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UM Industry Profile : : Justin Kwan (CMW Festival Manager) Pt. 2

Canadian Music Week is an annual multi-festival which takes place for 10 days throughout downtown Toronto. The festival includes a number of talent, not on local but extending to other countries around the world. Amandah Opoku sat down with Festival Manager, Justin Kwan to talk about Canadian Music Week, thoughts about the changing music industry and advice to those looking to work into the music industry. This is the second part of our interview, If you missed part 1 make sure to check it out HERE.

Amandah Opoku: From your perspective, what do you think makes Canadian Music Week unique amongst its contemporaries? Justin Kwan: I think, in Toronto we sometime see a festival every week, as North America’s third largest market there’s no reason why Toronto shouldn’t [have a festival]. The Toronto music scene itself is a weird ecosystem of big and small, and everything feeds off of each other. There are bands playing 200 capacity clubs and the next six months they’re playing thousand capacity club in a year or doing international tours, that's just the type of market that we have. So, keeping the balance of small international, local it all meshes together. And companies such as Live Nation and AG, feed off of what we’re doing from a local level; they do things for a long term international plan. With that being said, something like CMW is able to capture both things, where we can bring things from an international level but also expecting and showcasing things from a ground level.

Looking through history, there are a lot of bands that were “buzzies” and were discovered for the first time at the festival on an international level and have gone on to do bigger and better things and they don’t necessarily have to be Canadian bands. We’re bringing bands from all over the world that for the first time are being introduced to a Western market. We continue to do that and it’s just not one specific genre or super niche, were doing it across many genres and demographics. I think that’s what is unique about CMW where you’re able to go see a dirty punk show at the Bovine and we might have even a band that should be playing Lee’s Palace or The Opera House and stuck them in there at 1:00am in the morning and we’re creating that control chaos where there’s a line down the street. And before that you were just at Tattoo watching a hip hop show that an artist at complex or XXL budding artist for that year that might end up doing bigger and better things. I mean thats what the unique aspect of CMW is, and we do it at a vastness and a level, and there’s no other festival that does that.

AO: Being able to bring artists that are not only Canadian, but from other parts of the world will give us Torontonians the chance to explore and enjoy new music JK: It’s true and the funny thing is, there are very few opportunities if you’re not somebody who’s always reading up on blogs or keeping on track of certain niche demographics when it comes to music. We do provide that type of attention and media spotlight for other bands that the industry or the casual music fan would not have come across. And it’s not only a CMW thing, but a Toronto thing. The city itself, no matter, what people feel are the advantages and disadvantages of being Toronto. In any situation that are pros and cons, but being in Toronto as a city and as a media center we are able to champion bands. We see it all the time. The 4, 5 bands, that are championed by Toronto media, they’re going on and doing better things. We build the stepping stones to build those things. Festivals like CMW, NXNE and Wavelength, it goes a long way into insuring that the talent pool are always being recognized and replenished AO: Industry Profiles serve as a way to give insight into how various individuals got into their current profession within the music industry. With those who may have similar ambitions to work for a music festival one day or another aspect of the music industry, what would your advice to them be? JK: For me I was one of those people where the irony in terms of what I did was when I stopped planning you know I actually tried to get out of the music industry. You know you go to school, get a real job, quote on quote real job, and it was just kind of ironic how you know, the things you really love even though you oppress it and try to move on but they come back... time always tells the truth. For me, regardless of you want to volunteer or regardless if you went to school for music, whether you’re an individual who’s working a job in another industry and music has always been something on your mind you know my one piece of advice is make sure you love it. Don’t go into it because it’s something you think about all the time. I always say there are two types of people who work in the music industry; there’s people who generally love music, for me, I would still care about music, I would care about its past, I would care about where it’s going even if I wasn’t working in the industry.

I think that’s how I end up coming back or falling back into it just because I submerge myself with it. There can be from any other industry or type of program, you don’t have to go to school. At the same time, there’s a lot of people who like the idea of working in music. They like the idea of telling a friend they did this and they did that, they like the idea that they can get access to certain things. I feel like those people, when the reality of working in the music industry, long hours and low pay, having to dedicate yourself to your possession and the great difficulty of landing a paid gig in the music industry. I think when the hard times come those are people who hit the eject button because their sense of self is attached to who they feel they need to be in the industry, rather than critical passion for music, whether it’s good or bad. My only advice is you better love it, you should love it unconditionally that will get you through bad times that everyone in the industry has gone through.

AO: The music industry is constantly change and with that comes a lot of scrutiny and backlash for some of it’s practices. If you could change anything about the music industry, what would you change? JK: I think there are soo many pros and cons about the industry. I feel, the industry itself its self policing entity, especially the Canadian music industry which has made such an impact on a global level but the community itself is soo small. A that’s a weird dichotomy when it comes to other music industry’s in other countries. The Canadian music industry in itself is a unique one, and for me it’s hard to say what should change and what shouldn’t, what’s good and bad and what I want to see happen in the future. I think more generalized things, I think musicians, especially Canadian musicians should have a easier way to make their livelihood. And being able to expand the industry and grow on a global one, Canada has the best acts in the world and it should be in a way that it should be presented on a global level

AO: Coming off my last question, I would love to hear your thoughts on Jay Z and friends new streaming site TIDAL. Do you think this streaming service is doing justice to the music industry? Did you think it benefits and unites the industry? AO: We already have Spotify and it does a great job of letting independent/unsigned artists music on the platform compared to TIDAL, which is asking users to spend a bit of cash ($20/month) to access music. I personally feel that there is a discrepancy there JK: I think streaming is definitely the future of how people access music. That is definitely the future of how people access music. The idea of things being in a cloud and being accessible at all times, devices being geared towards what the media sees, that’s definitely the future of the way people consume music. It remains to be seen in terms of how it’s been treated as a commodity in a way artists are being paid. It’s unfortunately the current system of how music is being consumed through streaming and royalties are being paid out. With anything, the more complication, the more competitive these services are going to become. In general from a marxist perspective, the more companies that offer similar services, whether it’s competitive prices expansion of a catalogue, whether there’s certain allegiance from artists and labels towards a certain service, all those things will hold better for the consumer. I think the more services that exist, the more value will go back to the consumer.

AO: Thank you for sitting down with me Justin, before we end this interview is there anything you’d like to say? JK: I hope everyone gets a chance to check out Canadian Music Week, and to enjoy Toronto, the city and the music. Hopefully everyone gets to explore the city and enjoy the music.

For those who have not had the chance to Canadian Music Week, definitely check it out next year. In the meantime, connect with Justin below on his socials in addition to Canadian Music Week’s!

Justin Kwan https://twitter.com/kwantalk

Canadian Music Week http://cmw.net/ https://www.facebook.com/canadianmusicweek https://twitter.com/CMW_Week

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