hubs; no disrespect to Winnipeg’s treasured
arts scene, but while that city also has cheap
rent, the New York Times isn’t sending writers to
do fawning profiles of The Weakerthans.
Looking back, an astounding number
of the bands that burst out of the city were
transplants. Arcade Fire’s Will and Win Butler
are Texans, small-town Ontarians would come
to form bands like Hollerado, and a cohort
from the western provinces including the likes
of Mac DeMarco came east to capitalize on
that creative je-ne-sais-quoi.
Dan Boeckner is a British Columbia na-
tive. Sick of that province’s high rent, he came
to Montreal and founded art-rock band Wolf
Parade shortly after landing. He’s since gone
on to form and perform with Atlas Strategic,
Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, and Operators.
“In the late ‘90s, it became almost impos-
sible to live as a working musician in Victoria
and Vancouver,” he says. “It was just completely
unaffordable. There were some pretty insane
labour practices enacted around then. There
was this thing called the training wage where
you get paid less than minimum wage to
work a regular job for a probationary period.
For a lot of people trying to get bands off the
ground, it was just punishing.”
That nomadism was among the biggest
boons to the creative boom that was coming.
With so many players coming from different
places, there was a vast array of influences
stewing throughout the city.
Wolf Parade had their roots in west coast
hardcore, though they had grown weary of
the strict restrictions inherent to punk. Folk,
world, rock, pop – all were given equal weight
and respect. Talking to those who were there,
it seems the only constant was near-universal
awe towards Godspeed You! Black Emperor,
the experimental Montreal collective that
developed an international cult fanbase in the
late ‘90s and early 2000s.
The Dears
“There will always be
someone who crystallizes
the moment they’re in
and turns it into songs
that resonate with a
whole lot of people
outside their group of
friends they started
playing music for.”
-Dan Boeckner
(Wolf Parade, Operators)
Hollerado
“One of the unique qualities of [Montreal
bands] was they weren’t a bunch of kids who
grew up in the same city,” says Pop Montreal
founder Dan Seligman, who also managed
bands like The Unicorns. “They came from dif-
ferent parts of the world and all had different
influences.”
These new arrivals came to find a city with
little music industry infrastructure. Montreal
natives like The Dears leader Murray Lightburn
remembers eking out demos in the few places
that had a 16-track tape recorder and a few
decent