By Matthew Ritchie, Features Contributor
Peter Rowan is disentangling himself from the Montreal traffic to begin our talk about why he chose the East Coast as the spot for the figurehead of all other music festivals: the Halifax Pop Explosion. Back at his hotel room, he throws on a pair of Converse, arguably the most iconic rock ‘n’ roll shoes. But he isn’t wearing them for their music history value; Pop Montreal, the festival he helped start in the early 2000s, has gained a string of sponsors and funding – the sneaker brand among them.
It’s hard to say whether Pop Montreal—or something like it—would even exist without Rowan’s input following his tenure in the Halifax music scene.
“I found myself in a pretty remarkable situation in which there was a scene that was just getting ready to explode, and I just fucking did it again,” he says excitedly before diving into the history of the Halifax Pop Explosion, a.k.a. HPX, which runs from Oct. 19 to Oct. 23 this year.
You could say Rowan was in the right place at the right time.
“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” he says reflecting on the music festival that is close to celebrating 20 years of independent music on the East Coast. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
However, like any artistic undertaking, it didn’t have the easiest start. In fact, HPX grew out of the failure of a previous endeavour.
Born from the ashes
Originally from New Brunswick, Rowan was a punk rock fan who decided to start his own record label in the late 1980s with a woman who at the time was his wife. Based out of Fredericton, he named it Dressed to Kill Records. He then began promoting music showcases with youthful enthusiasm, but it wasn’t an easy experience.
“We did a festival in 1989 where we brought in No Means No and the Nils and all these cool bands at the time,” Rowan reminisces. “But we just lost our shirts. We lost, like, $10,000 and were like, ‘Fuck this, I can’t stand it anymore. We’ve got to move.’”
As the culture-rich focal point of the East Coast, Halifax was the obvious choice. Luckily for Rowan, he was producing a studio album at the time with a group of musicians from the region.
“We had recorded this thing called Criminal Lake Road that were this Halifax trio and everybody was excited about putting the record out. So I moved down to Halifax and started working out of record shops.” But before their release, the band decided to part ways.
“It was too bad because we thought this band was going to be really cool, but a couple members went on from that to start this other band and they were called Sloan.”
Rowan found himself taking on the position of manager for the exciting new band, who suddenly found themselves at the forefront of a movement. When bands such as Thrush Hermit, Hardship Post, Jail and Eric’s Trip joined the growing music scene, Halifax appeared on the map.
“In the early ‘90s there was this really crazy synergy going on,” Rowan recalls. “It was the only place out here with a real sense of community.”
Rowan joined forces with fellow music fan and manager Angie Fenwick who helped with operations, and co-managed Thrush Hermit. They soon added Colin MacKenzie, manager of the rock band Jail and founder of Sloan’s label, Murder Records. And when Greg Clark – owner of music venue The Flamingo – joined the team, Rowan and his friends not only had what he describes as “the hippest stuff that was going on in the world,” but also the right venues and help to showcase the extreme talent coming from the area.
“It was this awesome atmosphere and we were all smart enough to notice it,” he says. “We had the ability to invite people to come and see Halifax and experience this scene right from the epicentre of it.”
And with that, the world began to take notice.
The New Seattle
Though it began as a festival specifically curated to showcase local bands such as Plumtree, Thrush Hermit and Hardship Post, the new festival also drew international acts who might not otherwise make it to the East Coast. One such artist was Lou Barlow, founder of Sebadoh and ex-Dinosaur Jr. bassist. Another was Britain’s famed alternative rockers Stereolab, who Rowan still has trouble believing ever came to Halifax: “Whenever I look back at the posters it’s like ‘holy shit,’” he says, laughing. The mixture of local talent with a few big-name acts worked. “It was just perfect. It was the perfect storm.”
Unfortunately, in the early years the festival wasn’t financially viable.
“We were doing this by the seat of our pants,” Rowan remembers. “There are very marginal sponsorships for something like a fringe festival with no fiddles.”
Lacking commercial and government support, the festival seemed to sit on the fringe of society. Rowan adds he still doesn’t think the municipal and provincial levels of government “fucking get it.”
However, booking Stereolab gave a much-needed boost to the festival. With the band came a reporter from NME who followed them across the pond to do a small review. The media floodgates opened, and Halifax’s distinct music scene was labelled “The New Seattle” by Melody Maker.
Mike Campbell, owner of The Carleton, used to chair the Halifax Pop Explosion and worked for Much Music with Much East on the show Going Coastal. He remembers quite vividly when journalists began to invade the town to hunt down talent – and how ridiculous the whole situation was.
“When I pick up magazines to read articles about music, Harper’s Bazaar is not the one I pick up,” he quips over a cup of coffee. The magazine stopped in to cover the new music hot spot after NME. A journalist from Vanity Fair was next in line.
“A few months later I got a call from someone at Levi’s who wanted one of their people to come to town,” Campbell laughs.
“I ended up touring her and taking her to clubs where she starts to take notes. She’s just looking at what the kids were wearing in Halifax, because if it’s a cool music scene, it may be a cool fashion scene that is ahead of everywhere else.”
Like the seven page spread in Harper’s Bazaar, this leap seemed ludicrous to Campbell.
“The fashion scene was just, like, 1993 man,” he says, laughing. “Just a lot of ripped jeans and skateboards and all that crap.”
A less predictable benefit from the high-profile coverage and the “New Seattle” tag was strong interest from alternative label Sub Pop, based out of Seattle. Due to the grunge trend across North America, Sub Pop reps signed almost any band they could get their hands on, going so far as to book Eric’s Trip to open for Sonic Youth in Toronto (Eric’s Trip is named after a song on Sonic Youth’s landmark album Daydream Nation).
Though it grew over the next three years, Rowan was too burnt out to continue organizing the festival.
“When I left Halifax I was like, ‘You know what? I’m never coming back to this city.’ It was a huge emotional investment, a huge financial investment.” And one that proved hard to sustain over the years.
In 1995 the festival went out of business only to be revived the next year as “Halifax On Music” by Fenwick, MacKenzie, Marc Brown, and Waye Mason—a young music fan who started No Records.
Though the festival thrived for the rest of the 1990s with plenty of patrons and international attention, garnering financial backing still proved to be a struggle.
“The government was really hesitant to invest,” Mason remembers. “They just didn’t understand a youth-focused thing. It makes me crazy, but at the time—even more so than now—there was a focus on traditional music because of the tourism market. So it was all about Ma’ and Pa’ driving with two kids in the back of the car to Nova Scotia to see some step dancing. It took another decade until they were truly on board.”
Stronger support from the provincial and municipal government didn’t occur until 2007. Due to the lack of support in previous years, the festival spent the first few years of the new millennium in trouble. In 2000 the festival fell apart once again and the reason was simple: money.
“It’s funny how the myth doesn’t really mach the reality,” Mason says. “People talk about the Pop Explosion being around for 18 or 19 years, this long-standing pillar of the music scene. But again we went out of business in 2000. There wasn’t a festival that year.”
Wristband win
The festival was reborn in 2001 with its old name—the Halifax Pop Explosion—but this time as a not-for-profit that based staff salaries on government grants and volunteer positions.
Mason recites a slogan that’s followed the fest since its rebirth: “Halifax Pop Explosion: Just cool enough to not lose money.”
As executive director, Mason wanted to focus on local acts, putting hometown heroes at centre stage.
“We can have Wintersleep or Joel Plaskett or Buck 65 that can headline a 400- to 500-person show, and in the case of Joel, a 3,000- to 4,000-person show. If they want to play the Pop Explosion, we can facilitate that. To me that’s the biggest sign of change in the local music scene.”
A glance at this year’s schedule shows Halifax’s music scene may be expanding more than ever before. Drew Marshall, events co-ordinator for the festival, couldn’t agree more.
“I go to regular shows here in Halifax, so I have a good sense of what bands are active and doing interesting things,” he says while sipping coffee at a Gottingen Street café. “I made a really strong effort to make sure (local bands) were involved in the festival this year. I feel like it’s putting on the best display of what is going on in Halifax.”
Although he’s only been with HPX for a short time, Marshall has gained a lot of ground at this year’s festival. Before living in Halifax, Marshall helped organize the Sled Island music festival in Calgary. He brought the same enthusiasm from the upstart festival to this year’s Pop Explosion.
One of the major changes was a heavy push for wristbands as opposed to the usual selling of individual tickets. Last year, the festival gained a wider audience by presenting electronic acts MSTRKRFT and Girl Talk—but with mixed results. Though Marshall believes attendees knew HPX booked the DJs, he guesses patrons might not have attended the rest of the festival.
The wristbands are an attempt to fix that: “It’s a way to create an overall festival atmosphere instead of (just having) some big bands in town that week.”
More wristbands and less individual tickets made the festival financially viable for the first time in its history, he says.With an initial $15-off promotion, limited quantities of $35 wristbands sold out in less than one day. At the time this paper was edited, wristbands were 70 per cent sold out.
“It makes it a more comfortable situation to be in,” Marshall says of the wristbands. “It’s looking like it is going to be sustainable in the future.”
Historical highlights
“I’ve always felt a good mix of everything was important,” Campbell says of the festival’s historical variety. “I think when Peter Rowan was involved it was a lot more insular than it is now. There might have been 30 bands here in Halifax in those days.”
But the longevity of the festival is rooted in the balance between the local and international talent that play here, leaving a lasting effect on the festivals legacy. Jay Reatard’s show, which came shortly before his demise, the Monotonix show outside of Gus’ Pub, and Elliot Smith’s 1995 show were each pinnacles of the fest.
Rowan and his crew unintentionally managed to book Smith while they were trying to grab Beck’s attention. Luckily, one of Beck’s people had a connection to Smith.
“Of course we had some knowledge of him,” Rowan says. “She asked if Elliot could come up and we were like, ‘Ummmm? Absolutely!’”
Smith’s show became part of the overall romanticism of the festival following his death in 2004.
Another highlight was Arcade Fire, who played here right before they broke internationally. Matt Charlton, promotions co-ordinator for the festival, says he thought they would be big one day.
“There was definitely a big enough buzz around them, and Win Butler was a big enough jerk on the phone to be a rock star, so that definitely hit home,” he jokes.
“The club was just ridiculously filled, too many people for one space,” he remembers of Arcade Fire’s HPX set. “I don’t remember a show being like that in Halifax before.”
By mixing burgeoning local talent, the cream of the international crop and more buzz bands then you can shake a stick at, the Halifax Pop Explosion has continued to be at the forefront of Halifax’s musical landscape.
“I think it has stayed remarkably true to its spirit over the years, which is not something you can say about most major festivals,” Campbell says while finishing his cup of coffee.He says the festival is lucky to have bright and interesting people to volunteer and organize it. For now, it seems the positive momentum won’t let up anytime soon.
“Halifax has the best music it’s ever had,” says Mason, “and is not showing any signs of slowing down.”
When Matthew Ritchie moved to Halifax in 2005, all he knew about the city was Street Cents and Sloan’s Navy Blues. He would like to thank Peter Rowan, Drew Marshall, Mike Campbell, Matt Charlton and Waye Mason for taking time out of their busy schedule to help with the project, as well as Thrush Hermit for just plain rocking. He can be reached at matthewritchie@hotmail.com.
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