NXNE transforms Yonge-Dundas Square, June 2010. By Phil Brennen, courtesy of NXNE.

This article originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of AUX Magazine, which iPad users can download for free here.

North By Northeast (NXNE) began in 1994 as a relatively modest outgrowth of Austin’s South By Southwest. Since then the festival and conference has turned into an annual Toronto mega-event, a weeklong confluence of interactive workshops, keynote speakers, films, and, oh yeah, music. With over 650 bands—this year including big international names like The Flaming Lips and Bad Religion—the festival has enveloped just about every bar in the city with a stage, plus the gargantuan city-central Yonge-Dundas Square. We met up with some founders, promoters and alumni of the festival to take us through NXNE’s history of hotel lobbies, onstage collaborations and mobile hot tubs.

Michael Hollett (NXNE Co-Founder/NOW Magazine publisher): “Me and Yvonne [Matsell] and Andy [McLean] were a handful of Canadians that used to go down to SXSW in Austin every year, before it blew up into the festival it is today. It was very small back then, but we were all big admirers of what they were doing: promoting and growing Austin’s excellent independent music scene.”

Andy McLean (NXNE Co-Founder): “There was already an industry conference in Toronto at the time. And I think the idea was to try to work with them, but it just didn’t work.”

MH: “There was another festival [Canadian Music Week], whose name changes all the time – I think it’s WTF, these days – and they clearly were not going in that direction. There was lip service being paid to the live music component, but it’s mainly a radio conference. It’s an industry conference. They were not fulfilling that role, so I saw that there was a huge opportunity.”

“Starting a festival was not necessarily what I intended to do when we got together in 1995. But for me and my colleagues, history has shown one thing that distinguishes NXNE from other festivals that have been around is that we’re very much about the music. The live music component is the defining thing. The conference is an important part of it, but it’s really the live music and the live music experience that is essential for us.”

Yvonne Matsell (NXNE Co-Founder/Booker/Promoter, El Mocambo): “I was running a club [Ultrasound] at the time and I found it frustrating because the other festival wasn’t really centered on music, and we had all been to SXSW individually so we knew what a festival could be. I remember getting the call from Michael and we met at Allan’s Pub. The conversation was ‘why aren’t they doing this properly?’”

MH: “I knew who to turn to to make such a thing happen. Andy and Yvonne had the same goal, getting the word out about independent music. I turned to them, and they just said yes. It was the quickest discussion I’ve ever had. For launching a significant business, it’s quite surprising how brief that conversation was.”

AM: “Toronto had one of the most important things, which is a great club scene. And also a concentration of clubs where you can create that intensity that 6th Street has in Austin. So we had that basic infrastructure and the industry was here. But we thought we’d build it from the ground up. We’d put great bands on the stage and the industry would have to come. The media would have to come. And we’d do it that way, as a grassroots festival and grow it. It was still very A&R driven in those days, but now the focus isn’t as much about getting signed as giving new and cutting edge artists an opportunity to connect with audiences.”

Sebastien Grainger (Death From Above 1979, Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains): I wouldn’t consider NXNE a music festival as much as it is a music industry conference. It’s a place for bands who are seeking industry professionals. I’ve played it a couple of times, but overall I consider music conferences fairly sterile and utilitarian. They don’t feel so much like music lovers festivals as they do industry buffets. Admittedly, I dread the hotel lobby pass pickups and schmoozy, past-their-prime, too-tight t-shirt wearing, used-to-be-in-a-band exec beer fest vibe. It’s cornball.”

Matt Mays (Solo Musician, El Torpedo): “I owe a lot to NXNE. As a young band, an aspiring band that’s working hard and is serious about what they’re doing, it’s a really good launch pad. Everybody is kind of there in the industry. Winning the Galaxie Rising Star award in 2003 was a really helpful thing, because all of a sudden we had more eyes on us, more press. And it helped us lock down an agent and a manager. Once you have an agent and a manager, that’s kind of what I consider the next level. You start there and work from there. NXNE helped me get to that sort of stage and from there it really grew fast, which was great.”

YM: “I came outside the El Mocambo one day and there were bubbles coming under the door. I thought ‘what the hell is this?’ I go outside and there’s a mobile hot tub.”

MM: “We were at a show at the El Mocambo. A friend came down and was like ‘dude, we got to get out street level right now’. And we went outside and there was this truck with a hot tub in it, a bunch of girls in it. I have no idea where the hot tub came from. It was just there and we got in. That thought process ended at hot tub. Girls, hot tub, let’s go. That was it.”

“I had the $3000 cheque in my pocket from the award. You’d think I’d have thought to get rid of it or give it somebody for safe keeping? No. It was right in my shirt pocket. I woke up the next morning and it was still soaked. It’s still in a frame somewhere. All the ink is completely blurred out. So we called and got another cheque, and then we just blew it all on gear. The whole cheque just vaporized within minutes at Capsule Music on Queen Street. But it was about more than just the money. The industry was the bridge between the artist and listeners. Back then, at least. Now it’s the Internet.”

MH: “The live music scene in some ways, despite all the turbulence that’s gone through in the regular music industry, is very very strong. If we were a record label we might not be here right now.”

Lining up for Dirty Beaches at Lee’s Palace, NXNE 2011. Photo by Andrija Dimitrijevic, courtesy of NXNE.

AM: “When we were starting, I would go through these torturous meetings with the major labels to try to explain to them what we were bringing to Toronto. And it was just awful. They’d just kind of sit there. They’d always ask ‘who are the big names coming in?’ Well, it’s not really about the big names. It’s about the discovery. Back then, that was a difficult concept to sell. Now it’s a lot easier. Same with the club owners. Without the close relationship with them, we never would have been able to get this far. I remember the first meeting where we all pooled our contacts and got as many of the club owners, 20 or so, in one room at the same time.”

YM: “A formidable group, to be honest. We’d never really met as a group before. I’m not even sure we’d ever been in daylight together.”

AM: “I was terrified. It was my job to stand up and tell them what we were going to be doing. ‘You’re going to basically give us your club for a big weekend in the summer, and we’re going to put a whole bunch of no name bands there. How bout that?’ And they said, ‘okay, are we going to sell any beer?’

MH: “For all the kidding, they were pretty open pretty quickly to such a revolutionary idea. They kind of took a chance on us. We should really salute the faith of the club owners in trusting this crazy idea. The payoff, many payoffs, artistic, the reasons you do it, it feels great to introduce a whole room to a new band. And yeah, they sell a whole lot of booze.”

YM: “You have to make sure not to piss off the clubs, that’s for sure. We’re fine with the non-official parties, but what you don’t want is the Fuck By Fuckoff kind of shows.”

Dan Burke (Toronto promoter/legend): “I went against NXNE in 2004 and 2005. In 2004 at the Comfort Zone on the Saturday, I had Death From Above 1979, Tangiers, controller.controller, Illuminati, and I think maybe even Magneta Lane. And it was spectacular. Death From Above were just kicking off, just about to soar. That show was brought to me by Josh Reichmann of Tangiers, who was basically just looking for somewhere to put it. And I said ‘I’ll handle it.’ I offered it to NXNE, but they just brushed me right off. So I said okay, just for that I’m going to do it every year.”

AM: “You know, Dan Burke is one of a kind. You definitely don’t want to go up against him. So we put quite a lot of time into working with Dan to find a way to work together with respect, so he could have a say in putting together his own shows, but still keeping it within the festival. And we try to work that way with anybody.”

DB: “At the NOW Magazine Christmas party in November of 2005, I went to see Michael Hollett for beer tickets. He gave them to me, and then he said ‘listen, NXNE, don’t go against us anymore, work with us.’ I thought it was really cool that he acknowledged that I made a point. Point made, point taken. I didn’t want to run my own festival or anything like that. I respect Michael Hollett a lot for being open minded enough to acknowledge that a lot of improvement could be made. He went to work, he made it happen, and I think it’s a fucking terrific festival now.”

“What I did by being adversarial in 2004 and 2005, I changed everything. And the proof of that is in the programming there is today. Rather than just having bands roll in and apply to play the festival and so on, they go out and seek bands, very cool bands, cutting edge bands, historical bands, to play the festival. There’s a whole ambition, a very strong ambition, a lot of intelligence and taste. It’s a fucking huge effort to make it an internationally notable festival, an internationally significant festival.”

MH: “We launched in ’95 with 250 bands, 3 days, just over 20 clubs. Now we’ve more than tripled that. But I think fundamentally it’s still about putting great bands onstage, exposing them, and giving people a great live experience.”

DB: “In 2006, we got real. We flew in King Khan & The Shrines from Berlin, who’d never been here, really. They’d never been to North America, and we put them on for three nights in a row. And then when I saw them on the cover of NOW, I thought ‘gee, the festival’s backed me on this idea, they threw their confidence behind me, they spent all this money – fuck, they’d better be good.’”

Aresh Khan (King Khan & The Shrines): “Though he may do things very ‘unorthodox’ (to put it politely) Dan Burke was always honest with me and a great person to work with. In this business of buffoons and clowns, Dan Burke will always be Toronto’s Public Enemy #1, copkiller, crack smoking dissident, all-around amazing man. A true hero amongst the zeros.”

“The only way I can describe that first NXNE is pure unadulterated alchemy… Dan Burke’s chaos magic coupled with being blessed into the family of the Sun Ra Arkestra and basically living on a couch in their condo for three days. I even threw a party at the Arkestra condo and oh what a night that was. Basically inviting the whole crew to party with the Arkestra and the Shrines.”

“That was just the first NXNE. The next one I buddied up with GZA and Fab 5 Freddie (who freaked out when he saw KKBBQ at Lee’s Palace) for a few days and wound up getting invited to join GZA on stage at Yonge and Dundas Square to play guitar for him. He even gave me my own Wu-name: Lord Khan.”

AM: “We’ve really developed a relationship with the city of Toronto, especially in recent years, so we can showcase the city in the summertime, make it a destination event. And building the free Yonge-Dundas Squre showcases have really gone towards that.”

MH: – “Our economic impact now is over $48 million. That’s what we contribute to the city of Toronto. It’s grown into quite a substantial signature event.”