Music

8 reasons M for Montreal is awesome

by Nicole Villeneuve

M for Montreal, the annual Montreal music conference and festival, was founded in 2006 as, essentially, an industry-focused local talent showcase. Quebec’s music industry can famously hold its own independently of the larger Canadian music landscape, but by bringing delegates from every aspect of the business—media, management, artists, licensing, booking, etc. etc. etc.—from around the world to the city for five days, it fosters the relationships and experiences that create actual impressions (I mean I’m sorry press releases, I love you, but you’re bringing me down). If you’ve also been to FME in northern Quebec, you’ll know that it’s much the same.

M for Montreal doesn’t just showcase music from Montreal, but that’s definitely a big part of its mandate, and after years of slogging through festivals of every type and size, M for Montreal and its careful curation stand out as one of the best I’ve been part of in years. Here are a few reasons why.

All photos by Ellie Pritts and Maximillian G. San Juan, courtesy of M for Montreal

 
1. Dedication to—and great taste in—emerging and local talent

Dead Obies

Every festival has its version of aiming to expose underground talent to bigger, new audiences, but what that usually looks like is a band that traveled to a North American city from, like, Iceland to play in front of three people. Maybe that band got an unfortunate 6 p.m. slot, maybe it’s because they’re competing with a bigger act and most people just want to rage to what they know, maybe it’s because a lot of festivals charge bands money to submit then accept everyone even if they probably suck and no one wants to see that band anyway, who knows. Lots of reasons. But M for Montreal is selective and spot-on: a good chunk of sets this weekend were from locals, and rap group Dead Obies, beat-backed singer Foxtrott, and Solids (who just signed with Dine Alone and Fat Possum and are longtime AUX faves, juuuuuust sayin) were some of the best from the festival. It’s proof that programmer Mikey knows his shit.

 
2. On that note—Mikey!

Programmer Mikey Rishwain Bernard is one of the best camp counsellors I ever had, and I’ve never even been to camp, but I’ve had RAs in college, so whatever. Do you know how many people that dude has to talk to in a weekend? How many bands he has to listen to and select? How much enthusiasm he has to keep for all of that? No jaded mortal can do that. Mikey does that. He wants to make as many people as possible’s experience as good as possible.

 
3. Summer camp vibe

Elissa Mielke

Let’s talk about that. A big part of the overall camaraderie was thanks to the festival and its organizera and staff’s efforts, but M for Montreal, with its manageable size and focused mandate, had a good group vibe. Would gladly do trust falls with you, M for Montreal.

 
4. Manageable size

Mac DeMarco

The first few conference-based days of the festival had only a few shows a night, and while things ramped up for the weekend, it still felt like you could bounce across town (or stay in one concentrated area since it was Montreal cold there this weekend) and see tons without missing a ton else. Obviously you will always miss something, but you know that thing about restaurant menus and millennials and how having too much choice will actually leave you less satisfied? M for Montreal is a baby boomer. It’s a boutique. There’s only so much choice. And that makes things easier.

 
5. Killer established picks

Duchess Says

Dusted, A Tribe Called Red, Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, Duchess Says, Mac De Marco—these are some of the more “established” acts (I realize that that’s only true in small corners of the internet or in Canada, but those don’t mean nothing) picked to headline this weekend, and as much as you wanna check out unknown bands, you do, as said above, sometimes just wanna jam. These bands delivered x 10,000 and I felt proud to see out-of-towners have their brains blown by pretty much all of the above. /waving canadian flag gif

 
6. The M for Montreal app

Hey know what makes festivals so much more navigable and is so often so poorly done? An offical app. This one ruled. Except for that one time it gave me incorrect location info for the Don’t Open the Trunk panel, but I can’t stay mad at you, nice app.

 
7. Digital music organization panel

Basically a basement full of nerds complaining about how much iTunes sucks for music cataloguing. Sounds terrible, was great.

 
8. Karaoke

Not an official part of the festival at all but a nice small diversion and an official part of FUN. Thank you Montreal and your very healthy French Canadian karaoke song selection and for M for Montreal.