from the desk of Nate Munn, mother and brains of the whole shebang:

''Yes Jesus, its true: Unpop Montreal is back! The Montreal festival that brought you free shows from Ghettonuns, Infinite Moksha, Dead Messenger, John School Dropouts, Raw Madonna and Uncle Daddy (among others) in 2005, that took over Pop for a day with Launie Anderssohn, Fold me Up, Amanda Mabro, So Cyanide, Ideal Lovers, Metis Yeti and others in 2006, is back for 2007.

This year, original founder Nate Munn is busy as hell and has handed the reigns over to the masterful Sébastian Hell, Unpop vet and rock-spirit extraordinaire. Keeping the original values of the festival (free shows, first come first booked, no application fees) intact, Unpop is now looking at a few different options regarding venues, funding, types of shows and types of acts and bills, from the conventional model used 2 years ago (three days, club shows), last year's (one day, one big happening at the same spot) to new ideas, including guerilla-type takeovers of public spots. Sick!!

We might group the bands by genre, together or apart; we might group them by hair colour, or even sort them alphabetically. The more bands apply, the more options we'll have.

We're looking at the 'end of summer', somewhere between the 15th of August and 15th of September.

What will remain are the basics: it will be free to attend each show, free for acts to apply to play, the bands chosen will not be chosen by a competition. There is only one main rule: bands that have members who are under 18 years of age HAVE to warn us in advance so we can book a proper venue.

To keep the shows free, we'll need all the help we can get, and we might even look into bizarre marketing ploys and collaborations (limited edition posters and art; CDs; mp3s; shirts; zines; condoms). We want to keep it true to its ideals, but will do our best to avoid the type of cash-loss encountered in 2005.

To apply, send band info (name, band members' names, nude pics, mp3s, area in the city the band is based in, contact info, etc.) to: unpopmontreal@gmail.com

We'll take it from there. We can't promise we'll be able to accommodate everyone (we saw it was impossible last year), but we'll sure as fuck try!''


The whole process starts today. It won't be easy, as the whole town seems booked solid for a while, but it'll happen, one way or another.