Vote for Montreal Music Awards

The cocktail gala for the 2008 Montreal International Music Initiative (MIMI) awards is Saturday March 1st at the Lion d’Or. Bands performing include Torngat and The National Parcs, and The Hot Springs, Mathias Mental, and Numero# will be playing the afterparty.

From MIMI:

The great music that evening will accompany a menu which includes an
entrée of small green salad with croutons and goat cheese, a salmon
fillet, mushroom and vermouth sauce or veal bavette and lemongrass
sauce for the main course and a chocolate mousse cake for dessert, all
catered by the chef of Le Petit Extra, Nathalie Major.

Tickets for the dinner, which are only available to active members of
the Montreal music scene, are $70 plus tax (payment by check made
payable to l’AMIQ) and will be on sale until February 18th. After
February 4th a $50$ fee will be added to reservations for tables of 8
or 10. A vegetarian option for the meal is possible if you request it
when making your reservation.

The gala dinner will be hosted by Catherine Mathys, host of Baromètre
TV on VOX, and Dave Cool, director of the documentary film What Is
Indie?. More than $11,000 in prizes will be awarded during the night.

After party Ciel mon MIMI!
After a great dinner and rewarding the most promising artists in the
Montreal music scene, it’s going to be time to party. The after party,
dubbed Ciel mon MIMI! will feature performances by Beast (new project
with Betty Bonifassi and Jean-Phi Goncalvès, who will perform for the
first time on stage), DJ Figure8, eccentric Mathias Mental, electropop
duo Numéro# and the group The Hot Springs. The National Parcs will
return to the after party for another performance, also at the Lion
d’Or. Other surprise guests will also be on hand during the night.

Tickets for Ciel mon MIMI! are now available for $10 at Admission
outlets. The after party will start at 11:59PM (doors at 11:30PM) and
will go until 5:00AM.

I applaud MIMI for showcasing Montreal music and creating a big beautiful evening to celebrate with “active members of the Montreal music scene”. Yet I wonder how many of these active members can afford the $70 ticket to attend. Personally, I might be able to throw together $10 to hit the afterparty if I’m lucky. So while I receive MIMI’s event invitations, I’m clearly not the target audience. It seems to me that “active” could probably be replaced by a more fitting adjective, like affluent.

MIMI’s mandate (see italics below) is to “bring local musical production to the foreground among decision makers of the international industry.” So while it’s great that Montreal music is valued enough to be offered with an expensive price tag, the gala itself is more of framework to gain donations from local and international music industry “decision makers” in order to put on the event that validates the presence of MIMI’s sponsors. Which isn’t a bad thing; it just means I won’t be attending.

For more info on the various awards and sponsoring organizations, you can download this pdf from Mimi:
Mimi award categories

Two of the awards are decided by public vote. You can vote before tomorrow (Tuesday February 26th at 5pm) for the categories of Discovery and Best Song. Voting is in French and in English, and I’ve discovered that you can vote more than once if you’re so inclined.

The MIMI is a cultural celebration that showcases the vitality and
diversity of the Montreal music scene by awarding prizes for album
production and international tour support. The MIMI goal is to bring
local musical production to the foreground among decision makers of the
international industry. The event will take place as part of the
MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival. See www.mimimtl.com for more
information.