Two weeks ago I was fortunate enough to have attended NXNE 2011 and must say Toronto is now officially one of my new favorite cities. Urban and fresh, it’s no wonder that the thousands of musicians, film makers, and industry professionals who flocked to Toronto from all over Canada, the States and abroad could so easily adapt to the exciting culture.
The conference took place from June 13th-19th and kicked off with the Film Festival portion. By midweek, the crowd had arrived and the conference was in full swing with the Interactive portion. On the Music front, panel topics ranged from social media, brand loyalty, crowd funding, intellectual property rights, licensing, marketing, and the changing face of technology, to our very own Panos Panay’s panel that raised the question: “Are consumer brands becoming the new record label?” The panel gave some great examples about how brands can be a “launch pad” for budding artist careers. In addition to panels, networking sessions were had amongst musicians and industry professionals in one-on-one mentoring sessions and A&R Speed dating sessions.
This year’s festival included over 650 bands at over 50 venues throughout the city. So many bands to see in so little time!
One of my highlights was being able to meet and see live, fellow Sonicbids band, Freak Owls from Brooklyn, NY. Their music combines prerecorded bass and drum tracks with live guitar/ vocals/ percussion and Violin overdubbing/ vocals. Lead singer Josh, and fellow vocalist/ violinist Cody lured audience members into their performance with their complex textures of instrumentation and resonating harmonies. Freak Owls have also played festivals like Mayfair Festival of the Arts, Limetree Music & Arts Festival, Musikfest, and soon to be performers at Latvia’s Positivus Festival.
Other Artists praised for their performances were, “Descendents” “Land of Talk” “The Seedy Seeds” “Art Brut” “Deerhoof” “Fucked Up” “Dum Dum Girls” “Paper Lions” “Dirty Beaches” “Devo” “Lunic” “Memoryhouse” “Men Without Hats” and “Twin Shadow.”
The weekend wrapped up with our Sonicbids charity soccer match. Blessed with a beautiful day, the game was a complete success. Who says musicians can’t be athletes? Panos participated in the match along with other organizers and large supporters of NXNE. I’ve included some pics below!
[gallery]