(Photo: Malajube)
The Comet correspondent Jeremy Simon gives us a preview of one of the coolest emerging artists festivals of the season and interviews founder Sandy Boutin about the music that is about to rock Canada.

It’s been a odd year for festivals. From tragedy of Pukkelpop to the farce of Sunset Junction,  the music gods have not been at their most benevolent. Late in the day, Canada’s snappily named Festival de Musique Émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (FME for short), held from Sept 1 to Sept 4, is here to show us how it’s done.

Picture this. You’re a young Canadian music obsessive living in a small mining town in deepest northwestern Quebec. Every time you want to catch a band you and your friends have to drive seven hours south to Montreal – 14 hours of road trip for one night of music. It doesn’t add up.

It was during one of these interminable road trips that Rouyn-Noranda native Sandy Boutin came up with the idea for FME. Instead of bringing himself to the music, why not bring the music to him.

For nine years Sandy has being persuading the great and good of Montreal to make the trip north for a weekend of under-the-radar hedonism. In 2003, there were 22 bands playing across four venues. Now there are over 70 bands and 13 venues. Some 5,000 people are expected to descend on Rouyn-Noranda for the four-day weekend.

The diversity of music is astonishing. Almost every genre is represented, from hip hop to electro to folk to metal. This is as much a function of the town’s size, as it is design. As Sandy puts it: “The city here is too small to do only a rock festival or folk festival. In order to do a festival of this kind, we have to offer many kinds of music.”

In addition to its impressive diversity, the festival is unlikely to suffer the calamities that have blighted others this summer. The large majority of shows are indoors, and tickets are sold on an individual venue basis (with prices ranging from $5 to $35). Again, this is a virtue of the relatively small size of the festival.

The biggest challenge for for the festival organizers is persuading touring bands to make the detour to Rouyn-Noranda. But, as Sandy puts it, this is less of a problem as the festival grows in stature: “Bands that tour in Canada only play a few cities – Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver. It’s really difficult for us to convince booking agencies to bring a band north. But as years go by it gets easier.”

When asked for his festival tips, Sandy doesn’t hesitate to share his joy at booking Trey Spruance‘s mystical collective Secret Chiefs 3: “I am really proud to have Secret Chiefs because it’s a long time since they’ve been to Quebec. To have them come to the festival is great for us.”

Other recommendations include francophone pop-rockers Malajube; self-styled rapper, puppet-maker and ‘little white Jewish dude’ Socalled; occasional tUnE-yArDs collaborator Pat Jordache; and the Swedish-Canadian Thus: Owls,

The biggest non-Canadian name at the festival is probably Akron/Family, a band whose eclecticism and eccentricities make them an appropriate fit for FME.

The huge majority of acts at FME are local to Montreal – 80-90% according to Sandy. This hints at the festival’s strength, but also its weakness. This is a local festival, for (somewhat) local music fans. As the festival approaches its tenth year, it will be interesting to see if it can broaden its appeal with a higher percentage of international, or at least non-Quebecois, music.

But then again, Montreal in 2011 is a city of such extraordinary artistic diversity there’s really no reason to look further afield. FME is a party that warmly welcomes outsiders, but it doesn’t rely on them. This weekend Rouyn-Nuranda will rage regardless.

For more info go to www.fmeat.org.

Bande annonce FME 2011 from Festival de musique émergente on Vimeo.