I’m the CMW nonconformist, which in a way means I am actually a music conformist.

Canadian Music Week is a time to ignore the artists with mainstream appeal and find the new band, the indie band on the rise, the artist who gets no respect but deserves a record deal. It’s a time to find the band that one day will have mainstream appeal, but for now, they’re your little secret and you’re proud to say you discovered them before the masses did.

And here I am, spending Day 2 watching two former music reality stars, one who was nationally recognized a few years ago, the other who was almost as recognized this summer.

First I checked out the one who Canada became familiar with this summer. Jacob Hoggard was the wacky spandex-wearing rocker from Canadian Idol, who didn’t seem to fit on the show, but in a good way.

He is the frontman of the Vancouver-based Hedley, though the band is in the process of changing its name since Hoggard’s old band (named Hedley) split recently and he joined a new band, which is temporarily keeping this name. (I think.)

I didn’t expect Hoggard to play the type of music he performed on Idol, since he is obviously trying to break free from that part of his life, but I was hoping he would do some type of ballad or slower song, since that’s when he was truly at his best this summer.

No slow songs, just pure punk-inspired rock. Hoggard jumped around onstage for a half hour, yelling language that would make the mothers who loved him on Idol squirm.

He sang what I was expecting, but not what I was hoping. Hoggard showed this summer that he has a huge range and is able to perform any genre, but only showed one aspect of what he could do onstage at the 360 (Queen/Spadina).

My final spot of the day was checking out Julie Crochetiere, the former Sugar Jones member. I had last seen her a year ago, in the same location (Clinton’s on Bloor) also as part of CMW.

It was almost like deja-vu. She played most of the same music and was backed by most of the same band. The difference was her approach. Julie seemed more comfortable this year. She smiled confidently during her smooth upbeat jazz numbers, and nearly cried during the sombre tracks, like when she sang about her grandparents. She controlled the stage like she was supposed to be there; like it was her home.

She told stories about each song before singing and had the audience in stitches talking about the time she wrote a song in her pyjamas, singing her lyrics and playing the guitar bunched together in a ball, sitting by her computer, so her one microphone could capture all the sounds.

Julie deserves a career-after-Sugar Jones, and it’s only a matter of time before she’s back in the national spotlight.






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