Nov 20 2008 3:49 pm, JJ Dunning
Bonjour mon petite chiggadebons! Now call me a naive old saucisson, but I thought French Canadians were something just made up by South Park to take the piss out of their border-sharing chums. Not so. It turns out that it's law in Montreal, and more specifically the province of Quebec, to have all the road, exit, no smoking, no dog-pooing, and no pissing in the doorway signs "en Francais" (that means "in French". Stop me if I'm losing you.). I know I'm being a cultural braindead, but I just didn't realise how Frenchy this whole place is. I thought it might be relegated to the background a bit, small pockets of overheard conversation, "Chiggadebon?" "Ah, wee, Chiggadebon.", but it turns out that everyone talks French as their first language. It's like another country. France to be specific. Sorry if I'm yabbering like a jelly-jawed old biddy. Yesterday was a very long day. All the journos/A&Rs/assorted music industry bods landed yesterday afternoon (about 11pm UK time) and were then shipped out for a French meal. I ate a snail for the first time. It was quite nice actually, sort of a like a garlicy meaty mushroom made of inverterbrate garden slithery-thing. We then traipsed a couple of blocks to a bar of some kind where an awful band were playing a series of very rubbish 12 second songs. However, upon voicing my dissatisfaction with their performance, one of the organisers informed me that they were just soundchecking. She must have been right because they got a lot better after that. Their name was Blue Seeds and they were pretty good in a cool sort of Howling Bells-y, The Dears-y kind of way. Super anal about their sound though. Seriously people? What happened to sound-check before the bar opens? Eh? Anyway, their performance wasn't actually part of M for Montreal, as the festival proper kicks off in earnest today at 8.30pm with Les Dales Hawerchuk, Sweet Thing, The National Parcs, Pas Chic Chic, Lioness and Duchess Says. Of those I can recommend The National Parcs. Mental. I can't be bothered finding all their myspace links, so i'm just gonna direct you here www.mformontreal.com. I'll be giving you the lowdown on how they get on in tomorrow's roundup. Have I forgotten anything? Um... It was minus 7 last night. My nuts are hiding in my bowels. Now if you'll excuse me, I've some chiggadebons that need chiggadebonning. A bientot!
