Apartment613

Photo by Ben Welland

Matthew Pollesel loves music – or, should we say, Matthew Pollesel (hearts) music!  The creative force behind one of Canada’s most popular music blogs, i(heart)music.net, this Ottawa-based music-lover has become an important advocate and promoter of independent music in the capital.

His enthusiasm for Canadian music has kept fans coming back to his website week after week, and he’s introduced his readers to a plethora of emerging artists from coast to coast.

For the last few years, Matthew has also been providing musicians with a venue to perform in Ottawa by organizing a series of live events.  Our city’s independent music scene may not have a worldwide reputation – yet! –  but Matthew believes strongly in Canadian talent, and he’s hard at work putting our capital on the musical map.

On the eve of the fourth annual i(heart)music festival, Matthew chats with Apartment613 about the past and future of i(heart)music.

Matthew, after having lived in Ottawa for 20 years, how would you describe our capital’s music scene?

It can’t be compared to places like Toronto or Montreal. Our population is smaller and more diffuse (even Centretown and Lowertown seem more spread out than, say, Kensington or Mile End), which means that there’s not really any focal point around which everything can revolve and grow.  This in turn means that unfortunately, most bands need to look outside the city to build a following.

Your dedication to i(heart)music is definitely a positive step toward changing that, especially with the work you do promoting live music events locally. How did you transition from blogging about music you love to actually organizing concerts?

The transition from blogging to promoting came about because I met this guy who had just moved to Ottawa from Toronto, and he wanted to talk about how we could contribute to the local scene. As it happened, our mutual friend was managing this new band called Born Ruffians, so we asked her if we could bring them to town. The show was a lot of fun, and it helped me discover that I enjoyed a lot of the things that went into organizing concerts.

How do you select the artists you invite to perform?

Most of the time I’m just helping out bands who approach me looking for shows, so there’s not really any selection criteria on my part…apart, obviously, from them being Canadian. Since I blog almost exclusively about Canadian artists, it just makes sense to do shows with them (plus it means I don’t need to worry about border hassles and work visas and all that!)

How do you find out about new and emerging Canadian artists?

I used to scour Myspace Music and CBC Radio 3, but more and more often the bands themselves come to me (which is good, because I don’t have nearly the same amount of time as I used to). I also go by recommendations from friends and other bands.  For example, Oh No Forest Fires told me to check out Still Life Still and Dinosaur Bones.  Plus, I like looking through the line-ups for Canadian festivals like Pop Montreal, NxNE and Canadian Music Week and checking out all the bands I haven’t heard of.

How did you go about starting up your own music festival, and how has the festival evolved and grown in the last four years?

The festival started out in a backwards kind of way. I can’t remember the exact order, but I had two bands – Spy Machine 16 and What Seas, What Shores – who both asked me for shows the same weekend. I realized it’d coincide nicely with the site’s first anniversary, so I decided to add one more day and make a weekend of it.

In terms of its evolution, the biggest change is that it’s in town now (at Cafe Dekcuf on Rideau) rather than at the Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield. That change came about entirely because I can’t drive, and getting out there and back three or four times in a weekend was just exhausting. Apart from that, I’ve just made an effort to be more proactive about it, and these past two years I’d already started thinking about the line-ups in February or March.

What do you think defines Canadian independent music?

If I wanted to be cliché about this, I’d say that there’s some sense of togetherness and community to Canadian music, but I think that you’d find that bands from anywhere in the world would say that about where they’re from. I personally think that the chief difference between Canadian music and music from anywhere else is quality. Ours is just better!  I really don’t listen to much non-Canadian music anymore.

It’s been a year of ups and downs for i(heart)music. You went through some tribulations with the Great SOCAN Fiasco before you were lifted by the outpouring of donations and encouragement from the site’s many fans and supporters.  Did this stressful experience affect your opinion of the music industry?

I don’t think it changed my opinion of the music industry as much as it reinforced what I suspected – specifically, that the realities of the large-scale Music Industry (as represented by an organization like SOCAN) are completely separate from the realities of music as it’s experienced on the level at which I, and pretty much all the bands I deal with, operate.  Even if the music industry has declined in recent years, the people who expect to make a living off it (labels, organizations like SOCAN, etc.) still think in terms of dollar figures that are more than I make in a year.

Did your supporters’ response when you were in trouble change how you feel about the work you do daily on the blog and on the live shows?

It was incredibly gratifying to see how much support I got . Honestly (and I know I’m going to sound like a huge wuss when I say this), I definitely shed a few tears of happiness when the first few donations came in.  I couldn’t think of anything to say that would capture my gratitude. Having something like that happen, where people I’d never even met were donating money to help me pay off this fine just because they liked what I was doing, was really reassuring.

Can you remember a particular moment in your life when music affected you profoundly?

Edgefest ‘97 was what really got me into music. I’d listened to albums before then, and I’d gone to a couple of concerts, but that whole show (with Collective Soul, Our Lady Peace, Moist, The Tea Party, etc.) was what made me realize that concerts were awesome.

Also, bizarrely, my one other really life-changing musical moment took place in the Rideau Centre HMV at some point in 2000. The in-store music they were playing was a band called Creeper Lagoon (specifically, the Watering Ghost Garden EP), and for some reason, it blew my mind and made me realize there was a world of music totally beyond what I’d seen on MuchMusic and read about in Spin. I probably would’ve gotten into non-mainstream music regardless, but that was the moment that spurred me along.

What are your plans for the future of i(heart)music?

No idea!  I’m a horrible planner, so I’ll probably just keep doing what I’ve always done!

The i(heart)music festival runs August 20-22nd at Cafe Dekcuf. For more information, full lineup and advance tickets (not to mention a great music blog!) visit i(heart)music.net.