Shows

Passovah in festival mode

by Lorraine Carpenter

Passovah Productions turned four this winter. Noah Bick launched the company with Lukas Glickman (who’s since stepped out of the picture) as a booster for their friends’ bands. They favoured quasi-legal venues like Friendship Cove, where there was no rental fee and no carding — Bick was 17 at the time. He was already an employee at Pop Montreal when Passovah launched, and about a year later, he began working for a company that you’d think would be his primary rival: Blue Skies Turn Black.


Holobody

Passovah Productions turned four this winter. Noah Bick launched the company with Lukas Glickman (who’s since stepped out of the picture) as a booster for their friends’ bands. They favoured quasi-legal venues like Friendship Cove, where there was no rental fee and no carding — Bick was 17 at the time. He was already an employee at Pop Montreal when Passovah launched, and about a year later, he began working for a company that you’d think would be his primary rival: Blue Skies Turn Black.

“When Lukas and I started Passovah, our intention was to eventually be booking bigger bands, but after working with Pop and then at Blue Skies for a couple of years, I realized that there’s only so much space for promoters in this city,” says Bick. “What I’m focusing on now is working with local bands at the Casa [del Popolo] and Il Motore level, and at Blue Skies and Pop, I can realize that goal of producing a show by Destroyer or working on the Sufjan Stevens show, bands that I always wanted to work with.”

It was at Il Motore (owned by Blue Skies) that Passovah had its fourth anniversary party in February, featuring a dozen bands. The same venue will host the inaugural Passovah Summer Fest this weekend, with double the number of bands over two nights. Each act will play for 15 minutes – Bick feels that this sampler format is a perfect way to introduce an audience to new bands, rather than hammering them with unknown 45 minutes of unknown material.

Jef Barbara

As for known quantities, the acts playing over Friday and Saturday night include some names that you (Cult MTL/Mirror readers) might be familiar with: Parlovr, Pietro Amato (how many French horn players have their own Wikipedia entry?), Maica Mia, Valleys, Technical Kidman, Martin Horn, Jef Barbara, Darling Demaes.

Here are five more bands not to miss:

Holobody

This four-piece band launches Summer Fest with their cotton-candy whip of dream pop, hip hop and arrangements that are probably meticulous but sound totally caj.

CTZNSHP

This local trio’s calls themselves “the estranged children of a long lost and mysterious era of rock music.” Their music is less pretentious than you’d think – it’s world-class, killer shit.

Sheer Agony

This guitar pop trio features members of Play Guitar and Silver Dapple, and recently released a 7” on Fixture. Snotty psych/punk vibes made digestible.

¡Flist!

Aka Charlie Twitch, fusing freaky vocals with derailing locomotive riffs and beats since roughly 2008. Helped me move furniture once. Good guy.

Cobra & Vulture

Lady-about-town Amber Goodwyn shares vocal duties with her bud Erin, and together with the drummer from Parlovr and Cotton Mouth, they produce some slinky, strange vibrations. ■

Passovah Summer Fest happens at Il Motore (179 Jean-Talon W.) on Friday, Aug. 17 and Saturday, Aug. 18, 9 p.m., PWYC (free empanadas each night care of Bistro Araucaria, while quantities last)

Posted in Shows

by Lorraine Carpenter

Editor in chief
Lorraine Carpenter was born in Montreal and studied communications and journalism at Concordia. She co-founded Cult MTL in 2012 following 12 years at the now-defunct Montreal alt weekly the Mirror, where she worked in editorial as copy editor and music editor. She’s dedicated to supporting the cultural scene in Montreal.

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