Halifax Pop Explosion 2014

Gus' Pub, A Love Story

Over the last few years, I was told numerous times that I would love the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Former and current residents told me it was my kind of town and I should come out some time for a visit.

Halifax Pop Explosion was taking place between October 21st and 25th, and a dear friend offered to put me up for as long as I wanted. After getting a great deal on a plane ticket, I was all set up for a week in a new city. To sweeten the deal, CJLO helped me get media accreditation for HPX, which gave me access to all the shows I wanted, and has now pulled these words out of me to describe my experience of the festival, the bands and the city of Halifax itself.

Monday, October 20th

I arrived the day before the party started and made my way to the North End where I was staying. I was happily surprised to see that I was located 20 minutes walking distance from most of the HPX venues, and the neighbourhood at large was full of local business for any need I could think of. The North End of Halifax is going through a transition, much like we've seen here in the Mile End in Montreal. It's an affordable neighbourhood that has a lot of new independent businesses starting up with local resources and partnerships. One of the people I stayed with runs a hair salon; there are small restaurants that serve only burritos; cafés with locally-roasted coffee beans; microbreweries that serve you beer in returnable "growlers"; and let's not forget about the boutique selling specialty home items where I (HIPSTER ALERT) bought locally made beard oil that smells like cedar. Admittedly, beard oil is not exactly a need in life, but you get the idea: it's a cool, up and coming place where the entrepreneurs are planting their flags.

The night was spent with a home-cooked meal, Monty Python on the TV, and a few laughs; all in all a great start.

Tuesday, October 21st

As I awoke and looked outside, I decided to take a walk on what turned out to be the only sunny day of my entire time in Halifax. I walked past the Halifax Commons (the big green space) to the headquarters for HPX volunteers, artists, and media to grab my badge for the week. There was no swag bag, and I found this to be refreshing to not need to throw away any useless promotional materials that are prevalent in these types of multi-day music festivals. Save for one big beer company, there is very little in the way of big corporate sponsorship at Pop, and it seems the organizers instead go the route of local partnerships to help promote and run the event in the city.

My next move was to grab some coffee and take a walk, which pointed my feet toward the downtown area. Much like the North End, downtown Halifax is building up in its own right, only in this case there are multiple construction cranes in the skyline building condos and office towers. I walked toward the waterfront and found a place to get some fish & chips for lunch and a few quiet moments to plan out the first night of loud shows.

As night was falling, I met up with my brother for a drink and we had a good talk about the city, and since his background is civil engineering, I was all ears. He further laid out the interesting predicament that Halifax finds itself in from a city-planning standpoint. It appears they are in a weird stasis—caught between companies that want to build the city up and a citizenry that constantly tries to preserve older buildings as heritage sites. More comically, there's an infamous highway ramp that was built near downtown that was never completed and has since been blocked off at all sides—hence it goes nowhere and cannot be used. The people who were overly eager to build were unable to topple demands of the preservationists and it literally led to a bridge to nowhere.

My adventures on the first night started in what would be my unofficial residency venue Gus' Pub, which had something going on every day of Pop that pulled me there, and was usually the most fun place to be every night. My maiden voyage was Halifax local punk outfit Negative Rage, who zipped through a set of downright snarly tunes with feedback squeals and theatrics to set a bold tone for the night. They were actually filling in for another local act, Grump, but as I found out from the NR's frontman Cody (who is also in Grump), their singer got called away for military work and couldn't make it to any of their gigs for the week.

Negative Rage

After Negative Rage, the table was set for one of my recent favourite bands, WTCHS, to hit Gus' Pub with a speaker cabinets that were way too big for a room that fits about 75 people at maximum capacity. Each member of the band plugged into a cabinet the size of a refrigerator and made more volume compression than a person without earplugs could handle. Subsequently, when I interviewed Jag from WTCHS later that week, he admitted that was their reduced "road" gear; when they are closer to their home in Hamilton, Ontario, they (insanely) play through two of those cabinets each. For those who don't know them, WTCHS are a noise art punk band who have been learning as they go for years now, and they are about to release a full-length record for Sonic Unyon in 2015. They are not to be missed.

WTCHS

I decided to change the flavour of the evening by hiking over to a downtown venue called Reflections Cabaret to catch Austra play their 1:00 AM set to a full crowd. Reflections is a new incarnation of a well-known dance club in Halifax, and the venue is bathed in all kinds of newfangled LED rope lighting everywhere. The stage was luminous with bright blue lights and served as a perfect place for Austra to play their rich blend of synth pop to the delight of the crowd. I was right up front near the PA and watched them as they locked into each other for a tight set of tunes. Singer Kate Stelmanis was not one to stay still for any amount of time, and at one point as my hand rested on a PA monitor, she promptly sat there, which forced me to move my hand lest it be trapped under her Austra. OK, that was the one bad joke I'll write in this piece, I promise.

Kate Stelmanis (Austra)

Walking home after that show was a kind of eerie moment, as the downtown core of the city was completely quiet and free of any humanity or moving vehicles of any kind. It was a Tuesday night, to be fair, but I still found it odd that the city shuts down after 11:00 PM on weekdays. All the same, it was a quiet and peaceful walk home where the only thing I passed of any note was a weird abandoned office chair sitting by the road outside of a hotel.

Wednesday, October 22nd

I awoke to see that the rains had come in full force, but undeterred I made my way to the Museum of Natural History for a talk on Composing Music for Screened Media. Being a lover of film scores, as well as a lover of video games, it was a very enthralling discussion. I felt that I learned a little bit about what kind of a commitment a person has to make in order to try and monetize their sounds, as well as what kind of tactics I would need to employ in order to break into the very competitive field of composing music for someone else's vision.

My brother and his wife invited me to have supper at their place, which was in a hilly, verdant neighbourhood called Clayton Park. All of the backyards are lined with trees and the houses all feel very sequestered from any hint of urban life. It was a lovely dinner, and it served as a quiet oasis before another loud night, this time holding court at Gus' Pub for the full bill.

The first band, and one of the "secret guest" spots on the HPX schedule was London, Ontario party-punkers Single Mothers, who were a sweaty dishevelled mess in the best way possible. Singer Drew Thomson, with his missing front tooth and raspy delivery, kept everyone entertained through the start of a beery night. After the set, I ran into my good friend Paul who is a former Halifax resident (and the drummer for Kestrels), and he told me how excited he was for the next band coming up. A bunch of kids called Soft Spot hit the stage, almost unassumingly, and proceeded to play a set of fuzzy noise pop that was just sloppy enough to feel loose but just tight enough to hang onto. I was hooked on them as soon as the first song hit the chorus. I found out later they all work in the same place (a drug store), they all live together above that place, and practice in the basement below that place. It sounds so perfect that I can't even fathom that idea; and it has helped this relatively-young band to gain a lot of traction in a short amount of time. I am excited to see where this band will be in a couple of years.

Single Mothers

Another band I was really excited to see was next, and Kuato did not disappoint by any stretch of the imagination. New to their set was a recently-acquired lighting rig run by a friend offstage making the colours dance and turn to their long and powerful post rock songs. They finished with "Ripped from the Soil", which is my favourite song from their 2014 record, The Great Upheaval, and the crowd ate it all up. To cap off the wonderful night were Montreal's own Solids, who I've seen live countless times and were the perfect musical comfort food to an awesome night of bands. If you know them, then you know that they delivered a high-energy show and their music inspired people to crowd surf through the entire duration of their set. One of the crowd surfers was about six and a half feet tall and Gus' is about the side of my living room.

Kuato

Speaking of comfort food, and following the show, Paul and I high-tailed it to legendary late night food dive, Tony's, for what is Halifax's hallmark: the Donair. It is to Halifax what poutine is to Montreal; it is everywhere and it is plentiful; it gets top billing over pizza at a pizza place. For the uninitiated, a Donair is a Turkish spiced meatloaf that rotates on an upright rotisserie and is shaved off with an electric knife. They take enough of this meat to guarantee about a year of cholesterol medication will be needed, wrap it into a pita, throw tomatoes, onions and about a pint of a donair sauce (that is sweet in taste), wrap it up and watch you struggle not to get it all over you. It was so messy, I was actually happy it rained on my walk home. It was delightful, by the way.

Thursday, October 23rd

The rain the next day was even worse than it was the day before, and I had to make it to Gus' Pub (of course) for an interview with WTCHS, but not before coffee and a Mexican breakfast across the street. After finishing up the coffee, the breakfast, the interview and another coffee (in that order), I made my way to Gus' to see Calgary, Alberta horror punk quartet HAG FACE. These four females scared me and aroused me at the same time and were also really nice when I sat with them after their set. I called them "Black Sabbath's younger sister, with ADD", and they loved that analogy. These girls go from creepy whispers to blood-vaporizing screams and change tempos just for fun during some of their songs and it's absolutely compelling.

BADBADNOTGOOD

After that was done, and with the rain being a bit too constant for my liking, I headed home with a few detours into record shops and a killer coffee place along the way on Agricola Street. That night's entertainment was going on at the Multi Purpose Centre, which was the "big ticket" venue for the more established acts at the festival. After walking about a half hour in the rain away from any semblance of a city-like area, I happened upon the venue, which was about the size of an airplane hangar. The crowd was entertained by Canadian electro jazz dance party boys BADBADNOTGOOD; it was a fun set and I caught about 20 minutes of it, which the mostly younger audience ate up and squealed at with glee. The show was running long, and after finally finishing, we all began the waiting game for the night's headliners, which in this case were Wu Tang Clan members Ghostface Killah and Raekwon. I was really excited to see any Wu Tang members, let alone two of the best MCs in the whole crew, so the patience level in what became a 90-minute delay in their appearance on stage was eroded before it even started. I had no previous knowledge that apparently they are famous for delaying shows for basically no good reason at all, and once the wait started passing the one-hour mark, the audience members started to boo as they waited. I kept myself occupied by watching PS I Love You and Halifax Pop Explosion doing a Muppets Statler and Waldorf routine and making some jokes as they also waited for the show to begin. Once it did get going, it was a really good show but once I caught the songs I wanted to hear, I got out of there and hopped in a cab back to (of course) Gus' Pub.

Ghostface Killah and Raekwon

HAG FACE were on stage again as I arrived, finishing their night-time set, and their energy transitioned from hungover by day to more of a partied state of lubrication at night. The band up next were my good buddies Kestrels, who were set to start their last show of 2014 at midnight sharp, and start on time, they did (see how that's done, Wu Tang Clan?). They turned the lights off, not even opting to use the coloured stage lights and blistered through the best set I saw them do in quite some time. If there is something about playing in front of a full house in your hometown at your label's showcase night that brings out a little bit extra in you, Kestrels had it in spades that night. Their tour mates, Philadelphia power-pop band Swearin', closed out the night with fantastic male and female vocals duking it out with sharply played guitar lines. All in all, it was a great night, but oddly, I was regretful that I missed both Veneers and Operators that night due to making the choice to wait it out at the Multi Purpose Centre.

Swearin'

Friday, October 24th

At this point, the rain was almost without cessation for the better (or worse) part of two full days, and it made me really want a good drink—really, that's a "when in Rome" situation in Halifax, so I've heard. After being a hermit for a while in the comfort of indoors, I ventured out to meet with some friends of Paul's to basically tag along for a birthday dinner. The gastropub called The Stubborn Goat had great food and drink, and won the best beer of the week award from me for the Big Spruce Special IPA that I sampled in plentiful amount. After a really good meal and a few pints, Paul and I hit up Reflections Cabaret for Montreal bands aplenty. Hand Cream were the first of the night and their sounds (although hazed through a few hoppy beverages in my brain filter) were a pleasant change from a few days of bombast. Keeping the gentle pop sounds going were Fixture Records' own Brave Radar who played their pretty tunes and made me happy as this was the first time in three days that I did not require earplugs at a show.

After a couple more beverages, we made our way across town to catch Sheer Agony at Gus' Pub and their mathy garage rock was a nice way to kick things back into gear. Following them (and really at the apex of my less than moderate consumption of beverages) were Crosss, bringing the Montreal band count to four in a row for the night. This band brought the volume back up to the "high" setting, and had an ominous attack that would at times wait for you to adjust to a chord, just to pummel you with it over and over again. I really liked their set, and I hope to catch them again at a point in time when I'm of sound mind and body.

Solids

The last band was PS I Love You, and much like with Solids a few days before, it was a good familiar note on which to finish a night. Paul Saulnier and I have spoken a few times in the past, including twice for CJLO interviews, and it was cool to talk about stage gear with him. Every time I see them, it's a marvel at how much goes into their polished set of riffy noise pop, and getting an insight on how the stuff actually works was a nice bonus. The set was on point, and as usual they put a lot of energy into their show, which in such a small room was really palpable. I hit a point, however, when my focus was lacking and my phone lost all battery power while I was in the middle of taking pictures of the band, so I called it a night and walked home. The fresh air and the ever-present rain were also a big help to getting my brain back to basic operating power.

Saturday, October 25th

The last day of the HPX fun started with hitting the 'zine fair and then the record fair with Paul from Kestrels. Finding the record fair saw us do some circles around town and proved to be a longer walk than we bargained for (neither of us are topographers, it would seem) but at least it was not raining for once! We eventually found a large warehouse with many local record vendors plying their wares to a good amount of vinyl collectors and shoppers alike. After a bit of browsing and buying, we made our way to Dee Dee's for a fantastic burrito and a bit of down time followed by what would be our last visit to Gus' for a show. This last band Un Blonde was by far the oddest act I witnessed at HPX, and probably the whole year if I'm being honest. At the time, my knee-jerk reaction would be to describe them as a band that plays two different art rock songs at once while hints of R&B crooning permeate the mic. It was weird, but I have to admit to enjoying it, especially after so many nights of live music in a row; I suppose I was seasoned enough to enjoy them. If you're into weirdo music that revels in complication and being against the grain then I think you would enjoy Un Blonde.

Kestrels

After we parted ways, I met up with my hosts and took them out to a nice dinner on the town as a thank you for letting me stay with them for the whole week. We had tapas and cocktails, and had a nice chat about the city and what they enjoyed about living there, so it was a nice bookend on the various things swimming in my head about the city and its people.

Once I left them to a night of watching a hockey game, I made the trek out to see Chad VanGaalen at The Olympic Hall, which was a crowded show that had also seen PS I Love you and Cousins earlier in the night. Chad was very engaging on stage, telling stories and building them into his set of vulnerable and powerful pop music. He's a great performer and it's funny how he kind of projects this "awww shucks" persona of a guy who can't keep his guitar in tune, and then he slays you with that warbling falsetto. Very highly recommended if you have a chance to see him perform.

Keeping with the storytelling and strong voices, and ending my musical journey at The Marquee Ballroom was Cold Specks from Montreal (well, some are from Toronto others are from Nova Scotia). The Marquee is a really cool venue, with high ceilings and lots of places to sit and stand, but I chose the front of the stage and was treated to a fantastic live performance. I wasn't blown away by the record Neuroplasticity, but live the songs were killer.

Along the way that night, I lost my friend Paul to a basement show and he kept texting me that he was going to the after party at the Seahorse Tavern, so after the Cold Specks show, I went to meet with him. However, his presence was elusive and I was greeted by a Saturday night of over drunken Haligonians wilding out downtown. Where there wasn't a peep on Tuesday night, now was some kind of controlled riot of the kind of obnoxious people you see on Crescent Street on a Saturday, seemingly saving all of their frustration to blow it all off in an overly clubby-looking outfit. Lots of bros, and lots of arguments in short skirts; a nightmare that once encountered was quickly escaped. The Seahorse was packed with the chatter of a few hundred drunken conversations trying to talk over the live reggae band playing party tunes, and after about four minutes, I shifted into "can't deal with it" mode and called it a night. Walking out of the downtown core, the pulsing activity of party rage fell into the background in minutes, and the quiet of the walk to the North End sucked all of the noise away for the last few steps of bliss back to the bedroom door. No rain anymore, just a bunch of thoughts on five fantastic days.

Sunday, October 26th

My trip home to Montreal was swift and without incident. It was one of the best musical journeys I have ever been a part of, and rain or shine, I would do it all over again. How about next year?

--Denis hosts Dirty Work on CJLO. Your dirty work is done for you... all you have to do is listen, every Thursday at 4 PM.