2014 marked a series of changes for the annual music conference and festival, Canadian Music Week (CMW). Usually held in March, the week after SXSW (though when I first attended in 2011, it was held before the Austin event), organisers moved the event to May this year to combat the much-dreaded SXSW week-long hangover as well as the poor weather which usually plagues Toronto at the end of winter. Also held in past years at the Fairmont Royal York, this year things moved to the more central Marriot Eaton Centre.
The move of the date has not come without its share of criticism. The event, in spite of attracting hundreds of bands as it always has, does now miss out on the opportunity to house many of the “buzz” artists following their stints at SXSW. This also is hindered because many of these bands, historically, spend the month of May in the UK, with Liverpool Sound City taking place the weekend prior, and The Great Escape in Brighton at the exact same time. With TGE in particular as one of the world’s most highly regarded music conferences, this in effect has split the industry and the bands who play it. Though it is worth nothing that some of the more adventurous bands did manage to fit in Liverpool and CMW into their schedules.
The time change also now sees it in direct competition to NXNE (North By Northeast), which happens in June in Toronto every year. This event will see Spoon return to the stage, alongside performances from artists like St Vincent and Sleigh Bells. Those who may have otherwise attended CMW in March, may be saving their pennies for June. But these are the ever-growing pains of a festival that has always found a difficultly with its time and location. It’s clear the festival will need to address the TGE clash, but overall, May is a much better time for the event. The weather is fantastic, Universities have started to finish up for the year and the overall atmosphere proves itself a vast improvement on past experiences as a result. There just seemed to be less people in attendance. Not that you would have known it in the packed out conference – though certainly some of the evening performances suffered. But that’s hardly worth dwelling on. Let’s get the low down on how things ran beyond that this year otherwise.
Like BIGSOUND or Singapore’s Music Matters, the days are a bit more structured at CMW than they are at Austin’s SXSW. The days are spent in conferences and panels (with a day party here or there, such as The Aussie BBQ on the Saturday) and the nights are spent enjoying music at dozens of venues spread out around Toronto. Much like New York’s CMJ, the conference itself is centralised at one location, while live venues are rarely within walking distance from one and other, meaning a lot of time is spent on public transport and seeing as much music as you might at SXSW is often out of the question.
This year’s conference heralded an amazing array of talents, including the legendary Quincy Jones in the hotseat on the Saturday afternoon, Diane Warren, Nile Rodgers, Dallas Green (City and Colour) and more. For me, most of my days were spent interviewing a series of artists, or attending the Aussie BBQ, so we won’t be reporting on these, but by all accounts, the selection of speakers and panelists made the purchase of a conference ticket incredible worthwhile. Meanwhile, the music was of a high caliber throughout the week. As mentioned, the “buzz bands” find themselves over the Atlantic, but that just took the pressure off as a journalist, or as a fan. It gave us the opportunity to discover something that we hadn’t heard of yet… and believe me there was plenty of that! Though artists like Broods proved that the festival wasn’t devoid of the buzz band completely.
Running alongside the music was also a Comedy and a music-focused film festival, which saw the new film Jimi: By My Side receive a sneak preview, Finding Fela! and Looking for Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders get Canadian premieres and Frank close things up. And the comedy portion was solid too, from locals like Kenny vs Spenny to Tom Green and Miranda Sings. With all this to experience every day of the five day event, there was definitely something for everyone.
Over the next week, the AU will be publishing a series of articles documenting the artists we saw, as well as the thirty-plus interviews conducted on site, featuring artists from Australia like Tully on Tully, Yeo and Marta Pacek, alongside musicians from around the world like King Khan and BBQ from Montreal and Deon, all the way from Singapore. Not to mention Canada’s own Kenny vs Spenny in an exclusive Australian interview. Stay tuned to our CMW Hub for all this and more! And as this overview comes to and end, let it be known that we’re excited to see what the event decides to do for 2015 in terms of its timing. After all, the ‘focus country’ for that year is Australia!
