This is post that first appeared on the Montreal digital publication on ALMEMAR.
By Ernest Hoffman,
Noah Bick is a concert promoter, deejay, and production manager who works with POP Montreal, Blue Skies Turn Black and his own Passovah Productions. At 22, he’s already a veteran of Montreal’s indie music scene, having gotten his start in concert promotion at the tender age of 16.
EH: Can you tell me how you ended up getting involved in the indie music scene?
NB: I was born and grew up in Montreal, and at first I kind of got turned on to that 2002 to 2005 indie rock revolution, all those popular bands like The Strokes and Interpol playing in New York. And then I heard Funeral by Arcade Fire, and it really struck a chord with me, and opened up this world of the Montreal indie scene. Then in November or December of 2006, I saw that there were five Arcade Fire shows happening at the Ukrainian Federation, this is before they released the second record, and I saw that these people called Pop Montreal were organizing it. I’d actually been to a Pop Montreal event a couple months before, and I wrote the organizers an email asking about the shows. They wrote back and said, ‘come to the corner of Saint Viateur and Saint Urbain at 7 pm on this night, and don’t tell anyone!’ So I go, and Arcade Fire ended up playing a secret show in the basement of the church!
EH: Wow, what good luck!
NB: Yeah! So I helped clean up after the show, and then starting in February of 2007, I started going in to Pop Montreal, doing anything. That summer, I started helping out at the office, helping work on the Pop Montreal compilation, going through submissions from bands, and I started making all these contacts in the local scene, like bands that were on the compilation, or record label folk. That December I thought, ‘maybe I should try putting on a show, because I know all these people who are often part of these shows’.
EH: And how old are you at this point?
NB: I was 16, 17 years old. My friend Lucas and I had discovered, I guess you could call it an artist collective, based around this venue in Griffintown called Friendship Cove, so we decided to do it there. We got a few local bands, some of which I’d met through Pop, and the show went very, very well. And I thought, ‘oh, cool, it’s not that hard, we have about 200 people in this loft, having a great time, let’s make this a monthly thing!’ Then at a certain point, it became two, or three, or four shows a month, and that summer, I started getting emails from out of town, not just local musicians, to play these shows.
EH: So I guess word was getting around?
NB: Yeah, and I’m not saying I discovered these bands or anything, some of them I’ll say right now were completely luck, but I ended up meeting some bands that became really popular, and also, some incredible, incredible human beings. At this point I was doing a series of concerts under the name Passovah Productions. The joke is that if we ever do a lot of hip hop shows we’ll call it Mad Gelt…
EH: Ha!
NB: …and then a year and a half or two years into Passovah, I got contacted by this company called Blue Skies Turn Black. They put on 200 to 400 shows a year in Montreal, indie rock concerts ranging from really small groups in rooms like Cagibi with 50, 75 people, to Wolf Parade at Metropolis with 2000 people, sometimes even more. So they offered me this new job as a production manager, which means the only thing I have to do is show up at the concert and run the concert for them.
EH: Like a director, more or less?
NB: Exactly, so at smaller shows, I’m just showing up at the cafe and handling the money at the door, that kind of thing, and the bigger concerts at Cabaret Mile End or something, it’s dealing with the tour managers, the buses, whatever comes with that production. So that’s been my part time job ever since, and I do that between one and four nights a week. With Pop Montreal, I’m in the office from May to the end of August, and Blue Skies is a year-round thing.
EH: So you’ve got Passovah, you’re working with Pop and BSTB, how do you fit all these things together?
NB: Well, when I got this job at Blue Skies, and continuing to work with Pop Montreal, it kind of satisfied this drive that I had when I started Passovah productions. I had the idea that one day we would be able to book these big bands and do big concerts, but I realized there are only so many people in Montreal that go to these kinds of concerts, and if I’m already working for these two incredible institutions, maybe that niche has been filled and maybe I should be figuring out what to do with Passovah…
EH: Why compete with someone when they’re already doing a good job?
NB: Right, and when I’m already part of the family. So with Passovah about two years old then, and we’re actually coming up to our fifth anniversary, I decided it was going to be about building relationships within the larger Canadian indie rock community. With some of the bigger bands, I don’t expect them to do Passovah shows. If you need to play a huge room with Evenko I can understand that, but right now it’s about establishing relationships and seeing where that goes eventually.
EH: So you see yourself in the position of finding artists who are starting out, and getting them some exposure, getting them some shows, and seeing where it goes from there?
NB: Yes, and maybe I’ll start a management company in a few years and work with these bands, or maybe I’ll start a booking agency. But at this point in time, I’m comfortable with my positions, and I’m trying to figure out a healthy way of integrating my three roles at these three different companies. I’ve been making a conscious effort to do less, and to not do something unless I can really do it 100 percent. I’m only doing one Passovah show per month now, and if it needs to be two or three, that’ll happen, but for the last year, year and a half we’ve been doing one.
EH: So when are the next Passovah shows?
NB: Well, we did the one last night, and the next is on the 11th of November. Then we’re going to have a multi-culti holiday show on December 21 from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Casa del Popolo. We get 10 local musicians, lots of random bands, they get together and do 10-minute sets, and I try to make something related to the winter, generally trying to keep a holiday feel. Also, I don’t know what I’m doing yet, but we have Passovah’s fifth anniversary coming up in February, and I’m trying to work on a show for that as well.
EH: So what’s it like to see some of these bands that you’re working with start to break out and get recognition?
NB: Well, as someone who’s looking from the outside at people who create art, I’m excited to see how things turn out. Since I started with that very first Friendship Cove show, I’ve been making friends with people who are in bands, and there are so many variables. Everybody has a different drive, has different goals, and of course their art is different, but in a precise moment in time the music listening public is interested in a certain sound, so it’s like dropping the ball in one of those games with the little pegs. You release the music into the world, and depending on your drive, your product, and all those other factors…
EH: Like who they meet, and what avenues they end up going down?
NB: Yeah, like are you a schmoozer? Are you emailing every record label in the world because you think it will help your career? Are you working in another job that’s taking away from your production? It can go so many different ways.
EH: You seem very comfortable self-identifying as Jewish, with your company named Passovah, etc. How do you feel about making your Jewish identity a part of your artistic and professional life?
NB: Well, it’s hilarious, the stereotype of Jews in the music industry, including in Montréal. I’m Jewish, two of my bosses at Pop Montréal are Jewish, three out of the five current staff of Blue Skies Turn Black are Jewish, it is kind of funny. I’ve become extremely comfortable bringing it in, because I’m proud of my culture and my heritage, but using those words carefully. I’m proud to bring it into my business, obviously having the name Passovah. I’m proud to have Woody Allen as the face of the company, and I make jokes relating to Judaism all the time and the Montréal music scene is based in Mile End, which is overflowing with Jewish culture, I mean my grandfather grew up in the Plateau…
EH: …it’s the old Jewish quarter and it’s the new Chasidic quarter, it’s evolved without ever leaving…
NB: Yes, so in all those senses, I’m proud. In the same way that artists bring in their background into their work all the time, I am really open to exposing my cultural background in my business and my product. I’m just careful not to bring any politics into it. I have my political beliefs, but I don’t want to bring in any political initiatives. I don’t want to do anything with Israel, for example. I want to draw on American popular culture and American Jewish life in my work. Other people will often mix those two together, and my company’s not about that.
EH: What is it you see about politicizing arts and culture that gives you pause and make you very cautious about that?
NB: Well, I think that Judaism and Zionism are two very different things, and it’s problematic to mix the two of them. Having grown up in the West End, you see a lot of that, and I respect the opinions of both sides and I understand why people do it, but I don’t want to do it myself. I respect people’s politics and religious views, but I think at least for now I’m happy to not be in the group of people who mix Jewish cultural identity with politics and with religion. I think the second of those is a lot less problematic, but the first one, I’ve seen a lot in the community.
EH: What’s your sense of people like yourself in the Jewish community who self-identify as Jewish, and who want to do what they’re doing artistically, musically, but don’t necessarily want to leverage it in any particular direction?
NB: I think there is a growing community of folks like that from what I’ve seen in and there is some great things going on like the Montréal Jewish Music Festival, which is really fantastic. I think based on our interaction today it seems like the key to a successful and healthy dialogue is respect, and I really think that if more spaces such as this magazine exist where people can have a healthy, informed conversation and back-and-forth, I think that is the way forward. The problem, and this is nothing new, it’s a big problem in most parts of life, is that a lot of those people don’t want to hear the other side. I think that’s always going to be an issue, but if we have more spaces like this one where people can voice their opinions, I think we’re on the road to a healthier understanding of what Jewish culture is.
