Resources: Wavelength

Resources is a column created to showcase the hard work of independent businesses in the artistic community. It features labels, promoters, pressing plants, venues, galleries, publishing houses, and many other creative avenues that exist right in your own back yard. By speaking directly with the entrepreneurial founders of the outlets themselves, this column explores the history, ethos and future of these businesses which all exist for one reason – to expose all manner of art to a variety of audiences.

This edition of Resources focuses on Wavelength – a longstanding series of concerts established to promote Toronto’s local music scene. The series and its founders are celebrating their tenth anniversary this week, and to ring in the occasion, a week’s worth of great shows are happening all around the city starting tomorrow. Bands playing the festival include The Constantines, Bruce Peninsula and Holy Fuck, while old favourites like Rockets Red Glare, From Fiction and The Bicycles will be reuniting for the occasion. We spoke with artistic director and programmer Ryan McLaren to get some insight on Wavelength’s past, present, and future.

How did Wavelength start?
Ryan McLaren: It started before I got involved. In 1999, a bunch of people that were in bands decided to get together and do something about the fact that they felt their bands were going unrecognized. It was hard to be a musician in Toronto and get recognition from it. They decided to do a weekly music series, a monthly zine, and a website. They did their first show in February of 2000, and from there it slowly gained momentum and started to do really well.

Who were the original founders?
Of the people that were originally involved and are still involved, there are Jonny Dovercourt and Doc Pickles.

How has it evolved over time?
The funny thing is, the scene has evolved and what has been going on in Toronto has evolved. Things have become more participatory. There’s a lot more people willing to experiment and take risks. The music community just got noticeably larger, between 2003 and 2004. Wavelength more or less stayed the same. It was created with the idea of only having two or three bands, and bands who were well curated. What I mean by that is there would be a lot of thought behind what bands played with who. Things that changed were the zine, in that it was becoming a monkey on their back, so that was nixed in 2005. There are still people who miss that and ask when we’re bringing it back. Jonny was the one doing all the booking, and he burnt out a bit by 2005, and that is when I got involved as a booker. We decided to open it up a little bit and have some guest bookers, like Keith Hamilton, Dylan Reibling and Trevor Coleman. We opened it up so that all of us could rotate and book bands, and that way it became more diverse because we all have different tastes, and that way no one really burnt out on doing it.

How has the Toronto scene’s own evolution informed and changed Wavelength?
I think it’s affected the audiences that came out. In the beginning, there were some spotty nights in terms of attendence. When I started going, in 2002, that was the time when things [in Toronto] were coming to a head. People were starting to discover that we did have a really good music scene here. We had some great stuff going on in the 90s, but it was overlooked by a mainstream Toronto audience. Around that time, people started to catch on. Whether we had a direct effect on that, that’s hard to say. Around then, audiences were growing, bands were growing, and it became this self-sustaining, perpetual motion machine that kept growing. You had a turnover with the audiences. New students moving to the city, people growing older and starting families, big bands coming from out of town… There has never been a lack of people coming out or new bands to book.

Wavelength hasn’t ever focused on one genre, but has there been an overall shift in the sound and aesthetic in terms of what’s going on in the city? Has that made itself apparent in Wavelength in any way?
I think, in a way, we’ve always tried to present what was happening around town. Despite what our individual tastes might be, we try to be representative of what’s cool around Toronto and what’s interesting or special. Wavelength has always been a pure reflection of the city, and the city has changed a lot. I would imagine that in the early 2000s, people were drawing their influences from outside the city, where as it’s grown more popular, people draw their influences from inside the city. As people go to more local shows, they draw their sound from other local bands. That wasn’t something that was happening as much in the early 00’s.

Does that have a negative impact in terms of an incestuous sound happening in the city?
I don’t know how incestuous the sound is. There’s different pockets in the city. I do think there has been a trend of indie pop going on in Toronto, but there’s always been an underground electro scene, a great DJ scene, always a hip hop scene, so I don’t know if there is a Wavelength sound but we try to tap into all those pockets as much as possible.

Now more than ever, though, there does seem to be more of a tangible sound in Toronto, whereas it would be a bit harder to define in the past.
Yeah. It’s really hard for me to think of it in those terms. One of the inside jokes we have is, whenever we do our listenings, we try to describe the bands for people to give them some context. Every band is like its own genre, which is kind of a joke to us, because we’re booking bands with something different to say, which is why we’re booking them. So, we always have funny tags for things. I remember calling The Ghost Is Dancing “Godzilla pop” one time, or I called this band It It “trockicalia.” Every band is not too “genre-fied,” so to speak. We always try to tow the lines and make it so that the bands are something people wouldn’t normally see, so it’s a bit jarring in a way.

Where all has the series been over the years?
It started at Ted’s Wrecking Yard, and they closed down, so it had to find a new home. It bounced around to a few different places. It was at the El Mocambo for one night, there was a brief stint at Lee’s Palace for a few months, and then it landed at Sneaky Dee’s. It was there for the longest period, for six or seven years. We moved to The Garrison as part of its opening weekend back in October. That has been an amazing venue.

The Garrison seems like a perfect venue for you guys, because even the bands that are booked there seem to be booked with a specific agenda in mind. They don’t book any old show, and the artists seem to be very well selected on their part. It’s all pretty great stuff.
Yeah. Sean and Lee, the guys that own it, really want to carve out something different from other venues. They want to have quality stuff, and that’s how they’ll build a reputation. I think they’re definitely trying to cultivate that, and it sits really well with what we’re trying to do. It’s worked out really well so far.

There are a number of bands reuniting just for the Wavelength 500 festival. Was this just a coincidence, or did you contact these bands specifically on your own?
I think most of those bands were contacted by us. We had heard about some of the bands still practicing just for fun. The Bicycles, who went on an indefinite hiatus, never really had a last, official show. They said that they’d play another show if it was a Wavelength thing. We approached them about it, and they were all for it. Most of the other bands, we did approach, though. I don’t think we had to strongly cajole or prod any of them too much. We’re incredibly lucky. Rockets Red Glare, or Barcelona Pavillion are bands that I’ve always really loved. They’re bands whose albums are still great, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, they only put out a couple albums and then broke up.

What criteria did you have to pick the bands that were playing for this special event?
We were keen on the idea of having some reunions. There were some bands that played in the early days that have gone on to do really well. There are some examples of how Toronto has changed, like Fembots or Russian Futurists. We really wanted to keep a similar mandate to the other anniversaries, which is that we try to have bands that surprised us and started doing well in the last year, bands that we think people are going to keep talking about, and bands from Wavelength’s history. What’s different is that we usually have out of town bands, but this year it is 100% Toronto bands.

Is there anyone you’re particularly excited to see?
That’s hard to say [laughs]. I’m really excited to see Barcelona Pavillion, Rockets Red Glare, and From Fiction. From Fiction also never really had a last show. They recorded this album with Steve Albini, and released it, then broke up. For nostalgia’s sake, because this band was the first band I ever saw play at a Wavelength, I want to see Mean Red Spiders.

Are any of the reunions going to be permanent?
I don’t think so. I haven’t heard any inklings of any of them being permanent.

Where do you guys want to take Wavelength in the future?
This is something I want to be clear about. A lot of people think that Wavelength is over because we’re not doing the weekly series anymore. Wavelength is not over. We’re just transitioning. The city has changed a lot since it started. Wavelength started as a solution to a problem, and over the years, we felt like that problem didn’t exist. You can be a band from Toronto and do well now. You can find your audience and be sustainable, and have people listen to your music and come to your shows. Diamond Rings, who is playing the anniversary, he played a few shows, uploaded a video to YouTube, then Pitchfork commented on it and he’s doing really well now. That’s something that wouldn’t have happened ten years ago. We’re really good at bringing multiple disciplines together, not just with genres of music, but different arts communities. We want to do more shows that are like special projects. We’re still going to do the anniversary festival every February. We do a show every year in conjunction with the Images Festival. I do an all ages thing called All Caps, which is under the umbrella of Wavelength. We did a successful show on the Toronto Island, and we are trying to do that again in the summer. The weekly series has kind of been taken care of now. There’s a lot of great places and names you trust now, like Pitter Patter, No Shame, Two Way Monologues and all those, so we want to leave that to them. We don’t want to be in competition with them because we love what they’re doing. We’re going to focus on something we feel isn’t being done right now so we can draw attention to these other aspects of Toronto.

The All Caps series is a great idea, especially considering the Big Bop’s recent closure. There doesn’t seem to be too many venues for all ages shows in the city at all. It would be great to see kids creating their own spaces and outlets in a DIY fashion.
I fully agree. As the music scene’s grown, there’s a lot of younger bands. Any band who’s under 19 knows how difficult playing shows can be. Bars want you to play your show and leave immediately after or something like that. It would be great to see young people do their own things and their own showcases, whether they’re at venues downtown or even in the suburbs. It would be awesome to see something grassroots develop in those areas.

That seems like something Wavelength has always been involved in, that development of different sounds and different bands.
Yeah. That’s the principle that Wavelength was based on, that idea of doing it yourself. If you see something that you want to be happening, don’t wait for someone to do it, just do it yourself. Some younger bands might think that they have to enter into this process in order to play a show, and may not realize that they can create their own show and structure to play a show. You don’t need an agent or a manager. You don’t need to pay to play. You can just do it yourself. I hope that things we’ve done have been an inspiration in some way. If you’re not sure what to do, just do it yourself.