Better days

I’ve been having a bit of a summer getaway from Montreal, crossing the country as I tap this out. After talking to the locals over Pilsners about their cities, and more specifically shows that have rolled through their towns, you quickly realize just how lucky we are to be living in Montreal. Telling a person in Calgary that Montreal has a show almost every night of the week if you look hard enough, usually pretty well supported with boisterous, enthusiastic crowds and fairly affordable ticket prices, they’ll swear you are talking about Valhalla.

In Vancouver, which is of course supposedly a huge cultural metropolis, things aren’t much better. Venues like Richard’s on Richards are struggling with their new ownership to remain a live venue, as opposed to the quick cash-grab of the cologne-infused meat-market dance joint, and punk rock venue the Cobalt struggles with continual noise complaints from the neighbouring condo residents, while loft parties with no hope in hell of getting an entertainment licence get raided by cops. On the other side of the coin, venues like the Commodore and the Orpheum (which shut its doors this week) won’t hire bands unless they can pull in a minimum of 800 people. Talking with numerous band members in Vancouver, they explained there are almost no venues for local developing bands and many just buy an Econoline and hit the road before even trying to get on a local show.

At the Only Crime show at the Plaza in Vancouver, the band had a curfew of 10:30 p.m. so the club could open up a disco afterwards to serve melon-ball shots to yuppie assholes. Only Crime got all of their gear thrown out in the parking lot by the jarhead bouncers at 10:45 p.m. Hello, Vancouver!

Here comes the punchline—in Vancouver alone, I spoke to a ton of people who said that their live music scene is dying due to the gentrification of their downtown core, East Van and Gastown (bye bye, Brickyard), and yet I still hear whiners in Montreal flap their gums about the good ol’ days of Montreal and how it just isn’t the same. Here’s the facts, buckaroos—I was at the shows in the “good ol’ days” and in the 20 years I have lived in Montreal, there has been no period in Montreal’s live music scene that can hold a candle to what we have now. Thanks to Greenland, Blue Skies Turn Black, Casa del Popolo, the Stillepost message board, Zoobizarre, loft parties and much more, Montreal hasn’t even peaked yet. Although outside media attention have shifted its beady eyes away from Montreal as some sort of hipster hotspot, the fact remains that Montreal is probably the greatest city in Canada for live music.

So all of you old people who are misty-eyed for the idyllic days of yore, shut the fuck up! Go back to your suburban pasture because you are old, boring, useless and you make me sick.

Old, boring, useless and sickening… Jonathan.cummins@gmail.com