Pop Montreal - Oct 1-5, 2008 - Burt Bacharach, Nick Cave, and a Socalled Final Fantasy live porn score included

by BrooklynVegan Mike

The 7th annual Pop Montreal five-day music festival (the CMJ/SXSW of Montreal) begins October 1st and this will be their most unique year yet. Nick Cave, Hot Chip, Method Man and Redman, The Dodos, The Black Kids, Apostle of Hustle, Julie Doiron,A Place To Bury Strangers, Miracle Fortress, Land of Talk, Laura Marling, The Dears, and Ratatat are some of the big names among the lineup of artists who will overrun all or most of Montreal’s clubs for the festival. Pop Montreal always comes through with some classic choices too, and this year is no different with Burt Bacharach, Silver Apples, and Wire playing during the festival. There is also a unique collaborative performance between Owen Pallett, Stef Schneider (Bell Ochestre and The Luyas) Mike Dubue, HILOTRONS and SoCalled, entitled Porn Pop!, which finds the group doing a live score of the gay porno film Cruisin’ 57 at one of the last remaining true porno theaters in North America, Cinema L’Amour.

The last few years have seen the festival branch out to other avenues including Film Pop, symposiums on the state of music (with Lydia Lunch and Sister Nancy are a couple of this year’s speakers) and Puces Pop, an arts and crafts bazaar. That expansion is going further this year with the announcement of Kids Pop, a series of demonstrations and workshops aimed toward younger Pop Montrealers that will run the entirety of the festival.

Like our CMJ coverage last year, over the next few weeks we’ll be highlighting some bands playing the fest that we think might be worth checking out. Also, during the festival, we’ll have write ups of the previous days action.

The full Pop Montreal lineup and schedule can be found HERE. A video commercial below…