2006 Montreal International Music Initiative @ Spectrum

By Trevor Kiernander - Ones and Zeroes - 12/03/2006

And the winner is: the unexpected!

That seemed to be the general sentiment during a lot of the MIMI gala that took place December 3rd at the Spectrum -- well, for me since this being my first MIMI attendance out of ten, as this was the 10th anniversary of the event. Supposedly though, the reports swirling after the show were that it was pretty low budget and seemingly unprofessional, but I’ll give you my take.

First up, the MIMIs are the Montreal International Music Initiative and was founded in 1996 to help bring attention to what was going on locally in the music scene. Originally, the first I in MIMI stood for Independent, but the organizers obviously had bigger dreams for this baby, and rightly so. I won’t go into any more details on the history of MIMI, but if you happen to come across a program for the evening, everything is detailed in there: the who’s who, the what’s what and the planting of the first seed. After reading through the sensational history of the event, I did scratch my head at the size of what was laid out in front of me, but it reflected the very close-knit music community that Montreal has and something I find spans all of the arts communities in Montreal. Montreal’s acceptance and support of the arts is what brought me here from southern Ontario as opposed to moving to Toronto, but I digress.

I grabbed at the opportunity to cover the gala for two main reasons: Think About Life and We Are Wolves. I’ve always enjoyed WAW whenever they have played and I had yet to see TAL play live, so I thought this was the perfect night to get a lot out of the system. When I arrived at the Spectrum, I definitely wasn’t expecting an entire sit-down event. I guess this should have been obvious by the "Gala Event" title, but part of me was hoping for one hell of a throwdown of some serious local talent.

The presenter/host took to the stage and gave the impression of being someone I should’ve known, but due to my lack of socializing outside of my small institutional bubble -- rapidly shrinking now that I have graduated -- I hadn’t the vaguest clue who she was, and other friends of mine ‘in-the-know’ didn’t either. Again, small thing, but let’s get to the music!

Angela Desveaux took the stage first, with three or four sweet country tracks. I hadn’t previously heard or heard of Desveaux, but by the reception, she’ll probably be kicking around for some time to come. Next up, more awards, presented by more people I didn’t know.

Call Me Poupée were next on the bill. I like this band, I really do, but I feel that there is just something missing from them. They seem like a fluffed-up and toned-down Les Ritas Mitsoukos. Maybe I’m wrong.

Think About Life were up third, again peppered in with awards here and there. These guys played like they were playing any other show with hundreds of screaming and jumping fans; it was just too bad that the most people could do was to tap their feet and bob their heads (the typical Montreal show position, but I’ve heard the tales of TAL’s shows). The sound guy seemed to be sleeping on the job as well, but TAL battled through, and ended with a kick-ass medley, cramming about three to five songs in less than four minutes. Brilliant! These guys should have walked off with the Étoile montante (Rising Star) award, but as in everything, there are hidden politics I’m sure.

We Are Wolves were the last performance I stuck around for, and these boys can rock a party. They seem to get tighter every time I see them, and I am thoroughly looking forward to some new material. The only distraction were the visuals that were obviously of no doing of their own. The screens were projecting the band with psychedelic designs à la Jefferson Airplane, and they weren’t even close to being low-budget. They felt more along the lines of some presets in iMovie or something. Again, small things that really shouldn’t distract from the purpose of the evening of promoting the Montreal music scene.

The only other disappointment to the evening, I felt, was the lack of nods to other parts of the music scene, and more specifically the electronic music scene. One example being Foe Destroyer, released by Stephen Beaupré on the MUTEK_REC label. After being nominated as the Album of the Year - Electronic Music at the ADISQ 2006 Gala (Quebec Music Awards), one of its tracks, "LES FILLES", is now nominated at the 3rd QWARTZ Electronic Music Awards (Paris). More politics? I did have a good time, nonetheless.

The award results for the evening were:

Nova - Carl-Éric Hudon, Darling Arms and Snailhouse
Cosmo - Afrodizz
Réalisateur - "Close to Paradise", Patrick Watson
Bourreaux de tournée - Priestess
Concert - Les Breastfeeders
St Urbain - Ghislain Poirier
Electro - 011
Rock - The Besnard Lakes
Fountains - The Adam Brown
International - Patrick Watson
Étoile montante (Rising Star) - Call Me Poupée
Groupe - Wolf Parade
Song/Chanson - "You are a Runner and I’m My Father’s Son", Wolf Parade
Album - Trompe-l’oeil, Malajube

[Ones and Zeroes is currently on hiatus.]

Check out last year's review here.