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It’s important for me to preface this article by saying that I am not a local. Hailing from a small town, I grew up with a remarkable lack of live music experiences. This is not due to a lacking of musical talent, or creative, driven people, but rather to a sad number of venues; if you didn’t want to go to the (vaguely shit) local pub, there really wasn’t much hope for live music at all. This is one thing that has charmed me about Montreal so much, and has helped develop my passion for local music into a semi-career - there is a venue, good or not, on what feels like every street corner.

POP Montreal returned for its annual weekend of concert after concert spread over 5 days, with over 400 artists and bands playing at over 50 venues across the city. On Friday, CJLO staff attended a few of the shows POP had to offer

Lisa Rupnik

Day One

Here in Quebec, there is an annual phenomenon that takes place right around this time of year.  As the summer begins to wind down there is a parallel excitement that begins to build, because for those in the know, it means that it is almost time for the Festival De Musique Émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, more commonly referred to by melomaniacs as FME. Tucked away in the quiet mining town of Rouyn-Noranda - located roughly seven hours north of Montréal, close to the Ontario border - this festival has been going strong for over two decades, shining a light on emerging artists and building a beautiful network of exchange between artists and music enthusiasts.

From the moment I arrived at the nineteenth edition of Shazamfest, there was not a minute that passed without something exciting or, at the very least, interesting happening. As I approached the main site, following the decorated path from the car park, the Eastern Township fusion dance troupe Tribal Roses had just gotten underway. Led by Catherine De Sève, the troupe mixes eastern dance and western electronic music. It was punctuated with flamboyant costumes and a fair amount of audience participation, which at Shazamfest culminated in one big mass dance-a-thon to close out the show. 

as edited from press release

ShazamFest, the much-beloved carnival of music, circus and burlesque returns for the nineteenth year, hosted in an angelic site nestled in Quebec’s Eastern townships that’s set in and around lush riverside woods and a natural amphitheatre.  From July 11-14th the sleepy town of Barnston West will be hopping. 

Wow, at the time of writing, it's May. My how time flies! It feels like only a month and a half ago that I was down in Austin at SXSW, the largest, and arguably one of the most important cultural festivals in North America. I blanket statement "cultural festival" because SXSW has grown from a humble music festival to a behemoth, spanning nearly two full weeks with a tech, movie, and comedy conference rolled together to make a sort of unwieldy beast.

Oh... you know what? I actually have to write a review of SXSW. Shit... that's due at the beginning of May! Well, I don't have time to get further into the history of a festival. You can look it up on Wikipedia, so let me get moving on this review.