Music

New Toronto festival celebrates DIY, weirdness, and warmth

by Sam Sutherland

At first, it seemed like a festival named “Toronto Thaw,” taking place during the first week of May, might be a few weeks too late for this city’s normally incessant-dog-poop-smelling-de-winterization of early spring. But seeing as it’s been cold and horrible and snowy-rainy out for the last fourteen months, and today is bright and shiny and warmy, it looks like the festival organizers managed a prophetic feat few would have predicted in the ides of March.

In its inaugural year, the Toronto Thaw, taking place tonight (Thursday) through Saturday, aims to celebrate the city’s exploding cross-genre DIY underground, piling dichotomous bands on stacked late-night bills across three different venues in different neighborhoods each night.

“We were sitting around before a show and we got pretty stoned and started talking about how places like Ottawa have recently been throwing really awesome DIY festivals that celebrate their city’s music scene. It’s a pride thing I guess,” says Jon Schouten, who, along with his bandmates in psych-y garage-y Teenanger, organized the Toronto Thaw. “Toronto is experiencing a real upswing in the quality of its local musicians and bands right now, particularly among the younger generation which is really exciting. We thought it would be a great time to throw a big party in celebration all of this.”

With tentacles already stretching across the city from their band and their label, the tape-and-vinyl garage punk label Telephone Explosion (bringing you smash hits from bands like Anagram and the Holy Cobras), the three-night event hit its greatest snag when the group realized that they would be limited in how many bands they could fit on to each bill. “The hardest part about putting this together was the fact that we only had room for fifteen bands,” says Schouten. “Our initial list consisted of more than thirty bands! We chose the final list based on availability and who got back to us first.”

That list is an impressive one, including Quest for Fire, Burning Love, METZ, and Anagram, although Schouten cites a grocery list of other bands he wished could have been confirmed. Most interestingly, the bill’s emphasis on geography over genre means each night is a grab-bag of experimental sounds and epic sludge.

“Toronto has never really had a singular defining sound,” Schouten says. “I think the Thaw represents this well.  When creating each show’s lineup, we put the emphasis on diversity. Many of these bands have never played the same show together before, mainly because they all play different genres of music. For example, the bill for night one consists of a stoner rock band, a thrashy hardcore band, a folk rock band, a garage rock band and a goth punk band. I think we’re just trying to keep things interesting and fuck with people’s comfort zones a bit.”

Check out the full line-ups for each night here, here, and here.