ELEVEN: THE WAVELENGTH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL at various venues, Wednesday to Sunday (February 16 to 20). Pwyc-$11, festival pass $33. wavelengthtoronto.com.
When Wavelength ended its weekly series a year ago, many got reflective and raised a glass to the end of a left-field indie institution.
To focus on the past, though, is to miss the point. Ever since its inception as a new music night/fanzine, Wavelength has worked not to celebrate Toronto’s music scene but to foster it.
“After 10 years, it began to feel like people were taking it for granted,” says co-organizer Ryan McLaren over tacos in Kensington Market. “We wanted to do something to make sure people were giving it the same thought we were giving it.”
Bidding farewell to their weekly series, the organizers used last year’s 10th anniversary as an opportunity to reposition Wavelength as a more malleable, flexible enterprise.
The shift to a monthly/occasional format has allowed the presenters to take more risks, which wasn’t always easy in the rigid Sunday night set-up. Over the last year, Wavelength has focused on boundary-shifting events like the multidisciplinary All Caps! Island Festival and their audio-visual Images Festival co-presentation.
“The last year felt a lot like the early days,” says co-creator Jonathan Bunce (aka Jonny Dovercourt). “The series started in reaction to seeing the same three bands play the same shows all the time, so it made sense to shake things up.”
Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the end of the weekly series was followed by the end of local online music forum Stillepost, whose more useful scene-gathering qualities were similarly eroded by apathy and malaise.
If the DIY Torontopian optimism of the Miller years is over, maybe it’s partly up to Wavelength to rejuvenate the scene.
“I’d love to see a new wave of Toronto music emerge in the near future,” says Bunce. “We’re trying to provoke things to happen, and for us that means expanding the Wavelength enterprise beyond just putting on shows.”
In addition to musical acts (see sidebar), the ELEVEN anniversary festival includes an artists’ workshop (Saturday, February 19) and a speaker series (Sunday, February 20) meant to explore and demystify Toronto’s independent arts scene.
“We want to remove the pretensions that make people feel excluded, remove the barrier of access as much as possible,” says McLaren.
So after a year of its new format, where is Wavelength heading next?
“I would love to take it to schools,” Bunce says. “It’s important for kids to know that the Trebas Institute method isn’t the only way of doing things.”
music@nowtoronto.com
