Unconvinced with UnPop
by alanah
Went over to Barfly on Tuesday where UnPop Montreal was hosting Green Room’s weekly Honky-Tonk night. Despite the confusing mishmash of monikers associated with the evening, the music was danceable, perfect for celebrating my first night of unemployment/freedom.
The Jimmyriggers are one of those staple Montreal bands I’ve been meaning to check out for a while, and they played a wholesome, twangy rock set, the kind of music I’d want to raise kids on. Later, I got a glass of water splashed into my face due to exuberant cheering for The Unsettlers’ encore, but it just added to the wild party atmosphere. It was a great time - there was only one thing bugging me: why UnPop? UnPop just sounds so…negative.
According to Unpop Montreal’s myspace page:
“…it’s free for bands to apply, the screening process is non-competitive, and all the shows are FREE. For EVERYONE. It brings the music back where it belongs - in the ears of those who want to hear it.”
Well that all sounds good and positive. But those three dots at the beginning stand in for 3 paragraphs of complaints about other festivals that charge pricey application fees, bill local bands alongside major-label musicians, causing ticket prices to soar, and detract attention from local music by tagging their festival name onto big-name events that would have happened anyways. The site concludes, rather histrionically in my opinion, that at at other festivals, “capitalism destroys everything in its path.” The Un-festival’s name doesn’t leave much question about who their gripe is towards either.
I have mixed feelings about UnPop. On one hand, I fundamentally support it as an accessible showcase for local artists. UnPop Montreal has some great bands booked, as I discovered on Tuesday, and I encourage you to check out their listings here.
However, something about an event that specifically positions itself as the antithesis to another event rubs me the wrong way. It reminds me of the Infringement festival, which sprung up in protest to similar complaints about the Montreal Fringe theatre festival a few years ago. Isn’t time to get beyond that adolescent rebellion phase and stop defining yourself in contrast to who your daddy is?
You wanna see local talent free and you have the contacts, venues, and energy to make it happen? That’s fantastic! You want to showcase a genre of music that isn’t represented at other events? Even better: you just scored yourself a guaranteed fan-base. But isn’t there enough love, music, and eager audiences to go around in this fine city without having to get all antagonistic about it?
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Published on: September 6th, 2007
Terms Used: barfly, Blog, fringe, infringement festival, Jimmyriggers, the unsettlers, Unpop Montreal
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But that’s not it at all! Unpop means unpopular, not necessarily anti-pop. It’s a festival for unpopular pop music, and I think that’s great. I applied to both Pop and Unpop this year, and I don’t see that as a conflict of interest. In fact, there was an Unpop day at Pop last year… which some people saw as “selling out,” but I saw as co-operation and recognition of the importance of fringe voices.
Posted on September 21st, 2007 at 2:31 pm [permalink]
hey! i kind of feel the same way about infringement, Elizathabeth - at least in theory - i think the idea at the heart of it is brilliant - a festival that’s totally free for artists and works with no corporate sponsors and provides another layer of performance opportunities could be an excellent balancing compliment to the fringe without needing to be anti-fringe. it just needs a mutually positive vibe for it to work, galvanize everyone, and not be a destructive situation. sounds like POP and Unpop might have found this balance, if it’s making sense to the artists and not making them feel like they have to take sides in some sort of teeny tiny turf war. and not ripping them off by proclaiming one set of principles but not following through, which is something that venues have told me infringe has been responsible for, and it’s why i don’t like the project, despite my sympathy with it.
so, awesome! more power to Unpop for making artists like you dig it and feel comfortable applying to both!
Posted on September 22nd, 2007 at 10:37 am [permalink]