 10 years, Webster will now throw in the towel. My hat is off to him for at least giving a good go to the Herculean task of trying to glamourize something that could easily be relegated to a backroom show.

Perhaps I’m romanticizing the thing a bit too much, but I look back fondly on the ramshackle production at Café Campus 10 years ago, where throwaway prizes like “Best Hair” (if I’m not mistaken, I think Cecil Seaskull from Nerdy Girl clinched that one) took the potential stuffiness out of the event, and heckling from the peanut gallery was not only accepted but encouraged. With a bare minimum of industry in the crowd, Café Campus’s maximum capacity was tested by the throngs of local musicians and actual concert-goers.

But a decade later, it seems the pendulum has definitely swung to the right. Maybe it was the Montreal music-scene hoopla heaped on us two years ago by the rest of North America that made us too big for our britches. Maybe it’s the success of the likeminded East Coast Music Awards applying pressure, with the guarantee of television coverage, that accounts for the glitzy MIMIs. Whatever it is, progress, pomp and circumstance just don’t seem to be working.

Now that I’ve gotten all my venom out, let’s get around to what made the MIMIs tolerable and, on occasion, enjoyable. Although many have said that the francophone and anglophone music communities are united, the fact is, sadly, that there still remains a huge gulf between the two sections. Exposing bands like Call Me Poupée and les Breastfeeders to anglos, and Angela Desveaux and Think About Life to the French, can’t help but create some overflow in the separated Montreal music scene. Live performances by the above, as well as a killer show from electro-rockers Plaster, actually made the awkward and uncomfortable moments worthwhile. It was also nice to see that bands were finally getting a pat on the back after years of breaking them, and maybe stuffing their press packs with a MIMI award or nomination will impress somebody.

Unfortunately, Wolf Parade’s no-show to pick up their awards for Song of the Year and Group of the Year seemed to speak volumes about the MIMIs over the past five years, and I can’t help but think that if they were up for “best hair,” they probably would’ve been there with bells on.

AM I TOO CRANKY HERE? LET ME KNOW… jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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