Pop Montreal Day Two: Awkward Art, Weighty Rock And Smart-Ass Hip-Hop

ChartAttack sent Lorraine Carpenter to check out the adventure that is Pop Montreal. Here's her Thursday report:

6:45 p.m. Madame Edgar
I arrived at Madame Edgar, a storefront hipster gallery next door to Zoobizarre, where I'd ended day one about 17 hours earlier. Stuck to the walls, amid the pricey vinyl toys, adult plush and designer notebooks, were original works by underground cartoonists Charles Burns and Killoffer. Burns' work in the medium includes contributing to Sub Pop's zine, illustrating Iggy Pop's Brick By Brick, working for Coca-Cola and Altoids, and producing a decade-long comic book series called Black Hole. But his vaguely juvenile gross-out art pales next to the dark, stark and debauched panels by Killoffer, a French artist who was here downing beers with his wife. The show's curator, an American living in London, has been staying at my place since Tuesday, and there's some tension between her and the organizer of the event, not to mention between certain factions of the local comics scene. I'll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that the atmosphere was a little weighty. Luckily, there was beer and, before long, Pop Montreal puppetmaster Dan Seligman delivered some baguettes, brie, humus, olives and cherry tomatoes. Thanks, guy.

8:30 p.m. Barfly
Barfly is practically the polar opposite of the white and mirrored cube that is Madame Edgar, except in size. It's one of the city's famous grubby dives, where most patrons come to watch hockey at the bar, or play pool at a table that takes up at least a quarter of the room. Those dudes were in the house on this night, along with a couple dozen rock 'n' rollers of both the collegiate and grizzled veteran variety (I'm lookin' at you, Jonathan Cummins). Also present was Pop Montreal co-founder Peter Rowan, who's been keeping busy in the music biz since moving to Toronto. He was back to help out, and to mind a couple of his Kindling Records charges, including the uber-ballyhooed Dearly Beloved.

But first up was Brooklyn's Tall Firs, who made the kind of wallpaper rock that gives indie a bad name. Phillipe from Cafe Campus split to check out alleged shoegazing revivalists Hi-Soft at Divan Orange, only a block north, but I couldn't follow 'cause I had just bought a pint. Damn you, temptress Boreale!

Within five seconds, the Thurston Moore-approved Awesome Color were a vast improvement, with the promised MC5/Stooges vibes ingrained from their home state of Michigan. Things got irritating after the first song, however, when the singer went offstage (did he break a string?) and the bassist remarked that the band are "one big happy family." It was unclear what was going on, but that queasiness I felt at Madame Edgar returned. The drummer was babbling about Stonehenge, among other things, but she didn't have a microphone so I missed the point of her rambling rant. I wished she'd have shut up anyway. Finally, the frontman returned and the band rushed back into and through their set, possibly nonplussed over the low turnout. Light bickering continued between songs, begging the question: Couldn't they have settled this in the van? Really, spare us the drama, unless you're Anton Newcombe.

Dearly Beloved's frontman was a member of Change Of Heart and a "hired gun" for Our Lady Peace, but that's pretty much the worst thing that you can say about them. Besides, they looked like they were trying really hard to rock as heavily as humanly possible within the confines of their suits and ties, stopping just short of metallic shredding. But they succeeded with driving pop/rock riffs and fire-breathing vocals on the part of Rob Higgins and backing vocalist Niva Chow. Still, four years ago, I saw Tangiers at this same venue and thought that they were great, so I'm going to attribute some of their punch to the accidental magic of Barfly's twitchy PA. I finished my lone pint — the three bands really kept it brief — and split.

11 p.m. Club Soda
And now, once again, for something completely different: Club Soda, a clean, 1,000-capacity room full of hip-hop heads screaming for Philadelphia's Spank Rock. I rejoined my friends from last night's iPod Battle and headed upstairs, which was just as jammed as the main floor. We had a great view of the two MCs and two DJs (one of whom did some mic duty mid-way). I've gotta say that I'm a little out of my element in the "hip-hop nation," but the sound struck me as a fusion of old-school rap and high-energy electro. It was really invigorating stuff with a performance to match. They struck a hot balance between clever samples and base booty beats, and smart and raunchy rhymes. Near the end of their set, they started whipping their T-shirts around and got a girl onstage to engage in that dance I like to call "I Can't Believe It's Not Sodomy." Good times, and no awkwardness at this last stop of day two.