You may not have heard of Noah Bick or his company Passovah Productions, but you’ve probably been to one of his shows. Noah anchored himself in the Montreal music scene while growing up in NDG, mainly because of how stoked he is on it. He took a few minutes out of studying at McGill and running concerts to talk to us.
What do you do? Can you introduce yourself?
Noah Bick: I have a speech…
Go for it.
NB: So I was about sixteen, and a Montrealer, and like a lot of other people I really liked music, obviously. The important thing is that I really started listening to independent music when Funeral came out . Arcade Fire finished recording their second album, and Pop Montreal was going to do five shows in a row in February of 2007 as this kind of off-festival one-off event. I emailed a question to their info address and I got a response right away. He told me to come to the corner of St Urbain and St Laurent [sic] at this time and place. And it was kind of sketchy, but I went and it was a secret Arcade Fire show in the basement of a church! It was the best thing in the world. I ended up helping clearing out that show because I learned quickly that Pop Montreal is based largely on volunteers.
That summer I interned at Pop. I met a lot of local musicians, got their contacts, and got a taste of what the community was all about. I started asking around about who wanted to play a show and the obvious location for it was The Friendship Cove. Around that time I was also offered a job by Blue Skies Turn Black -who put on about 200 shows a year- to run their concerts for them. I obviously said yes because I looked up to those guys and it gave me an opportunity to meet bands who wouldn’t work with me before because I was an eighteen-year-old kid trying to book concerts.
Every once in a while, there’s just a really pause-y night were I’m just like, I’m getting paid to hang out with friends. But other nights I’m sitting in a dark Il Motore from four in the afternoon until two A.M. and there’s been like forty people in there . It’s this band that got a good review on Pitchfork but nobody in the real world cares about. This happens sometimes.
Photo by Brittany Levett
What’s the best show that you’ve put on recently?
NB: We do a showcase every year at Pop Montreal. It was kind of like a Disney movie, like at the end of the show I had this huge smile on my face, I felt like I’d beat the game of putting on concerts. It was Miracle Fortress, and I love Miracle Fortress, Graham is a great friend of mine and I’m a huge fan of his work so he was headlining the show – it was four hundred people, every band on the bill was a band that I not only – like I’m saying this with utmost – I’m usually blasé about this – this is genuine excitement right now – not only do I like every band that played that bill, but I’m like friends with the. I wanna, hang out with them.
So what’s Passovah’s fourth anniversary all about?
Through Blue Skies and Pop, I’m kind of satisfying that urge to work with bigger bands. Because I work with Blue Skies I can work at shows like Destroyer, which was my favourite album last year by the way. I can also work at Sufjan Stevens and be like “what the fuck!”. And then, on the other side, with the Passovah shows, I’m just trying to build strong community vibes, as corny as that sounds. That’s what this fourth anniversary show is all about. It’s twelve local bands that I’ve kind of become friends with. The key word is friends. Actually people who I, go out for lunch with because of music. It is a small, great community. It’s at Il Motore, which is owned by the people from Blue Skies who are my bosses and my friends. It’s in this part of town that’s developing, we need to build that area, it’s really trying to keep things friendly and local.
Yeah… Do you feel you have an extra-musical role in the community?
NB: It’s funny, you’re the first interviewer – I’ve done several this week – who’s asked me that. I’ve realized – I have this knack, I’m a pretty good – I like doing things – I end up getting anxious about things and wanting to make sure things don’t fuck up – I guess that’s why I organize shows. So this summer I took over the Mile-End co-ed ball hockey association. I’m also involved in community sports. I guess. I haven’t added that to my email signature yet.
Do you know any bands that you think are going to break out of Montreal soon?
NB: I love watching local bands and meeting the people in bands and seeing what their goals are and how they choose to get to that goal. For example, a band like Braids. I met the Braids – everyone refers to them as kids but they’re older than us. The Braids kids moved here to go to McGill a couple years ago. We went for dinner and I saw how motivated and how structured they were, and sure enough, they’re one of the biggest bands to have popped out of Montreal in the last year or so. Then you have Grimes and Mozart’s Sister. In 2012 I’d say Mozart’s Sister is kinda the band that I’m excited to see. I’m also excited to see where Claire – Grimes – goes with all the hype that she’s been getting. It’s cool to see what routes the bands take. At the Passovah show I’m super excited to see this band, Taylor Swifter, who are really just a local band normally called Goose Hut. They perform a few Taylor Swift covers. I grew up with The Unicorns, and Alden Penner is playing at our show. I still love The Unicorns. He’s made a lot of music taken from scriptures of the high text, like the holy text. Very spiritual.
How does your mom feel about what you do?
NB: When I was in high school and doing this, it was like “you shouldn’t be going out on a school night”. I’m at McGill, my marks aren’t terrible. I’m pretty – I’m very satisfied with my marks. I haven’t made the conscious decision yet to not do something else. Well, I could argue that being involved in all this has kept me as a Montrealer in Montreal for school. I’m really happy doing this at least for now. I mean – I feel like I’ve only started recently referring to this as my business, but I guess it’s a company. Right now it’s me and a guy who does the internet stuff.
Have you ever thought about starting, like, a record label?
NB: That’s another thing – I don’t know if I’d really want to start a record label per se, more like – this is a horrible expression – but like a ‘vanity label’ is more what I’m interested in doing. Like putting out a 7” every couple months, one side each of two local bands. I’ve been thinking of doing one for Cotton Mouth or Mozart’s Sister – pressing three hundred copies of a band that I really like knowing that those copies are going to sell. I really respect, Arbutus Records. What’s different with Seb [Cowan] is that he’s an engineer, so it’s not just about putting out the records. He’s a key aspect of the creative process, because he helps put the record together. That’s why Arbutus runs so well and I love that.
Going back to how you were talking about growing up with bands like Arcade Fire, do you think it’s really weird how they’re like –
NB: Huge? When Funeral came out they were playing Corona Theatre in St Henri… Well, except for that church basement they were playing 600, 700 person venues. But it’s weird how you turn on the TV and they’re winning the freaking Grammy. I’m thinking about my friends at Pop who were literally working with these bands when they were playing Casa. There’s a hilarious Blue Skies bill that they did in 2001 at Sala Rossa where Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire are the opening two bands for this other band –
Who was the third band?
NB: Some band called Royal City which doesn’t really exist anymore. Have you been to The Barfly? Yeah, I’m trying to think of examples… Gobble Gobble, you know, Born Gold, is a band who got at me to put on a show and I randomly said yes.
So do you feel like you have a personal responsibility to like, Born Gold for example?
NB: Like in terms of making them popu..—no—uh in a way that maybe if you were to become the president of the United States which is impossible… the way a teacher could sort of say they’ve helped a student… but if I didn’t do that show someone else would’ve.
As someone that’s been involved in promotion sort of, how important do you feel that posters are for a show?
NB: It depends on the show. Sometimes I don’t think it actually helps a show. Now especially with Facebook – it’s not like 2002 where maybe it was different – very seldom do people walk on the street, see a random poster and go to the show. But there’s definitely times where it’s helpful, especially posting on campus, for people who aren’t on the right facebook mailing list and didn’t know that Mos Def was playing downtown. Even some Blue Skies shows. They know what they’re doing with a poster. I’m only charging five dollars at a lot of my shows and I want to pay the artists as much as possible. It’s just money, but I do think a poster is important, for vanity’s sake…
Last question I have: do you feel that art manifests itself in the character of a city, or does the character of the city manifest itself in its art? Or both?
NB: Wow. Nice. Well, I think it’s a weird question to answer with all of my bias. I know a lot of the bands here and where they’ve come from. But I guess we should go back to the Arbutus example. A lot of those Arbutus bands sound -I don’t want to say similar because sonically they’re not– but once you know the history of those bands, you can hear it: You can hear that they’re from what I call the Beaubien mafia – they’re from that area of town and they’re part of that crew. You can really hear Montreal in their music.
Passovah Productions celebrates their fourth anniversary with a show at Il Motore this Friday. More info on the Facebook event.